FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD(莱德又一次冒险)

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FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD

FURTHER

ADVENTURES OF LAD

by ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD

CHAPTER I. The Coming Of Lad

In the mile-away village of Hampton, there had been a veritable

epidemic of burglaries--ranging from the theft of a brand-new ash-can

from the steps of the Methodist chapel to the ravaging of Mrs. Blauvelt's

whole lineful of clothes, on a washday dusk.

Up the Valley and down it, from Tuxedo to Ridgewood, there had been

a half-score robberies of a very different order--depredations wrought,

manifestly, by professionals; thieves whose motor cars served the

twentieth century purpose of such historic steeds as Dick Turpin's Black

Bess and Jack Shepard's Ranter. These thefts were in the line of jewelry

and the like; and were as daringly wrought as were the modest local

operators' raids on ash-can and laundry.

It is the easiest thing in the world to stir humankind's ever- tense

burglar-nerves into hysterical jangling. In house after house, for miles of

the peaceful North Jersey region, old pistols were cleaned and loaded;

window fastenings and doorlocks were inspected and new hiding-places

found for portable family treasures.

Across the lake from the village, and down the Valley from a dozen

country homes, seeped the tide of precautions. And it swirled at last

around the Place,--a thirty-acre homestead, isolated and sweet, whose

grounds ran from highway to lake; and whose wistaria-clad gray house

drowsed among big oaks midway between road and water; a furlong or

more distant from either.

The Place's family dog,--a pointer,--had died, rich in years and honor.

And the new peril of burglary made it highly needful to choose a

successor for him.

The Master talked of buying a whalebone-and-steel-and-snow bull

terrier, or a more formidable if more greedy Great Dane. But the Mistress

wanted a collie. So they compromised by getting the collie.

He reached the Place in a crampy and smelly crate; preceded by a long

envelope containing an intricate and imposing pedigree. The burglary-

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD

preventing problem seemed solved.

But when the crate was opened and its occupant stepped gravely forth,

on the Place's veranda, the problem was revived.

All the Master and the Mistress had known about the newcomer,--apart

from his price and lofty lineage,--was that his breeder had named him

"Lad."

From these meager facts they had somehow built up a picture of a

huge and grimly ferocious animal that should be a terror to all intruders

and that might in time be induced to make friends with the Place's

vouched-for occupants. In view of this, they had had a stout kennel made

and to it they had affixed with double staples a chain strong enough to

restrain a bull.

(It may as well be said here that never in all the sixteen years of his

beautiful life did Lad occupy that or any other kennel nor wear that or any

other chain.)

Even the crate which brought the new dog to the Place failed somehow

to destroy the illusion of size and fierceness. But, the moment the crate

door was opened the delusion was wrecked by Lad himself.

Out on to the porch he walked. The ramshackle crate behind him had a

ridiculous air of a chrysalis from which some bright thing had departed.

For a shaft of sunlight was shimmering athwart the veranda floor. And into

the middle of the warm bar of radiance Laddie stepped,--and stood.

His fluffy puppy-coat of wavy mahogany-and-white caught a million

sunbeams, reflecting them back in tawny-orange glints and in a dazzle as

of snow. His forepaws were absurdly small, even for a puppy's. Above

them the ridging of the stocky leg-bones gave as clear promise of mighty

size and strength as did the amazingly deep little chest and square

shoulders.

Here one day would stand a giant among dogs, powerful as a timber-

wolf, lithe as a cat, as dangerous to foes as an angry tiger; a dog without

fear or treachery; a dog of uncanny brain and great lovingly loyal heart

and, withal, a dancing sense of fun. A dog with a soul.

All this, any canine physiologist might have read from the compact

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD

frame, the proud head-carriage, the smolder in the deep-set sorrowful dark

eyes. To the casual observer, he was but a beautiful and appealing and

wonderfully cuddleable bunch of puppyhood.

Lad's dark eyes swept the porch, the soft swelling green of the lawn,

the flash of fire-blue lake among the trees below. Then, he deigned to look

at the group of humans at one side of him. Gravely, impersonally, he

surveyed them; not at all cowed or strange in his new surroundings;

courteously inquisitive as to the twist of luck that had set him down here

and as to the people who, presumably, were to be his future companions.

