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I WAS bitten severely by a
little dog when with my mother at Moffat Wells, being then three years of
age, and I have remained "bitten" ever since in the matter of dogs. I
remember that little dog, and can at this moment not only recall my pain and
terror — I have no doubt I was to blame — but also her face; and were I
allowed to search among the shades in the cynic Elysian fields, I could pick
her out still. All my life I have been familiar with these faithful
creatures, making friends of them, and speaking to them; and the only time I
ever addressed the public, about a year after being bitten, was at the farm
of Kirklaw Hill, near Biggar, when the text, given out from an empty cart in
which the ploughmen had placed me, was "Jacob's dog," and my entire sermon
was as follows: — "Some say that Jacob had a black dog (the o very long),
and some say that Jacob had a white dog, but I (imagine the presumption of
four years!) say Jacob had a brown dog, and a brown dog it shall be."
I had many intimacies from
this time onwards —Bawtie, of the inn; Keeper, the carrier's bull terrier;
Tiger, a huge tawny mastiff from Edinburgh, which I think must have been an
uncle of Rab's; all the sheep dogs at Callands — Spring, Mavis, Yarrow,
Swallow, Cheviot, etc.; but it was not till I was at college, and my brother
at the High School, that we possessed a dog.
TOBY
Was the most utterly shabby,
vulgar, mean-looking cur I ever beheld: in one word, a tyke. He had not one
good feature except his teeth and eyes, and his bark, if that can be called
a feature. He was not ugly enough to be interesting; his color black and
white, his shape leggy and clumsy; altogether what Sydney Smith would have
called an extraordinarily ordinary dog; and, as I have said, not even
greatly ugly, or, as the Aberdonians have it, bonnie wi' illfauredness.
My brother William found him the centre of attraction to a multitude of
small blackguards who were drowning him slowly in Lochend Loch, doing their
best to lengthen out the process, and secure the greatest amount of fun with
the nearest approach to death. Even then Toby showed his great intellect by
pretending to be dead, and thus gaining time and an inspiration. William
bought him for twopence, and as he had it not, the boys accompanied him to
Pilrig Street, when I happened to meet him, and giving the twopence to the
biggest boy, had the satisfaction of seeing a general engagement of much
severity, during which the twopence disappeared; one penny going off with a
very small and swift boy, and the other vanishing hopelessly into the
grating of a drain.
Toby was for weeks in the house unbeknown to any one but ourselves two and
the cook, and from my grandmother's love of tidiness and hatred of dogs and
of dirt I believe she would have expelled "him whom we saved from drowning,"
had not he, in his straightforward way, walked into my father's bedroom one
night when lie was bathing his feet, and introduced himself with a wag of
his tail, intimating a general willingness to be happy. My father laughed
most heartily, and at last Toby, having got his way to his bare feet, and
having begun to lick his soles and between his toes with his small rough
tongue, my father gave such an unwonted shout of laughter that we —
grandmother, sisters, and all of us — went in. Grandmother might argue with
all her energy and skill, but as surely as the pressure of Tom Jones'
infantile fist upon Mr. Allworthy's forefinger undid all the arguments of
his sister, so (lid Toby's tongue and fun prove too many for grandmother's
eloquence. I somehow think Toby must have been up to all this, for I think
he had a peculiar love for my father ever after, and regarded grandmother
from that hour with a careful and cool eye.
'Toby, when full grown, was a strong, coarse
dog; coarse in shape, in countenance, in hair, and in manner. I used to
think that, according to the Pythagorean doctrine, he must have been, or
been going to be a Gilmerton carter. He was of the bull terrier variety,
coarsened through much mongrelism and a dubious and varied ancestry. His
teeth were good, and lie had a large skull, and a rich bark as of a dog
three times his size, and a tail which I never saw equaled — indeed it was a
tail per se; it was of immense girth and not short, equal throughout like a
policeman's baton; the machinery for working it was of great power, and
acted in a way, as far as I have been able to discover, quite original. We
called it his ruler.
