THE BLACK GODMOTHER

Sitting out on the lawn at tea with our friend and his retriever, we had
been discussing those massacres of the helpless which had of late
occurred, and wondering that they should have been committed by the
soldiery of so civilised a State, when, in a momentary pause of our
astonishment, our friend, who had been listening in silence, crumpling
the drooping soft ear of his dog, looked up and said, "The cause of
atrocities is generally the violence of Fear. Panic's at the back of
most crimes and follies."

Knowing that his philosophical statements were always the result of
concrete instance, and that he would not tell us what that instance was
if we asked him--such being his nature--we were careful not to agree.

He gave us a look out of those eyes of his, so like the eyes of a mild
eagle, and said abruptly: "What do you say to this, then?..... I was out
in the dog-days last year with this fellow of mine, looking for Osmunda,
and stayed some days in a village--never mind the name. Coming back one
evening from my tramp, I saw some boys stoning a mealy-coloured dog. I
went up and told the young devils to stop it. They only looked at me in
the injured way boys do, and one of them called out, 'It's mad, guv'nor!'
I told them to clear off, and they took to their heels. The dog followed
me. It was a young, leggy, mild looking mongrel, cross--I should
say--between a brown retriever and an Irish terrier. There was froth
about its lips, and its eyes were watery; it looked indeed as if it might
be in distemper. I was afraid of infection for this fellow of mine, and