Perhaps the stout little heart quivered just a bit, if memory went back

to his home kennel and to the rowdy throng of brothers and sisters and

most of all, to the soft furry mother against whose side he had nestled

every night since he was born. But if so, Lad was too valiant to show

homesickness by so much as a whimper. And, assuredly, this House of

Peace was infinitely better than the miserable crate wherein he had spent

twenty horrible and jouncing and smelly and noisy hours.

From one to another of the group strayed the level sorrowful gaze.

After the swift inspection, Laddie's eyes rested again on the Mistress. For

an instant, he stood, looking at her, in that mildly polite curiosity which

held no hint of personal interest.

Then, all at once, his plumy tail began to wave. Into his sad eyes

sprang a flicker of warm friendliness. Unbidden--oblivious of everyone

else he trotted across to where the Mistress sat. He put one tiny white paw

in her lap; and stood thus, looking up lovingly into her face, tail awag,

eyes shining.

"There's no question whose dog he's going to be," laughed the Master.

"He's elected you,--by acclamation."

The Mistress caught up into her arms the halfgrown youngster, petting

his silken head, running her white fingers through his shining mahogany

coat; making crooning little friendly noises to him.

Lad forgot he was a dignified and stately pocket-edition of a collie.

Under this spell, he changed in a second to an excessively loving and

nestling and adoring puppy.

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD

"Just the same," interposed the Master, "we've been stung. I wanted a

dog to guard the Place and to be a menace to burglars and all that sort of

thing. And they've sent us a Teddy-Bear. I think I'll ship him back and get

a grown one. What sort of use is--?"

"He is going to be all those things," eagerly prophesied the Mistress.

"And a hundred more. See how he loves to have me pet him! And, look--

he's learned, already, to shake hands; and--"

"Fine!" applauded the Master. "So when it comes our turn to be visited

by this motor-Raffles, the puppy will shake hands with him, and register

love of petting; and the burly marauder will be so touched by Lad's

friendliness that he'll not only spare our house but lead an upright life ever

after. I--"

"Don't send him back!" she pleaded. "He'll grow up, soon, and--"

"And if only the courteous burglars will wait till he's a couple of years

old," suggested the Master, "he--"

Set gently on the floor by the Mistress, Laddie had crossed to where

the Master stood. The man, glancing down, met the puppy's gaze. For an

instant he scowled at the miniature watchdog, so ludicrously different

from the ferocious brute he had expected. Then,--for some queer reason,--

he stooped and ran his hand roughly over the tawny coat, letting it rest at

last on the shapely head that did not flinch or wriggle at his touch.

"All right," be decreed. "Let him stay. He'll be an amusing pet for you,

anyhow. And his eye has the true thoroughbred expression,--'the look of

eagles.' He may amount to something after all. Let him stay. We'll take a

chance on burglars."

So it was that Lad came to the Place. So it was that he demanded and

received due welcome which was ever Lad's way. The Master had been

right about the pup's proving "an amusing pet," for the Mistress. From that

first hour, Lad was never willingly out of her sight. He had adopted her.

The Master, too,--in only a little lesser wholeheartedness,--he adopted.

Toward the rest of the world, from the first, he was friendly but more or

less indifferent.

Almost at once, his owners noted an odd trait in the dog's nature. He

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD

would of course get into any or all of the thousand mischief-scrapes which

are the heritage of puppies. But, a single reproof was enough to cure him

forever of the particular form of mischief which had just been chidden. He

was one of those rare dogs that learn the Law by instinct; and that

remember for all time a command or a prohibition once given them.

For example:--On his second day at the Place, he made a furious rush

at a neurotic mother hen and her golden convoy of chicks. The Mistress,--

luckily for all concerned,--was within call. At her sharp summons the

puppy wheeled, midway in his charge, and trotted back to her. Severely,

yet trying not to laugh at his worried aspect, she scolded Lad for his

misdeed.

An hour later, as Lad was scampering ahead of her, past the stables,

they rounded a corner and came flush upon the same nerve-wrecked hen

and her brood. Lad halted in his scamper, with a suddenness that made

him skid. Then, walking as though on eggs, he made an idiotically wide

circle about the feathered dam and her silly chicks. Never thereafter did he

assail any of the Place's fowls.

It was the same, when he sprang up merrily at a line of laundry,

flapping in alluring invitation from the drying ground lines. A single word

of rebuke,--and thenceforth the family wash was safe from him.

And so on with the myriad perplexing "Don'ts" which spatter the

career of a fun-loving collie pup. Versed in the patience-fraying ways of

pups in general, the Mistress and the Master marveled and bragged and

praised.

