The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams Page A

dog of the four, was on his feet, hackles up and teeth bared.
    "What are you doing here, if it comes to that?"
    "Getherin, ye dafft sod! Seekin' woolled sheep, a' course. An' then tha cooms down from top—
    like bluidy bulls on the loose—an' spoils hafe an hour's good work—"
    "Ay—they'll be tourists' tykes, tha knaws," said the first dog. "Thee, with yon patch on thy head, wheer's thy masster at?" he demanded for the second time. "Is he oop fell? Hast roon away, tha feckless gowks?"
    "No, we haven't a master. We want to meet yours—we didn't mean any harm—"
    "He'll fill thee wi' lead, joost," said the second dog, snapping quickly at a moth that came fluttering out of the underbrush. "Ay, he will that."
    "He hasn't got a gun," said Snitter.
    "Happen he has," returned the dog. "Thee bide around theer and thee'll soon find out. Hey, Wag, remember yon dog he shot last soommer, when it were chasin' doocks, tha knaws—"
    "Ay. He were—" The first dog seemed about to enlarge on this pleasant recollection when a perfect fusillade of cries rose from somewhere out of sight beneath the sheer face below them.
    "Don, lay down! Don, lay down! Wag, coom bye 'ere! Wag, coom bye 'ere! Yer Wag! Yer Wag!"
    "Get off fell, tha booggers, that's all," said the second dog. "Goo on awaay!"
    It raced off, responding, as it came into his view, to further instructions from the shepherd below. The first dog, Don, remained crouching tensely on the grass, tongue lolling and front paws outstretched, paying Snitter and Rowf no further attention whatever until, at a sudden cry of "Don, gow way! Don, gow way!" it leapt up, gave a single bark and tore uphill, climbing to get above and so turn two yows which were running before Wag.
    Snitter and Rowf looked at each other.
    "Thee'd best watch thesen," said Rowf bitterly. "Happen—"
    "Oh, it isn't funny." Snitter was distraught. "I don't understand. We were only doing the same as them—"
    "They didn't want us to join their man. Jealous."
    "Perhaps. I remember a cat that hid behind the door spit spit cuff scratch— just the same. No, but they were—oh, clouds in the sky, leaves on a tree, bark when you hear the key in the door—they belonged where they were, didn't they; they were at home? You could smell it. No whitecoat does anything to them. But what are we going to do, Rowf?"
    "We've got to get out of here," said Rowf, "before they come back. Teeth rip it, yes and quick!
    My dam, the man's coming, look!"
    Sure enough, the man with the thumb-stick had appeared round one end of the line of crags and was hurrying towards them in silence. They could see the teeth m his face and smell his meaty sweat and manure-mucky boots Yet even as they made off up the fell, he too turned aside and disappeared, evidently satisfied to have seen the back of them and not wishing to leave his gathered sheep any longer in the sole care of his dogs.
    Higher and higher. The wind had died altogether now and the heights ahead had become invisible under a sudden mist. It seemed the very manifestation of their hopelessness and bewilderment.
    There was no longer any trace of destination or purpose in their wandering Upward they went in silence—for they did not know where else to go or what to do—close together, tails drooping, un-responding even when some creature—a rat or rabbit, half-concealed in the mirk—startled and ran across their front. The grass grew sparser and then was no more, iney were in a barren land, a blotted-out place of loose stones and bare rocks, steep and high up. The mist swirled about them, thickening the higher they went and smelling of dampness, of wet lichen on the rocks, of a dead sheep somewhere and faintly, beneath all else, of the salt sea. They were climbing the 2,300-foot pitch of Levers Hause, the near-precipitous band between Brim Fell and Swirrai; as wild, grim and lonely a place as any in the Lakeland. Night was falling and in all the waste about them they knew of no food, no