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diff --git a/old/53088-0.txt b/old/53088-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 930d562..0000000 --- a/old/53088-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4747 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Landseer's Dogs and Their Stories, by Sarah Tytler - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Landseer's Dogs and Their Stories - -Author: Sarah Tytler - -Illustrator: Sir Edwin Landseer - -Release Date: September 19, 2016 [EBook #53088] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LANDSEER'S DOGS AND THEIR STORIES *** - - - - -Produced by Charlene Taylor, Emmy and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Images courtesy -of the Digital Library@Villanova University -(http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) - - - - - - - - - - -Landseer’s Dogs and their Stories - -[Illustration] - - - - - Landseer’s Dogs - and their Stories - - by - Sarah Tytler - - Author of - “Childhood a hundred years Ago.” - - Chronographs of Paintings - BY - Sir Edwin Landseer. - - Marcus Ward & Co. London & - Belfast. - - - - - LANDSEER’S DOGS - AND THEIR STORIES - - BY - SARAH TYTLER - - AUTHOR OF “PAPERS FOR THOUGHTFUL GIRLS,” “CHILDHOOD A HUNDRED - YEARS AGO,” &C., &C. - - With Six Chromographs - AFTER PAINTINGS BY SIR EDWIN LANDSEER - - [Illustration] - - London: - MARCUS WARD & CO., 67 & 68, CHANDOS STREET, STRAND - AND ROYAL ULSTER WORKS, BELFAST - 1877 - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -CONTENTS. - -[Illustration] - - - CHAP. PAGE - - INTRODUCTORY 7 - - I.—“LOW LIFE” (_Chromograph_) 13 - - II.—“HIGH LIFE” _ditto_ 40 - - III.—“SUSPENSE” _ditto_ 66 - - IV.—“THE HUMBLE FRIEND” _ditto_ 88 - - V.—“THE CAVALIER’S PETS” _ditto_ 95 - - VI.—“DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE” _ditto_ 115 - - VII.—MY EARLY FRIENDS 131 - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -LANDSEER’S DOGS AND THEIR STORIES. - -[Illustration] - - - - -INTRODUCTORY. - - -A PORTION of Sir Edwin Landseer’s strength and of his weakness lay in -the human element which he introduced into his pictures of animals. -Each of his pictures tells a story—not only of animal characteristics, -but of those characteristics as they approach most closely to men’s -qualities, and as they are blended most inseparably with men’s lives. - -The dog is the humble friend of man, and man has been called the god of -the dog; a sorry god at the best—often a perverse and cruel divinity. -In very many of Landseer’s pictures it is impossible to dissolve the -relationship. You cannot look at the animal without thinking of the -absent master and mistress. The hero or the heroine of the scene is -strongly influenced by the man or the woman in the background. It is a -little drama of blended human and animal life, as well as the spirited -and faithful likeness of an animal which you gaze upon. - -A good deal of what is unique in Landseer belongs to this peculiarity, -and much of his great popularity is due to it. Men are charmed not only -by contemplating the representations of their four-footed favourites, -but by having a genius to interpret to them the beautiful and gracious -ties which bind together God’s higher and humbler creatures. After all, -God put man at the head of His creatures in this world, and perhaps man -is not so far wrong as he has sometimes been said to show himself, in -seeing in the lower animals a reflection of his own hopes, aims, and -destiny. - -The selfish and sympathetic instincts are strong in us; and neither -grown man nor child will, unless in very exceptional cases, feel either -long or deep concern in a kingdom from which he himself is banished. -Our familiarity, our fellow-feeling, is to a large extent the measure -of our interest in any subject. If we cannot put ourselves in the place -of our neighbour, let him have two feet or four, we will not continue -long to care for him; and, _vice versa_, if we have not imagination -enough to endow our neighbour with some of our own attributes, so that -he may stand, in a way, in our place, our regard for him will be but -partial and fleeting. - -People speak of the charm in unlikeness and the attraction in reverses; -but there must be a more profound underlying harmony for such a charm -and attraction to exist. The fact is, we can only appreciate what we -understand in a degree at least, and there is no understanding without -some points of union. If I may venture reverently to employ such an -analogy, though man was made in the image of his Maker, when he had -done all he could to deface that image, he became so incapable of -having God in all his thoughts, that God, in His divine mercy, had -compassion upon man’s miserable incapacity, and, taking upon Him the -form of a man, restored the lost link in the chain which binds the -whole universe to the throne of God. - -Children have no difficulty in mentally putting themselves in the place -of animals, or in putting animals in their place. Some of my readers -may be inclined to say this is because the child is itself a little -animal, with its higher faculties undeveloped; but none will refuse -to admit that the moral and intellectual faculties are there, however -much in abeyance. For my part, I believe that it is rather from the -essential gifts of a child, its immense power of believing beyond what -it sees, its ready sympathy and boundless trust, than from its defects -of ignorance, that it has the happy capacity of identifying itself with -its pets, and even its toys, either by transferring to them its own -possessions, or by appropriating their experience. Curious instances of -such application occur to me. A little child was heard gravely rebuking -her dog. “If you are so naughty, Floss, your Uncle Tom and your Aunt -Anne” (bestowing in all simplicity of heart her own relations on the -dog) “will be vexed; you know they will.” - -The second instance is given by an accomplished writer in a recent -story, but I am persuaded it is from real life. I quote from memory. - -“Why are you crying, Emily? What is the matter?” a mother asked her -little daughter in tears. - -“Oh, mamma! I am not Emily just now,” the child explained through her -sobs; “I am the parrot the cat has been after, and I cannot get over -the loss of my best tail feathers.” - -A little child lisping its evening prayers startled its human hearers -by adding an impromptu petition:—“God bless Ducky-daidles;” referring -to an ugly little wooden duck which the child had received into the -inmost circle of its affections. - -It is a well-known fact that there is sometimes developed in men and -women from childhood an extraordinary relation to animals, a capability -of communicating with them, and exerting influence over them which -does not commonly exist. With this abnormal alliance is doubtless -connected the old myth of Orpheus gathering a brute audience to listen -to the music of his lyre, and the more modern stories of bird and -snake charmers and horse-tamers. I imagine this is only an extreme and -abiding manifestation of an ordinary characteristic of childhood; and -I believe it to be the inheritance, more or less, of all great animal -painters. - -But Sir Edwin Landseer possessed his animals in another sense from that -in which the expression is used of other eminent animal painters, and -especially with regard to the animal painters of the French and Belgian -schools. He possessed them not merely as an artist, but as a man—I had -almost said a brother—certainly in the light in which Robert Burns -employed, with perfect manly tenderness, the term “fellow-mortal” to -the field-mouse whose nest his ploughshare had turned up; and in the -meaning which Sir Walter Scott intended to convey, when, on the day of -the death of his dog, he wrote an apology to a host who expected Sir -Walter’s company at dinner, on the plea of “the loss of an old friend.” -Sir Edwin Landseer possessed animals—not simply in an accurate -knowledge of their