The Plague Dogs

Sunday the 17th October

It was not until some twelve hours later, on Sunday morning, that Tyson, his cap not actually removed (an action as unthinkable as for Santa Claus to shave his whiskers) but thrust vertically to the back of his head as a kind of cryptic token of a kind of cryptic respect, stood facing Mr. Powell outside the staff common room at Lawson Park.

“Ay, theer’s the two on them gone,” he said for the second time. “Ah thowt Ah’d better let thee knaw, like, first thing off. Theer noan anywheers int’ block, but happen theer noan that far awaay.”

“Are you sure they’re not still in the block?” asked Mr. Powell. “I mean to say, there doesn’t seem any way they could have got out, really. Are you sure they’ve not crept in behind something?”

“Theer noan int’ block,” repeated Tyson, “and Ah reckon theer nowheers about t’ plaace at all. But happen they’ll noan have gone far.”

“It’d be much the best thing if we could find them today,” said Mr. Powell. “You and me, I mean. Then there’d be no reason for either Dr. Boycott or Mr. Fortescue to know anything about it at all. They’re both away till tomorrow morning, so that gives us twenty-four hours.”

“Soombody moosta seen ‘em, like,” said Tyson. “Lasst time they were fed were Friday neet, so they’ll ‘ave had a go to get some groob out of soomwheers.” He paused. “Happen they might a bin chasin’ sheep ont’ fell an’ all. That’d be a reet do, that would. That’s offence against law, tha knaws, bein’ in possession of dog as woorries sheep.”

“Oh, my God!” said Mr. Powell, appalled by the sudden thought that he might be held personally responsible. “Tell me again how you found they were gone.”

“Well, like Ah toald thee, it were Sat’day evening when Ah coom in at usual time, to feed animals an’ that,” said Tyson. “An’ Ah seen reet awaay that yon black dog, seven-three-two, were gone out of it caage. Door were oppen, see, an’ spring o’ catch were broaken. It moosta snapped some time affter Friday neet, for it were awreet then.”

Tyson had, in fact, taken a screwdriver to the catch mechanism of the pen door. It was not that he was afraid of dismissal, or even that he cared particularly about reproof from the Director or from Dr. Boycott. It was, rather, that in some curious, scarcely conscious manner, he felt that by breaking the spring of the catch he was actually altering what had happened. After all, if the spring had snapped of its own accord, on account of metal fatigue or some fault in the steel, then that would have explained the dogs’ escape. Now the spring had snapped, and therefore it did account for the escape- to himself as well as to others—and saved a lot of pointless speculation and inquiry. In Tyson’s world, things that had happened had happened, and inquiry was a waste of time. If, for example, matters had so fallen out that it had been Tom who had reported the dogs’ escape to himself, he would simply have cuffed his head and sworn at him, whether Tom were to blame or not (much as the Aztecs used to execute messengers who brought bad news) and then begun to try to put things right. The spring was now deemed to have snapped; a state of affairs not vastly different, come to that, from the building of Animal Research itself having attracted deemed planning permission from the Secretary of State.

“But the other dog,” said Mr. Powell, “eight-one-five? What happened there?”

“It had pooshed oop wire along bottom with it noase,” said Tyson. “Coople o’ staples had pulled out, and it moosta scrambled oonder an’ joined t’ oother dog.”

“That’s not going to be so easy to explain,” mused Mr. Powell. “That was an important dog, too, that eight-one-five. Adult domesticated dog—they’re never easy to get hold of for this sort of work. It had had a tricky brain operation and was waiting for tests. There’ll be hell to pay.”

“Ay, well, Ah thowt thee’d want to knaw as soon as possible,” said Tyson virtuously. “Theer were nobody here yesterday neet”—and here he contrived to suggest (not unsuccessfully, since Mr. Powell was almost young enough to be his grandson and unable-why did he try, one wonders?—to conceal the signs of his origin among people very much like Tyson) that he himself had been the only dutiful and conscientious employee of Lawson Park at his post on a Saturday evening—”but Ah coom oop first thing this morning to see if Dr. Boycott were here. Ah’ll joost have to be shiftin’ along now.” For if a search there were going to be, Tyson had no intention of spending his Sunday in participation.

“You say they must have run right through the block?” asked Mr. Powell.

“Well, theer were box of mice knocked ont’ floor like, in pregnancy unit. Dogs moosta doon it, noothin’ else could ‘uv.”

“Oh, blast and damn!” cried Mr. Powell, visualizing the complaints from and correspondence with the general medical practitioners and other appointed representatives of the putatively pregnant young women. A sudden thought struck him. “Then they must have gone through the cancer unit, Tyson—the rat block?”

“Ay, they would that.”

“I say, they didn’t get into Dr. Goodner’s place, did they?” asked Mr. Powell quickly.

“Nay, it were locked reet as ever. There’s noon goes in theer but hisself.”

“But you’re absolutely certain—er, Mr. Tyson—that they didn’t get in there?”

“Oh ay. He’ll tell thee hisself.”

“Well, thank the holies for that, anyway. That would have been the end, that would. Well, I suppose I’d better have a look round the place myself and then if they don’t turn up I’ll go out and see if I can find anyone who’s seen them. I shan’t tell the police—that’ll be for the Director to decide. Dammit,” said Mr. Powell, “someone must have seen ‘em—they’ve got those green collars on, plain as day. Very likely someone’ll ring up later. Well, thanks, Mr. Tyson. And if you hear anything yourself, ring up and leave a message for me, won’t you?”

Some say that deep sleep is dreamless and that we dream only in the moments before awakening, experiencing during seconds the imagined occurrences of minutes or hours. Others have surmised that dreaming is continuous as long as we are asleep, just as sensation and experience must needs continue as long as we are awake; but that we recall—when we recall at all—only those margins and fragments which concluded the whole range of our imagining during sleep; as though one who at night was able to walk alive through the depths of the sea, upon his return could remember only those light-filtering, green-lit slopes up which he had clambered back at last to the sands of morning. Others again believe that in deep sleep, when the gaoler nods unawares and the doors fall open upon those age-old, mysterious caverns of the mind where none ever did anything so new-fangled as read a book or say a prayer, the obscure forces, sore labour’s bath, that flow forth to cleanse and renew, are of their nature inexpressible—and invisible, therefore, to dreaming eyes—in any terms or symbols comprehensible to the mind of one alive, though we may know more when we are dead. Some of these, however (so runs the theory), floating upwards from psychic depths far below those of the individual mind, attract to themselves concordant splinters and sympathetic remnants from the individual dreamer’s memory—much as, they say, the fairies, poor wisps of nothing, used to glean and deck themselves with such scraps and snippets of finery as humans might have discarded for their finding. Dreams, then, are bubbles, insubstantial globes of waking matter, by their nature rising buoyant through the enveloping element of sleep; and for all we know, too numerous to be marked and remembered by the sleeper, who upon his awakening catches only one here or there, as a child in autumn may catch a falling leaf out of all the myriads twirling past him.

