The Last of the Eggstone Collies
© Elizabeth Jane Andreoli 1997
CHAPTER 1
Tarquin the Fourth, affectionately known as Toby, (and occasionally as
"where's my little Doggles, then"!) awoke in his usual place at the start
of another beautiful day.
Toby was a happy dog. For a start, he was owned by Frank and Flossie
Bolton. That was a pretty good start for any young Border Collie who
wanted a comfortable billet in life. Flossie was a small, plump, laughing
woman, with a lap as soft and ample as the fat patchwork quilts she
loved to make. Many of his puppy nights had been spent dozing on that
lap, watching her nimble fingers stitching away at a confusion of bright
cotton squares. Frank was small, thin and weathered like an old tree.
When he walked, he bent forward as though thrusting against a gale. When
he smiled, his face broke into a brown map of deep wrinkles. His hands
were hard and bony, with chapped red skin on the knuckles that took a good
deal of licking to put right.
Together, they ran Eggstone Farm. It wasn't really a farm - more of a
large small-holding. They grew a bit of this, and a bit of that, and kept
chickens behind the house. They also had a little orchard in which Mr
Higgins' goat was occasionally allowed to graze, to keep the grass down.
Toby loved the farm. It was always full of interesting things. There was
the bucket in the corner of the yard, forgotten from the last cider-
making, on which a family of snails had set up home. There was the garden
- a little square of lawn, pegged down at each corner with a cherry tree,
and surrounded with primroses, tall wallflowers, and rusting garden tools.
In summer the lawn was a dustbowl, where Toby stalked sparrows,
pounced on woodlice, and rolled on his back in the sun, enjoying the warm
gritty bite of brown earth on his spine.
Then there was the potting shed. Since the door had fallen off last
winter, a family of mice had moved in, and gave dazzling gymnastic
displays over the spokes of an old bicycle wheel. Sparrows nested in the
roof, and flew to and fro to feed their chicks. There were hedgehogs
behind the compost heap, and little brown frogs in the trough by the barn.
All in all there was plenty to do to keep a young dog out of mischief.
In the mornings, Toby generally hung around near the house, checking on
the snails, and all his other treasures. Twelve o'clock would find him
snaking around Flossie's legs, begging for scraps as she put together a
basket of sandwiches and home-made cake for Frank and The Lad.
Like a glossy black and white shadow, he trotted along beside her as she
made her breathless way to the fields. This was his most important job
of the day. By the time Flossie reached the field, there was no breath left
for shouting. Her little arms windmilled as she called, but her faint voice
reached nothing but the crows. Toby often thought how odd it was that
when women tried to shout louder, they only managed to shout higher.
Eventually, red-faced with effort, Flossie would turn to him as always.
"Bring 'em in for me, Toby," she would plead. And with one deep WOOF!
the toy figures in the distance would look up, rub their aching backs, wave,
and trudge down the furrowed slope.
Afternoons were spent out in the fields with Frank and The Lad. There
were potatoes to dig, and rabbits to chase. When he grew tired, he could
snuggle down, deep into the cool hedgerow, and watch the windswept rooks
turning cartwheels in the sky.
When dusk came, The Lad would put on his cap and jacket, light his pipe,
and bid Frank goodnight. As he made his way back to the village, Frank
and Toby would sniff out the path to the farmhouse, led by the scent of a
fragrant stew with dumplings, or the sizzle of chops in the pan.
The after-supper dusk was a special time. It was Toby's time to wander
off and be alone. He would sniff around through the garden, through the
orchard, meandering in the long grass until his roving paws took him to
the little graveyard where the Eggstone Collies had been laid to rest for
generations before him. Here he would lie down and be quiet among the
wild flowers that engulfed the tiny headstones. He knew a lot of them by
heart - another memory of golden puppy days when Flossie carried him in
her arms and read the legends to him. here was Tarquin the First, known
as Tim: "He Was A Good Dog". Tarquin the Second, known as Tommy, had
fared even better: "He Was A Grand Dog". Then there was Eleanor, known as
Ellie: "She Was A Loving Dog", Boadicea, known as Bess: "We Will Miss
Her", and then Tarquin the Third, known as Tigger, whose epitaph read "He
Was One Of A Kind". Toby never quite knew how to take that one. He had
heard it said that Tigger was A Bit Of A Handful, and he knew that wasn't
always complimentary. There were other headstones, much older, that could
not be read. Odd words were still legible: "Brave", "Bold", "Saved" and
on one ancient piece, the two words: "Stood Before".
