He endured, too, her occasional flurries of hot temper; and made no protest when Lady chose to wreak some grievance against life by flying at him with bristling ruff and jaws asnarl. Her keen little milk teeth hurt like the mischief, when they dug into his ears or his paws, in one of these rage-gusts. But he did not resent the pain or the indignity by so much as drawing back out of harm's way. And, afterward, when quick repentance replaced anger and she strove to make friends with him again, Lad was inordinately happy.
To both the Mistress and the Master, from the very outset, it was plain that Lady was not in any way such a dog as their beloved Lad. She was as temperamental as Peter Grimm himself. She had hair-trigger nerves, a swirlingly uncertain temper that was scarce atoned for by her charm and lovableness; and she lacked Lad's stanchness and elusive semi-human quality. The two were as different in nature as it is possible for a couple of well-brought-up thoroughbred collies to be. And the humans' hearts did not go out to Lady as to Lad. Still, she was an ideal pet, in many ways. And, Lad's utter devotion to her was a full set of credentials, by itself.
Autumn froze into winter. The trees turned into naked black ghosts; or, rather, into many-stringed harps whereon the northwest gales alternately shrieked and roared. The fire-blue lake was a sheet of leaden ice, twenty inches thick. The fields showed sere and grayly lifeless in the patches between sodden snow-swathes. Nature had flown south, with the birds; leaving the northern world a lifeless and empty husk, as deserted as last summer's robin-nests.
Lady, in these drear months of a dead world. changed as rapidly as had the smiling Place, From a shapeless gray-gold fuzzy baby, she grew lank and leggy. The indeterminate fuzz was buried under a shimmering gold-and-white coat of much beauty. The muskrat face lengthened and grew delicately graceful, with its long muzzle and exquisite profile.
Lady was emerging from clownish puppyhood into the charm of youth. By the time the first anemones carried God's message of spring through the forests' lingering snow-pall, she had lost her adolescent gawkiness and was a slenderly beautiful young collie;small and light of bone, as she remained to the day of her death, but with a slimness which carried with it a hint of lithe power and speed and endurance.
It was in the early spring that the Master promoted Lady from her winter sleeping-quarters in the tool-house; and began to let her spend more and more time indoors.
Lady had all the promise of becoming a perfect housedog.
Fastidious, quick to learn, she adapted herself almost at once to indoor life. And Lad was overjoyed at her admission to the domain where until now he had ruled alone. Personally, and with the gravity of an old-world host, he conducted her from room to room.
He even offered her a snoozing-place in his cherished "cave,"under the piano, in the music room the spot of all others dearest to him.
But it was dim and cheerless, under the piano; or so Lady seemed to think. And she would not go there for an instant. She preferred the disreputable grizzly-bear rug in front of the living room hearth. And, temporarily deserting his loved cave, Lad used to lie on this rug at her side; well content when she edged him off its downy center and onto the bumpy edges.
All winter, Lady's sleeping quarters had been the tool-house in the back garden, behind the stables. Here, on a sweet-smelling (and flea-averting) bed of cedar shavings, she had been comfortable and wholly satisfied. But, at once, on her promotion, she appeared to look upon the once-homelike tool-house as a newly rich daylaborer might regard the tumbledown shack where he had spent the days of his poverty.
She avoided the tool-house; and even made wide detours to avoid passing close to it. There is no more thoroughgoing snob, in certain ways, than a high-bred dog. And, to Lady, the tool-house evidently represented a humiliating phase of her outlived past.
Yet, she was foredoomed to go back to the loathed abode. And her return befell in this way:
In the Master's study was something which Lady considered the most enthrallingly wonderful object on earth. This was a stuffed American eagle; mounted, rampant and with outflung wings, on a papier-mache stump.
Why the eagle should have fascinated Lady more than did the leopard-or-bear rugs or other chase-trophies, in the various downstairs rooms, only Lady herself could have told. But she could not keep her eyes off of it. Tiptoeing to the study door, she used to stand for half an hour at a time staring at the giant bird.
Once, in a moment of audacity, she made a playful little rush at it. Before the Master could intervene, Lad had dashed between her and the sacred trophy; and had shouldered her gently but with much firmness out of the room; disregarding her little swirl of temper at the interference.
The Master called her back into the study. Taking her up to the eagle, he pointed at it, and said, with slow emphasis "Lady! Let it ALONE! Let--it--ALONE!"She understood. For, from babyhood, she had learned, by daily practice, to understand and interpret the human voice. Politely, she backed away from the alluring bird. Snarling slightly at Lad, as she passed him in the doorway, she stalked out of the room and went out on the veranda to sulk.
"I'm glad I happened to be here when she went for the eagle,"said the Master, at lunch that day. "If I hadn't, she might have tackled it sometime, when nobody was around. And a good lively collie pup could put that bit of taxidermy out of commission in less than five seconds. She knows, now, she mustn't touch it."He spoke smugly; his lore on the subject being bounded by his experiences in teaching Lad the ****** Law of the Place. Lad was one of the rare dogs to whom a single command or prohibition was enough to fix a lesson in his uncannily wise brain for life. Lady was not. As the Master soon had occasion to learn.
