ADVENTURES OF “BRICK”: A DELIGHTFUL DOG STORY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18536, 5 April 1930, Page 9 (Supplement)

ADVENTURES OF “BRICK”: A DELIGHTFUL DOG STORY

BY W. HAROLD THOMSON.

He was one of a wheezing, snuffling, hard-drinking, unappreciated litter of seven, and, in the beginning, tragedy kept pace with his wandering and often wearily-taken steps. When two months old he knew himself the only pup left in the gloomy moorland cottage.

Two of his brothers had been presented by Mr Joseph Clamp to neighbours troubled by rats; one sister,-find-ing the battle of life too hard, had died in infancy, and two other sisters and one brother had been dropped by rough hands into a stream near their humble birthplace. For some reason that will never be explained—or for no reason at all—the most devil-may-care and warmhearted of the unfortunate pups was allowed to live. He was even fed, in rough-and-ready fashion, and at irregular intervals.

A day came, however, when, having quarrelled more violently than usual with his wife; having been threatened with arrest as the result of a poaching incident, and being generally embittered, Mr Clamp decided that the remaining pup had better be “done in,” as he phrased the thing. Soured-faced, he prepared for the doing in. First he found an aged brick, and. as one well used to such matters, attached it to a short length of stout cord. This in turn was attached to the tender neck of the dog whom Mr Clamp proposed to murder. The grim programme neatly arranged, he walked streamwards.

Presently, and with death, as it were, but a matter of minutes away, the pup found himself in the company of a new and strangely-pleasant human. Near to that particular pool towards which Mr Clamp had made his way a .j.«}»♦<» »> ♦?* ❖❖ 4» *S* * *2* *B* *** *2* *2* *!•* *3*

fresh-complexioned, grey-haired, kind-ly-eyed man sat before a small canvas placed on a small easel. Now, despite the fact that David Rawson was a dog-lover—or perhaps of it—he had never had one companion him in his bachelor’s studiohouse in London. But when he saw Mr Clamp's hairy, and dirty, pup-hold-ing hands swing to and fro he rose and caught at one of them impulsively. “A moment!” he said. “What’s all this? You’re not going to drown him?” . . . Less than a minute later the cottager, thinking about the beer that five shillings would buy, walked briskly away. Work forgotten, Rawson freed his newest possession from the neck-con-tracting cord. The pup, who had, so to speak, bowed jauntily to death and passed as jauntily on. settled his plump little body on the artist's plumper knees, and, yawning pinkly, prepared for sleep. “Oh, no, you don’t!” he was told. “I’m going to take you to the inn, and when I leave for London to-morrow you’re coming with me. After that,— well, we’ll see. . . . You haven’t got a name, so I’ll christen you ‘Brick.’ You look like one, and, anyhow, you had one hanging round your neck.” The late evening of the following day saw Brick settled in quarters, comfortless enough perhaps in the judgment of pampered humans, but spellng for the ill-bred ill-treated, poorlynourished pup luxury beyond belief. There was some slight trouble in the morning when, having found hs way to the istudio, Brick discovered, and strove to eat, a pair of old leather slippers. He was chewing the toe of the second, and was making baby gurgles of delight the while, when, broom in hand, Mrs Collard descended on him— Mrs Collard, who. in return for fifteen

shillings, paid weekly, acted as David Rawson's charwoman for two hours of each day. She was a widow, and gave constant and public thanks for the fact. Also, she was elderly, and florid-faced, and

addicted to gin. When she was in funds and could purchase the spirit, she found the after-effects depressing; when no gin came her way, she was even more depressed. Noticing Brick and hearing his infantile “woof" of alarm and defiance, Mrs Collard grasped her broom more firmly and lunged forward. Brick yelped out a canine:— “Stop that! You're hurting.”

Pursued by the broom, he scuttled towards his owner’s bedroom and leaned against the door there, protesting shrilly that somebody had blundered somewhere.

Toppling grotesquely backwards as the room door was opened, he knew delicious relief when the man stooped and, picking him up, patted at him reassuringly.

“It's all right, Mrs Collard,” Rawson explained. “I brought him from Yorkshire. I’m going to keep him for a bit till I find him a good home.”

“Ho, well!” said Mrs Collard, “ho, well! I should ’ave Nn told that I was to do for a dawg as well as for you. I ’ave my feelings as well as another, an’ I don’t ’old with dawgs in an ’ouse. Eatin’ your slippers, ’e was. which is no concern of mine, as you might say, but one thing leads to another, and I wish to give notice.” That was a formula meaning nothing, and in time Brick came to regard the woman as someone attached to the household, and therefore to be tolerated.