Be this as it may, how terrible, to some, can be the return from those dark sea-caves! Ah, God! we stagger up through the surf and collapse upon the sand, behind us the memory of our visions and before us the prospect of a desert shore or a land peopled by savages. Or again, we are dragged by the waves over coral, our landfall a torment from which, if only it would harbour us, we would fly back into the ocean. For indeed, when asleep we are like amphibious creatures, breathing another element, which reciprocates our own final act of waking by itself casting us out and closing the door upon all hope of immediate return. The caddis larva crawls upon the bottom of the pond, secure within its house of fragments, until in due time there comes upon it, whether it will or no, that strange and fatal hour when it must leave its frail safety and begin to crawl, helpless and exposed, towards the surface. What dangers gather about it then, in this last hour of its water-life—rending, devouring, swallowing into the belly of the great fish! And this hazard it can by no means evade, but only trust to survive. What follows? Emergence into the no-less-terrible world of air, with the prospect of the mayfly’s short life, defenceless among the rising trout and pouncing sparrows. We crawl upwards towards Monday morning; to the cheque book and the boss; to the dismal recollection of guilt, of advancing illness, of imminent death in battle or the onset of disgrace or ruin. “I must be up betimes,” said King Charles, awakening for the last time upon that bitter dawn in January long ago, “for I have a great work to do today.” A noble gentleman, he shed no tears for himself. Yet who would not weep for him, emerging courageous, obstinate and alone upon that desolate shore whither sleep had cast him up to confront his unjust death?

When Snitter woke in the near-darkness of the shaft, it was to the accustomed sense of loss and madness, to the dull ache in his head, the clammy sensation of the torn and sodden dressing above his eye and the recollection that he and Rowf were masterless fugitives, free to keep themselves alive for as long as they could in an unnatural, unfamiliar place, of the nature of which they knew practically nothing. He did not even know the way back to Animal Research or whether, if they did return, they would be taken in. Perhaps the whitecoats or the tobacco man had already decreed that they were to be killed. He had several times seen the latter remove sick dogs from their pens, but had never seen him bring one back. He remembered Brot, a dog who, like himself, had been put to sleep by the whitecoats, but had woken to find that he was blind. Brot had blundered about his pen for several hours before the tobacco man, coming in at his usual time in the evening, had taken him away. Snitter could recall clearly the desperate and hopeless tone of his yelping. He himself had no fear of going blind; but what if his fits and visions were to increase, perhaps to possess him altogether, so that—He started up from where he was lying on the dry shale.

“Rowf! Rowf, listen, you will kill me, won’t you? You could do it quite quickly. It wouldn’t be difficult. Rowf?”

Rowf had woken in the instant that Snitter’s body ceased to touch his own.

“What are you talking about, you crazy little duffer? What did you say?”

“Nothing,” answered Snitter. “I meant if I ever change into wasps, you know—maggots—I mean, if I fall into the gutter—oh, never mind. Rowf, are you still broken?”

Rowf got up, put his injured front paw gingerly to the ground, winced and lay down again.

“I can’t run on it. Anyway, I’m bruised and stiff all over. I shall go on lying here until I feel better.”

“Just imagine, Rowf, if all these stones suddenly turned into meat—”

“If what?”

“Biscuits dropping out of the roof—”

“Lie down!”

“And an animal came in, without teeth or claws, all made of horse liver—”

“What do you mean? How could that happen?”

“Oh, I saw it rain from the ground to the clouds—black milk, you know—”

“You’ve made me feel hungry, damn you!”

“Are we going out, like—you know, like last night?”

“I can’t do it now, Snitter. Not until I feel better. Another battering like that—we’ll just have to wait a bit. Tomorrow—”

“Let’s go back to where it’s lying,” said Snitter. “There’ll be a good deal left.”

He pattered quickly over the shale towards the vaulted opening, Rowf limping behind him. It was afternoon and the red October sun, already sinking, was shining straight up the length of Dunnerdale beneath. Far below the tawny, glowing bracken and the glittering stealth of the tarn, Snitter could see cows in green fields, grey stone walls, red-leaved trees and whitewashed houses, all clear and still as though enclosed in golden glass. Yet the sun itself, which imparted this stillness, did not share it, seeming rather to swim in the blue liquidity of the sky, wavering before the eyes, a molten mass floating, rocking, drifting westward in a fluid that slowly cooled but could not quench its heat. Snitter stood blinking on the warm turf near the entrance, scenting the dry bracken and bog myrtle in the autumn air. The dressing fell across his eye and he tossed up his head.

“Was there ever a dog that could fly?”

“Yes,” replied Rowf promptly, “but the whitecoats cut off its wings to see what would happen.”

“What did happen?”

“It couldn’t fly.”

“Then it’s no worse off than we are. I’ll go as slowly as you like.”

Rowf stumbled stiffly forward and the pair set off towards the stream. In the windless warmth of the St. Martin’s summer afternoon, Snitter’s spirits began to rise and he pattered about the moss, splashing in and out of shallow pools and jumping in pursuit like a puppy whenever he put up a wheatear or whinchat in the bog.

They had no need to search for the carcase they had left. Even before they winded it they could hear the raucous squabbling of two buzzards, and a few moments later saw them hopping and fluttering about their ripwork. As the dogs approached, the big birds turned and stared at them angrily, but thought better of it and flapped slowly away, sailing down on brown wings towards the tarn.

“It’s little enough they’ve left,” said Rowf, thrusting his muzzle into the fly-buzzing, blood-glazed remains. Snitter hung back, looking about him.

“It’s not only them. There’s been some other creature—”

Rowf looked up sharply. “You’re right. I can smell it. But what? The smell—makes me angry, somehow—”

He ran about the rocks. “I’ll catch it. The smell—like a horse-mouse. What d’you make of it?” He was slavering as he spoke.

“Never mind,” answered Snitter, pressing down with one paw upon the haunch he was tearing. “It’s not here now.”

“Yes, it is. Watching, I think. Lurking. Not far off.”

“Let’s not leave anything here if we can help it,” said Snitter. “Eat all you can and we’ll carry the rest back to the rhododendrons—a good chunk each, anyway.”

They returned to the cave in the late afternoon, Snitter with a fore-leg, Rowf half-dragging the rank-smelling remains of the haunch. For some time they lay in the sun on the flat turf outside, retreating to the shaft only when the light was half-gone and a chilly breeze came rippling up the tarn from the west. Snitter scrabbled out a shallow recess in the shale to fit his body, lay down in it with a comfortable feeling of hunger satisfied and fell quickly asleep.

He woke suddenly, in pitch darkness, to realize that Rowf was creeping warily across the tunnel a few yards away. He was about to ask him what he was doing when something in Rowf’s movement and breathing made him hold himself motionless, tensed and waiting. A moment later he became aware of the same strange reek that they had scented near the sheep’s carcase. He lay still as a spider, letting the smell flow through him, seeking from it all that it could tell. It was not an angry smell, nor a dangerous smell: but none the less wild, yes and exciting, a sharp, killing smell, a furtive smell, trotting, preying, slinking through the darkness. And it was a quick-moving smell. Whatever the animal might be, it was on the move, it was alive here, now, in the cave with them. This, of course, was the reason for Rowf’s caution and crafty alertness, which Snitter had already sensed in the moment of his own waking.