Toby liked the graveyard. Sometimes he felt that the other dogs were
still there - nuzzling him and talking to him about the old days. All
dogs love to be one of a pack, and this was Toby's pack. The best and
greatest pack of all. The Eggstone Collies. He dreamed his most exciting
dreams here, and had his best memories. There was one memory - the best
of them all - that he liked to get out and examine in this place. He
would think it over, time and time again, peering at every detail as
though it was a precious object, there on the ground before him. It was
such a simple memory really, but he loved to re-tell it to himself like a
favourite story. It went something like this:
"I was a young puppy and he was an old man, and I was in his arms. He
carried me a long, long way, over the Ridgetop Hills. It was night time,
and there were skeins of stars in the sky. It was frosty, and his breath
steamed in the air, but I was warm. I looked at him, and he smiled, and I
loved him so dearly that I never wanted him to put me down again. We
walked all the way down Cow Lane, then Ings Lane, then into the farm. All
the time, he stroked my ears and rubbed his cheek against my head, and
told me I was to be an Eggstone Collie. The best of them all. Yes! That
was what he said - the best of them all. He put me down in the farmyard
outside the back door. He told me to trust him and to be very brave.
Then he left me there ..."
(Toby gulped and stifled down a whimper. This was the only sad part of an
otherwise perfect memory. Still - the sad bit had to be told, since it
made the happy bits even better.)
"I was cold and lonely. I couldn't see him any more. He had abandoned me
in the cold farmyard. I didn't know what to do. He had told me to be
brave, so I just sat there being brave for an awfully long time. Then I
gave up hope and started howling."
(Toby sighed with relief. The sad bit was over.)
"Then the big door opened, and Frank and Flossie came out to find me."
(His eyes closed with pleasure. That moment of being lifted from the
frozen cobbles into Flossie's warm, dimpled arms was just about as near to
Heaven as any dog had a right to get.)
"Then Flossie started crying and said, 'Oh Frank! And poor Tigger only
buried this morning!' And Frank said, 'Shut the door, and come over by
the fire.' Then I licked the tears off Flossie's face and she began to
giggle because it tickled. Then she tickled me back."
(Toby sighed gently. It was nearly dark. Time to be getting back.)
"And now we're all living Happily Ever After," he recited to himself.
"Goodnight all of you," he woofed softly to the little headstones as he
darted silently away.
Eggstone Farm was perched half way up a cleft in the Welsh hills. At the
bottom of the valley, a river sparkled its way through great boulders of
granite, squeezed through clefts in the black bed-rock, tumbled into wide
pools, then flattened into a great wide estuary to meet the sighing sea.
The farmhouse was snuggled in among whispering trees. Up hill and down
hill, Frank's furrowed fields fluttered with bright scarecrows, on which
the rooks perched with raucous cries to preen their tar-black wings. At
the top of the slope was the field that had given Eggstone Farm its name.
The field was arid. The ground was hard and sour. Nothing grew but
ragged weeds, and an ugly scrub of blackened hawthorn. Nothing disturbed
the silence there. No birds roosted. No rabbits dug. No foxes prowled.
Only the tap-tap-tapping of the constant stream of geologists that came to
study its startling centrepiece - The Eggstone itself.
It blossomed out of the ground like a huge white mushroom head, at the
top of the field. It was like marble, but smoother. It was pure white
with no mark upon it. Experts with special equipment had measured its
span in every direction, and pronounced it to be the shape of a perfect
egg. The stone was as hard as diamond, and was unique. The only one of
its kind in the length and breadth of the great wide world. And nobody
knew what it was or where it came from, because nobody had ever seen
anything quite like it before.
Frank always remembered the first time Toby set eyes on the Eggstone. The
puppy shuddered and backed away, whimpering.
"Come on, lad," coaxed Frank. "It's only a funny great rock. It won't do
you any harm."
He had taken Toby in his arms, soothing and smoothing the agitated dog
every step of the way, until they stood before the great white stone.
"There! Now that wasn't so bad, was it?"
But Toby was tense. His ears pricked forward, straining - listening for a
sound so small that it wasn't a sound at all - more of a feeling deep
inside. He uttered a low growl. He was absolutely certain that
somewhere, deep within the strange stone, he could hear voices. And the
voices, in that tiny sound that only he could hear, clamoured: "OUT! OUT!
OUT!" He jumped out of Frank's arms and ran backwards, his hackles
raised. He saw the size of the huge Eggstone, dwarfing his beloved
master, and was afraid.
"Come away!" he tried to tell him. "Come away! This thing is ... not
good. This thing is ... too big."
If he had known the word "Evil", he would have used it then.