Towards David Rawson his attitude was different.

Whether they sat and talked together in the studio through the long evenings—for Rawson was a lonely man who seldom visited or had visitors —or went for walks on Primrose Hill or Hampstead Heath. Brick and he appreciated each other, and understood each other. During these months when his body was filling out, and his knowledge of life and affairs was increasing daily, Brick spent many half-wakeful, halfdrowsing hours piecing things together in his mind, and dreaming dreams, and examining philosophically life’s perplexities. There are those who say that a dog cannot think; that he is guided solely by instinct; that even his demonstrations of affection spring from self-in-terest. For such ignorant ones there is 1 but little hope. One must not be harsh with them, for they miss much of what is best and kindliest in life. Day by day, night by night, Brick 1 thought, and there came a time when | his thought tortured him like live things. The man whose friendship he had won and retained fell suddenly ill, and on a morning three days later, died—exactly twenty minutes after Mrs Collard had come to the studio. Brick was on the bed when the charwomen answered the artist's feeble summons. He left it only when he had been dragged away by the leather leash at-

tached to the collar bearing his name; which remained clear, though the brief address below it had become indecipherable. While the hot hand, that for nearly forty years had painted beautiful things, had rested on his (Brick’s), head, his immediate future was arranged. “Mr Lamond will see to most things,” David Rawson said. “But I can’t ask him about Brick. You’ve got to take the dog, Mrs Collard. I trust you to keep him till you find someone who’ll take him off your hands, and treat him well. There’s a five-pound note in the right-hand corner of the dressingtable. That's for you.” Hours later, Mrs Collard. protesting that she was not sentimental, but that she was honest—which, up to a point, was true — went for the last time from the studio, dragging behind her a fierce-voiced, snapping dog, who carried in his heart its first adult ache. He did not know whither he was going, nor did he greatly care. All he knew was that, back yonder in the fog-hidden house, there lay, strangely stiff and silent, the man whom he had worshipped. Brick’s life in Mrs Collard’s home in one of the poorest quarters in Camden Town was not a happy one. But the spirit of adventure called to him. Answering this call, he slipped out one day while, companioned by an empty gin bottle. Mrs Collard snored before her fireless grate. Instinct, or it may have been some sprite of good fortune, urged him to point his neat toes in the directions of Regent's Park, and in that large and delightful oasis he arrived without mishap. Brick was happy, and this happiness grew when, after a futile attmept to catch a duck—an attempt involving an

unexpected but very necessary bath — —he strolled along in the sunshine, and was hailed delightfully by five-year-old Miss Betty Shelton. Brick had never seen Betty before, and. Betty had never seen Brick, but they were both young, and light of heart, and eager for a game. Brick started the game. Tongue flopping out, and eyes merry, he set off, almost nose to tail in his speed Going in the opposite direction, and half-hysterical with joy in this heavensent companion, Betty met him with a bump, and, grabbing him with podgy hands, hugged him close. It was Brick’s first experience of the sort. He found it so greatly to his liking that he thrust muddy paws against his companion’s trim frock and dabbed his tongue at her chin. At that moment Authority, in the person of Miss Elsie Tennant, who was Miss Betty’s nurse, hurried from that seat where she had been held in thrall by a novelette. She became crushingly vocal. But Betty insisted that Brick—she had contrived to spell out the letters on his collar—should go home with her. As was to be expected, Miss Tennant laughed at this suggestion. Presently, however, the laughter gave way to threats, accompanied by a preliminary slap. The slap settled things. So terrific was Betty’s din that she was allowed to have her way. Arrived at a comfortable-looking house, Brick was introduced to pretty I Mrs Shelton by the latter’s spoiled, but lovable, daughter. “It’s out of the question, and it was very naughty of you to bring him here.” Brick heard Betty’s mother say. “The wretch is a stray. Besides, your father would never allow you to have a dog in the house." The human wailing started again

then so effectively that maternal softness conquered reason. “Well, he may sleep in the box-room for to-night," Mrs Shelton said. "But to-morrow he must, go away. If you’re very good, I’ll give him to someone nice.” The someone nice whom she chose was a heavy-faced gentleman in charge of a motor pantechnicon which was about to bear a mass of furniture to a house in the northern area of Buckinghamshire. “I want you,” Mrs Shelton said, so lowly that the attendant Betty could not hear, “to take this dog with you, and to hand him over to someone when you get into the country. Be good to him please, and try to find him a nice home. Here are two half-crowns for your trouble.” Because Heavy-Face had a conscience of sorts, and because he feared that the pretty woman who was so free with her money might know his master and make inquiries later, he carried out as faithfully as might be the charge which had been laid on him.