Why had the animal come? To kill them for food? No, this, he knew instinctively, it had not. Whatever it might be up to, it was trying to avoid them, although it smelt like an animal which could fight if it were forced to. Because this was its home? But its smell was very strong and distinctive, and there had been no trace of it here yesterday. Then it could have come only in order to try to steal their meat.

At this moment there was a sudden, momentary clattering of loose stones in the dark and immediately Rowf said, “Stay where you are. If you try to get past me I’ll kill you.”

There was no reply. Snitter, feeling himself trembling, got up and took a position a few feet away from Rowf, so that between them the way out was effectively blocked.

“I’ll kill you, too,” he said, “and that’d be twice, so it wouldn’t be worth it.”

The next instant he jumped back with a sharp yap of astonishment, for the voice answering him was speaking, unmistakably, a sort—a very odd sort—of dog language. Barely understandable and like nothing he had ever heard, the voice, nevertheless, was undoubtedly that of an animal in some way akin to themselves.

“It’ll de ye smaall gud killin’ me, hinny. Ye’ll not see three morns yersel’.”

There was a kind of wheedling defiance in the voice, as though the owner had not yet decided whether to fight, to run or to cajole, but was trying the latter and putting an edge to it for good value.

“Who are you?” said Rowf. Snitter could sense his uncertainty, and wondered whether the animal could also do so. “Are you a dog?”

“Why ay, Ah’m a derg. Watch ahint ye!” cried the voice in a sudden tone of urgent warning. Snitter leapt round. In the moment that he realized he had been tricked, Rowf blundered against him, dashing across the breadth of the tunnel to prevent the intruder’s escape. Both were biting now and snapping, but as Snitter, picking himself up, jumped to Rowf’s help, the scuffle broke off, the shale clicking once more as the animal ran back into the tunnel.

“Stay where you are!” said Rowf again. “If you run any further I’ll follow you and break your back!”

“Howway noo, kidda,” replied the animal, in the same strange dog-jargon. “Ne need fer ye an’ me te start battlin’. Laa-laa-let, ma bonny pet.”

Listening, Snitter felt his blood tingle, not with fear but with a kind of thrilled repulsion and attraction. The voice of the smell was obsequious, cunning, that of a thief, a liar, masterless, callous and untrustworthy. It was also full of sardonic humour, of courage and resource, and pitiless, most of all for itself. Its lilting rogue’s jargon spoke to his own madness. Fascinated, he waited to hear it speak again.

“By three morns, the pair on yez’ll bowth be deed. Forst ye bleed an’ then yer deed,” said the voice, in a kind of crooning spell. “Lie an’ bleed, ye’ll bowth be deed, crows hes been an’ picked yer een.”

Snitter found himself answering spontaneously, without thought.

“The sky opened, you know,” said Snitter. “There was a thunderstorm and this lightning shot down into my head. Before that, it was black and white; I mean, the road was black and white; and then the lorry came and the tobacco man set my head on fire. I can bark and I can jump and I can catch a sugar lump.” He threw back his head and barked.

“Shut up,” said Rowf.

“De ye say so?” said the voice to Snitter. “Whey, mebbies. Howway wi’ me, lad, tappy-lappy, aall tegither, an’ Ah’ll put yez on the reet road. Mind, thoo beats them aall fer a bonny mate, Ah warr’nd.”

“Yes,” said Snitter, “you understand a lot, don’t you? I’ll go along with you; you show me where.” He began moving forward in the dark, towards the voice.

“By, mind, ye’ve been fair bashed, hinny,” whispered the voice, close to him now. “Who gi’ ye that slit o’ th’ heed? Who dun yon? Yer sore hunt!”

“It was the whitecoats,” answered Snitter.

The reek was all round him now, the pain in his head was gone and he and the voice were floating elegantly, effortlessly, towards the dark-blue, star-twinkling oval of the cave-mouth.

He did not realize that Rowf had knocked him down until he heard the strange animal once more run back down the tunnel. Then he smelt that Rowf was so angry that if he did not take care he was likely to be badly bitten. Lying quite still, he said, “Rowf, there’s no point in killing him, whatever sort of animal he is. He’d fight and it’d be too much trouble.”

“You didn’t wake up soon enough,” answered Rowf. “If I hadn’t stopped him he’d have been off with that leg-bone you brought back.”

“He says he’s a dog. If your shadow could sing—”

“I don’t care what he says he is, he’s a thief. I’ll make him sorry.”

“Noo give ower,” said the creature in the dark. “Go canny. Let’s aall be pals, ne need fer brawlin’. Stick wi’ me and we’ll aall be champion. Else ye’ll be deed soon, like Ah towld yez.”

“Dead?” said Snitter.

“Ay, deed, an’ ne argument a boot it, ne bother.”

“Why should we be?”

“Whey, hinny, ne chance at aall, gannin’ aboot th’ fell killin’ yows an’ hollerin’ yer heeds off,” said the creature. “Ye gan on that style and ye’ll have me kilt forbye. Ye should be neether seen nor hord, else yer deed dergs, Ah’m tellin’ ye.”

“What are you telling us, then?” asked Snitter, “his fascination growing as he realized that, unlike Rowf, he could partly understand the creature’s talk.

“Ye’ll hunt an’ ye’ll kill weel, wi’ me. Ye’ll gan oot an’ come back fed, wi’ me. Ye’ll run through th’ neet an’ foller me feet an’ Ah’ll keep ye reet. Ah’ll keep ye reet, ye’ll get yer meat.” The voice had taken on a rhythmic, hypnotic cadence, wheedling and sly, that made Snitter prick his ears and dilate his nostrils to the smell in the dark.

“Listen, Rowf, listen!”

“Whatever he is, he’s not to be trusted,” answered Rowf. “Anyway, I can’t understand a word he says.”

“I can,” said Snitter. “I’ll smell and I’ll tell. I’ve listened to birds in the chimney and beetles under the door. My head feels better. It’s open like a flower.” He cut a caper on the shale.

Rowf growled and Snitter collected himself.

“He says we’re strangers here and we’re in danger because we don’t know the place or how to look after ourselves, and for some reason that puts him in danger too. He’s suggesting that we let him share what we kill and in return he’ll give us advice and tell us what to do.”

Rowf considered. “He’ll only cheat us, and run away when it suits him. I tell you, he’s not to be trusted.”

“We’ve nothing to lose. He’s a sharp one, Rowf—bright as the leaves on the trees.” Snitter now felt that he would give anything to see the owner of the voice, or merely to keep him with them a little longer. The dreary cavern seemed crackling with his shifty vitality.

“Grab hold of your meat and lie on it,” said Rowf. “I’m going to do the same. If you’re still here when it’s light,” he said into the darkness, “we’ll see what you are and whether you’re worth feeding. What do you call yourself?”

The answer, taunting, mordant and inscrutable, came in a whisper from some further recess of the tunnel.

“Dry an’ warrm’s nivver harrm. Keep tight hold o’ yer meat an’ gud luck gan wi’ ye. Noo yer taalkin’ sense. Who am Ah? Ah’m tod, whey Ah’m tod, ye knaw. Canniest riever on moss and moor!”

Monday the 18th October

“—so after we’d got out,” said Rowf, “we didn’t know where to go. We came to some houses, but I bit a man who was going to put Snitter in a car—he saw him lying by the road and picked him up—so we ran away. Then, later, a man with a lorry threw a stone at Snitter—”

“There was another man who was hunting sheep with his dogs,” put in Snitter. “We went to help them, but the dogs drove us away.”

