STORIES
Alan Sillitoe
BURTON
Grandfather Burton hated dogs. He also despised others
who loved them, or even those who showed them kindness. He was
blind in one eye, and that was the one he looked at animals with,
unless they had hoofs or horns and so might be tempted to go for
him, in which case he looked at them with the other, till he had
stared them out and could afford to ignore them.
Dogs were subservient and
~a\'ish,
and so were those people
who called them by name, petted and patted them . Such people
were also feminine and soft, and did not know why they were on
earth. They had to become friendly with dogs, as if such animals
could ever tell them why. Because of these blind and sweeping pre–
judices a large section of English humanity was cut off from him,
which may have been exactly how he wanted it.
If
he kept dogs,
it was only because they had their uses, but they got little thanks
for it.
He was hard on human nature because it was hard on him. At
the same time it must be said that he did not totally lack it.
Women who were close to him, and those members of his own
family , feared and loathed him. Yet women who did not know his
true side (if there was such a thing ) were attracted by a certain
distance he put between them, and occasionally fell in love across
the gap of it, a space well-seasoned by his wry and bawdy sense of
humour when it wasn't filled by a dignified, and
po~sibly
defensive,
silence.
In his prime and heyday he was over six feet tall , and extremely
strong. There was no fat on him, and not much muscle, either, but