If he gave Brick a cuff or two and numerous hard words, that seemed the natural thing to do; and if he failed to find a home for him, that was because Brick preferred to arrange so delicate 9 matter himself.

Choosing a moment when the pantechnicon pulled up before the door of a village inn, and when HeavyFace and his two lieutenants were engaged in transferring their thirsty bodies beerwards, he jumped to the ground and headed haphazardly for a path leading across a field to some place unknown.

Inexperienced, friendless, homeless, hungry. Brick was yet serent of outlook, gallant of heart. Fighting for him against the demons of despair were Youth and Courage, and Optimism.

Towards nightfall, when his hardy but as yet immature body had become one big ache of weariness, instinct or the sense of smell took him to a neat little garden surrounding a neat little house. Near to the back door of this neat little house he discovered a plate containing a jumble of milk-soaked bread and some bits of meat and fish. This meagre meal over, he tool: to the road once more. The process of, going on and on had become almost mechanical now. Indeed, the dea of .•ailing a halt for the night did assert itself aefintely till, rounding a corner, he came on a small motor-car standing near to a garden gate.

The car door was open, and in the poor light Brick saw a rug lying crumpled on the floor.

It reminded him oddly of another rug which during his later weeks in Hamstead had formed his warm bed-place.

Up and down the apparently deserted, lane he looked, then, half asleep already, jumped with an effort into the car and. having circled warily three times, lay down. Almost instantly, he slept. . . .

How was he to know that the owner of the car was a certain dog-loving but at the moment dogless man called Dr. Anstruther. who had a practice in Mollschurch, and who at that precise moment was talking satisfying nonsense to an old lady self-dubbed an invalid? How was he to know that he

and this Dr. Anstruther -were to be- r come the greatest of friends, and that e the friendship was to start in a matter v of minutes? e And how was he to know that an- a other man belonging to a less noble p profession, and wanted by the police in g connection with some very cleverly or- c ganized car thefts, was walking to- c wards the two-seater which he knew t would be at this.spot at this hour, and t unguarded? And, if it comes to that, how was the j car-thief to know that the car was not junguarded after all? i, Partially roused by certain persistent c and unfamiliar sounds, Brick was p jolted into complete wakefulness when e someone who had plumped into the f driver’s seat clamped a heavy foot into his ribs. ( Less scared than annoyed, Brick j yelped as he had never yelped before, j and continued to yelp even when fierce € hands were thrust about his throat £ and a voice cursed at him lowly. \ “Hold your row, damn you!” the voice ordered. “Here! Let go of my hand! Ah! That’s the game, is it?” Intrigued by a new experience and 1 heated by understandable rage. Brick j ] set his sharp, strong teeth into one i ; of his enemy's flabby calves. 1 : There came an involuntary cry of I ; pain. A clenched hand beat at Brick’s ! head. Happily, however, help was near. Attracted by the uproar, which was intensified by the stillness of the night, Dr. Anstruther, who had parted from his greatly-comforted patient, came down the drive at a run. As he ran he remembered something which the sergeant of police in Mollschurch had told him that morning. With a rather confused notion that

a small man and a small dog were grotesquely wrapped up in each other, C y he put a forcefully-expressed question. ’ At it went unanswered, he became active with his hands. 3 “I’ve done nothing wrong,” the other protested, bitterly. “If you d take this blasted dog of yours off of my leg 2 He made a determined effort to free j himself, and as a result was gripped ' the more firmly. “He's not my dog," the doctor explained. “But I wish he were. I ov.e him more than Id have got out of the insurance company.” Loosening one hand, he sounded the car’s throaty horn loudly and persistently, aware that his elderly patient’s gardener would answer the summons —and that a sufficiency of strong rope would be available. . . . Five minutes later Brick was being driven towards Anstruther’s home. Soon after reaching it, he stepped back from a large and cleanly-licked plate which had been brought to him in the doctor’s warm sitting-room. He looked up and said, politely:— “Thank you. That was good.” “So you’re called Brkv:, are you?” Anstruther said, when he had examined the worn collar. "Well. Brick, if you're the stray that you look, you needn't stray any more.” As plainly as possible Brick asked what was meant by that. Happily his host was gifted with an ability to translate dog-talk. “I mean,” he said, “that if you want a home, there’s one for you here.” With a sigh of great content, Brick nodded; gave one lazy, friendly lick at the big man’s hand, and lay down on the hearth-rug. Life was fair for him again. He knew that he could trust this man. He wanted to sleep, a :cr>, and sleep. So he slept.