The tod, lying on the shale at several yards’ safe distance, head on sandy paws, listened intently as it continued gnawing on the remains of the fore-leg. Outside, the cloudy, grey light of morning showed a drizzling rain drifting across the mouth of the cavern.

“Snitter thought we ought to go on trying to find some man or other who’d take us to his house and look after us,” said Rowf, “but I couldn’t see the sense of that. To begin with, the men have taken away all the houses and streets and things—Snitter admits it himself—but apart from that, it’s a silly thing to expect. Men are there to hurt animals, not to look after them.”

“Noo yer reet, hinny. Guns an’ dergs, an’ trraps an’ aall. Ye’d be a fond fyeul an’ loose i’ th’ heed te seek oot th’ likes o’ them.” The tod cracked a small bone and spat it out. “Crrunshin’ bait’s th’ bonniest.”

“I know where I ought to be,” said Rowf. “Back with the whitecoats, like the other dogs. All right, I’m a deserter. I’d like to be a good dog, but I can’t—I can’t go near another tank.”

“The whole place seems to be covered with these great tanks,” said Snitter. “How often do the men put animals into them, and what sort of animals? They must be huge!”

The tod glanced shrewdly from one to the other, but answered nothing.

“You’re a wild animal, aren’t you?” said Rowf. “You never have anything to do with men?”

“Ay, noo an’ agyen.” The tod showed its teeth. “Ducks an’ new lambs.” It rolled on one side, licking briefly at a long, white scar on its belly. “An’ kittens i’ th’ barn, wad ye think it, noo?”

“Kittens?” asked Snitter, astonished.

“Th’ aald cat come, so Ah teuk off wi’ th’ one.”

“Teuk off with the one?” Snitter was at a loss.

“Ay, just th’ one.”

“I mean to live here as a wild animal, that’s the long and short of it,” said Rowf. “Snitter can go and look for men if he wants to. I’m a mouse and this is my drain.”

“Wivoot me, bonny lad, Ah’ll gi’ ye ne mair than three morns.”

“Go on,” said Snitter, “why not?”

“Ah’ve seen nowt dafter, th’ pair on yez, lyin’ flat oot o’ th’ fell like wee piggies full o’ grub, like there wez neether dergs nor shepherd aboot. Ye fells th’ yow, bolts it doon ye, kips ye doon a spell an’ comes back like a pair o’ squallin’ cubs. Ye took ne heed at aall o’ shepherd’s gun or dergs. Ah’d think shame o’ ye, ye pair o’ daft nowts.”

Rowf’s hackles rose at the sardonic mockery in the sharp, thin voice, and at once its tone changed to one of open, honest admiration.

“By, mind—ye pulled yon yow doon clever, though. By, hinny, yer a hard ’un. There’s none like ye. Hard as th’ hobs ye are—a fair mazer!”

“It knocked me about,” said Rowf. “I’m bruised all over.”

“Hinny, there’s ways. Wi’ me ye’ll sharp knaw hoo te duck an’ dodge. There’s ways o’ gettin’ stuck in hard, an’ ways o’ duckin’ oot. Wi’ me aside ye, a greet, hard boogger like ye’ll hev ne bother. Ye’ll sharp larn th’ ways, an’ a sharp tod like me’s th’ one te larn ye hoo.”

“Do you kill sheep, then?” asked Snitter in surprise, thinking that the tod was, if anything, smaller than himself.

“Whey, mebbies a bit young lamb i’ th’ spring if th’ chances come. But yon derg’s a mazer for th’ yows,” replied the tod, keeping its eyes on Rowf with a look of great respect. “Come te that, ye cud bowth be dab hands.”

“Do you want to stay here with us—is that what you’re saying?” asked Snitter, once more feeling, as he had felt in the night, a mysterious and exciting affinity with this devious, insinuating creature, whose every word and movement seemed part of the spinning of some invisible net of stratagem.

“Ah, whey, ye’ll hev ne bother wi’ me. Ah do nowt but pick at me meat,” said the tod. It got up, slunk quickly to the cavern’s opening, peered round one corner into the falling rain and returned. “Us tods, we nivver stop runnin’, nivver till th’ Dark cums doon. An’ yon’s a bonny way off yit—th’ Dark—for Ah warr’nd they’ll hev te move sharp te catch me.”

“And that’s what you’re offering—you share what we kill and in return you’ll teach us how to survive here and help us not to be seen or caught by men?”

“Ay. Noo yer taalkin’. Otherwise th’ Dark’ll be doon on ye, ne time at aall. Yon farmer’ll hev yer hides full o’ lead an’ it’ll be off an’ away into th’ Dark wi’ yez.”

The tod rolled on its back, tossed the knuckle-bone into the air, caught it and threw it towards Snitter, whose clumsy, late-starting grab missed it by inches. Annoyed, Snitter jumped across to where the bone had fallen, picked it up and looked around for the tod.

“Ahint ye!” It had passed him like a shadow and was hovering light-footed on the shale at his back. “Hill bide ye, an’ fern hide ye, an’ stream drown yer scent aside ye!”

“What’s your name?” asked Snitter, having, as he spoke, a curious illusion that the tod was hanging poised on the stones as the buzzards on the wind-currents above the fell.

For the first time the tod seemed at a loss.

“Your name?” repeated Snitter. “What do we call you?”

“Why, ye knaw, ye knaw,” answered the tod, with the hesitant lack of conviction of one unwilling to admit that he does not understand a question. “Mind, yer aye a canny ’un. Reet pair o’ dazzlers.”

There was a pause.

“He hasn’t got a name,” said Rowf suddenly. “Neither had the mouse.”

“But how can he—”

“Dangerous thing, a name. Someone might catch hold of you by it, mightn’t they? He can’t afford a name—that’s my guess. He hasn’t got one. He’s a wild animal.”

Suddenly a great flame of abandonment crackled up in the thorny tangle of Snitter’s mind. He could be done with care. He too could become burdened with no name, no past, no future; with no regret, no memory, no loss; no fear but caution, no longing but appetite, no misery but bodily pain. No part of his self need be exposed except his awareness of the present and that gone in an instant, like a fly snapped at and missed on a summer afternoon. He saw himself, bold and wary, floating on life, needing nothing, obedient only to cunning and instinct, creeping through the bracken upon the quarry, vanishing from pursuers like a shadow, sleeping secure in hiding, gambling again and again until at last he lost; and then departing, with a shrug and a grin, to make way for some other trickster nameless as himself.

“Stay!” he cried, jumping on Rowf like a puppy. “Let him stay! Wild animals! Wild animals!”

Frolicking, he rolled over, scratching his back on the shale, and began clawing and worrying in earnest at the tattered dressing on his head.

“It seems most unfortunate,” said Dr. Boycott, looking up at Mr. Powell over his spectacles. “And I’m afraid I still can’t make out, from what you’ve told me, how it came to occur.”