When he wished to get into the house, he first whined gently, then growled,
then gave a sharp bark, and then came a resounding, mighty stroke which
shook the house; this, after much study and watching, we found was done by
his bringing the entire length of his solid tail flat upon the door, with a
sudden and vigorous stroke; it was quite a tour de force or a coup de queue,
and lie was perfect in it at once, his first bang authoritative, having been
as masterly and telling as his last.
With all this inbred vulgar air, he was a dog of
great moral excellence — affectionate, faithful, honest up to his light,
with an odd humor as peculiar and as strong as his tail. My father, in his
reserved way, was very fond of him, and there must have been very funny
scenes with them, for we heard bursts of laughter issuing from his study
when they two were by themselves; there was something in him that took that
grave, beautiful, melancholy face. One can fancy him in the midst of his
books, and sacred work and thoughts, pausing and looking at the secular
Toby, who was looking out for a smile to begin his rough fun, and about to
end by coursing and gurrin' round the room, upsetting my father's books,
laid out on the floor for consultation, and himself nearly at times, as he
stood watching him — and off his guard and shaking with laughter. Toby had
always a great desire to accompany my father up to town; this my father's
good taste and sense of dignity, besides his fear of losing his friend (a
vain fear':, forbade, and as the decision of character of each was great and
nearly equal, it was often a drawn game. Toby ultimately, by making it his
entire object, triumphed. He usually was nowhere to be seen on my father
leaving; he however saw him, and lay in wait at the head of the street, and
up Leith Walk he kept him in view from the opposite side like a detective,
and then, when he knew it was hopeless to hound him home, he crossed
unblushingly over, and joined company, excessively rejoiced of course.
One Sunday he had gone with him to church, and
left him at the vestry door. The second psalm was given out, and my father
was sitting back in the pulpit, when the door at its back, up which he came
from the vestry was seen to move, and gently open, then, after a long pause,
a black shining snout pushed its way steadily into the congregation, and was
followed by Toby's entire body. He looked somewhat abashed, but snuffing his
friend, he advanced as if on thin ice, and not seeing him, put his forelegs
on the pulpit, and behold there he was, his own familiar chum. I watched all
this, and anything more beautiful than his look of happiness, of comfort, of
entire ease when he beheld his friend, — the smoothing down of the anxious
ears, the swing of gladness of that mighty tail, — I don't expect soon to
see. My father quietly opened the door, and Toby was at his feet and
invisible to all but himself; had he sent old George Peaston, the
"minister's man," to put him out, Toby would probably have shown his teeth,
and astonished George. He slunk home as soon as he could, and never repeated
that exploit. I never
saw in any other dog the sudden transition from discretion, not to say
abject cowardice, to blazing and permanent valor. From his earliest years he
showed a general meanness of blood, inherited from many generations of
starved, bekicked, and down-trodden forefathers and mothers, resulting in a
condition of intense abjectness in all matters of personal fear; anybody,
even a beggar, by a Bowl and a threat of eye, could send him off howling by
anticipation, with that mighty tail between his legs. But it was not always
so to be, and I had the privilege of seeing courage, reasonable, absolute,
and for life, spring up in Toby at once, as did Athene from the skull of
Jove. It happened thus:-
Toby was in the way of hiding his culinary bones
in the small gardens before his own and the neighboring doors. Mr.
Scrymgeour, two doors off, a bulky, choleric, red-haired, red-faced man —
torvo vultu — was, by the law of contrast, a great cultivator of flowers,
and he had often scowled Toby into all but nonexistence by a stamp of his
foot and a glare of his eye. One day his gate being open, in walks Toby with
a huge bone, and making a hole where Scrymgeour had two minutes before been
planting some precious slip, the name of which on paper and on a stick Toby
made very light of, substituted his bone, and was engaged covering it, or
thinking he was covering it up with his shoveling nose (a very odd relic of
paradise in the dog), when S. spied him through the inner glass door, and
was out upon him like the Assyrian, with a terrible goal. I watched them.
