and again we were afraid, looking at its eyes and the way it bit the air.
Fear! It's the black godmother of all damnable things!"

Our friend bent down, crumpling and crumpling at his dog's ears. We,
too, gazed at the ground, thinking of, that poor lost puppy, and the
horrible inevitability of all that happens, seeing men are what they are;
thinking of all the foul doings in the world, whose black godmother is
Fear.

"And what became of the poor dog?" one of us asked at last.

"When," said our friend slowly, "I'd had my fill of watching, I covered
it with a rug, took this fellow away with me, and went to bed. There was
nothing else to do. At dawn I was awakened by three dreadful cries--not
like a dog's at all. I hurried down. There was the poor beast--wriggled
out from under the rug-stretched on its side, dead. This fellow of mine
had followed me in, and he went and sat down by the body. When I spoke
to him he just looked round, and wagged his tail along the ground, but
would not come away; and there he sat till it was buried, very
interested, but not sorry at all."

Our friend was silent, looking angrily at something in the distance.

And we, too, were silent, seeing in spirit that vigil of early morning:
The thin, lifeless, sandy-coloured body, stretched on those red mats; and
this black creature--now lying at our feet--propped on its haunches like
the dog in "The Death of Procris," patient, curious, ungrieved, staring
down at it with his bright, interested eyes.
1912.

End of Project Gutenberg's Inn of Tranquility and Other Essays,
by John Galsworthy

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