bodily traits, their hoofs, horns, and tails, the -red fire or the luminous brown discs of their eyes, the symmetry of -their loins, the glassy texture of their coats, or the soft sheen of -their feathers—but in the chivalrous insight into those instincts in -animals which in their sagacity and devotion sometimes put to shame the -boasted wisdom and constancy of man. - -I cannot help thinking that the wide-spread popularity of Sir Edwin -Landseer in England is not only a credit to that manliness of national -character which expresses itself in a love of out-of-door sports, and -of the animals which share in these sports, but is also honourable as -an evidence of the kindly satisfaction with which a matter of fact and -plain-spoken race recognise in their four-footed allies attributes -which constitute them far more than useful dependants—privileged and -cherished comrades. - -I should like to say a word on the other side of the question—I -mean with regard to the sense in which Sir Edwin Landseer’s lively -interpretation of the characters of animals—dogs in particular—has been -an element of weakness in his power. - -It has been alleged by those critics least affected by his second sight -into the motives of animals, and most enamoured of the painters of -brutes in their entirety—brutes as apart from men, while each specimen -is distinct and individual in itself, and while it has a relation -to the nature, if not the human nature, around it—that Sir Edwin -sacrificed truth to sentiment till it became fantastic, and that in the -pursuit he lost, not any grain of his popularity among his multitude of -admirers, but something of his technical skill. It would be presumption -in me to defend Sir Edwin; neither, in truth, am I inclined to write -that he was never guilty of an exaggeration or fantasticalness—that he -never failed in effect. But I am quite clear in the statement that it -was the truth of his interpretation—not subtle, but transparent—of the -dumb speech of animals which caused it to be accepted with unqualified -delight by their masters, high and low; and that nothing short of the -most exquisite perception of propriety on Sir Edwin’s part could have -enabled him to give innumerable versions of the inner life of animals, -with so little of the exaggeration and fantasticalness which would have -easily become repugnant to the common sense of Englishmen. - -The great English animal painter was a marvellous poet in his own -department, and it ought to be simply a source of thankfulness to us -that he painted poetry which those who run can read. - -Yet I am about to attempt to tell again the stories which some of his -animals tell me, since it may well be they have other tales for other -admirers, and that, therefore, my experience may not be quite uncalled -for and too much. But if in any respect I cumber with words or mar by -false rendering the suggestive text which I am seeking to illustrate -lovingly, I can only hope that my blunder may be forgiven. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration] - -CHAPTER I. - -“LOW LIFE.” - - -I DARE not say that the bull-terrier, my hero, was pure bred. I -am strongly disposed to think that he was mongrel—of the hardy, -self-reliant, incorrigible type which some mongrel races assume, until -their very mongrelness, like their ugliness, becomes almost respectable -by its manly independence and stoical indifference. - -He was not by any means a dog of fine feelings, though no doubt he -had his weak side, which had nothing to do with the question of his -personal appearance. He was a democrat to the backbone, with so little -pretension to be what he was not, that if it had not been for a -large stock of coarse stolidity, and of self-confidence amounting to -impudence, a total incapacity to comprehend a higher range of character -than he himself possessed, and a certain scurrilous tongue of his own, -he would have been, in his unvarnished low life, still tolerably free -from vulgarity. - -If you will examine him narrowly, you will find clear indications of -the qualities I have referred to in his general aspect. I do not say -anything of the shortness of his ears, as I suspect they have been -cropped, and he is certainly not accountable for an operation performed -against his will. But remark and admire his small piggish eyes, the -broad brevity of his nose, and the equal brevity of his tail, the width -of his jowl, the thickness of his neck—even in his clumsy conformation, -and the peculiar dogmatic obstinacy with which his substantial paws -are turned inwards. I am afraid I cannot call him anything except a -plain-looking dog, with no nonsense about him. - -But he is not destitute of solid advantages, on which he justly piques -himself, in that big body scarred with the traces of many a combat in -which he has come off the victor. - -He may be little to boast of where speed, agility, keenness of scent, -quickness and sureness of sight, discipline, docility, and splendid -sagacity are desired, but he has always his vigour and endurance to -fall back upon, and they are a tower of strength in themselves. - -That bullet-head and those close-shut jaws can thrust like a -battering-ram and grip like a vice. His capacious chest and hind -quarters, and his posts of legs, offer a great field of resistance, and -are as hard to uproot as a stout young sapling. His hide is well-nigh -as thick as that of a rhinoceros, and can stand a perfect hail-storm -of blows without flinching. Many a rival dog he has throttled, many a -man and boy he has threatened successfully to “pin.” His scowl and his -growl are enough to repel all, save the boldest and most dauntless of -assailants. - -If he is not a dog of brilliant parts, he knows a thing or two where -self-preservation is concerned. He is perfectly capable of looking -after number one—the only number which he feels himself called upon to -reckon; in fact, poor fellow, he has been accustomed to that reckoning, -and to dwelling upon it with dull, degrading reiteration from his -earliest years. - -If you could ask himself, he would tell you decidedly that he has no -relations, and he would imply with an inarticulate murmur, between a -grunt and a growl, that the question is one of perfect indifference to -him; he does not mind the privation in the least—he is sufficient for -himself. - - “He cares for nobody, no, not he, - If nobody cares for him.” - -For that matter, ancestors, contemporaries, descendants would have been -a considerable incumbrance to him in his circumstances, which he will -not hesitate to admit have been for the most part precarious, and in -what has usually been his hand-to-mouth mode of picking up a living. - -Not that he is a dog of no calling, or that he merely works on the job -principle. You may notice that he has a collar round his neck, and is -therefore of sufficient consequence to own a master. Indeed, he has -nothing of the shirking, hang-dog air, alternating with the savage -expression of the dog-tramp or pauper. His very heavy assurance and -thorough mastery of the situation altogether contradict his belonging -to that grade. - -He may be low—one of the rudest and surliest of working dogs, but he is -still a working dog, a trusty watch in the absence of his master from -his place of work, a ratter of some renown. He is, to do him justice, -removed from the deepest gulf into which dogs and men can sink. - -But he is in error on that point of his relations without knowing it; -for his truth and honesty, unless under overwhelming temptations, are -among his best claims on our regard. Dog of the people as he is, he is -not without distinguished kindred. We need not mention his unfortunate -great-grand-uncle, who was the avenging shadow over the garret roofs of -a certain ruffianly Bill Sykes, and who met the fate which is generally -the portion of avenging shadows. He has other claims to a much more -distant connection, certainly, but as they are to carry him into the -upper regions of society, let