White Fang by Jack London - Part 4, Chapter 6 - The Love-Master

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Part four, Chapter six of White Fang. This LibriVox recording
is in the public domain and is read by Mark
Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. White Fang by Jack London,
Part four, Chapter six, The Love Master. As White Fang

(00:22):
watched Wheden Scott approach, he bristled and snarled to advertise
that he would not submit to punishment. Twenty four hours
had passed since he had slashed open the hand that
was now bandaged and held up by a sling to
keep the blood out of it. In the past, White
Fang had experienced delayed punishments, and he apprehended that such
a one was about to befall him. How could it

(00:44):
be otherwise? He had committed what was to him sacrilege,
sunk his fangs into the holy flesh of a god,
and of a white skinned superior god. At that, in
the nature of things and of intercourse with gods, something
arable awaited him. The God sat down several feet away.

(01:05):
White Fang could see nothing dangerous in that when the
gods administered punishment, they stood on their legs. Besides, this
God had no club, no whip, no firearm. And furthermore,
he himself was free, no chain nor stick bound him.
He could escape into safety while the God was scrambling
to his feet. In the meantime, he could wait and see.

(01:29):
The God remained quiet, made no movement, and White Fang's
snarl slowly dwindled to a growl that ebbed down in
his throat and seized. Then the God spoke, and at
the first sound of his voice, the hair rose on
White Fang's neck and the growl rushed up in his throat.
But the God made no hostile movement and went on

(01:52):
calmly talking. For a time. White Fang growled in unison
with him, a correspondence of rhythm being established between growl
and voice. But the God talked dawn interminably. He talked
to White Fang as White Fang had never been talked
to before. He talked softly and soothingly, with a gentleness

(02:14):
that somehow somewhere touched White Fang. In spite of himself
and all the prickling warnings of his instinct, White Fang
began to have confidence in this god. He had a
feeling of security that was belied by all his experience
with men. After a long time, the God got up
and went into the cabin, White Fang scanned him apprehensively.

(02:37):
When he came out, he had neither whip, nor club
nor weapon, nor was his uninjured hand behind his back
hiding something. He sat down, as before, in the same spot,
several feet away. He held out a small piece of meat.
White Fang pricked his ears and investigated it suspiciously, managing

(02:59):
to look at the same same time both at the
meat and the God, alert for any overt act, his
body tense and ready to spring away at the first
sign of hostility. Still the punishment delayed. The god merely
held near to his nose a piece of meat, and
about the meat there seemed nothing wrong. Still, White Fang suspected,

(03:22):
and though the meat was proffered to him with short,
inviting thrusts of the hand, he refused to touch it. The
gods were all wise, and there was no telling what
masterful treachery lurked behind that apparently harmless piece of meat.
In past experience, especially in dealing with squaws, meat and
punishment had often been disastrously related. In the end, the

(03:47):
god tossed the meat on the snow at Whitefang's feet.
He smelled the meat carefully, but he did not look
at it. While he smelled it. He kept his eyes
on the God. Nothing happened. He took the meat into
his mouth and swallowed it. Still nothing happened. The God
was actually offering him another piece of meat. Again, he

(04:10):
refused to take it from the hand, and again it
was tossed to him. This was repeated a number of times,
but there came a time when the God refused to
toss it. He kept it in his hand and steadfastly
proffered it. The meat was good meat, and White Fang
was hungry, bit by bit, Infinitely cautious, he approached the hand.