All day and every day, life was a delight to the little dog. He had

friends everywhere, willing to romp with him. He had squirrels to chase,

among the oaks. He had the lake to splash ecstatically in: He had all he

wanted to eat; and he had all the petting his hungry little heart could crave.

He was even allowed, with certain restrictions, to come into the

mysterious house itself. Nor, after one defiant bark at a leopard-skin rug,

did he molest anything therein. In the house, too, he found a genuine

cave:--a wonderful place to lie and watch the world at large, and to stay

cool in and to pretend he was a wolf. The cave was the deep space beneath

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD

the piano in the music room. It seemed to have a peculiar charm to Lad. To

the end of his days, by the way, this cave was his chosen resting place. Nor,

in his lifetime, did any other dog set foot therein.

So much for "all day and every day." But the nights were different.

Lad hated the nights. In the first place, everybody went to bed and left

him alone. In the second, his hard-hearted owners made him sleep on a

fluffy rug in a corner of the veranda instead of in his delectable piano-cave.

Moreover, there was no food at night. And there was nobody to play with

or to go for walks with or to listen to. There was nothing but gloom and

silence and dullness. When a puppy takes fifty cat-naps in the course of

the day, he cannot always be expected to sleep the night through. It is too

much to ask. And Lad's waking hours at night were times of desolation

and of utter boredom. True, he might have consoled himself, as does many

a lesser pup, with voicing his woes in a series of melancholy howls. That,

in time, would have drawn plenty of human attention to the lonely

youngster; even if the attention were not wholly flattering.

But Lad did not belong to the howling type. When he was unhappy, he

waxed silent. And his sorrowful eyes took on a deeper woe. By the way, if

there is anything more sorrowful than the eyes of a collie pup that has

never known sorrow, I have yet to see it.

No, Lad could not howl. And he could not hunt for squirrels. For these

enemies of his were not content with the unsportsmanliness of climbing

out of his reach in the daytime, when he chased them; but they added to

their sins by joining the rest of the world,--except Lad,--in sleeping all

night. Even the lake that was so friendly by day was a chilly and

forbidding playfellow on the cool North Jersey nights.

There was nothing for a poor lonely pup to do but stretch out on his

rug and stare in unhappy silence up the driveway, in the impossible hope

that someone might happen along through the darkness to play with him.

At such an hour and in such lonesomeness, Lad would gladly have

tossed aside all prejudices of caste,--and all his natural dislikes, and would

have frolicked in mad joy with the veriest stranger. Anything was better

than this drear solitude throughout the million hours before the first of the

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD

maids should be stirring or the first of the farmhands report for work. Yes,

night was a disgusting time; and it had not one single redeeming trait for

the puppy.

Lad was not even consoled by the knowledge that he was guarding the

slumbrous house. He was not guarding it. He had not the very remotest

idea what it meant to be a watchdog. In all his five months he had never

learned that there is unfriendliness in the world; or that there is anything to

guard a house against.

True, it was instinctive with him to bark when People came down the

drive, or appeared at the gates without warning. But more than once the

Master had bidden him be silent when a rackety Puppy salvo of barking

had broken in on the arrival of some guest. And Lad was still in perplexed

doubt as to whether barking was something forbidden or merely limited.

One night,--a solemn, black, breathless August night, when half-

visible heat lightning turned the murk of the western horizon to pulses of

dirty sulphur, Lad awoke from a fitful dream of chasing squirrels which

had never learned to climb.

He sat up on his rug, blinking around through the gloom in the half

hope that some of those non-climbing squirrels might still be in sight. As

they were not, he sighed unhappily and prepared to lay his classic young

head back again on the rug for another spell of night-shortening sleep.

But, before his head could touch the rug, he reared it and half of his

small body from the floor and focused his nearsighted eyes on the

driveway. At the same time, his tail began to wag a thumping welcome.

Now, by day, a dog cannot see so far nor so clearly as can a human.

But by night,--for comparatively short distances,--he can see much better

than can his master. By day or by darkness, his keen hearing and keener

scent make up for all defects of eyesight.

And now three of Lad's senses told him he was no longer alone in his

tedious vigil. Down the drive, moving with amusing slowness and silence,

a man was coming. He was on foot. And he was fairly well dressed. Dogs,

the foremost snobs in creation,--are quick to note the difference between a

well-clad and a disreputable stranger.