them be counted. He has an ancestor in -a dog named Trump, who was altogether in a superior position in life, -and on his death received the honour of having a monument erected to -his memory in the garden of the house at Chiswick which belonged to -his attached master, the great painter. Our friend had also a canny -Scotch cousin, who bore a part in a famous dialogue delivered in the -district of Kyle, in the county of Ayr, and preserved and handed down -to posterity. - -It is time that we recorded our hero’s name, and began to give some -particulars of his not uneventful plebeian history. I dare say my -readers conjecture that his name was plebeian too, like all the rest -about him—that it was “Jim,” or “Ned,” or “Crab,” or “Pickles,” or -“Seize ’em,” or “Tear ’em.” Not at all. In spite of his democratic -antecedents and proclivities, he had an aristocratic, nay, a royal -designation. My own observation tends to prove that this inconsistent -appellation was according to a law of human nature. In the various -households belonging to the humblest ranks with which he had any -acquaintance, there were to be found specimens of the finest, most -sonorous titles in the English nomenclature. There was generally a -Gussy or a Louie, and there were twice Fredericks and once a Marmaduke. -The dog’s first master styled the waif, either in high-reaching -ambition or in smouldering satire, “Prince;” and Prince, not President, -he is likely to continue till the day of his death. - -It is no reproach to Prince’s powers of memory—which, at the same -time, were only remarkable in what were to him the parallel lines of -meals and feuds—that they could not carry him back beyond that era in -puppyhood when he was found, in one of the back slums of London, doing -brave battle with a dog twice his size and age for a gnawed crust. - -Unquestionably, Prince had not first seen the light in such a dainty -kennel as might have impressed his juvenile imagination, and the loss -of which would have made a crisis in his early history. The probability -was that he was the puppy of some poor working dog, such as he himself -became in after-life; and that the dog’s proprietor, after having -tolerated him for a few weeks—during which he showed no signs of -growing up of any particular value, and when no fellow-workman fancied -the “pup”—had either separated him from his parent, and cast him adrift -on the world, or had suffered him to be lost in the street, and thrown -on the tender mercies of the police, as the easiest solution of the -difficulty—happily less insurmountable than that of Ginx’s spare baby. - -But the finder of Prince was not a policeman. He was a little boy -named Jack, who was almost as audacious and reckless as the puppy, -with the delight of a child in a young dog—especially in a young dog -which is treasure-trove, and when there is the fraction of a chance he -may be permitted to retain it for his own property. He decoyed Prince, -still a nameless little cur, from the fray in which he was engaged, -christened him Prince, with a splendid disregard of the proprieties, on -the spot, and prepared to convey him home, tucked tightly within Jack’s -ragged jacket. - -Poor little Prince! pugilistic as he had already shown himself, and as -he was doomed to prove throughout his career, he responded then, as he -always did, in his gruff fashion, to the scant kindness which was shown -him. He did not nestle to Jack’s heart or lick his dirty hand, for he -was never a demonstrative dog, but he cocked the ears—short even then, -before they had undergone the hideous process of cropping—looked up -with his small beads of eyes in his captor’s face, as if acknowledging -his master, and then gave one short, stiff wag of his stump of a tail, -as if appending his signature—the signature of the puppy-father to the -dog whose word was his bond—to the bargain. - -That slightly ungracious, yet expressive wag of the tail did Jack’s -business, and rendered him ten times more bent on retaining the -puppy, in spite of sundry obstacles which he saw looming ahead of the -connection, in the prejudices which might be entertained by his father -and mother regarding their small means—of which Jack, boy as he was, -did not fail to be aware—their limited house accommodation, and the -number of his little brothers and sisters. - -But if Prince the puppy was father to Prince the dog, so Jack the -boy was father to Jack the man. A certain jolly self-indulgence and -ignoring of consequences, so long as they could be shelved, were from -first to last marked features in his character. When Jack, with his -captive, reached the small, swarming, reeking family-room, in which -there was always a washing going on, at some stage of the process, his -mother did say that they had already as many dogs as there was bran -for. And his father, coming in from his last odd job, told the boy to -get along, and asked him reproachfully if his father’s dog, Bully, a -lame, cantankerous old bull-terrier of dubious origin, and his mother’s -birds—canaries and goldfinches, which were her “fad”—were not, together -with his numerous little brothers and sisters, pets enough for him? - -But Jack was his father and mother’s own boy, and, as it was rather -a prosperous time with them, they could not find it in their -hearts to baulk him in an inclination with which they had really -so much sympathy. So Prince was suffered to become a member of the -happy-go-lucky family. The only serious opposition he met with came -from his dog-brother, Bully, who assumed a hostile attitude of tooth -and claw. However, Bully was old and incapable, so that a tolerably -active young dog could manage to escape from the execution of his -menaces. Besides, a street accident soon afterwards disposed of the -canine patriarch, to the unaffected grief of his master. - -Prince grew to dog’s estate in the household, sharing its very -fluctuating, but inevitably downward-tending, fortunes, scrambling with -it for a livelihood—feasting the one day, fasting the next—receiving a -cuff, or a spendthrift dole, as humour and the family purse inclined. - -Prince acquired stores of knowledge and experience of a mixed sort at -this stage of his existence. He was accustomed to go everywhere with -Jack in his spare time—above all, on his half-holidays. Prince enlarged -his acquaintance with London; he was not only a regular attendant on -all the bird sales and rat-pits in the neighbourhood, but travelled -into the suburbs and to the verge of the country. He followed Punch and -Judys, and joined in the festivities of Guy Fawkes’ and chimney-sweeps’ -days. He went a-palming on the Saturday before Palm Sunday; he was on -Hampstead Heath, in Greenwich Park, and Epping Forest, and saw the -coloured paper-streamers, and the brilliant crimson and green false -beards on successive Easter and Whit Mondays. The wide open spaces, the -green grass, the shady trees puzzled him a good deal, but not nearly -so much as did the sea, which he once saw in a cheap trip to Brighton, -when Jack’s family were in exceptional funds, and spending them like -princes. - -Prince was never absent from the Boat Race. Year after year, as the -day came round, he was to be found stationed by Jack’s side on the -Hammersmith Bridge, not half so much incommoded, on account of the -pressure—which, indeed, he could keep off by the use of natural -weapons—as he had been startled by the wide world of waters, on the -edge of which he had stood, with his tail uncertain whether to droop or -to curl, at Brighton. - -I question whether any dog belonging to the two universities took a -greater interest in the race, even though he had been rowed for hours -by his attentive master on the Isis or the Cam, than did Prince, in all -impartiality; for, though he had a rag of ribbon tied duly round his -neck by Jack, Prince at least had no bet either on the light or the -dark blue. No more had he any, save the simplest friendly interest, in -the winner of the Derby, when he accompanied Jack