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At last, the time came that he decided to eat
the meat from the hand. He never took his eyes
from the God, thrusting his head forward with ears flattened
back and hair involuntarily rising and cresting on his neck. Also,
a low growl rumbled in his throat, as warning that
he was not to be trifled with. He ate the meat,

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and nothing happened. Piece by piece, he ate all the meat,
and nothing happened. Still the punishment delayed. He licked his
chops and waited. The God went on talking. In his
voice was kindness, something of which White Fang had no
experience whatever, and within him it aroused feelings which he

(05:18):
had likewise never experienced before. He was aware of a
certain strange satisfaction, as though some need were being gratified,
as though some void in his being were being filled.
Then again came the prod of his instinct and the
warning of past experience. The gods were ever crafty, and

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they had unguessed ways of attaining their ends. Ah, he
had thought, so there it came now, the God's hand,
cunning to hurt, thrusting out at him, descending upon his head.
But the god went on talking. His voice was soft
and soothing. In spite of the menacing hand, the voice

(06:01):
inspired confidence, and in spite of the assuring voice, the
hand inspired distrust. White Fang was torn by conflicting feelings impulses.
It seemed he would fly to pieces, so terrible was
the control he was exerting, holding together by an unwonted indecision,
the counter forces that struggled within him for mastery he compromised.

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He snarled and bristled, and flattened his ears, but he
neither snapped nor sprang away. The hand descended nearer and
nearer it came it touched the ends of his upstanding hair.
He shrank down under it. It followed down after him,
pressing more closely against him. Shrinking, almost shivering, he still

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managed to hold himself together. It was a torment, this
hand that touched him and violated his instinct. He could
not forget in a day all the evil that had
been wrought him at the hands of men. But it
was the will of the God, and he strove to submit.
The hand lifted and descended again in a padding, caressing movement.

(07:14):
This continued, but every time the hand lifted, the hair
lifted under it, and every time the hand descended, the
ears flattened down in a cavernous growl surged in his throat.
White fang growled and growled with insistent warning. By this means,
he announced that he was prepared to retaliate for any
hurt he might receive. There was no telling when the

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God's ulterior motive might be disclosed. At any moment, that soft,
confidence inspiring voice might break forth in a roar of wrath,
that gentle and caressing hand transform itself into a vice
like grip to hold him helpless and administer punishment. But
the God talked on softly, and ever the hand rose

(08:01):
and fell with non hostile pats. White Fang experienced dual feelings.
It was distasteful to his instinct. It restrained him, opposed
the will of him toward personal liberty, and yet it
was not physically painful. On the contrary, it was even
pleasant in a physical way. The padding movement slowly and

(08:24):
carefully changed to a rubbing of the ears about their bases,
and the physical pleasure even increased a little. Yety continued
to fear, and he stood on guard, expectant of unguessed evil,
alternately suffering and enjoying, as one feeling or the other
came uppermost and swayed him. Well, I'll be gauss swoggled,

(08:49):
so spoke Matt, coming out of the cabin, his sleeves
rolled up a pan of dirty dish water in his hands,
arrested in the act of emptying the pan by the
side of wheat, and Scott passed, adding White Fang. At
the instant his voice broke the silence, White Fang leaped back,
snarling savagely at him. Matt regarded his employer with grieved disapproval.

(09:13):
If you don't mind my express and my feelings, mister Scott,
I'll make free to say you're seventeen kinds of a
damn fool, and all of them different. And then some
whed and Scott smiled with a superior air, gained his
feet and walked over to White Fang. He talked soothingly
to him, but not for long. Then slowly put out

(09:36):
his hand, rested it on White Fang's head, and resumed
the interrupted patting. White Fang endured it, keeping his eyes
fixed suspiciously, not upon the man that patted him, but
upon the man that stood in the doorway. You may
be a number one tip top min an expert. All right,

(09:56):
all right, the dog musherd delivered himself for acularly. But
you missed the chance of your life when you was
a boy and didn't run off and join a circus.
White Fang snarled at the sound of the voice, but
this time did not leap away from under the hand
that was caressing his head and the back of his
neck with long, soothing strokes. It was the beginning of

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the end for White Fang, the ending of the old
life and the reign of hate, a new and incomprehensibly
fairer life. Was dawning. It required much thinking and endless
patience on the part of Wheaton Scott to accomplish this,
and on the part of White Fang it required nothing
less than a revolution. He had to ignore the urges

