When the long frost set in in January, many and many a night did Jack and Caleb go dinnerless and supperless to bed. “Times are a little hard just now, but we’ll see them out together, eh, old friend?” Caleb would say when Jack came to lick his hand by way of good night, and to testify his opinion that, whatever happened, his master was in no sense to blame. Then they would turn in together, Caleb on his straw (the mattress had gone the way of his bedstead now), with his head on an old box for a pillow, and the faithful Jack huddled up on his feet.
Would the frost never come to an end? It was all very well for ladies wrapped in their warm sealskins and velvets to say what a healthy winter it was, and for young people with rosy cheeks, as they looked out their skates, and pulled on their thick gauntlets, to descant on the glories of a “fine frost;” Caleb and Jack, taking their stand against the wall—sunshiny, alas! no longer—would have told a different story. Ah, surely never did east wind sweep down so ruthlessly before, never before did snowstorm last so long, never before were streets so forlorn and empty of passersby. Caleb and Jack went home one terrible day at least one hour earlier than usual—it was useless waiting there any longer for alms—Caleb with one halfpenny in his hat, and that the gift of a poor frozen-out crossing-sweeper who rightly judged the old man to be worse off than himself.
Part of a loaf was all Caleb’s food that day. “Eh, old doggie, thou shalt have thy bite of it,” he said, feeding Jack with crumbs in the hollow of his hand, “for it’s little enough thou’lt find for thyself in the gutters.” Little enough, indeed, anywhere, save snow and ice, and Jack may hunt high and Jack may hunt low, and thrust his patient old nose into all sorts of odd corners that seem to have a faint scent of red herring or haddock, but there’s little enough of supper he’ll get tonight.
What was it made him so late on this particular windy, frosty, snowy afternoon? Had he lost himself in a snowdrift? thought Caleb, setting open wide his door, and listening in vain for the patter and scramble of the four little feet up the carpetless stairs. Six, seven, eight o’clock came and went, and still no sign of Jack; and Caleb crept to bed at last, shivering and forlorn, and with a sense of utter desolation and loneliness at his heart which he had never known before.
Frost, snow, sleet, east wind, went on through the night, and began again with the dawn. “Nay, but you’re not going out, friend?” said a kindly old body, meeting Caleb on the stairs as the old man wearily and slowly was feeling his way down; “there’ll not be a soul in the streets with a penny to spare; you’ll not get your bread that way today.”
“It’s my Jack I’m going to look for today,” said the old man, “not my bread; it may be he lost his way in the snow last night, and he’s waiting for me now in the old place by the wall. Give me a hand, neighbour, and help me along a bit, will ye?” So the woman helped him along to the wall, through the biting wind and snow, but no sign of Jack when they got there.
“We’ll try the baker’s shop,” said Caleb, thinking of their old haunts, and whether it were possible that the baker’s wife, who sometimes threw Jack a broken biscuit, had taken him in out of pity for the night.
And while they were in the shop asking after the dog, there came in two children who had a strange story to tell, a story which froze Caleb’s blood in his veins as he stood and listened. They had seen a dog, a dog for all the world as like Jack as could be, being led along the day before by two men who came out of a public-house, and who talked and laughed loudly as they went along. Said one, “It doesn’t do to be too tenderhearted in these hard times; human flesh and blood reckons before dog’s flesh and blood any day in the week.” Said the other, “And the doctor will give us a good ’arf-crown for him safe enough, and ask no questions into the bargain.”
Caleb trembled from head to foot. “Take me to his house,” he said in a voice that startled the children, for it vibrated and twanged like any old harpsichord with all the music gone out of it.
At the doctor’s door the two children left him standing on the doorstep, they themselves running away and peeping at him round the corner of the street. A manservant answered Caleb’s ring. “My dog!” said the old blind man in the same harsh trembling voice, “what have you done with him? he’s white-haired like me, and thin like me; you can count every rib in his body.”
Ugh! how cold it was! the east wind and sleet blew in the servant’s face, and how could he be expected to stand there talking with an old blind man on the doorstep? He
