A Dog in Exile. 73 



pretty well to pieces he swam back 1 once 'more, but 

 this time he came to land at a long distance from 

 me, knowing, I suppose, that I was now past 

 speaking mildly to him ; and, skulking through the 

 reeds, he sneaked home by himself. Later, when I 

 arrived at the house, he carefully kept out of my 

 way. 



I believe that when he went after the geese the 

 second time he really did mean to bring them out, 

 but finding them so much mutilated he thought 

 that he had already hopelessly offended me, and so 

 concluded to save himself the labour of carrying 

 them. He did not know, poor brute, that his 

 fetching them would have been taken as a token of 

 repentance, and that he would have been forgiven. 

 But it was impossible to forgive him now. All faith 

 in him was utterly and for ever gone, and from that 

 day I looked on him as a poor degraded creature ; 

 and if I ever bestowed a caress on his upturned face, 

 I did it in the spirit of a man who flings a copper 

 to an unfortunate beggar in the street ; and it was 

 a satisfaction to me that Major appeared to know 

 what I thought of him. 



But all this happened years ago, and now I can but 

 look with kindly feelings for the old blind retriever 

 who retrieved my geese so badly. I can even laugh at 

 myself for having allowed an ineradicable anthro- 

 pomorphism to carry me so far in recalling and de- 

 scribing our joint adventures. But such a fault is 

 almost excusable in this instance, for he was really 

 a remarkable dog among other dogs, like a talented 