(10:44):
and promptings of instinct and reason, defy experience, give the
lie to life itself. Life as he had known it
not only had had no place in it for much
that he now did, but all the currents had gone
counter to those to which he now abandoned himself. In short,

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when all things were considered, he had to achieve an
orientation far vaster than the want he had achieved at
the time he came voluntarily in from the wild and
accept a gray beaver as his lord. At that time
he was a mere puppy, soft from the making, without form,
ready for the thumb of circumstance to begin its work

(11:26):
upon him. But now it was different. The thumb of
circumstance had done its work only too well. By it,
he had been formed and hardened into the fighting wolf,
fierce and implacable, unloving and unlovable. To accomplish the change
was like a reflux of being. And this when the

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plasticity of youth was no longer his, when the fiber
of him had become tough and naughty, when the warp
and woof of him had made of him an adamantine texture,
harsh and unyielding, when the base of his spirit had
become iron, and all his instincts and axioms had crystallized
into set rules, cautions, dislikes, and desires. Yet again, in

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this new orientation, it was the thumb of circumstance that
pressed and prodded him, softening that which had become hard
and remolding it into fairer form. Whed and Scott was,
in truth this thumb. He had gone to the roots
of Whitefang's nature, and with kindness touched to life potencies

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that had languished and well nigh perished. One such potency
was love. It took the place of like, which latter
had been the highest feeling that thrilled him in his
intercourse with the gods. But this love did not come
in a day. It began with like, and out of
it slowly developed. White Fang did not run away, though

(12:56):
he was allowed to remain loose, because he liked this
new God. This was certainly better than the life he
had lived in the cage of Beauty Smith, and it
was necessary that he should have some god. The lordship
of man was in need of his nature. The seal
of his dependence on man had been set upon him
in that early day when he turned his back on

(13:19):
the wild and crawled to gray Beaver's feet to receive
the expected beating. This seal had been stamped upon him
again and ineradicably on his second return from the wild,
when the long famine was over and there was fish
once more in the village of gray Beaver. And so,
because he needed a god, and because he preferred Wheat

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and Scott to Beauty Smith, white Fang remained in acknowledgment
of fealty. He proceeded to take upon himself the guardianship
of his master's property. He prowled about the cabin while
the sled dog slept, and the first night visitor to
the cabin fought him off with a club until Wheaton
Scott came to the rescue. But White Fang soon learned

(14:03):
to differentiate between thieves and honest men to appraise the
true value of step and carriage. The man who traveled loud,
stepping the direct line to the cabin door, he let alone,
though he watched im vigilantly until the door opened, and
he received the endorsement of the master. But the man
who went softly by circuitous ways, peering with caution, seeking

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after secrecy, that was the man who received no suspension
of judgment from White Fang, and who went away abruptly, hurriedly,
and without dignity. Wheat and Scott had set himself the
task of redeeming White Fang, or rather of redeeming mankind
from the wrong it had done White Fang. It was

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a matter of principle and conscience. He felt that the
ill done White Fang was a debt incurred by man,
and that it must be paid. So he went out
of a way to be especially kind to the fighting wolf.
Each day he made it a point to caress and
pet Whitefang, and to do it at length. At first

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suspicious and hostile, White Fang grew to like this petting.
But there was one thing that he never outgrew, his
growling growl. He would from the moment the petting began
till it ended. But it was a growl with a
new note in it. A stranger could not hear this note,
and to such a stranger. The growling of Whitefang was

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an exhibition of primordial savagery, nerve wracking, and blood curdling.
But Whitefang's throat had become harsh fibered from the making
of ferocious sounds through the many years since his first
little rasp of anger in the lair of his cubhood,
and he could not soften the sounds of that throat
now to express the gentleness he felt. Nevertheless, Wheat and