in an overflowing -costermonger’s cart to Epsom Downs. His temper was sorely tried on the -way, not merely by the traffic and the clouds of dust, but by the -flour warfare, which powdered him white like a miller’s dog. As Prince -could not wear a veil, his small eyes were filled till he could hardly -blink at the flying hedges, or, after his arrival, at the grand stand, -the starting-point, the negro serenaders, and the gipsy fortune-tellers. - -On the whole, Prince had a tolerably happy youth, for a dog of his -condition, under Jack’s auspices. It might not have been so improving -as one could wish, but he learnt some proficiency in shifting for -himself, and being philosophical when nothing better offered—a valuable -lesson for more than dogs. - -Everything comes to an end, and few things sooner, alas! than the -hand-to-mouth drifting with the tide of careless, improvident working -people. There came a time, at no distant date in Jack’s and Prince’s -household, in which there were no longer treats and dainties going. -Bacon, buttered toast, and saveloys vanished from the board. Meals -became intermittent. Bit after bit of furniture, and every scrap of -clothing that could be spared, were put in pawn at one of the shops -with the three golden balls above the doorway. The mother of the family -was laid down with typhus, and removed to the nearest hospital. Young -Gussy and Fred shared the same fate. - -Poor Jack, hanging his head, began to speak of parting with Prince. He -had often wished he could put him in pawn with the rest of the pledged -goods, and borrow a little money on Prince’s capabilities of keeping -guard and ratting. Jack had joked in his half-rueful, half-rough -fashion on the dogs not eating his head off, since he could hardly tell -on what Prince, together with his master’s family, had fed for the -last fortnight. Jack knew very well how he and Prince had gone out, in -company and separately, after nightfall and in broad day, on the hunt; -how they had constituted themselves amateur chiffonniers, and burrowed -in the dust heaps for cast-away fragments; how they had hung about the -doors of eating-houses and bakers shops for chance crumbs; how they had -picked up garbage and been thankful. - -But it was one thing to joke and another to dispose, for good and -all, of the old dog—he was an old dog now in Jack’s eyes—and that to -a customer who was hard-fisted and cross-grained, whose bite and sup -Prince would not share, and who could no more be trusted to let old -friends meet than he could be expected to redeem the forfeited articles -and restore the fallen fortunes of the family gone to the wall. - -But Jack, who had been, in his humble way, self-willed and extravagant -from his cradle, had already parted with more precious possessions than -Prince, and it is to be feared would part with still more before his -history was ended. Anyhow, he sold Prince for the merest trifle to a -hard buyer; and as tears were in Jack’s dull eyes when he closed the -bargain, we will dismiss him with the reluctant reflection that, if he -or his progenitors had only owned a single germ of noble self-denial, -manly, womanly forethought, plucky, cheery diligence, he might not -merely have kept the dog—he and his might have been as independent and -well-to-do, and risen as far above want, with its terrible temptations, -as any of the gentlefolks in the land. - -The inducement which Prince’s new master, Mr. Jerry Noakes, had for -the purchase, was that he had enjoyed some opportunity of remarking -Prince’s tenacity of purpose and literal discharge of a commission, -which he was convinced would render the dog a good watch; while Mr. -Jerry was satisfied, from Prince present appearance, that he could be -put off with as shabby quarters and meagre fare as will suffice to keep -a dog in life. In fact, Mr. Jerry Noakes’ principle, which he found -to work well for his ends, was—don’t pamper your dependants on any -consideration, if you wish them to be of use to you—on the contrary, -grind them down to the last extremity, and all that is in them will be -stimulated to do battle with the world on their and your account. - -Mr. Jerry Noakes owned a small coal-yard—very small and very little -frequented, though its possessor was a man of some substance—but he -drew his means from other sources. Still he was not inclined that these -slatey-looking, dusty, crumbling piles of coals which were his property -should disappear under the predatory attacks of the loafers in a low -neighbourhood. Therefore he procured Prince at a cheap rate, inducted -him into a couch—which, as it had been knocked together by Mr. Jerry -Noakes’ own hands from some rickety deals, was as poor an affair and as -wretched a shelter from the weather as could well be imagined—and put -him in charge of the yard. - -It might be promotion, but it was also a great reverse for Prince. -True, he had now a regular meal once a-day, a moderate mess of bran and -food for poultry, with the parings of cats’ meat, administered by Mr. -Jerry, in place of Prince’s being called upon to forage for himself, -with the not uncommon conclusion of finding himself both breakfastless -and dinnerless, as had been the case lately in Jack’s family circle. -But not only was the gain not large, there was the sentiment of the -thing. I hope none of my readers suppose that Prince, though a coarse -brute, thick-skinned and obtuse, was destitute of feeling. - -In Jack’s home the dog was one of the family; indeed from his very -doghood he had rather the best of it. For if men and women, responsible -beings, will live, like animals, along with animals, the last—the real -Simon Pures—have generally the advantage. Jack’s race, reckless as they -were, must surely have been visited with some doubts, some anxieties, -some pricking sense that they were wasting their capital of time and -capacity for work as well as of wages. But of course Prince was never -harassed by such a reminder that he had a conscience, and was at once -mortal and immortal. He had his little work to do, and did it to the -best of his ability. He was occasionally left to keep house, and did -not fail in his trust. He sat beside the tools of Jack’s trade many a -day, never offering to stir till Jack released him. He entered with -pride and zest into his calling as a rat-catcher whenever he had the -chance. But all the time he was largely his own master, for he could -hardly call it servitude to roam the world of London at Jack’s heels. - -It was another matter for Prince to be a prisoner himself, while -prepared to take others prisoners, in this dreary yard—to spend day and -night there—to have no change of scene, no comradeship, though it might -result in scuffles and single combats with other dogs—to see nobody -for a stretch of twenty-four hours, perhaps, except Mr. Jerry Noakes. -He always spoke gruffly, never encouragingly, to Prince; and the dog, -though he was gruff himself, with little tenderness or humour, so that -he was impatient of fondling, and had no great aptitude for fun, yet -knew and appreciated what fidelity and good-fellowship meant. - -That parting from his first master, Jack, had been a great wrench -to Prince’s whole nature; and while the strain of the pull, and the -ache of the void, were still in full force, the dog was condemned for -his sins to solitary confinement, on the lowest diet, and with no -satisfaction of his social instincts, except the brief interview with -Mr. Jerry Noakes, his gaoler, who never said, “Hie! old dog,” or “What -are you arter to-day, you duffer?” or “Shan’t we have a rove to-night, -my beauty?” - -Sometimes Prince was so depressed in his spirits that he could not -find it in his heart to make a spring, worry, and have done with a cat -which, from scrambling idly down on the wall, ventured imprudently to -descend into his territory. He contented himself with growling at her, -just that she might escape to the wall again, and stand there raising -her back and spitting at him, which