Instantly Toby made straight at him with a roar too, and an eye more torve
than Scrymgeour's, who, retreating without reserve, fell prostrate, there is
reason to believe, in his own lobby. Toby contented himself with proclaiming
his victory at the door, and returning finished his bone-planting at his
leisure; the enemy, who had scuttled behind the glass-door, glaring at him.
From this moment Toby was an altered dog. Pluck
at first sight was lord of all; from that time dated his first tremendous
deliverance of tail against the door which we called "come listen to my
tail." That very evening he paid a visit to Leo, next door's dog, a big,
tyrannical bully and coward, which its master thought a Newfoundland, but
whose pedigree we knew better; this brute continued the same system of
chronic extermination which was interrupted at Lochend, — having Toby down
among his feet, and threatening hint with instant death two or three times a
day. To hire Toby paid a visit that very evening, down into his den, and
walked about, as much as to say "Come on, Macduff!" but Macduff did not come
on, and henceforward there was an armed neutrality, and they merely
stiffened up and made their backs rigid, pretended each not to see the
other, walking solemnly round, as is the manner of dogs. Toby worked his
new-found faculty thoroughly, but with discretion. He killed cats,
astonished beggars, kept his own in his own garden against all comers, and
came off victorious in several well-fought battles; but he was not
quarrelsome or foolhardy. It was very odd how his carriage changed, holding
his head up, and how much pleasanter he was at home. To my father, next to
William, who was his Humane Society man, he remained stanch. And what of his
end? for the misery of dogs is that they die so soon, or as Sir Walter says,
it is well they do; for if they lived as long as a Christian, and we liked
them in proportion, and they then died, he said that was a thing he could
not stand. His exit was
miserable, and had a strange poetic or tragic relation to his entrance. My
father was out of town; I was away in England. Whether it was that the
absence of my father had relaxed his power of moral restraint, or whether
through neglect of the servant he had been desperately hungry, or most
likely both being true, Toby was discovered with the remains of a cold leg
of mutton, on which he had made an ample meal; this he was in vain
endeavoring to plant as of old, in the hope of its remaining undiscovered
till to-morrow's hunger returned, the whole shank bone sticking up
unmistakably. This was seen by our excellent and Rhadamanthine grandmother,
who pronounced sentence on the instant; and next day, as William was leaving
for the High School, did he in the sour morning, through an easterly haur,
behold him "whom he saved from drowning," and whom, with better results than
in the case of Launce and Crab, he had taught, as if one should say, "thus
would I teach a dog," dangling by his own chain from his own lamp-post, one
of his hind feet just touching the pavement, and his body preternaturally
elongated. William
found him dead and warm, and falling in with the milk-boy at the head of the
street, questioned him, and discovered that he was the executioner, and had
got twopence, he — Toby's every morning crony, who met him and accompanied
him up the street, and licked the outside of his can — had, with an eye to
speed and convenience, and a want of taste, not to say principle and
affection, horrible still to think of, suspended Toby's animation beyond all
hope. William instantly fell upon him, upsetting his milk and cream, and
gave him a thorough licking, to his own intense relief ; and, being late, he
got from Pyper, who was a martinet, the customary palinies, which he bore
with something approaching to pleasure. So died Toby ; my father said
little, but he missed and mourned his friend.
There is reason to believe that by one of those
curious intertwistings of existence, the milk-boy was that one of the
drowning party who got the penny of the twopence.
