92 A FARMER'S YEAR 



When entering the house after walking about the garden, 

 the door shut behind me with a bang. As it chanced, I wished 

 to go out again for some reason, and on reaching the steps I saw 

 a curious sight. A little rough terrier dog, called Di, hearing the 

 door slam— usually a signal to her that I am starting on my 

 rounds — had run to seek me from some hole or corner where she 

 was engaged in her hourly occupation of hunting a quite uncatch- 

 able rat. Not being able to see me, for I had gone into the house, 

 not come out of it — a solution of the mystery which did not strike 

 her — she set to work to trace my si)Oor, following every loop and 

 turn that I had made as I wandered about the garden, and finally 

 striking out across the tennis-court and over the lawn beyond, 

 which I had crossed on my homeward way. The curious thing 

 was not her following my spoor, for 1 have often seen her do this 

 before, but the persistence and cleverness with which she followed 

 it backwards. VV^hat I should like to know — and perhaps some 

 reader of this book can inform me on the matter — is whether 

 there is anything about the scent left by man or beast to enable a 

 dog or other creature on the spoor to tell which way it runs. This 

 instance of Di would seem to show that there is none ; but, after 

 all, it is only one example, and she may be an undiscerning little 

 dog. Also, it must be remembered that her mind was full of the 

 preconceived idea that I had gone out of the house. It never 

 occurred to her that I might have returned into it. 



This morning I met Hood as he was driving the unlambed 

 ewes from the little All Hallows farm meadow, where they are now 

 confined at night, to the hay-stubble on Baker's, which we are 

 folding before sowing it with oats. I stood talking with him for a 

 minute or two, while the sheep went through the gateway on to the 

 main road. When we followed, presently, not one of them was to 

 be seen, till an ominous sound of munching caused me to look 

 over a neighbouring fence. There were the ewes, the whole lot 

 of them, in the well-kept garden of one of my men — at least it had 

 been a garden, but that five minutes had sufificed to reduce it to a 

 trodden wilderness with cabbage-stalks sticking up here and there. 