was an approach to company. - -It was a positive relief when the sun was right overhead, blazing -down into the little black hole, threatening to produce spontaneous -combustion among the materials for fuel which seemed then so -unnecessary, and to grill the bones of Prince, lying panting with -his tongue out in that couch of his, which neither kept out heat nor -cold, and was very far from water-tight—that he could divert his mind -from sad thoughts by watching the blue-bottle flies which, for some -reason Prince could not divine—if he had got his choice, he would not -have selected such quarters—congregated and buzzed lazily about the -enclosure. Prince only watched the flies; he was by far too practical -and mature a dog to descend—even in his dulness, and although he had -not been weak from deficiency of food and overcome by the heat—to -anything so childish as catching flies. - -I think it was Sir Edwin Landseer himself who said that no dog could -endure being kept strictly on the chain for a longer period than three -years; that his heart would break, or his reason give way in the -interval. - -I believe Prince was nearly three years Mr. Jerry Noakes property -without either dying or going mad; but then he was a dog of singular -powers of endurance, as I have signified; besides, after the first few -months of his joint experience of being a gaoler and gaoled, there -were modifications introduced into the system which rendered it more -bearable to him. - -Mr. Jerry Noakes discovered that by the sheer force of habit, and of -that defective imagination which prevents some men and dogs, though -driven to extremity, from breaking out into independent enterprise, -Prince, if let loose for a season, would return doggedly, of his own -accord, to his durance on the expiry of a reasonable time. Therefore, -when Mr. Jerry was himself on duty at the yard, he would free the dog, -and send him out of the gates for a scamper, reflecting with a grin -that he saved Prince’s feed that morning—since the dog was sure to nose -out some booty in his outing—as well as preserved him in good health. - -Even if Prince had, with keen canine sagacity and a yearning heart, -sought out his former home, he would still have missed his old -protector, for, in sinking lower and lower, the humble street where -Jack and his family had dwelt in Prince’s day now knew them no more. -The seniors and the younger children had gravitated without fail to the -House; while Jack had become peripatetic in his vocation, and moved -rapidly from one wretched lodging-house to another. - -But, truth to tell, Prince did not attempt to make the discovery. He -was too stupid, and too prostrated by slow starvation, to do more than -prowl about the immediate neighbourhood of his yard, and stump—for -Prince no more slank, not even when he was greatly in the wrong, than -he stalked—back to his den when he was weary, or when some occult -instinct told him that his leave was up. - -Prince was not in some important respects the dog he looks in his -picture when he was living with Mr. Jerry Noakes. He is a fairly -well-fed dog, and in excellent condition, as we see him; but in those -hard times he was reduced to skin and bone, his ribs could be counted, -his mongrel disproportions were exposed in all their ugliness, and -there was a wild look—that of a creature at bay, and which struck -people as unsafe—about the dog. - -Yet the lamentable change on the outer dog was not the worst result of -Prince’s residence with Mr. Jerry Noakes; the inner dog was undergoing -as sure a deterioration. Any good that had been in Prince was being -stamped out of him. He was hardening back into the original savage wolf -or jackal. His truth and honesty, which had been his best domestic -qualities, were being corrupted and sapped to the foundation. - -With Jack’s family Prince had been—well, free and easy in his -practices; but the whole family had been free and easy in their -ways, and anything like deliberate, premeditated larceny was unknown -to the dog. There was all the difference that there is between -manslaughter and murder in Prince’s helping himself occasionally -when the opportunity came unexpectedly in his way, and when he knew -that there was no great offence in the deed, and in his craftily -planning and brazenly carrying out, in utter impenitence, the -series of roll-liftings from the baskets on bakers’ counters, and -trotter-snatchings from behind butchers’ doors, in spite of the -butchers’ dogs, whose vigilance he managed to evade—by which Prince -signalised his absences from the shed. - -Mr. Jerry Noakes was right, that Prince needed no regular meal on -the day of his temporary release. Indeed, if Mr. Jerry had known how -liberally the dog fared on these occasions, the man might have sought -covertly to share in the spoil, and might have been tempted, though -he had no need, to run the risk of constituting Prince a professional -thief and a permanent provider, in a dishonest manner, for the material -wants of both. - -But Prince’s diabolical cunning, that new and alarming feature in -the dog’s character, was too much for his master. Prince took care -to despatch every crumb and hair, and get rid of all traces of his -unlawful proceedings, before he returned sullenly to his master. - -It is all very well to laugh; but the dog, with all his craft, would -have been caught red-handed some day and made a public example of, -perishing miserably by a violent death, had not Mr. Jerry Noakes’ own -death suddenly dissolved the connection between him and Prince. Mr. -Jerry Noakes was removed at a moment’s notice from all his grubbing -and grinding, and Prince, after narrowly escaping being forgotten and -starved to death in the yard, fell into the hands of Mr. Miles Noakes, -Mr. Jerry’s nephew and nearest surviving relation. - -Mr. Miles was a family man settled in the country, and was called on -to sustain the trouble and expense of a journey to London in order to -discharge the last duties to Mr. Jerry, and possibly to be rewarded -by entering on his inheritance. Those who had known Mr. Jerry said -“possibly” advisedly, while they were aware that Mr. Miles was the -nearest surviving relation; and the cautious wording of the phrase was -vindicated by the sequel. Mr. Jerry had left a will, and bequeathed his -gains in two parts—to a more distant relation than Mr. Miles, and who -was comparatively rich and in no want of money, and to a charitable -institution. - -It was just after Mr. Miles had been made acquainted with the -disposal of the funds that he, still acting in the character of the -representative of the dead man, seeing that the favoured kinsman had -not put himself about to attend the funeral, looked into the yard and -remarked Prince. - -The dog, faithful to the single principle of duty that was left in him, -threatened the intruder as furiously as if Prince himself were not an -arrant rogue, or as if he were acting out the adage, “Set a thief to -catch a thief.” - -The dog looked such a miserable object, there was so little to -steal, the idea of his revenging himself for being deprived of the -succession by pilfering these mouldy coals—if coals can ever be called -mouldy—tickled the stranger’s fancy, though this was no laughing -occasion, neither was he in any laughing mood. - -Mr. Miles, while he had stood in the relation of nephew to Mr. Jerry, -was nearly as old a man as his uncle, and, as he lounged there in -his rusty black, he bore a certain resemblance to his late father’s -brother. He appeared crusty, if not grim, but he possessed what Mr. -Jerry had certainly been devoid of—an imagination to take in the -ludicrousness of the situation; and he was not altogether selfish -and inhuman, for even, while smarting under the injury which had been -inflicted on him, and as Prince was flying at him as far as his chain -would permit, Mr. Miles said to himself, “I must see that beast put out -of pain before I go.” - -Then the humour of the man, which had been stirred in