WYLIE
Our next friend was an exquisite shepherd's dog;
fleet, thin-flanked, dainty, and handsome as a small grayhound, with all the
grace of silky waving black and tan hair. We got him thus. Being then young
and keen botanists, and full of the knowledge and love of Tweedside, having
been on every hill-top from Muckle Mendic to Hundleshope and the Lee Pen,
and having fished every water from Tarth to the Leithen, we discovered early
in spring that young Stewart, author of an excellent book on natural
history, a young man of great promise and early death, had found the
Buxbaumia aphylla, a beautiful and odd-looking moss, west of Newbie heights,
in the very month we were that moment in. We resolved to start next day. We
walked to Peebles, and then up Haystoun Glen to the cottage of Adam Cairns,
the aged shepherd of the Newbie hirsel, of whom we knew, and who knew of us
from his daughter, Nancy Cairns, a servant with Uncle Aitken of Callands. We
found our way up the burn with difficulty, as the evening was getting dark;
and on getting near the cottage heard them at worship. We got in, and made
ourselves known, and got a famous tea, and such cream and oat cake! — old
Adam looking on us as "clean dementit" to come out for "a bit moss," which,
however, he knew, and with some pride said he would take us in the morning
to the place. As we were going into a box bed for the night, two young men
came in, and said they were "gaun to burn the water." Off we set. It was a
clear, dark, starlight, frosty night. They had their leisters and tar
torches, and it was something worth seeing — the wild flame, the young
fellows striking the fish coming to the light — how splendid they looked
with the light on their scales, coming out of the darkness — the stumblings
and quenchings suddenly of the lights, as the torchbearer fell into a deep
pool. We got home past midnight, and slept as we seldom sleep now. In the
morning Adam, who had been long up, and had been up the "Hope " with his
dog, when he saw we had wakened, told us there was four inches of snow, and
we soon saw it was too true. So we had to go home without our cryptogamic
prize. It turned out
that Adam, who was an old man and frail, and had made some money, was going
at Whitsunday to leave, and live with his son in Glasgow. We had been
admiring the beauty and gentleness and perfect shape of Wylie, the finest
colley I ever saw, and said, "What are you going to do with Wylie?" "'Deed,"
says he, "I hardly ken. I can na think o' sellin' her, though she's worth
four pound, and she'll no like the toun." I said, "Would you let me have
her?" and Adam, looking at her fondly, — she came up instantly to him, and
made of hint, — said, "Ay, I wull, if ye'll be gude to her;" and it was
settled that when Adam left for Glasgow she should be sent into Albany
Street by the carrier.
She came, and was at once taken to all our hearts, even grandmother liked
her; and though she was often pensive, as if thinking of her master and her
work on the hills, she made herself at home, and behaved in all respects
like a lady. When out with me, if she saw sheep in the streets or road, she
got quite excited, and helped the work, and was curiously useful, the being
so making her wonderfully happy. And so her little life went on, never doing
wrong, always blithe and kind and beautiful. But some months after she came,
there was a mystery about her: every Tuesday evening she disappeared; we
tried to watch her, but in vain, she was always off by nine P. M., and was
away all night, coining back next day wearied and all over mud, as if she
had traveled far. She slept all next day. This went on for some months and
we could make nothing of it. Poor dear creature, she looked at us wistfully
when she came in, as if she would have told us if she could, and was
especially fond, though tired.
Well, one day I was walking
across the Grass-market, with Wylie at my heels, when two shepherds started,
and looking at her, one said, "That's her; that's the wonderfu' wee bitch
that naebody kens." I asked him what he meant, and he told me that for
months past she had made her appearance by the first daylight at the "buchts"
or sheep-pens in the cattle market, and worked incessantly, and to excellent
purpose in helping the shepherds to get their sheep and lambs in. The man
said with a sort of transport, "She's a perfect meeracle; flees about like a
speerit, and never gangs wrang; wears but never grups, and beats a' oor
dowgs. She's a perfect meeracle, and as soople as a inaukin." Then he
related how they all knew her, and said, "There's that wee fell yin; we'll
get them in noo." They tried to coax her to stop and be caught, but no, she
was gentle, but off; and for many a day that "wee fell yin" was spoken of by
these rough fellows. She continued this amateur work till she died, which
she did in peace. It is
very touching the regard the south-country shepherds have to their dogs.
