Tess

Tess is George Glenn’s sheepdog, his most faithful companion, and—by the flock’s understanding—the great love of his life. Her absence after his death becomes one of the flock’s first unresolved questions: she is not merely missing from the pasture, but missing from the world George left behind. When she eventually returns with Rebecca, her changed behavior gives that absence an emotional aftermath, and a faint wag of her tail becomes a restrained sign of recovery.

Identity and Life with George

Tess is a working sheepdog, but her attachment to George shapes how she performs that work. During the last weeks of his life, George comes to the meadow less often. Sometimes he drives past in his car without stopping; Tess jumps out and gets the sheep moving in the morning, then she and George return in the evening to count them. The flock is left on its own during the day.

George had tried to teach Tess to herd the sheep in his absence. She, however, regarded her main responsibility as herding George. She would bring the sheep along only as a favor to him. The sheep’s account makes the distinction telling: Tess can do the work, but her loyalty is directed first toward one person. Her duty to the flock grows out of her devotion to George rather than replacing it.

The flock remembers her as exceptionally gentle and faithful. When she disappears after George’s death, Miss Maple thinks that Tess would have done anything for him. The thought makes her absence more disturbing: if Tess has run away, the sheep reason, something terrible must have happened to George. Their inference is not proof of what happened to Tess, but it reveals how completely they associate her presence with his safety and life.

Absence and the Questions It Leaves

After the flock discovers George’s body, Miss Maple asks where Tess is. The question remains beside the mystery of the murder, because neither Tess nor her whereabouts can immediately explain what has happened. The sheep have lost both their shepherd and their sheepdog; they must face the pasture without either of the figures who had organized their daily life.

Tess’s absence also sharpens the contrast between George’s former routine and the final weeks the sheep remember. He had become less present, while Tess continued to appear in the morning and evening with him, helping move and count the sheep. Her disappearance therefore breaks a pattern the flock had relied on, even though that pattern had already been altered by George’s growing absence.

The toolshed preserves a small material trace of Tess: among George’s familiar equipment is a flea collar for her. The sheep recognize the object as part of the ordinary world of his care for the dog. It offers no explanation for her disappearance, but its place among the tools and supplies connects Tess to the practical routines of the farm, rather than to the flock’s more uncertain theories about the killing.

Return with Rebecca

Tess eventually comes back in Rebecca’s car. She has strange, sad eyes and does not race across the meadow as she used to. Nor does she leap around the caravan looking for George. Instead, she stays close to Rebecca, following her red skirt like a very young lamb following its mother. The image marks a reversal in her familiar role: the dog who once set the sheep in motion now trails behind someone else, quiet and dependent.

Rebecca’s arrival brings Tess back into the sheep’s sight, but it does not restore her old manner. She is present without returning to her former exuberance, and the flock can see that her grief or distress has endured. The narrative does not explain where she was before Rebecca brought her back or what she experienced during that time. Her changed eyes and behavior are the evidence the sheep—and the reader—are given.

Later, while Rebecca sits on the caravan steps, her hand gently pats Tess’s head. Tess wags her tail very slightly, and the narration notes that it is the first wag in a long time. The gesture is modest: it does not make her grief disappear or return her to her earlier energy. It does show that, in Rebecca’s company, a small response has become possible again. When Rebecca goes into the caravan, Tess follows at her heels.

Role in the Ending

Tess’s return places her alongside Rebecca as the flock’s new shepherdess takes up the work of caring for them. George’s dog does not replace him, and the sheep do not mistake her loyalty to Rebecca for a restoration of the old household. Instead, Tess’s quiet closeness to Rebecca gives the ending a visible thread of continuity after George’s death: care and companionship persist, though in changed forms.

Her final presence is also bound to the flock’s imminent departure. Rebecca tells the sheep that they will leave for Europe the next day, very early, and then disappears into the caravan with Tess following. The dog who once helped guide the sheep through their daily movements is now accompanying the person who will lead them onward. Tess’s place in this closing scene is small but decisive: she is no longer a missing figure at the edge of the murder mystery, but a living companion entering the flock’s next journey, carrying the sadness of the old life and the first faint sign of renewed attachment.