On the Lifting of the Lead

It is proclaimed, with all the gravity the office affords, that the long strap which hangs upon the high hook by the door is not an ornament. It is an oath.

When one of the tall ones lifts it down, a thing is set in motion that cannot, in honour, be set back. The lifting of the strap is the promise of the going-out — the patrol of the Lane, the reading of the grass, the long and serious survey of the Greens Beyond. I have heard the strap leave its hook. I cannot un-hear it. Neither, I submit, can they.

And yet there are those who lift the strap, and then consult the small glowing tile, and frown, and speak of the wet that may or may not fall from above. I do not accept the tile's testimony in this matter. The tile has never once been on a walk. It does not know the Lane. A promise made by the strap cannot be unmade by a tile, and the wet, when it comes, has never yet dissolved a single dog of this household.

The strap, once lifted, is owed. I wait by the door. I am, as ever, ready some while before they are.