Professor Syme one day, many years ago, when living in Forres Street, was
looking out of his window, and he saw a young shepherd striding down North
Charlotte Street, as if making for his house; it was midsummer. The man had
his dog with him, and Mr. Syme noticed that he followed the dog, and not it
him, though he contrived to steer for the house. He came, and was ushered
into his room; he wished advice about some ailment, and Mr. Syme saw that he
had a bit of twine round the dog's neck, which he let drop out of his hand
when he entered the room. He asked him the meaning of this, and he explained
that the magistrates had issued a mad-dog proclamation, commanding all dogs
to be muzzled or led on pain of death. "And why do you go about as I saw you
did before you came in to me?" "Oh," said he, looking awkward, "I did na
want Birkie to ken he was tied." Where will you find truer courtesy and
finer feeling ? He did n't want to hurt Birkie's feelings.
Mr. Carruthers of Inverness told me a new story
of these wise sheep dogs. A butcher from Inverness had purchased some sheep
at Dingwall, and giving them in charge to his dog, left the road. The dog
drove them on, till coming to a toll, the toll-wife stood before the drove,
demanding her dues. The dog looked at her, and, jumping on her back, crossed
his forelegs over her arms. The sheep passed through, and the dog took his
place behind them, and went on his way.
RAB.
Of Rab I have little to say, indeed have little
right to speak of him as one of "our dogs;" but nobody will be sorry to hear
anything of that noble fellow. Ailie, the day or two after the operation,
when she was well and cheery, spoke about him, and said she would tell me
fine stories when I came out, as I promised to do, to see her at Howgate. I
asked her how James came to get him. She told me that one clay she saw James
coming down from Leadburn with the cart; he had been away west, getting eggs
and butter, cheese and hens for Edinburgh. She saw he was in some trouble,
and on looking, there was what she thought a young calf being dragged, or,
as she called it, "haurled," at the back of the cart. James was in front,
and when lie came up, very warm and very angry, she saw that there was a
huge young dog tied to the cart, struggling and pulling back with all his
might, and as she said "lookin' fearsom." James, who was out of breath and
temper, being past his time, explained to Ailie, that this "muckle brute o'
a whalp" had been worrying sheep, and terrifying everybody up at Sir George
Montgomery's at Macbie Hill, and that Sir George had ordered him to be
hanged, which, however, was sooner said than done, as "the thief " showed
his intentions of dying hard. James came up just as Sir George had sent for
his gun, and as the dog had more than once shown a liking for him, lie said
he "wad gie him a chance;" and so lie tied him to his cart. Young Rab,
fearing some mischief, had been entering a series of protests all the way,
and nearly strangling himself to spite James and Jess, besides giving Jess
more than usual to do. "I wish I had let Sir George pit that charge into
him, the thrawn brute," said James. But Ailie had seen that in his foreleg
there was a splinter of wood, which he had likely got when objecting to be
hanged, and that he was miserably lame. So she got James to leave him with
her, and go straight into Edinburgh. She gave him water, and by her woman's
wit got his lame paw under a door, so that he could n't suddenly get at her,
then with a quick firm hand she plucked out the splinter, and put in an
ample meal. She went in some time after, taking no notice of him, and lie
came limping up, and laid his great jaws in her lap; from that moment they
were "chief," as she said, James finding him mansuete and civil when he
returned. She said it
was Rab's habit to make his appearance exactly half an hour before his
master, trotting in full of importance, as if to say, "He 's all right,
he'll be here." One morning James came without him. He had left Edinburgh
very early, and in coming near Auchindinny, at a lonely part of the road, a
man sprang out on him, and demanded his money. James, who was a cool hand,
said, "Weel a weel, let me get it," and stepping back, he said to Rab,
"Speak till him, my man." In an instant Rab was standing over him,
threatening strangulation if he stirred. James pushed on, leaving Rab in
charge; he looked back, and saw that every attempt to rise was summarily put
down. As he was telling Ailie the story, up came Rab with that great swing
of his. It turned out that the robber was a Howgate lad, the worthless son
of a neighbor, and Rab knowing him had let him cheaply off; the only thing,
which was seen by a man from a field, was, that before letting him rise, lie
quenched (pro tempore) the fire of the eyes of the ruffian, by a familiar
Gulliverian application of Hydraulics, which I need not further
particularize. James, who did not know the way to tell an untruth, or
embellish anything, told me this as what he called "a fact positeevely."