him, took a new -direction. “I should not care, just for the fun of the thing, to take -him down with me to Westbarns and show him to Nanse as our share of -Uncle Jerry’s goods. I heard the landlord of the Hare and Hounds say -he wanted a serviceable dog to replace his young Newfoundland which -he had been induced to sell. I’ll go bail that Uncle Jerry’s dog is -serviceable.” - -The whim found favour with a whimsical poor man, and so Prince, not -without difficulty and danger, was removed to the railway station -and consigned to a dog-box. There he was so dazed and confounded by -the darkness and the rapid motion—which he had only once experienced -before, and that was on that far-away trip to Brighton, when he -had been smuggled in Jack’s arms among a hilarious company into an -open van—that he came out, in the course of an hour and a half, -comparatively subdued, and condescended, without extreme pressure, to -accompany Mr. Miles Noakes to his cottage. - -It was evening when the two arrived, jaded by travel, excitement, and -disappointment. A much younger looking woman than Mr. Miles was a man, -was gazing eagerly along the road in expectation of their arrival. -She stood at the gate of a well-kept little garden, sweet with spring -flowers—blue hyacinths, primroses, polyanthuses. She had lively hazel -eyes and smooth dark hair, and wore a neat cap and clean apron. She -might have been a capable, prized maid-servant in her day; she was -still an active, tidy matron in her early prime. - -“You are come at last, Miles; you must be clean done up, but the -children are a-bed, and your supper is ready,” she said hurriedly, -while she kissed her husband, as if feeling it a relief to welcome him -first before she asked the question with which her heart was beating, -her breath coming fast and her lips quivering, while she had no -attention to spare for his four-footed attendant. - -“All right, Nanse,” said Mr. Miles, entering the cottage before he -vouchsafed any explanation. - -Perhaps his mind misgave him, or his heart smote him with regard to -the jest he was about to make, as he looked round on the familiar -dwelling—small, not without evidence of narrow means, but scrupulously -clean and well ordered, from the gay patched quilt on the crib, in -which the two children slept, to the well-scoured pewter mug with his -beer flanking the plate of cold bacon, the better part of the dinner -saved for his supper. - -It would be no jesting matter to Nanse to hear that the property of -which he had been summoned to take possession had gone past them. When -they had parted, she had not been able to help building on it, in her -impulsive woman’s fashion, as what should render them easy in their -worldly affairs, lighten the load on their backs, provide a welcome -substitute when his strength must fail, and, above all, supply better -schooling for the children, and raise them above all fear of want when -she alone was left to labour for them. - -But Mr. Miles Noakes was not a man easily turned from a purpose, and, -it might be, he thought the quip would break the weight of the fall. -He said at last, as he took off his hat and placed it carefully beyond -the reach of damage, while he gave a jerk of his elbow in the direction -of Prince, standing uncertain on the threshold, a most unattractive -object in his skeleton leanness, his unthrifty coat, and the greed -which the glimpse of the victuals called up—in spite of his clumsy -efforts to conceal his feelings—in his winking eyes and sniffing -nose—“Well, Nanse, there is our legacy.” - -The woman stood bewildered; her colour went and came. “Oh, Miles! you -cannot mean it?” she cried at last; “Uncle Jerry and you could not be -so cruel?” - -“Woman, I had nothing to do with it,” he said, flinging himself heavily -into the chair set for him; “and was it not better than to come back -empty-handed?” - -She understood now that he was in earnest—that he and she had been -defrauded, as she called it in her hot heart, of the time, trouble, and -expense of his journey, as well as of their justifiable expectations, -and that there was nothing left for Miles but to be grimly merry at her -expense. - -She hesitated, for she was a quick-tempered woman, prone to resent fun -of which she was the butt, and any advantage taken of her ignorance. -Yet she had loved her husband for the very oddity which expressed -itself in this shape. She had been proud of her conquest of him when -she had been a pretty, smart, popular servant-girl, and he had enjoyed -the reputation of being the most “humoursome,” no less than the most -long-headed, steady, middle-aged bachelor in the place. His humour, -even in company with his long-headedness and steadiness, had not -brought him great worldly prosperity, yet she had never regretted her -choice. There must have been a strain of something uncommon in Nanse -herself, which had enabled her, in the first instance, to appreciate -what was remarkable in her future husband and to triumph in astonishing -the world by accepting him from her host of wooers, and, in the second, -to remain content with her bargain. - -But it is one thing to relish a queer fish’s cranky wit played off on -other people and on things in general, and quite another to value the -same rare quality turned against one’s self in a supreme moment of -mortification and vexation. - -Nanse stood motionless for an instant, and was on the verge of getting -into a white heat and saying something she would have regretted -afterwards, when the corner of her eye caught sight of her husband’s -grey hairs, while her ears seemed to take in the echo of a break in -his voice. Her heart was as warm as her temper was quick. With a flash -of sympathy she realised all his fatigue and chagrin, and pain for her -pain, which he was seeking to carry off by his poor joke. She was at -his side in a moment, entering into his humour, though with a lump in -her throat and a dimness before her eyes. - -“Dear heart alive!” she exclaimed, borrowing one of her old mother’s -expressions; “it must be a rare monster, Miles; I should have said it -was not worth the carriage, but Uncle Jerry and you must know best. In -the meantime, let it be, and eat your supper like a good man. I’m right -down thankful to have you safe home again, and the children are both -pretty well, and fell asleep an hour ago wearying for your kisses.” - -“You’re a good soul, Nanse,” muttered Mr. Miles down in his throat -in the pauses between bolting mouthfuls of bacon. “Come and have -your supper with me, lass, and I’ll kiss you again as soon as I have -finished.” - -Mr. and Mrs. Miles had no thought save of disposing of Prince to the -landlord of the Hare and Hounds the first thing next morning, though -they gave him, as a matter of course also, the scraps of their supper -and leave to sleep at their hearth. - -But the new day brought new ideas. Little Freddy—named proudly for -Nanse’s little master in the last situation she had filled—fell sick in -the night, and was still ill and cross in the morning when Nanse rose -to light the fire and prepare the breakfast. Mr. Miles, who kept the -child while the mother was thus engaged, thought to divert the boy, and -partly succeeded, by drawing his attention to the strange bow-wow which -daddy had brought home while Freddy was asleep last night. - -“You had better leave the brute all the morning, Miles, since Freddy is -so taken with him,” suggested the anxious mother. “Pretty dear! he has -left off crying to watch the dog. I suppose the creature will be quiet -enough if nobody meddles with him, and I shall take care that neither -Freddy nor Louie teases him. You will be in and out, and you can take -the dog away at dinner-time quite as well as now. Perhaps the child -will be better then.” - -When the dinner hour came the child was not better, but worse, lying -listlessly with flushed face and heavy eyes, which, however, still -lightened a little as they followed the entrancing apparition of the -dog. Mr. and Mrs. Miles