Man and Dog

Third Place Winner--2012 Short Story Award

Man and Dog

Ken Burrows

July, 2012

My big sister was my grandfather’s favorite companion at the Lockington sheepdog trials until she started liking city shops and young men more than clever dogs, potent-looking bulls, and chutney recipes. So my grandfather chose me to go with him. The old, single-decker Barton’s bus rattled out of Long Eaton early on a sunny spring morning. Country lanes curved between hawthorn and blackberry hedges and sleepy meadows where cattle browsed. Flocks of birds rose, disturbed by the unaccustomed clamor of our bus. Across the glistening, brimming Trent River, by the famous pit in the water-meadow where the region’s livestock were burned during a devastating bout of foot-and-mouth disease in the 30’s, we wheezed to a stop at the quiet, lovely corner where the lane to Lockington Hall turned off and disappeared into a wall of green.

We headed for the grounds of Lockington Hall. My grandfather, tall and vigorous in his seventies, marched along swinging a burly walking stick, his pipe clenched in his teeth, never looking back for me, but knowing I was there. I paused to scan the gaudy signboard hammered into the side of the ditch: ‘Lockington Sheep Dog Trials: Today.’ The adventure was real. I bustled along after the old man.

Though quiet, reserved, and simple in his life, my grandfather knew everyone. Coming alongside others heading for the Hall as the throng increased, he raised his stick or waved his pipe in a gruff “’Owdo.” I steered close behind him afraid of getting lost. “’Owdo, George. Who’s this then?” A bright old man, or smart lady with her children in tow, or deferential husband with his missus on his arm, nodded knowingly to my grandfather and winked at me. Sometimes the banter was mildly mischievous. “Now then, George,” an elderly gentleman, uncomfortable in stiff Sunday best, might say, gently taking my ear in his fingers. “What have you been up to? Is this little ‘un yours?” Grandfather never slowed, never answered or smiled, but dourly greeted everyone and pressed on, expecting me to extricate myself and follow. I did, to good-natured laughter and comments, compliments in their day, like “’E’ll be a six-footer, ’e will,” and “’E walks just like ‘is granddad,” and “Look at them eyes?”

At the Hall gate, grandfather paid his sixpence and my threepence, coins plucked carefully, almost grudgingly, from his little canvas purse. Beyond was all the panorama of a country fair on a sunny spring day. Past the pens and tents and sideshows, over a grassy rise, the green valley unfolded where dogs and sheep and shepherds demonstrated their timeless ministry. I was there to see the sheepdogs, but who could not be dazzled by the magnificence of everyone’s dress. A day at the manor, like Sunday morning at church, demanded your very best clothes. Casual was unheard of. Even the farmhands who kept the ‘beasts’ fed and clean, worked in their shiniest suspenders and going-out-to-tea caps. The women, rich and poor, were gorgeous in flowery dresses, silk shawls, and large-brimmed, soft hats. Substantial matrons from the county ‘quality’ plied the grounds like galleons in full sail, their clean, silken daughters in their wake. Farmers wore their newest ‘waistcoats’ and sported a carnation, rose, or chrysanthemum in the buttonholes of stiff jackets. Some in shirt sleeves leaned complacently on the rails of pens full of cattle, or pigs, or sheep, puffed on their pipes and talked and smiled. They ignored a small boy in white shirt, short pants, and sturdy black boots, straining across the rail to touch the animals.

A few minutes after we entered the grounds of the Hall, I marveling at the ladies in their dresses and the contented, smoking farmers waiting placidly for the prize-giving, my grandfather first went about his business. He whispered, “Just you stop there, lad, and I won’t be jiffy. I’m going to see a man about a dog.”

I took him literally, of course, for what else would he be doing at the sheep dog trials? Off he went, head up, pipe clenched, determined and tall, his mysterious old canvas bag swinging against his stick. He plunged into the crowd near a tent at the foot of the great stone stair case that swept to the manor concourse. I leaned over my rail and scratched the leathery, wet maw of a bull. At a nearby stall, I sampled slices of home-made cheese, cut wafer-thin with a wire, and cider poured by a smiling lady in a flowered apron. I heard the faint sound of the shepherds’ whistles over the rise, and the occasional rattle of applause for a successful maneuver by the dogs.

When my grandfather returned, he seemed more inclined to smile. I asked him about the man and the dog, and he cocked his head and glanced about with narrowed eyes as if sharing some important secret, not wanting to be heard. Then he leaned close to my face – I smelled his tobacco and his breath – and said “Now don’t you worry about that, my lad. Don’t worry one bit,” which surprised me because I was merely curious and not worried at all. We walked together over to the rise to see the dogs.

Stretched below was a spectacular scene. A dozen or so campaigns took place across a great bowl of meadow divided by hedges and crossed by streams frequently spanned by little stone bridges. In a labyrinth of sheepfolds, fences, gates, and walls, as far as the eye could see, small groups of sheep sometimes scuttled behind a wall, leaped over a wicket, or stampeded into a fold, and sometimes trotted with apparent nonchalance across a bridge. Occasionally a few headstrong ones would scatter to be instantly rounded up by a dog or a pair of dogs who would smooth them back into the little flock. Then the sheep would stand stock still, pretending not to see or care about the dogs that crouched belly and nose to the ground a few yards away. The shepherds, leaning on their traditional crooks, scrutinized every motion and whistled with their tongues and teeth and sometimes through their fingers, high-pitched, long, distinctive whistles, instantly decoded and obeyed by their dogs. The crowds were knowledgeable and alert, knowing where to look and when to applaud.