WASP
Was a dark brindled bull terrier, as pure in
blood as Cruiser or Wild Dayrell. She was brought by my brother from Otley,
in the West Riding. She was very handsome, fierce, and gentle, with a small,
compact, finely-shaped head, and a pair of wonderful eyes, — as full of fire
and of softness as Grisi's; indeed she had to my eye a curious look of that
wonderful genius — at once wild and fond. It was a fine sight to see her on
the prowl across Bowden Moor, now cantering with her nose down, now gathered
up on the top of a dyke, and with erect ears, looking across the wild like a
moss-trooper out on business, keen and fell. She could do everything it
became a dog to do, from killing an otter or a polecat, to watching and
playing with a baby, and was as docile to her master as she was surly to all
else. She was not quarrelsome, but "being in." she would have pleased
Polonius as much, as in being "ware of entrance." She was never beaten, and
she killed on the spot several of the country bullies who came out upon her
when following her master in his rounds. She generally sent them off howling
with one snap, but if this was not enough, she made an end of it.
But it was as a mother that she shone; and to
see the gypsy, Hagar-like creature nursing her occasional Ishmael — playing
with him, and fondling him all over, teaching his teeth to war, and with her
eye and the curl of her lip daring any one but her master to touch him, was
like seeing Grisi watching her darling "Gennaro," who so little knew why and
how much she loved him.
Once when she had three pups, one of them died.
For two days and nights she gave herself up to trying to bring it to life —
licking it and turning it over and over, growling over it, and all but
worrying it to awake it. She paid no attention to the living two, gave them
no milk, flung them away with her teeth, and would have killed them, had
they been allowed to remain with her. She was as one possessed, and neither
ate, nor drank, nor slept, was heavy and miserable with her milk, and in
such a state of excitement that no one could remove the dead pup.
Early on the third day she was seen to take the
pup in her mouth, and start across the fields towards the Tweed, striding
like a race-horse — she plunged in, holding up her burden, and at the middle
of the stream dropped it and swain swiftly ashore; then she stood and
watched the little dark lump floating away, bobbing up and down with the
current, and losing it at last far down, she made her way home, sought out
the living two, devoured them with her love, carried them one by one to her
lair, and gave herself up wholly to nurse them; you can fancy her mental and
bodily happiness and relief when they were pulling away — and theirs.
On one occasion my brother had lent her to a
woman who lived in a lonely house, and whose husband was away for a time.
She was a capital watch. One (lay an Italian with his organ came — first
begging, then demanding money — showing that he knew she was alone and that
he meant to help himself, if she did n't. She threatened to "lowse the
dowg;" but as this was Greek to hint, he pushed on. She had just time to set
Wasp at him. It was very short work. She had him by the throat, pulled him
and his organ down with a heavy crash, the organ giving a ludicrous sort of
cry of musical pain. Wasp, thinking this was from some creature within,
possibly a whittret, left the ruffian, and set to work tooth and nail on the
box. Its master slunk off, and with mingled fury and thankfulness watched
her disemboweling his only means of an honest living. The woman
good-naturedly took her off, and signed to the miscreant to make himself and
his remains scarce. This he did with a scowl; and was found in the evening
in the village, telling a series of lies to the watchmaker, and bribing him
with a shilling to mend his pipes -"his kist o' whussels."