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Scott's ear and sympathy were fine enough to catch the
new note, all but drowned in the fierceness, the note
that was the faintest hint of a croon of content,
and that none but he could hear. As the days
went by, the evolution of like into love was accelerated.
Whitefang himself began to grow aware of it, though in

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his consciousness he knew not what love was. It manifested
itself to him as a void in his being, a hungry, aching,
yearning void that clamored to be filled. It was a
pain and an unrest, and it received easement only by
the touch of the New God's presence. At such times,

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love was joy to him, a wild, keen thrilling satisfaction.
But when away from his God, the pain and the
unrest returned. The void in him sprang up and pressed
against him with its emptiness, and the hunger gnawed and
gnawed unceasingly. White Fang was in the process of finding himself.

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In spite of the maturity of his years and of
the savage rigidity of the mold that had formed him,
his nature was undergoing an expansion. There was a burgeoning
within him of strange feelings and unwonted impulses. His old
code of conduct was changing. In the past, he had
liked comfort and surcease from pain, disliked discomfort and pain,

(17:25):
and he had adjusted his actions accordingly. But now it
was different. Because of this new feeling within him, he
ofttimes elected discomfort and pain for the sake of his God. Thus,
in the early morning, instead of roaming and foraging or
lying in a sheltered nook, he would wait for hours

(17:45):
on the cheerless cabin stoop for a sight of the
God's face. At night, when the God returned home, Whitefang
would leave the warm sleeping place he had burrowed in
the snow in order to receive the friendly snap of
fingers and the word of greeting, meet, even meet itself.
He would forego to be with his God, to receive

(18:07):
a caress from him, or to accompany him down into
the town. Lie had been replaced by love, And love
was the plummet dropped down into the deeps of him
where like had never gone, and responsive out of his
deeps had come the new thing, love, that which was
given unto him did he return. This was a God,

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indeed a love God, a warm and radiant God in
whose light White Fang's nature expanded as a flower expands
under the sun. But White Fang was not demonstrative. He
was too old, too firmly molded, to become adept at
expressing himself in new ways. He was too self possessed,

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too strongly poised in his own isolation. Too long had
he cultivated reticence alone, sloofness and moroseness. He had never
barked in his life, and he could not now learn
to bark a welcome when his God approached. He was
never in the way, never extravagant nor foolish in the
expression of his love. He never ran to meet his God.

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He waited at a distance, But he always waited, was
always there. His love partook of the nature of worship, dumb, inarticulate,
a silent adoration. Only by the steady regard of his
eyes did he express his love, and by the unceasing
following with his eyes of his God's every movement. Also

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at times when his God looked at him and spoke
to him. He betrayed an awkward self consciousness caused by
the struggle of his love to express itself and his
physical inability to express it. He learned to adjust himself
in many ways to his new mode of life. It
was borne in upon him that he must let his

(19:58):
master's dogs alone. Yet his dominant nature asserted itself, and
he had first to thrash them into an acknowledgment of
his superiority and leadership. This accomplished, he had little trouble
with them. They gave trail to him when he came
and went or walked among them, and when he asserted
his will, they obeyed. In the same way, he came

(20:21):
to tolerate Matt as a possession of his master. His
master rarely fed him. Matt did that it was his business,
Yet White Fang divined that it was his master's food
he ate, and that it was his master who thus
fed him vicariously. Matt it was who tried to put
him into the harness and make him haul sled with

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the other dogs, but Matt failed. It was not until
Wheat and Scott put the harness on Whitefang and worked
him that he understood. He took it as his master's
will that Matt should drive him and work him, just
as he drove and worked his master's other dogs. Different
from the Mackenzie Toboggans were the Klondike sleds with runners

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under them, and different was the method of driving the dogs.
There was no fan formation of the team. The dogs
worked in single file, one behind another, hauling on double traces.
And here in the Klondike, the leader was indeed the leader.
The wisest as well as strongest dog was the leader,