Mr. Powell shifted his feet uneasily. “Well, I certainly don’t want to put the blame on Tyson,” he answered. “He’s a good bloke as a rule. But as far as I can make out, he didn’t notice on Friday evening that there was a length of wire netting loose along the bottom of eight-one-five’s pen, and some time that night eight-one-five must have worried its way through to seven-three-two’s side.” He stopped, as though to suggest that there was no more to be said. Dr. Boycott continued to look at him as though there were, and after a pause Mr. Powell continued.

“Well, then the spring of the catch of seven-three-two’s door happened to break and that’s how they both got out.”

“But if the door had been shut properly, it would stay shut, wouldn’t it, even if the spring of the catch did break? It wouldn’t move of its own accord.”

Mr. Powell was undergoing the embarrassment and confusion not infrequently suffered by young officers who, having failed, through nervousness, inexperience and a certain misplaced respect, to press older (and gruffer) subordinates with awkward questions, later find themselves confronted with the same questions from their own seniors.

“Well, that occurred to me, too, actually; but the spring’s broken all right—he showed it to me.”

“You’re sure he didn’t break it himself?”

“I don’t see why he’d do that, chief.”

“Well, because he realized on Saturday that he hadn’t shut the door properly on Friday, of course,” said Dr. Boycott, allowing Mr. Powell to perceive his impatience at his subordinate’s having failed to think of this for himself.

“We can’t be sure of that, no,” replied Mr. Powell. “But if he did, he’d never admit it, would he?” This answer, he felt, must surely end that particular line of inquiry.

“But did you ask him?” persisted Dr. Boycott, neatly reappearing, as it were out of the bracken, at a fresh point along the line.

“Well, no—not exactly.”

“Well, either you did or you didn’t.”

Dr. Bovcott stared over his glasses and under his raised eyebrows. The thought crossed Mr. Powell’s mind that it was a pity that one could not, as in chess, resign, and thereupon at once resume a life in which the blunders leading to the resignation, however foolish, became mere fragments of a concluded parenthesis.

“Well, anyway,” resumed Dr. Boycott at length, with the air of one obliged to struggle patiently on in a situation rendered virtually impossible by another’s incompetence, “the two dogs got out of seven-three-two’s pen. What happened then?”

“Well, then they must have run right through the block, ‘cause they’d knocked over a box of mice in the pregnancy unit—”

“And you’ve told Walters about that, have you?” asked Dr. Boycott, with a sigh suggestive of a state of mind to which no further revelations of folly could come as any surprise.

‘Oh, yes, first thing,” answered Mr. Powell, catching at this straw for an opportunity to speak in a matter-of-course tone, as though it had never occurred to him that his efficiency or reliability could come under criticism.

“I’m glad to hear that, anyway,” countered Dr. Boycott, suggesting, like an Impressionist painter, with one stroke, a host of things, unnecessary to define, which he had nor been glad to hear. “How did they get out of the block and where?”

“Nobody knows,” said Mr. Powell expansively, as though, having referred the matter in vain to New Scotland Yard, the Colditz Society and the staff of Old Moore’s Almanack, he had been reluctantly compelled to abandon an enigma more baffling than that of the Mary Celeste.

Dr. Boycott clicked his tongue once, loudly, with the air of a super-camel which, while daily enduring the unendurable, can surely be excused if some momentary plaint involuntarily escapes its lips as the last straw is piled on.

“You mean you and Tyson don’t know?”

“Well, yes,” replied the toad beneath the harrow.

“You’re sure they didn’t get into Goodner’s place?” asked Dr. Boycott, suddenly and sharply.

“Certain,” replied Mr. Powell with equal promptitude.

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“Yes, and so is he. I’ve already spoken to him. He says the cultures—”

“All right,” said Dr. Boycott, raising one hand to stem the tedious flood of unnecessary and time-consuming detail, the purpose of which—his tone conveyed—he perceived to be nothing but a feeble attempt at ingratiation. “He’s content, then. Thank goodness for that.” He got up, put his hands in his pockets, walked across to the window and sat on the radiator. The actions suggested that Mr. Powell, while by no means off the carpet, was no longer, as it were, so completely on it—his superior now having need (faute de mieux, of course) of his advice.

“You’ve made quite certain, have you, that they’re not hiding in the block or anywhere about the place?”

“As certain as we can be. Tyson and I have both been all over, independently. Of course, they might show up. I mean, they might come back—”

“Yes, they might,” said Dr. Boycott reflectively, “and they might be brought back. It’s a pity their collars don’t carry the address of the station. Perhaps that ought to be changed. Still, it’s too late in this case.” He paused, and then, in a sharp tone, as though Mr. Powell had failed to reply to a question and already kept him waiting more than long enough, asked, “Well” (Mr. Powell started), “what do you think we ought to do?”

Mr. Powell had, as a matter of fact, got this bit fairly well stitched up. After all, he was required only to have thought of all the possibilities and to proceed to say what they were. He would also need to express some sort of preference, but once he had done this the decision (and the responsibility) would be someone else’s.

“We could do nothing at all, or we could go out and search for the dogs ourselves, or we could give a description to all occupants of neighbouring dwellings and farms and ask them to keep a look-out, catch the dogs if they see them and then ring us up; or we could report the thing to the police. We could do all of the last three things,” added Mr. Powell sagaciously. “They’re not mutually exclusive, of course.”

“And what would you do?” persisted Dr. Boycott.

“Well, quite honestly, chief, I think I’d be inclined to do nothing, for the time being. It’s ten to one they’ll either come back or else turn up somewhere where we can go and collect them; and if they don’t, well, then we just have to write them off. The alternative’s raising a hue-and-cry all round the neighbourhood, and then we’ve given ourselves a bad name, possibly all for nothing—I mean, they’ve been gone more than sixty hours, they may be miles away by now—half-way to Kendal—”

“Suppose they start worrying sheep?” asked Dr. Boycott.

“Then either some farmer shoots them and saves us further trouble, or else he catches them, realizes where they’re from and rings us up; in which case we only have to pacify one bloke instead of spilling the beans to the whole district,” answered Mr. Powell.

“Well, perhaps that might be best,” said Dr. Boycott reflectively. “I don’t really want to bother the Director with a thing like this just now. I think it’s more than likely either that they’ll turn up of their own accord or that someone will bring them in. What did Fortescue say when you told him about eight-one-five?”

“Well, he said it was a nuisance and a lot of time and work down the drain.”

“So it is. If they don’t show up today,” said Dr. Boycott, apparently unconscious that his decision not to sully the fair name of the station by publicizing the escape appeared, on the face of it, to be inconsistent with the high value he was ascribing to the missing subjects of experiment, “the work already done on them will probably be at least partly invalidated. It certainly will in the case of seven-three-two, since that’s a conditioning experiment and the immersions were programmed for regular intervals. I don’t know about eight-one-five, but I suppose Fortescue wanted to start it on tests today.” A sudden thought struck him. “You don’t think it’s possible that Tyson might have stolen the dogs himself?”

“Well, it did cross my mind, actually, chief, but if he was going in for that sort of thing I don’t think he’d start by picking on those two. I mean, he’s no fool, and one’s had brain surgery and the other’s notoriously savage and bad-tempered.”

“H’mmm. Well,” said Dr. Boycott briskly, going back to his desk and picking up some papers, to mark his dismissal of the matter for the time being, “we’d better get on with something else. Is there anything besides that that you want to talk about?”

