Short Fiction

half shut the door. “Your dog, old man!” he said, “we know nothing about dogs here.” He would have shut the door in Caleb’s face, but the old man was too quick for him, and had put his stick across the threshold. “My dog!” he repeated, louder and louder; “white-haired, thin like me; you could count every rib he had!”

A gentleman was coming downstairs at this moment. He was dressed in the glossiest of black with the whitest of ties. He had a gleaming smile, a thick square jaw, and eyes that changed as you looked at them. “What is it?” he said tranquilly, coming towards the door. “Does the man want money?⁠—I do not like a disturbance on my doorstep. A dog, did you say⁠—white-haired⁠—thin! Oh yes, I had him with two collies yesterday afternoon; the brute! he wasn’t worth the money I paid for him; he howled so, we had to cut his windpipe before we could do anything with him. I wouldn’t have had him if I could have got a third collie: they are so much more quiet and patient. Villain! did you say, old man? No, I’m a physiologist⁠—you shouldn’t be abusive; the law protects me, and we must have subjects. There, that’ll do,” and he waved his hand gracefully; “go away now. Wants his body!” This to the manservant:⁠—“Oh, by all means, Joseph, give him what’s left of him⁠—it’s in the back yard.” And the physiologist, member of at least one-half the scientific societies of Europe, and with a high repute throughout the British Isles for his learning and humanity, went calmly into his study to finish writing down the results of his experiments overnight on the two collies and poor white-haired Jack.

Caleb took the mangled body of his old friend reverently into his arms, he passed his hand tenderly over the strained eyeballs, the bloodstained throat, the severed ribs. “My God,” he said, standing there in the snow and east wind outside the closed door, “I can thank Thee now that I have no sight wherewith to see the wickedness these Thy creatures have wrought.”

The children came from round the corner and led him home again, Caleb still tenderly carrying Jack with his thin ragged handkerchief spread over the poor torn body.

Hours after, the neighbours wondered why there was not a sound of movement in the old man’s room, and went up, fearing he might be ill, and there was he standing erect and rigid with Jack’s body in his arms, and the words of thanksgiving still on his lips, “God, I thank Thee that I have no eyes to see this devils’ work!”

Yes, he lives on, this old man, companionless and alone; the neighbours do what they can for him, and he rarely wants a loaf of bread or a cup of tea now. Every evening, as the clock strikes five, he gets up from his rickety chair, opens his door, and stands listening for the patter and scramble of old Jack’s feet up the carpetless stairs. Silly! do you say?⁠—he has gone silly! It may be so; I do not know. Often we are wisest when most we are called foolish, and foolish when we are thought to be most wise. I only know that old Caleb stands daily, blind and silent, at his open door, listening for the footsteps that will never return.

Some day One will enter in with a message for him⁠—the Angel of Death.

Colophon

Short Fiction
was published between 1877 and 1901 by
Catherine Louisa Pirkis.

This ebook was produced and partly transcribed for
Standard Ebooks
by
Robin Whittleton,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2021 by
Paul Haxo
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
Bob,
a painting completed around 1876 by
Édouard Manet.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
May 26, 2026, 9:57 p.m.
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