could not bear to remove the solace of their -sick child, and hour by hour and day by day the departure of Prince was -deferred. - -In this period of probation I am glad to say that Prince’s conduct -was irreproachable. As Nanse fed the dog regularly, that the child, -who could not eat himself, might have the pleasure of seeing the dog -eat, and with a faint hope that Freddy might be induced to follow the -“doggie’s” example, Prince was not exposed to the temptation of hunger, -which had already proved too much for his virtue. For that matter he -had not stolen in private houses, his depredations had been committed -in shops, and his dulness was in his favour at this epoch, as it did -not suggest an analogy between Nanse’s little larder and the regions -from which he had been wont to pick and steal. - -Then it was found true here, as elsewhere, that if there is any -lingering remnant of good in the rudest, most brutalised man or dog, -a helpless little child will call it forth. Prince, as a rule, hated -fondling, but he had some experience of children. Though Jack had been -twice Freddy’s age when he appropriated the dog—a strong puppy in the -street, Jack had always possessed, more or less, small brothers and -sisters, with whom Prince had been on friendly, familiar terms. Prince -knew, therefore, that fondlings and sundry other liberties—such as -clutching him round the neck, or pulling him by the tail—must be put up -with from senseless little children, although no dog of spirit would -stand them for a moment from grown-up, rational people. - -Prince sat like patience on a monument, and permitted Freddy to stroke -his bristly hair backwards with hot little hands, or to hold on by -his ears, without uttering one note of protest, till Mrs. Miles cried -out of her full heart to her husband, “Miles, let us keep the dog -ourselves; we’re not so hard up or so near that we’ll miss his bite. -We’ve had no cat since poor Kitty was took in the rabbit warren. He may -earn something for his living if he can be got to go out and do a turn -at ratting for a neighbour at a time. Anyway, he can always watch your -dinner till you’re ready, when you carry it with you to your place of -work; and he is good to the child. I feel as if dear little Freddy will -get well again, and that the dog may bring luck to the house, though he -came to it at an unlucky time.” - -Of course, and very properly, Mr. Miles laughed and scouted at Prince’s -bringing luck; and it was not in consequence of any such vain womanish -superstition, but because families like Mr. Miles’ are tolerably -sure on the whole, and in spite of troubles, to rise in the social -scale—just as families like poor Jack’s are as certain to decline, that -the occupants of the cottage did begin to prosper from the hour that -Prince crossed their threshold. - -Prince himself knew when he was in good quarters, and showed the -knowledge satisfactorily, by continuing to be on his best behaviour, -till he commenced to forget his worst, and to be good as if goodness -were a second nature to him. He thawed manifestly in his surliness to -more than the children, whose trusty play-fellow he was. He showed -himself faithful, obedient, attentive, as far as his understanding -went, and decently civil and discreet. - -I wish I could state that Prince became in all respects a superior dog, -or at least that he lost his overweening opinion of himself, and became -capable of reverencing, at a humble distance, really great dogs—instead -of cracking vulgar jokes at their expense, and seeking to drag them -down to his own level—or that he even altogether got rid of that -lowered moral standard and grave deterioration which he suffered during -his stay in Mr. Jerry Noakes’ yard. - -I am sorry to say I can make no such assertion. On the contrary, it -was a great shock to Mrs. Miles, who was pre-eminently an honest -woman, to discover that Prince—fairly to be relied upon at home—could -not come within a hundred yards of the baker’s and butcher’s shops in -the village without undergoing a distressing transformation. He would -slip away from his mistress’ side, if he happened to be out marketing -with her, dodge about with an evident disreputable assumption of an -incognito, for he was but a fifth-rate actor after all, till he saw -his opportunity, then improve it by darting to the scene of action, -seizing the coveted twopenny loaf or sheep’s liver, though he had made -an excellent breakfast that very morning, and making off with it like -the wind. - -It was to no purpose that he was pursued, convicted, punished; the next -time temptation met him, he fell without fail, repeating the offence. -It was as if the temptation, once habitually indulged in, had become -irresistible to poor stupid Prince. - -Mrs. Miles had a struggle whether she ought to keep a dog with such -a disgraceful propensity, and one day she was very nearly giving him -up, when by his gross self-indulgence he covered not only her but his -master with ridicule and shame. - -It was on a Sunday at noon, of all times, but Mrs. Miles had not been -to church—she had sat up, the night before, with a sick neighbour. -She had carried the younger child with her on her errand of mercy, -while Mr. Miles had taken care of the elder, and been at church with -him, leaving Prince to keep house, which he did with sufficient -uprightness, in the family’s absence. - -Mr. Miles had gone home when the service was over, and liberated the -dog, permitting him to join the little party, in their Sunday clothes, -that set out to meet and greet the wife and mother on her expected -return. - -Mrs. Miles had appeared duly, and been gratified by her husband’s -attention. The group were proceeding in the most exemplary and -agreeable fashion along the village street, when the heads of the -household were startled by the nudges and sniggles, rising into -roars of laughter, which their progress drew forth—not only from -the loiterers about the ale-house door, but from the more decorous -passers-by, carrying home their Sunday’s dinner from the baker’s oven. - -Mrs. Miles glanced round indignantly at her husband and two children, -and could discover nothing—unless a pleasing picture of domestic -felicity, which ought to have excited admiration or envy, not -contempt—to account for the derision with which even some of her own -particular friends were regarding the family, till she looked behind -her, and then Mrs. Miles saw it all. - -To her horror, Mrs. Miles found that Prince was scouring along close -to heel, bearing a whole roast duck by his teeth in its back. He had -been unable to pass the baker’s door, though the shutter was on the -window: having entered, his nose had beguiled him into a more daring -and serious crime than the petty pilfering which was the usual extent -of his delinquencies. And Mrs. Miles could not create the scandal on -the Sunday, with the parson coming out of the rectory at her back, of -having the dog pursued and deprived of his prey. - -That night, while Mr. Miles—though he had not liked the laugh when it -was sounding in his ears any better because he had often raised such -himself—after he had escaped the cackle, took the matter easily, like a -philosopher, Mrs. Miles was, as she would have described it, “in a sad -way;” she felt as if her own and her husband’s good name were at stake, -and that they might be unjustly accused of sharing in the toothsome -dainty, basely come by, and for which some Sunday dinner had waited in -vain. She renounced Prince with a groan. But next morning, when the dog -stood letting Freddy harness him with pack-thread, Nanse thought better -of it. She judged correctly that Prince was only a dumb brute; when the -worst came to the worst, she was not certain whether Uncle Jerry were -not accountable for Prince’s bad tricks, and whether she and Miles, as -Uncle Jerry’s representatives, did not owe the dog some reparation for -the cruel wrong done him. - -At the same time, she was careful to relieve her conscience