-white body. The old dog got off his haunches, and his tail,
close-curled over his back, began a feeble, excited fluttering; he came
waddling forward, gathered momentum, and disappeared over the edge
of the fernery. Jolyon expected to meet him at the wicket gate, but
Balthasar was not there, and, rather alarmed, he turned into the
fernery. On his fat side, looking up with eyes already glazing, the old
dog lay.

"What is it, my poor old man?" cried Jolyon. Balthasar's curled and
fluffy tail just moved; his filming eyes seemed saying: "I can't get up,
master, but I'm glad to see you."

Jolyon knelt down; his eyes, very dimmed, could hardly see the slowly
ceasing heave of the dog's side. He raised the head a little--very
heavy.

"What is it, dear man? Where are you hurt?" The tail fluttered once; the
eyes lost the look of life. Jolyon passed his hands all over the inert
warm bulk. There was nothing--the heart had simply failed in that obese
body from the emotion of his master's return. Jolyon could feel the
muzzle, where a few whitish bristles grew, cooling already against his
lips. He stayed for some minutes kneeling; with his hand beneath the
stiffening head. The body was very heavy when he bore it to the top of
the field; leaves had drifted there, and he strewed it with a covering
of them; there was no wind, and they would keep him from curious eyes
until the afternoon. 'I'll bury him myself,' he thought. Eighteen years
had gone since he first went into the St. John's Wood house with that
tiny puppy in his pocket. Strange that the old dog should die just now!
Was it an omen? He turned at the gate to look back at that russet mound,
then went slowly towards the house, very choky in the throat.

June was at home; she had come down hotfoot on hearing the news of
Jolly's enlistment. His patriotism had conquered her feeling for the
Boers. The atmosphere of his house was strange and pocketty when Jolyon
came in and told them of the dog Balthasar's death. The news had a
unifying effect. A link with the past had snapped--the dog Balthasar!
Two of them could remember nothing before his day; to June he
represented the last years of her grandfather; to Jolyon that life of
domestic stress and aesthetic struggle before he came again into the
kingdom of his father's love and wealth! And he was gone!

In the afternoon he and Jolly took picks and spades and went out to the
field. They chose a spot close to the russet mound, so that