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and the team obeyed him and feared him. That White
Fang should quickly gain this post was inevitable. He could
not be satisfied with less, as Matt learned. After much
inconvenience and trouble, White Fang picked out the post for himself,
and Matt backed his judgment with strong language. After the
experiment had been tried. But though he worked in the

(21:48):
sled in the day, White Fang did not forego the
guarding of his master's property in the night. Thus he
was on duty all the time, ever vigilant and faithful,
the most value of all the dogs, making free to
spit out what's in me. Matt said, one day, I
beg to state that you was a wise guy, all right,

(22:10):
when you paid the price you did for that dog
you clean swindle, beauty Smith. On top of pushing his
face in with your fist, A recrudescence of anger glinted
in wheat and Scott's gray eyes, and he muttered savagely
the beast. In the late spring, a great trouble came
to White Fang. Without warning, the love Master disappeared. There

(22:34):
had been warning, but White Fang was unversed in such
things and did not understand the packing of a grip.
He remembered afterwards that his packing had preceded the master's disappearance,
but at the time he suspected nothing. That night, he
waited for the Master to return. At midnight, the chill
wind that blew drove him to shelter at the rear

(22:55):
of the cabin. There he drowsed only half asleep. His
ears keyed for the first sound of the familiar step,
but at two in the morning, his anxiety drove him
out to the cold front stoop, where he crouched and waited,
but no master came. In the morning, the door opened
and Matt stepped outside. White Fang gazed at him wistfully.

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There was no common speech by which he might learn
what he wanted to know. The days came and went,
but never the master. Whitefang, who had never known sickness
in his life, became sick. He became very sick, so
sick that Matt was finally compelled to bring him inside
the cabin. Also, in writing to his employer, Matt devoted

(23:42):
a PostScript to Whitefang. Wheed and Scott, reading the letter
down in Circle City, came upon the following that damn
Wolf won't work, won't eat, ain't got no spunk left.
All the dogs is licking him. Wants to know what
has become of you, and I don't know how to
tell him. Maybe he is going to die. It was

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as Matt had said, White Fang had ceased, eating lost
heart and allowed every dog of the team to thrash
him in the cabin, he lay on the floor near
the stove, without interest in food, in Matt nor in life.
Matt might talk gently to him or swear at him,
it was all the same. He never did more than

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turn his dull eyes upon the man, then drop his
head back to its customary position on his fore paws.
And then one night, Matt, reading to himself with moving
lips and mumbled sounds, was startled by a low whine
from White Fang. He had got upon his feet, his
ears cocked towards the door, and he was listening intently.

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A moment later Matt heard a footstep. The door opened,
and Wheat and Scott stepped in. The two men shook hands.
Then Scott looked around the room. Where's the wolf, he asked.
Then he discovered him, standing where he had been lying
near to the stove. He had not rushed forward after
the manner of other dogs. He stood watching and waiting.

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Holy smoke, Matt exclaimed, look at him Waggy's tail. Wheat
and Scott strode half across the room toward him at
the same time, calling him. White Fang came to him,
not with a great bound, yet quickly he was awakened
from self consciousness. But as he drew near his eyes

(25:34):
took on a strange expression. Something, an incommunicable fastness of feeling,
rose up into his eyes as a light and shone forth.
He never looked at me that way all the time
you was gone, Mat commented Wheat, and Scott did not hear.

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He was squatting down on his heels, face to face
with white Fang and petting him, rubbing at the roots
of the ears, making long caressing strokes down the neck
to the shoulders, tapping the spine gently with the balls
of his fingers. And White Fang was growling responsively, the
crooning note of the growl more pronounced than ever. But

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that was not all. What of his joy? The great
love in him, ever surging and struggling to express itself,
succeeded in finding a new mode of expression. He suddenly
thrust his head forward and nudged his way in between
his master's arm and body, and here confined, hidden from
view all except his ears. No longer growling, he continued