“Well, yes, two other things I think I ought to mention,” said Mr. Powell, with some slight relaxation of manner. “The first one’s that humane trap for grey squirrels that Ag. and Fish, sent us for trial.”

“What about it?”

“Well, it’s not turning out all that humane, really,” said Mr. Powell, with a giggle of embarrassment. “I mean, it’s supposed to kill them outright, isn’t it? Well, about four times out of ten, it’s just sort of slicing—look, I’ll try and draw it for you—”

“I’m not really interested in that, to be perfectly honest,” replied Dr. Boycott. “It’s not work involving any kind of scientific advance or fresh knowledge. Anyway, it’ll be several weeks before Ag. and Fish, start asking us for anything. The squirrels won’t be pressing them, you know,” he added with a slight lightening of tone which drew a relieved smile from Mr. Powell. “You’d better try to work out some kind of modification yourself, to make it reliably lethal, but remember it’s got to go on the market at an economic price. Anything else?”

“One other thing, yes, and this will be of interest to you,” said Mr. Powell, with an air of “You want the best seats, we have them.” “Those dogfish—the ones you wanted for experiments on how they’re able to change their coloration to match their backgrounds, remember? Mitchell rang up about half an hour ago to say he’s got them and should he deliver them today? I said I’d ask you and let him know later this morning.”

“Can Fortescue spare someone this week to carry out the destruction of the selected areas of their brains and the removal of their eyes?” asked Dr. Boycott.

“Yes, he told me Prescott would be available to do it Wednesday.”

“Fine. Well, get them sent along right away and see that the necessary tank-space is ready. Oh, and draw up a test programme.”

“Right. Er—and about the other thing, chief,” said Mr. Powell, hopeful of retrieving some part of his name at least by showing willing despite his lapse.

“Yes?” asked Dr. Boycott, without raising his eyes from his papers.

“Would you like me to let you have a written report? Only I do realize that there certainly are one or two questions outstanding—”

“Don’t bother,” said Dr. Boycott, maintaining his air of detachment. “I’ll have a word with Tyson. What about that monkey, by the way?” he added, changing the subject rapidly enough to suggest that even he felt this last remark to have been a little too insulting and painful to one who could not answer back.

“Well, it went into the cylinder Friday evening, like you said: so it’s done two and a half days.”

“How’s it reacting?”

“It’s been thrashing around a bit,” replied Mr. Powell, “and—and sort of crying from time to time. Well, making noises, anyhow.”

“Is it eating?”

“Tyson hasn’t told me otherwise.”

“I see,” said Dr. Boycott, and returned to his papers.

Tuesday the 19th October

“How far away from them are we now?” whispered Snitter.

“Aye creep an’ peep, hinny, creep an’ peep.” The tod, it seemed, had not spoken at all, but conveyed its reply into Snitter’s mind in a telepathic silence. They crawled three feet closer to the edge of the chattering Tarnbeck.

“Are we to go upstream towards the farm now?”

“Na!” The tod, pressed to the ground under a rock, appeared actually to have extended itself flat like a leech and changed its colour to grey. “Heed doon!”

“What?”

“Bide there noo!”

Snitter understood that they were to remain completely still and vigilant in cover. Upstream, in the Tarnbeck, he could hear the Tongue House Farm ducks quacking and blittering somewhere below the wooden footbridge leading across to the meadow below Thrang. He felt acutely conscious of his black-and-white colouring, as conspicuous as a pillar-box at the end of a street. There was a patch of bracken to one side of him and he crawled silently beneath the brown, over-arching fronds.

After a few moments he turned his head towards the crag where the tod had been lying. It was no longer there. Looking cautiously around, he caught sight of it ahead of him, inching forward, chin and belly pressed into the bed of the runlet that trickled down the meadow to drain into the Tarnbeck. Suddenly it stopped, and for a long time lay motionless in the cold water oozing round and under its body. The quacking sounded closer and a moment later Snitter’s ears caught the paddling and splashing of the ducks as they drifted and steered in the swiftly flowing beck, thirty yards away at the bottom of the field. He realized that he was trembling. The tod was now closer to the beck by about three lengths of its own body, yet Snitter had not seen it move. He returned his gaze once more towards the tumbling patch of water visible between the alder bushes, where the runlet entered the beck.

Suddenly, floating down from upstream, a duck came into view, turned, steadied itself against the current and dived, the white wedge of its tail wagging from side to side as it searched below the surface. Snitter looked quickly at the place where the tod had been. It was gone. What ought he himself to be doing? He left the cover of the fronds and began to crawl forward as another duck appeared, followed by a brown drake, blue-wing-feathered like a mallard.

The drake and the duck began quarrelling over some fragment which the duck had found and, as they grabbed and quacked, floated three yards further downstream into shallow water. It was here that the tod came down upon them, silent as smoke. It did not seem to be moving particularly fast, but rather like some natural force borne upon the wind or the stream. Snitter dashed forward, but before-long before, it seemed to him—he could reach the beck, the tod had glided into the shallows, grabbed the drake by the neck and dragged it, struggling and clatter-winged, up the bank into the field. Behind rose a crescendo of splashing and the panic-stricken cries of the flock as they fled upstream.

Snitter, two yards up the bank, came face to face with the tod, its mask grotesquely obscured by the thrashing wings and feet of the drake clutched between its teeth. Without relaxing its grip it coughed a shower of small, downy feathers into Snitter’s face.

“What—what shall I do? D’you want me to—” Snitter, absurdly, was holding himself poised to rush into the now empty water. The tod lifted the corner of a lip and spoke indistinctly out of one side of its mouth.

“Haddaway hyem noo!”

Without waiting to see whether Snitter had understood, it trotted briskly—but still, as it seemed, without undue haste—downstream, quickly reaching the cover of a bank topped with ash and alder, along the further side of which they began to slink towards the open fell beyond. Once only it stopped, laid down for a moment the now-still quarry, and grinned at Snitter.

“Ye’ll soon be waalkin’ light as a linnet, lad. Th’ next torn’ll be yours. Mebbe ye’ll get yersel’ dosed wi’ lead an’ aall.”

Snitter grinned back.

“Ye divven’t say?”

The tod looked down at the carcase. “Can ye pull the feathers off a duck? There’s a gey lot o’ them. Ah‘ll hev t’ larn ye.”

Thursday the 21st October

Rowf lay crouched out of the wind, under a rock two hundred yards from the summit of Dow Crag. The moon was clouded and there was little light—barely enough by which to discern the mouth of the precipitous gully leading up from below. Snitter fidgeted impatiently. The tod was stretched at length, head on front paws.

“You say there’s no need to come to grips?” asked Rowf.

“Ne need, hinny. Th’ sharper it’s runnin’, th’ sharper it’ll go ower. Mind, ye’ll be close behind, so ye’ll hev te watch it. Tek care o’ yersel’ ye divven’t go doon wi’d.” The tod paused and glanced at Snitter. “If th’ wee fella there’s sharp off his mark, there’ll be ne bother.”

Rowf looked down once more into the pitch-black depths below, then turned to Snitter.

“Now, look, it’ll be coming up the fell as fast as the tod and I can drive it. It’s got to be headed and forced down into the gully. It mustn’t get past you, or turn back down the fell, d’you understand?”