JOCK
Was insane from his birth; at first an amabiLis
insania, but ending in mischief and sudden death. He was an English terrier,
fawn-colored; his mother's name VAMP (Vampire), and his father's DEMON. He
was more properly daft than mad; his courage, muscularity, and prodigious
animal spirits making him insufferable, and never allowing one sane feature
of himself any chance. No sooner was the street door open, than he was
throttling the first dog passing, bringing upon himself and me endless
grief. Cats lie tossed up into the air, and crushed their spines as they
fell. Old ladies he upset by jumping over their heads; old gentlemen by
running between their legs. At home, lie would think nothing of leaping
through the tea-things, upsetting the urn, cream, etc., and at dinner the
same sort of thing. I believe if I could have found time to thrash him
sufficiently, and let him n be a year older, we might have kept him; but
having upset an Earl. when the streets were muddy, I had to part with him.
He was sent to a clergyman in the island of Westray, one of the Orkneys; and
though he had a wretched voyage, and was as sick as any dog, He signalized
the first moment of his arrival at the manse by strangling an ancient
monkey, or "puggy," the pet of the minister, — who was a bachelor, — and the
wonder of the island. Jock henceforward took to evil courses, extracting the
kidneys of the best young rams, driving whole hirsels down steep places into
the sea, till at last all the guns of Westray were pointed at him, as he
stood at bay under a huge rock on the shore, and blew him into space. I
always regret his end, and blame myself for sparing the rod. Of
DUCHIE
I have already spoken; her oddities were
endless. We had and still have a dear friend,—"Cousin Susan" she is called
by many who are not her cousins, —a perfect lady, and, though hopelessly
deaf, as gentle and contented as was ever Griselda with the full use of her
ears; quite as great a pet, in a word, of us all as Duchie was of ours. One
day we found her mourning the death of a cat, a great playfellow of the
Sputchard's, and her small Grace was with us when we were condoling with her
and we saw that she looked very wistfully at Duchie. I wrote on the slate,
"Would you like her?" and she through her tears said, "You know that would
never do." But it did do. We left Duchie that very night, and though she
paid us frequent visits, she was Cousin Susan's for life. I fear indulgence
dulled her moral sense. She was an immense happiness to her mistress, whose
silent and lonely days she made glad with her oddity and mirth. And yet the
small creature, old, toothless, and blind, domineered over her gentle friend
— threatening her sometimes if she presumed to remove the small Fury from
the inside of her own bed, into which it pleased her to creep. Indeed, I
believe it is too true, though it was inferred only, that her mistress and
friend spent a great part of a winter night in trying to coax her dear
little ruffian out of the centre of the bed. One day the cook asked what she
would have for dinner: "I would like a mutton chop, but then, you know,
Duchie likes minced veal better! " The faithful and happy little creature
died at a great age, of natural decay.
But time would fail me, and I fear patience
would fail you, my reader, were I to tell you of CRAB, of JOHN PYM, of PUCK,
and of the rest. CRAB, the Mugger's dog, grave, with deep-set, melancholy
eyes, as of a nobleman (say the Master of Ravenswood) in disguise, large
visaged, shaggy, indomitable, come of the pure Piper Allan's breed. This
Piper Allan, you must know, lived some two hundred years ago in Cocquet
Water, piping like Homer, from place to place, and famous not less for his
dog than for his music, his news, and his songs. The Earl of Northumberland,
of his day, offered the piper a small farm for his dog, but after
deliberating for a clay Allan said, "Na, na, ma Lord, keep yir ferum; what
wud a piper do wi' a ferum?" From this dog descended Davidson of Hyndlee's
breed, the original DandieDinmont, and Crab could count his kin up to him.
He had a great look of the Right Honorable Edward Ellice, and had much of
his energy and wecht; had there been a dog House of Commons, Crab would have
spoken as seldom, and been as great a power in the house, as the formidable
and faithful time-outof-mind member for Coventry.