(26:39):
to nudge and snuggle. The two men looked at each other.
Scott's eyes were shining. Gosh, said Matt in an awe
stricken voice. A moment later, when he had recovered himself,
he said, I always insisted that Wolf was a dog.
Look at him. With the return of the love Master,

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Whitefang's recovery was rapid. Two nights and a day he
spent in the cabin. Then he sallied forth. The sled
dogs had forgotten his prowess. They remembered only the latest,
which was his weakness and sickness. At the sight of
him as he came out of the cabin, they sprang
upon him, talk about your rough houses, Matt murmured, gleefully,

(27:25):
standing in the doorway and looking on. Give him hell,
you Wolf, Give him hell and then some. White Fang
did not need the encouragement. The return of the love
Master was enough. Life was flowing through him again, splendid
and indomitable. He fought from sheer joy, finding in it

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an expression of much that he felt and that otherwise
was without speech. There could be but one ending. The
team dispersed in ignominious defeat, and it was not until
after dark that the dogs came, sneaking back, one by
one by meekness and humility, signifying their fealty to White Fang.

(28:07):
Having learned to snuggle white fang was guilty of it.
Often it was the final word. He could not go
beyond it. The one thing of which he had always
been particularly jealous was his head. He had always disliked
to have it touched. It was the wild in him,
the fear of hurt and of the trap, that had

(28:27):
given rise to the panicky impulses to avoid contacts. It
was the mandate of his instinct that his head must
be free, and now with the love Master. His snuggling
was the deliberate act of putting himself into a position
of hopeless helplessness. It was an expression of perfect confidence,
of absolute self surrender, as though he said, I put

(28:52):
myself into thy hands. Wert thou thy will with me.
One night, not long after the return, Scott and Matt
sat at a game of cribbage preliminary to going to
bed fifteen two fifteen four and a pair make six.
Matt was pegging up when there was an outcry and

(29:13):
sound of snarling. Without they looked at each other as
they started to rise to their feet. The wolf's nailed somebody,
Matt said. A wild scream of fear and anguish hastened
them bring a light Scott shouted as he sprang outside.
Matt followed with the lamp, and by its light they
saw a man lying on his back in the snow.

(29:35):
His arms were folded one above the other across his
face and throat. Thus he was trying to shield himself
from White Fang's teeth, and there was need for it.
White Fang was in a rage, wickedly making his attack
on the most vulnerable spot from shoulder to wrist of
the crossed arms. The coat sleeve, blue flannel shirt, and

(29:56):
undershirt were ripped in rags, while the arms themselves were
terribly slashed and streaming blood. All this the two men
saw in the first instant. The next instant, wheed and
Scott had White Fang by the throat and was dragging
him clear. White Fang struggled and snarled, but made no
attempt to bite, while he quickly quieted down at a

(30:17):
sharp word from the Master, Matt helped the man to
his feet. As he arose, he lowered his crossed arms,
exposing the bestial face of beauty. Smith. The dog musher
let go of him precipitately, with action similar to that
of a man who has picked up live fire. Beauty

(30:38):
Smith blinked in the lamplight and looked about him. He
caught sight of White Fang, and terror rushed into his face.
At the same moment, Matt noticed two objects lying in
the snow. He held the lamp close to them, indicating
them with his toe for his employer's benefit. A steel
dog chain and a stout club wheedon. Scott saw and nodded.

(31:01):
Not a word was spoken. The dog Musher laid his
hand on Beauty Smith's shoulder and faced him to the
right about no word needed to be spoken. Beauty Smith started.
In the meantime, the love Master was patting White Fang
and talking to him. Tried to steal you, eh, and
you wouldn't have it? Well, well, he made a mistake,

(31:24):
didn't He must have thought he had hold us seventeen devils.
The dog Musher sniggered. White Fang, still wrought up and bristling,
growled and growled, the hair slowly lying down, the crooning
note remote and dim but growing in his throat. End

(31:45):
of chapter six