The other things that made Eggstone Farm famous were the collies
themselves. Frank and Flossie did not keep sheep. They had never bred or
bought a puppy, and yet there had always been a fine, handsome collie at
Eggstone Farm. When one died, another always turned up, sitting patiently
in the yard with trusting eyes and a rumbling stomach. The dogs were
always beautiful animals - large, glossy and superbly intelligent. Many
farmers grumbled that it was a sheer waste for old Frank to have a dog
that was born to work, idling its life away as a family pet. What did he
want a Border Collie for, when all he had was a few chickens and a couple
of crop fields! Frank was as baffled as the rest of them. He would
scratch his chin, and pat the sleek head of the latest little collie, and
his only answer was: "There's always been a collie at Eggstone". He
didn't know where the dogs came from. It had happened to him, and his
father before him, and his grandfather before that! Generations of
baffled Boltons had searched high and low to find the rightful owners of
generations of abandoned pups. No owner ever came forward. It was as if
the dogs had appeared from nowhere. So - Bolton after Bolton welcomed the
bright-eyed little beasts into the home.
The dogs had always been friendly and well-mannered, except once, way
back, when a Bolton sold an Eggstone Collie to a sheep farmer. The story
went that the dog trotted meekly after its new owner. |It travelled
calmly to its new home, but the minute it set foot in the strange
farmyard, it turned upon the man like a thing possessed. It tore and
savaged him so that he declared he had been lucky to escape with his life.
It was returned, chained, to Eggstone Farm. Once home, it reverted to its
usual happy ways, and never bared a tooth in anger for the rest of its
life. Future Boltons learned from this mistake. Though many offers were
made, the Eggstone Collies were not for sale.
Because of this strange history, Toby was something of a local celebrity.
He became a familiar sight at Frank's side around the village, with his
great mane-like ruff, glistening like silver around a neck that had never
known the restraint of a collar. Toby particularly liked going with Frank
and Flossie to the sheep dog trials. There was something about sheep that
thrilled and excited him. He was never allowed to enter the trials.
Frank had neither the time nor the opportunity to train him. So - he sat,
alert and panting, watching every movement the champions made. He
listened and learned as hard as he could, until he too could sense when a
ewe was about to break from the group, and dash for the far hills. In his
mind, he crouched in the heather beside the working dogs. He pounced as
they did, feinting this way and that, forcing the pace here, dropping back
there, ever ready to head off the sudden out-runners, using every ounce of
willpower and concentration to edge the flock into the wooden pen amid
shouts and applause. The sight of him made Flossie laugh. "He gets in a
fair fidget, watching them go, doesn't he!" she would say, as Toby's paws
kneaded the ground in excitement. It reminded her of a child watching his
favourite football team.
But sheep trials did not happen very often. Most of Toby's outings
consisted of sitting at Flossie's feet while she ran stalls for her
various good causes. Sometimes it was the Women's Institute ("... and
don't you touch those buns!"). Sometimes it was the Church, ("... now
leave those toys alone!") and sometimes it was the local Gilbert and
Sullivan Society ("I have a song to sing OOOHHH!").
Productions by the local Gilbert and Sullivan Society were difficult times
for Frank and Toby. The truth was that poor Flossie couldn't sing a note
in tune to save her life. Unfortunately, it didn't stop her trying. As
the pace of rehearsals speeded up, Flossie's fingers fluttered over her
sewing machine, creating patchwork Pirates of Penzance, wings of gauze and
gold for Iolanthe, or pretty print dresses for the Three Little Maids From
School. And as she stitched, she sang her heart out, driving the bats,
squeaking, from the attic to the orchard, and Frank and Toby from the
fireside to the pub. On show nights, Flossie would bustle about looking
flushed and important with a double row of dressmaker's pins thrust into
the bosom of her cardigan and a tape measure tangled with her string of
pearl beads. Frank and Toby took the money on the door. It became a
little ritual for the audience as they filed in. One pound fifty for
Frank, and a pat on the head for Toby, who would trot anxiously after
anyone who forgot this small courtesy. After the show, an excited
Flossie, a weary Frank, and a tired collie with a much-patted head, would
lead the way back to the farm, where the Buffet was spread in the kitchen.
There, the cast would drink hot punch, and devour mountains of meat-paste sandwiches. Gradually, the men would drift into the cool, star-lit
garden smoking pipes and talking of cattle and crops. In the sitting room,
Flossie held court among the women, blissfully discussing knitting
and sewing, and holding up cushion covers for inspection. On her lap,
Toby slept deeply, the bright patchwork squares fluttering into wondrous
patterns in his dreams. God and His Angels sat high in the clouds, making
net curtains, and singing snatches from the Mikado ..
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Modified:2/8/97
Created:25/7/97