A Dog in Exile. x3 
pretty well to pieces he swam back 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 offeuded 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 | 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 