My grandfather leaned his head close to mine so that I could follow his eye when he pointed. “That ‘un there’s a good ‘un. Look at ’im. Nice as you please,” as the black and white bundle of shaggy hair deftly conducted the skittish sheep across a bridge. “Now, lad, I’m going to see a man about a dog. You ’ang on right here, now.” He didn’t need to tell me. I didn’t wish to be anywhere else.

I watched grandfather marching urgently across the grass toward the Hall and the large, noisy, populous tent with its laughter and uproar. I turned back to see the dogs, now sprinting to head off a renegade, now squirming, belly, chin, and elbows to the ground, ears pricked for the whistle, close to the nervous sheep. I heard announcements for the gymkhana. I turned to see girls in jodhpurs and velvet-covered helmets leading out their braided ponies under the eyes of beaming, billowing mothers. Behind me the measured pacing and jumping of the horses, the easy, almost disdainful skill of the young riders, the tweedy fathers and the well-kept ladies, the unfamiliar polish of the voice over the megaphone saying ‘Now Julie – or Valerie, or Glenda – on Coventry Girl – or Duke, or Proud Hunter . . . ,’ and ‘Brava,’ and ‘Well done.” Before me, the drama in the valley, the high whistles of the shepherds, the clatter of applause, the appreciative ‘Ahs’ and “Oohs’, and ‘Now look theres.’

Then I heard grandfather, back from his conference, in my ear. “Over there, lad. ’E’s the one to watch,” nudging me and pointing vaguely down the valley, grinning, flushed a little and smelling most comfortably now of something warm and pipe tobacco.

There was a break in the business in the valley. The dogs were called up, and they huddled around their shepherds and loudly lapped their water. Gymkhana girls, their turns completed, giggled with each other and with smart, young boys. Everyone looked for lunch and drinks, the ‘quality’ at the small tables and chairs on the manor concourse or near the tents, the rest opening bundles of sandwiches and cakes and apples and setting them out on sheets on the grass. A brass band began playing on the concourse. Grandpa pressed sixpence into my hand. “Now get yourself a nice pie, lad, and summat to drink, and go and listen to the band. I’m off to see a man about a dog.”

The wonderful day wore on toward evening. In the afternoon were pig and cattle and sheep competitions, with well-padded, red-faced farmers holding thick walking sticks and pipes, leaning over the pens to inspect the prize animals, placidly accepting rosettes and medallions. Triumph embarrassed them, so they tugged their hats lower on their heads and sucked harder at their pipes.

The trials began again; the pelting, zigzagging, stalking dogs; the cantering, quivering sheep; the rapt attention of the watchers. I, full of meat pie and lemonade, found a fine spot on the rise and gazed sleepily at the sights and colors and movement. Hazily I sensed my grandfather occasionally slipping away to see a man about a dog and reappearing, each time a little more genial, a little more flushed, his morning dourness and reserve replaced by merriment.

The sacred tea-time hour approached, and the curtain began to come down on the Lockington Sheep Dog Trials. Beasts were returned to the drays, some horse-drawn, that had brought them. Girls led ponies slowly away, sheep were brought in, shepherds leashed their dogs. On the manor concourse, chairs were stacked and other furniture was piled inside the tents until they could be packed away till next year.

The old man, looking tired now, ushered me gently to my feet.

“Time to be off home, my lad.” Now he held my hand as we walked back out of the grounds and along the lane to the bus stop. Excitement spent, greetings were less effusive and hearty, a salute with the walking stick, a quiet “All right then, George” and “I’ll be seeing you, missus.”

On the bus, my grandfather filled his pipe with the black, sweet-smelling ‘twist’ he carried in a tin in his coat pocket and lit it with a Swan Vesta match, hauling the smoke in and leaning back contentedly, looking at the bus ceiling. My head against the window, I gazed out and thought of clever dogs marshaling sheep across a wide, green valley, and remembered the band, and the savor of warm, fresh cheese and smooth cider, and pretty, rich girls on ponies. My grandfather was talking to me.

“Well, lad, that was a grand day. I expect you’re tired.”

Small boys never confess to being tired. I only smiled up at him. Why should I be tired, watching everything, eating, enjoying? Grandfather had done all the work, the work of old men who know what goes on at sheep dog trials.

Soon, on the warm bus, with its rhythmic rattle and the hum of its engine, my grandfather was asleep, dreaming, no doubt, of men and dogs.

Ken Burrows recently retired after 36 years as a university teacher and administrator, acquiring degrees in England and America, and volunteering overseas. He has published a few occasional pieces here and there. He mainly specializes in amusing family and friends with humorous non-fiction pieces and occasional birthday verse, articles in church newsletters (a tough crowd), and writing for the fun of it.

Author's Note:

The Old Farmers and Threshers’ Reunion, a summer ritual at Denton, North Carolina, is a rare occasion in America to view sheep dog demonstrations. Even on that hot, red hillside amid its fragrance of sun on pines, exhaust fumes, and frying onions, and the roar and clunk of old machines mingling with the whine of country singers and squeals of children, the memory is irresistible of an English spring day: a country lane, endless green fields and hedges and streams, billowing tents, simple farmers and elegant ladies, the towering manor house whose vast front yard staged the joyful epic of the trials, and a determined old man making me keep up.