“It won’t,” replied Snitter tensely.

“Assa, ye’ll manage canny,” said the tod, and thereupon set off with Rowf down the hillside.

Snitter took the place under the rock still warm from Rowf’s body, and waited. The wind moaned in the funnel of the sheer gully below and blew a scatter of cold rain across his face, smelling of salt and sodden leaves. He stood up, listening intently, and began padding up and down across the gully’s head. There were still no sounds of hunting to be heard from the western slope on his other side. He might have been the only living creature between Dow Crag and Seathwaite Tarn.

After a while he became agitated. Peering into the darkness and from time to time uttering low whines, he ran a little way towards the summit. Out beyond the foot of the precipice, far below, he could just glimpse the dull glimmering of Goat’s Water—one more of the many tanks with which men had dotted this evil, unnatural country. Sniffing along the path, he came across a cigarette end and jumped back with a start as the image of the tobacco man leapt before his mind’s nose. Confused, he lay down where he was and for the thousandth time raised one paw to scrabble at the canvas and plaster fixed to his head. His claws found a hold—some wrinkle that had not been there before—and as he tugged there came a sudden sliding movement, a giving way, followed at once by a sensation of cold and exposure across the top of his skull. Drawing back his paw, he found the entire plaster, sodden, black and torn, stuck across the pads. After a few moments he realized what it was and, capering with delight, gripped it in his teeth, chewed it, threw it into the air and caught it, threw it up again and was about to chase after it when suddenly a furious barking broke out on the fell below.

Snitter, jumping round at the noise, realized that he was uncertain of his way back to the mouth of the gully. As he hesitated in the dark, he heard the approaching sound of small hooves clattering over stones, and dashed along the ridge in the direction from which it came. Scarcely had he reached the rock where the tod had left him than the yow came racing uphill, with Rowf snapping at its hind-quarters. Simultaneously, without a sound, the tod appeared from nowhere and lay with bared teeth, watching the yow as it turned towards Snitter, hesitated and stopped. Snitter leapt at it and all in a moment the yow plunged headlong into the blackness of the gully. Rowf, hard on its heels, disappeared also. There followed a rattling and falling of stones and gravel and then a single, terrified bleat which, even as it diminished, was cut suddenly short. Rowf, the whites of his eyes showing in the faint light, reappeared and flung himself down, panting, not a yard from the edge.

“I saw it fall. Liver and lights, I couldn’t stop! I nearly went over myself. Well done, Snitter! You stopped it turning. Why—” He raised his head, staring at Snitter incredulously. “What on earth’s happened to you?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

But Rowf, sniffing and licking at the great, stitched trench running clear across Snitter’s skull, said nothing more. Snitter, too, lay instinctively silent, while Rowf, treating him as though he were a stranger, gradually brought himself to terms with this grim change in his friend’s appearance. At last he said, “You say the tobacco man set it on fire?”

“I don’t know—I was asleep when it happened. It often feels like that. And once I fell in, you know. If it wasn’t for the chicken-wire—” Snitter got hesitantly to his feet. “It’s not all that strange—not really. Holes—after all—I’ve seen holes in roofs. And cars—they sometimes open them, too. And there are pipes, did you know, running along under the roads? Outside our gate, men came once and dug down—you could see them. Of course, that was before the lorry came.”

“Time w’ wuh gettin’ doon belaa! Ne doot ye’ll be hunger’d like me.” The tod ran a few yards, then turned and looked back at the two dogs lying on the stones.

“Which way?” asked Rowf. “How far down? That yow seemed to be falling for ever. I never even heard it hit. Is it a long way round to the bottom?”

“Nay, nay. Roond to the side an’ doon. A canny bit of a way.”

Yet even after they had gone down to the foot of Dow by way of Goat’s Hause, it was nearly an hour before they found the body of the yow, which was lying on a narrow shelf near the foot of Great Gully.

Saturday the 23rd October

“Go on, kidda, bash it doon, then!”

Snitter hurled his compact weight again and again at the wire netting of the chicken run. When at last it gave way the tod was through in a streak and, before Snitter had picked himself up, had crept upwards into the closed henhouse through a crack between two floorboards which Snitter would not have thought wide enough for a rat. At once a squawking racket broke out within and a moment later a dog began barking inside the nearby barn. Lights came on in the farmhouse and an upstairs window was flung open. As Snitter, straining every nerve not to run, tried to cower out of sight behind one of the brick piers supporting the henhouse, the twitching bodies of two hens fell one after the other to the ground beside him. The tod, eel-like, followed instantly and Snitter leapt to his feet.

“Haddaway hyem?”

“Why ay! Go on, lad, divven’t hang aboot!”

The bare, yellow legs were so hot that Snitter could hardly hold them in his mouth. From above, the beam of a powerful torch was darting here and there about the yard, and as they crept through the hedge into the lonnin a shot-gun went off behind them. The tod, putting down its hen to take a better grip, sniggered.

“’Nother cat gone?”

Sunday the 24th October to Monday the 25th October

In the grey twilight before dawn, Rowf sprang out of the moss and confronted the two returning raiders as they rounded the upper end of Seathwaite Tarn. From head to tail he was daubed with fresh blood. His bloody tracks had marked the stones. The body of the Swaledale sheep, ripped from throat to belly, lay beside the beck a little distance off.

“I knew I could do it,” said Rowf, “as soon as I’d had a few days’ rest. Nothing to it—I just ran it backwards and forwards over the beck a few times and then pulled it down with less trouble than the other. Well, come on if you want—”

He broke off short, for the tod, its eyes half-closed against the east wind, was staring at him with a look of mingled incredulity and shocked contempt. At length it began to speak in a kind of wail.

“Ye got ne brains i’ yer heed! Ye greet nowt! Ne sooner’s me back turned than ye bloody up our ain place as red as a cock’s comb wi’ yer daft muckin’! Ye greet, fond nanny-hammer! Could ye not go canny till Ah teilt ye? Ye born, noddy-heeded boogger! Ah’m not bidin’ wi’ ye lot! Me, Ah’m away—”

“Wait!” cried Snitter. “Wait, tod!” For the tod, as it spoke, had turned and was making off in the direction of the dam. “What’s the matter?”

“First ye kill on th’ fell—reet o’ th’ shepherd’s track, muckin’ th’ place up wi’ blood like a knacker’s yard. An’ noo ye kill ootside our ain place! Yon farmer’s nay blind! He’ll be on it, sharp as a linnet. Ye’re fer th’ Dark, ne doot, hinny. Yer arse’ll be inside oot b’ th’ morn.”

“But, tod, where are you going?”

“Aarrgh! Haddaway doon te knock o’ th’ farmer’s door! Mebbies Ah’ll just shove me heed agin’ his gun,” replied the tod bitterly. “Save aall th’ bother, that will.”