JOHN PYM was a smaller dog than Crab, of more
fashionable blood, being a son of Mr. Somner's famous SHEM, whose father and
brother are said to have been found dead in a drain into which the hounds
had run a fox. It had three entrances: the father was put in at one hole,
the son at another, and speedily the fox bolted out at the third, but no
appearance of the little terriers, and on digging, they were found dead,
locked in each other's jaws; they had met, and it being dark, and there
being no time for explanations, they had throttled each other. John was made
of the same sort of stuff, and was as combative and victorious as his great
namesake, and not unlike him in some of his not so creditable qualities. He
must, I think, have been related to a certain dog to whom "life was full o'
sairiousness," but in John's case the same cause produced an opposite
effect. John was gay and light-hearted, even when there was not "enuff of
fechtin," which, however, seldom happened, there being a market every week
in Melrose, and John appearing most punctually at the cross to challenge all
comers, and being short-legged he inveigled every dog into an engagement by
first attacking him, and then falling down on his back. in which posture he
latterly fought and won all his battles.
What can I say of PUCK [In The Dog, by
Stonehenge, an excellent book, there is a woodcut of Puck, and "Dr. Wm.
Brown's celebrated dog John Pym" is mentioned. Their pedigrees are given
—here is Puck's, which shows his "strain" is of the pure azure blood -- "got
by John Pym, out of Tib; bred by Purves of Leaderfoot; sire, Old Dandie, the
famous dog of old John Stoddart of Selkirk — dam, Whin. "How Homeric all
this sounds! I cannot help quoting what follows:" Sometimes a Dandie pup of
a good strain may appear not to be game at an early age ; but he should not
be parted with on this account, because many of them do not show their
courage till nearly two years old, and then nothing can beat them; this
apparent softness arising, as I suspect, from kindness of heart" — a
suspicion, my dear "Stonehenge," which is true, and shows your own "kindness
of heart," as well as sense.] the thoroughbred - the simple-hearted — the
purloiner of eggs warm from the hen — the flutterer of all manner of
Volscians — the bandy - legged, dear, old, dilapidated buffer? I got him
from my brother, and only parted with him because William's stock was gone.
He had to the end of life a simplicity which was quite touching. One summer
day — a dog-day — when all dogs found straying were hauled away to the
police-office, and killed off in twenties with strychnine, I met Pack
trotting along Princes Street with a policeman, a rope round his neck, lie
looking up in the fatal, official, but kindly countenance in the most
artless and cheerful manner, wagging his tail and trotting along. In ten
minutes he would have been in the next world; for I am one of those who
believe dogs have a next world, and why not? Puck ended his days as the best
dog in R,oxburghshire. Placide quiescas!
DICK
Still lives, and long may he live? As he was
never born, possibly he may never die; be it so, he will miss us when we are
gone. I could say much of him, but agree with the lively and admirable Dr.
Jortin, when, in his dedication of his Remarks on Ecelesiastical History to
the then (1752) Archbishop of Canterbury, he excuses himself for not
following the modern custom of praising his Patron, by reminding his Grace
"that it was a custom amongst the ancients, not to sacrifice to heroes till
after sunset." I defer my sacrifice till Dick's sun is set.
I think every family should have a dog; it is
like having a perpetual baby; it is the plaything and crony of the whole
house. It keeps them all young. All unite upon Dick. And then he tells no
tales, betrays no secrets, never sulks, asks no troublesome questions, never
gets into debt, never coining down late for breakfast, or coming in through
his Chubb too early to bed — is always ready for a bit of fun, lies in wait
for it, and you may, if choleric, to your relief, kick him instead of some
one else, who would not take it so meekly, and, moreover, would certainly
not, as he does, ask your pardon for being kicked.
Never put a collar on your dog -- it only gets
him stolen; give him only one meal a day, and let that, as Dame Dorothy, Sir
Thomas Browne's wife, would say, be "rayther under." Wash him once a week,
and always wash the soap out; and let him be carefully combed and brushed
twice a week. By the
bye, I was wrong in saying that it was Burns who said Man is the God of the
Dog — he got it from Bacon's Essay on Atheism. |