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD

Here unquestionably was a visitor:--some such man as so often came

to the Place and paid such flattering attention to the puppy. No longer need

Lad be bored by the solitude of this particular night. Someone was coming

towards the house;--and carrying a small bag under his arm. Someone to

make friends with. Lad was very happy.

Deep in his throat a welcoming bark was born. But he stilled it. Once,

when he had barked at the approach of a stranger, the stranger had gone

away. If this stranger were to go away, all the night's fun would go with

him. Also, no later than yesterday, the Master had scolded Lad for barking

at a man who had called. Wherefore the dog held his peace.

Getting to his feet and stretching himself, fore and aft, in true collie

fashion, the pup gamboled up the drive to meet the visitor.

The man was feeling his way through the pitch darkness, groping

cautiously; halting once or twice for a smolder of lightning to silhouette

the house he was nearing. In a wooded lane, a quarter mile away, his

lightless motor car waited.

Lad trotted up to him, the tiny white feet noiseless in the soft dust of

the drive. The man did not see him, but passed so close to the dog's

hospitably upthrust nose that he all but touched it.

Only slightly rebuffed at such chill lack of cordiality, Lad fell in

behind him, tail awag, and followed him to the porch. When the guest

should ring the bell, the Master or one of the maids would come to the

door. There would be lights and talk; and perhaps Laddie himself might be

allowed to slip in to his beloved cave.

But the man did not ring. He did not stop at the door at all. On tiptoe

he skirted the veranda to the old-fashioned bay windows at the south side

of the living room; windows with catches as old-fashioned and as simple

to open as themselves.

Lad padded along, a pace or so to the rear;--still hopeful of being

petted or perhaps even romped with. The man gave a faint but promising

sign of intent to romp, by swinging his small and very shiny brown bag to

and fro as he walked. Thus ever did the Master swing Lad's precious

canton flannel doll before throwing it for him to retrieve. Lad made a

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD

tentative snap at the bag, his tail wagging harder than ever. But he missed

it. And, in another moment the man stopped swinging the bag and tucked

it under his arm again as he began to mumble with a bit of steel.

There was the very faintest of clicks. Then, noiselessly the window

slid upward. A second fumbling sent the wooden inside shutters ajar. The

man worked with no uncertainty. Ever since his visit to the Place, a week

earlier, behind the aegis of a big and bright and newly forged telephone-

inspector badge, he had carried in his trained memory the location of

windows and of obstructing furniture and of the primitive small safe in the

living room wall, with its pitifully pickable lock;--the safe wherein the

Place's few bits of valuable jewelry and other compact treasures reposed at

night.

Lad was tempted to follow the creeping body and the fascinatingly

swinging bag indoors. But his one effort to enter the house,--with muddy

paws,--by way of an open window, had been rebuked by the Lawgivers.

He had been led to understand that really well-bred little dogs come in by

way of the door; and then only on permission.

So he waited, doubtfully, at the veranda edge; in the hope that his new

friend might reappear or that the Master might perhaps want to show off

his pup to the caller, as so often the Master was wont to do.

Head cocked to one side, tulip ears alert, Laddie stood listening. To the

keenest human ears the thief's soft progress across the wide living room to

the wall-safe would have been all but inaudible. But Lad could follow

every phase of it; the cautious skirting of each chair; the hesitant pause as

a bit of ancient furniture creaked; the halt in front of the safe; the queer

grinding noise, muffled but persevering, at the lock; then the faint creak of

the swinging iron door, and the deft groping of fingers.

Soon, the man started back toward the pale oblong of gloom which

marked the window's outlines from the surrounding black. Lad's tail began

to wag again. Apparently, this eccentric person was coming out, after all,

to keep him company. Now, the man was kneeling on the window-seat.

Now, in gingerly fashion, he reached forward and set the small bag down

on the veranda; before negotiating the climb across the broad seat,--a

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FURTHERADVENTURESOFLAD1FURTHERADVENTURESOFLADbyALBERTPAYSONTERHUNEFURTHERADVENTURESOFLAD2CHAPTERI.TheComingOfLadInthemile-awayvillageofHampton,therehadbeenaveritableepidemicofburglaries--rangingfromthetheftofabrand-newash-canfromthestepsoftheMethodistchapeltotheravagingofMrs.Blauvelt'swholelinefulof...

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