The Incredible Journey

He turned and crossed the room, flicking on another light, and opened a narrow cupboard halfway up the wall. Inside were several guns on racks and he looked at them thoughtfully, running his fingers lovingly down the smooth grain of the hand-rubbed stocks, and finally lifted down a beautifully chased and engraved double-barreled gun. He “broke” it and peered down the gleaming barrels; and as though at a signal the young dog sat up silently in the shadows, his ears pricked in interest. The gun fell back into place with a well-oiled click and the dog whined. The man replaced the gun in sudden contrition, and the dog lay down again, his head turned away, his eyes miserable.

Longridge walked over to make amends for his thoughtlessness, but as he bent down to pat the dog the telephone rang so suddenly and shrilly in the quiet room that the cat jumped indignantly off the chair and the bull terrier started clumsily to his feet.

Longridge picked up the receiver, and presently the breathless voice of Mrs. Oakes was heard, accompanied by a high-pitched, whining note in the distance.

“Speak up, Mrs. Oakes—I can hardly hear you.”

“I can hardly hear you either,” said the breathless voice distantly. “There, is that better? I’m shouting now! What time are you leaving in the morning, Mr. Longridge? What’s that? Could you talk louder?”

“About seven o’clock. I want to get to Heron Lake before nightfall,” he shouted, noting with amusement the scandalized expression of the cat. “But there’s no need for you to be here at that time, Mrs. Oakes.”

“What’s that you said? Seven? Will it be all right if I don’t come in until about nine? My niece is coming on the early bus and I’d like to meet her. But I don’t like to leave the dogs alone too long.…”

“Of course you must meet her,” he answered, shouting really loudly now as the humming noise increased. “The dogs will be fine. I’ll take them out first thing in the morning, and—”

“Oh, thanks, Mr. Longridge—I’ll be there around nine without fail What’s that you said about the animals? (Oh, you pernickety, dratted old line!) Don’t you worry about them; Bert and me, we’ll see.… tell old Bodger … bringing marrow bone. Oh, wait till I give that operator a piece of my mi …”

But just as Longridge was gathering strength for a last bellow into the mouthpiece the line went dead. He put the receiver back with relief and looked across the room at the old dog who had climbed stealthily into the armchair and sat lolling back against the cushions, his eyes half closed, awaiting the expected reproof. He addressed him with the proper degree of ferocity, telling him that he was a scoundrelly opportunist, a sybaritic barbarian, a disgrace to his upbringing and his ancestors, “AND”—and he paused in weighty emphasis—“a very  … bad … dog!”

At these two dread words the terrier laid his ears flat against his skull, slanted his eyes back until they almost disappeared, then drew his lips back over his teeth in an apologetic grin, quivering the end of his disgraceful tail. His parody of sorrow brought its usual reprieve: the man laughed and patted the bony head, then enticed him down with the promise of a run.

So the old dog, who was a natural clown, slithered half off the chair and stood, with his hindquarters resting on the cushions, waving his tail and nudging the cat, who sat like an Egyptian statue, eyes half closed, head erect, then gave a throaty growl and patted at the pink and black bull-terrier nose. Then together they followed the man to the door, where the young dog waited to fall in behind the little procession. Longridge opened the door leading on to the garden, and the two dogs and the cat squeezed past his legs and into the cool night air. He stood under the trellised porch, quietly smoking his pipe, and watched them for a while. Their nightly routine never varied—first the few minutes of separate local investigation, then the indefinable moment when all met again and paused before setting off together through the gap in the hedge at the bottom of the garden and into the fields and woods that lay beyond. He watched until they disappeared into the darkness (the white shape of the bull terrier showing up long after Longridge was unable to distinguish the other two), then knocked his pipe out against the stone step and re-entered the house. It would be half an hour or more before they returned.