Indeed, as the full light of day came into the sky from beyond the heights of Great Carrs and Swirral to the east, the cause of the tod’s dismay became only too clear. The body of the dead yow lay on Tarn Head Moss like freedom’s banner torn yet flying, a beacon, as it seemed, to every buzzard, crow and bluebottle in the Lakes. As the morning wore on Snitter, from the cave-mouth barely five hundred yards away, lay gloomily watching the pecking, squabbling, ripping and fluttering, which grew no less as rain began to drift up from Dunnerdale, blotting out the curve of the dam and the further end of the reservoir beyond. The tod had only with difficulty been persuaded to remain, and soon after mid-day had gone out to the western shoulder of Blake Rigg, whence it could see the trod leading up to the tarn from Tongue House Farm below.

By sunset, however, when the smaller becks were already coloured and chattering in spate, the reservoir valley remained unvisited by man or dog and the tod, pelt sodden and brush trailing, returned to the cave, muttering something about “a canny rain for them as desarved warse.” There was no hunting expedition that night, enough being left of the sheep to satisfy all three.

Late the following morning, as Snitter was dozing in his snug, body-shaped concavity in the shale floor, he was roused by the tod who, without a word and with extreme caution, led him to the cave mouth. Down on the moss a man, smoking a cigarette and accompanied by two black-and-white Welsh collies, was prodding with his stick at the stripped backbone and bare rib-cage of the sheep.

Tuesday the 26th October

“—soom bluidy beeäst or oother livin’ oop theer,” said Dennis Williamson. “Theer is that.” He walked round his van and kicked the off-side rear tyre.

“Git awaay!” replied Robert Lindsay. “D’ye think so?”

Dennis leant against the whitewashed wall of the Hall Dunnerdale farmhouse and lit a cigarette.

“Ah’m bluidy sure of it,” he said. “Two sheep inside eight or nine days, and no snaw, tha knaws, Bob, an’ the both lyin’ in open places, like, nowt to fall off or break legs an’ that.”

“Wheer didst tha find them at?” asked Robert. “Wheer were they lyin’ and how didst tha coom on them, like?”

“First woon were oop oonder Levers Hause, almost at top, tha knaws, joost this side, wheer it’s real steep. It were lyin’ joost this side of bit of a track—”

“That’d be old yow, then, Dennis. Ay, it would that.”

“Nay, that’s joost it, it were not. It were three-year-old, Bob, were that. I saw it bluidy teeth an’ all.”

“Oh, ‘ell!”

Robert gnawed the top of his stick without further comment. An extremely shrewd man and older than Dennis, he had been the previous tenant farmer of Tongue House and knew—or had hitherto thought that he knew—everything that could possibly happen to sheep between the Grey Friar and Dow Crag. He never gave an opinion lightly or unless he was prepared to defend it; and if someone asked his advice he was accustomed to shoulder the problem and consider it as though it were his own.

Dennis was upset. Tenacious and energetic to the point of intensity, he had, a few years before and with virtually nothing behind him, taken the farming tenancy of Tongue House (or Tongue ‘Us, as it is locally called), in the determination to live an independent life and make good on his own. It had been a hard grind at the outset—so hard that he might perhaps have given up altogether without the moral support and encouragement of his neighbour Bill Routledge, the ribald, tough old tenant-farmer of Long ‘Us, the neighbouring farm across the fields. There had been weeks when the children had had no sweets, Dennis had had no cigarettes and meals had been what could be managed. Now, thanks partly to his own strength of character and partly to that of his courageous, competent wife, Gwen, their heads were well above water. The farm was prosperous, several consumer durables had been bought and installed and the girls were getting on well. If Dennis had an obsession, it was that he was damned if anyone was going to do him down financially or worst him in a bargain. The present nasty situation—which would have worried any hill farmer—reached him where he lived, as the Americans say. It raised the spectre of old, bad times and had about it also an unpleasant suggestion that something—some creature—up beyond the tarn was getting the better of him.

“Ay, an’ t’oother, Bob, tha knaws,” he went on, “that were ont’ Moss, like, before tha cooms to Rough Grund, an joost a bit oop from top of tarn. They were both on ‘em the bluidy saame—pulled to shreds an’ pieces spread all o’er. An’ I’ll tell thee—theer were bones clean gone—bones an’ quarters an’ all—hafe bluidy sheep torn an’ gone, one on ‘em.”

“That’ll be dog then,” said Robert emphatically, looking Dennis squarely in the eye.

“Ay, that’s what Ah were thinkin’. But Bill’s had no dogs awaay—had, he’d a’ told me—”

“Dog could coom from anywheers, Dennis—could be out of Coniston or Langd’l. But that’s what it is, old boöy, an’ nowt else. So tha’d best joost get out thee gun an’ have a run round int’ early mornin’—”

“Bluidy ‘ell!” said Dennis, treading out his cigarette on the road. “As if there wayn’t enough to be doin’—”

“Ay, weel, tha canst joost fill boogger wi’ lead first, an’ then read it collar affter, if it’s got one,” said Robert.

“Has and Ah’ll hev th’ basstard in court,” said Dennis. “Ah tell thee, Bob, Ah will that. There’s been ducks an’ hens gone too. Smashed henhouse wire reet in—no fox could a’ doon it. Ah’ll have soom boogger in court.”

“Ay, so yer should,” returned Robert, “so yer should.” After a suitable pause he said, “Ah yer goin’ in t’Oolverston?”

“Nay, joost as far as Broughton—pickin’ oop coople of spare tyres, tha knaws. Is there owt tha wants?”

“Not joost now, old lad.”

Dennis, still musing on his dead sheep, drove down the valley towards Ulpha.

“And the monkey’s done ten days plus,” concluded Mr. Powell. “I think that’s the lot.”

“The cylinder’s being regularly cleaned out?” asked Dr. Boycott.

“Yes, it is. Oh, but what about the guinea-pigs, chief?” said Mr. Powell, returning his note-pad to the ready.

“The ones receiving tobacco tar condensates, you mean?” said Dr. Boycott. “What about them? I thought that was one thing that was proceeding quite straightforwardly?”

“Well, I mean, how long do we go on using the same guinea-pigs?”

“Use them up, of course,” answered Dr. Boycott rather shortly. “They cost money, you know. Apart from that, it’s only humane. The Littlewood Committee report had an entire chapter on wastage. We don’t use two animals where one will do.”

“Well, this lot have all had tar doses on both ears now, and the ears removed in just about every case—every case where there’s a cancerous growth, that’s to say.”

“Well, you can go on and use their limbs for the same thing, you know.”

“Oh, should we, chief? Righty-o. Only I haven’t been in on one of these before. Do we ever use anaesthetics?”

“Good God, no,” said Dr. Boycott. “D’you know what they cost?”

“Oh, I know—only Dr. Walters was saying—”

“I’m in charge of the tar condensates work, not Walters,” said Dr. Boycott. Before Mr. Powell could get in even the most hurried of assents, he went on, “Did you ever hear any more about those two dogs—seven-three-two and eight-one-five?”

“Not a thing,” said Mr. Powell. “I doubt we will now, you know. They’ve been gone—let’s see—eleven days I make it. They could have been shot, or adopted, or just have run from here to Wales. But I shouldn’t think we’ll ever know.”

“Touch wood,” said Dr. Boycott with a faint smile.

Mr. Powell facetiously tapped his own head. Granted the faintest prescience of what the future held, he might well have broken his nails to claw the varnish off the top of Dr. Boycott’s desk—for, unlike his own, it was wood and not plastic.