and clear -her credit by solemnly warning the baker and butcher, and going so -far as to offer to pay for any amount of plunder with regard to which -it could be proved that it had not been left carelessly, after her -caution, in the dog’s way. - -The tradesmen, to whom Mrs. Miles always paid her bills to a day, took -her communication in good part, and even generously tossed to Prince -an occasional crust or bone, which, nevertheless, had not the effect -of curing him of his culpable weakness. But Mrs. Miles left him as few -chances as possible of lapsing into his one inveterate vice. - -With this, alas! flagrant exception, Prince ended by being a tolerably -respectable character, in the favourable circumstances to which he was -so fortunate as to attain at last. - - - - -[Illustration] - -CHAPTER II. - -“HIGH LIFE.” - - -SIR EDWIN LANDSEER intended to produce a broad contrast when he painted -two dogs, and ticketed them respectively “Low Life” and “High Life.” I -need hardly say he succeeded in his attempt. Never were dog nature and -dog surroundings more widely opposed than those which are to be found -in the two pictures. - -I have already described Prince’s appearance, and sketched his history, -while I have left my readers to study for themselves the copy which -the painter has supplied of the dog’s primitive abode. But I must turn -back and call attention to it at this point, in order to mark the gulf -between it and Carlo’s home. First, look at Prince’s lodging, with its -rude block for a table, the red-handled knife on the block, the pewter -pot which has contained his master’s beer and still holds his pipe -standing behind the dog, and, lying at his feet, a well-polished bone. - -Next, contemplate Carlo sitting in an elegant, pensive attitude in his -master’s study; was there ever a deeper gulf alike between dogs and -their quarters? - -Carlo belongs as unmistakeably to the castle—one turret of which, -with its fluttering flag when the family are at home, we see through -the study window in the picture—as the castle belongs to Carlo. Both -dog and scene—the table littered with books and writing materials, -the riding-gloves, the fine old bell glass and flask of rare old -wine, the foils, together with that glimpse through the window of -the castle turret—are products of centuries of civilisation and -generations of culture. Now look at the dog himself, as refined as -any fine lady, for no fine gentleman was ever so absolutely removed -from the faintest trace of rude nature—not to say from caddishness or -snobbishness. Carlo is positively burdened with refinement. Measure -him from the tip of his long nose to the point of his long tail, from -his small head and slender throat to his delicate haunches and fine -legs, and do not forget his large soft eyes and exquisite skin. Is he -not grace personified?—grace, not dignity, for dignity implies power. -Indeed there are critics who would limit Carlo’s dominant attribute -to superlative elegance, since they allege that perfect grace demands -natural vigour, and vigour or power is exactly the quality which the -dog lacks. Being a high-bred hound, he may be fleet as a bird—fleet as -Master Magrath of racing renown; but stamina, endurance (apart from -fleetness), simple force of constitution and character, are not in him. - -I have said Carlo is positively burdened with refinement. You cannot -look at him without suspecting what a weight the vulgar world is on -his mind. It does not enrage him; he is too mildly superior for that. -Rage is more or less of a brutal quality, and Carlo is as little of a -savage brute as any four-footed creature ever was. The wilful low life -and rude practices of the mass of living beings simply depress his not -very strong spirits, and torture his keen sensibilities. He is often -rendered wretched by the mere coarseness of the world in general; and -this wretchedness bulks so largely in his excited imagination that -his peculiar trial shuts out from him every other dog’s trial. Carlo -has fared delicately all his days. He has never known what it is to -want food and shelter; the best and most suitable of everything has -been provided sedulously for his use by the men whose business it is -to wait upon him, instead of his having had to hunt hard to satisfy -his most pressing wants, and to submit to being hunted in turn, kicked -and abused for presuming to have wants, and for seeking to satisfy -them. He has hardly ever heard a rough word addressed to him, so that -he will mope for hours if he is merely overlooked—if his master has -not smiled upon him, stroked his head, taken in his hand one fine paw -after the other. Naturally, Carlo has little sympathy to spare from -his own sentimental woes, which he plaintively airs and nurses, for -the matter-of-fact miseries of homeless dogs, starved, beaten, done to -death for the idle amusement of the spectators. - -Yet Carlo is a gentle, generous dog, by natural temperament, and, -so far from having no feelings, his feelings are only of too -fine a description. The truth is, there is a subtle—all the more -serious—danger to moral character in exquisitely fine feelings, -especially when they accompany a morbidly fastidious taste and -effeminate habits. - -When I say effeminate habits, I wish not to be mistaken. I do not mean -that Carlo was a larger lap-dog, utterly idle and useless—that he sat -and lay all day and all night in that luxurious study, or in a still -more luxurious drawing-room, or in a kennel very little behind the two -rooms in comfort and beauty. On the contrary, he saw plenty of sun and -wind. He had been trained, like his master, to count as the best part -of his time those hours which were spent in the open air, and in active -exercise. Coursing was exactly to Carlo what stalking deer, riding to -hounds, and rowing a boat were to his master. When the dog’s blood and -breeding were up, he could make a good fight in his doggish sport. - -What I do intend to convey is, that in Carlo, and, for that matter, in -his master also, the instincts of self-preservation, self-resource, and -independence were sensibly and unconsciously weakened. The two could -not have earned a dinner for themselves to save their lives, and if -they had earned it they would not have known what to do with it, unless -some foreign aid had happily come to them. Even after they had been -initiated into the necessary process, they would have been so revolted -by all the plain details inevitable to preparing a dinner, that they -would have left it to be devoured by hardier applicants, till hunger -urged them on to the stifling of their over-trained and stimulated -susceptibilities. - -Carlo first saw the light in a perfectly appointed kennel, built in -the shape of a pagoda, one of the show-places in a noble ancestral -park. His birth was attended with all the _éclat_ of the coming into -the world of a great and important personage, and his pedigree was as -proudly and hotly upheld as that of many a prince whose inheritance -depends on his family tree. The young heir up at the castle had -scarcely been welcomed with greater exultation, or had more unremitting -care and attention bestowed on him than was lavished by the kennel -staff on the puppy, the finest of the litter, the progeny of a valuable -and favourite dog. Neither were the kennel men and boys the only or -the principal persons who waited on the levees of Carlo. My lord and -my lady visited him almost daily; the most cherished visitors at the -castle were taken to inspect his points, and admire his promise; indeed -it was regarded as a mark of favour, on the part of the earl and the -countess, when some comparatively humble visitor—parson, lawyer, or -doctor, with his wife or daughters—was invited to go to the kennel and -have a look at the special puppy. The kennel was the first place the -young lord ran to when he was home from Eton. - -Carlo was led through all the trying stages of puppyhood with the most -tender anxiety for his welfare. His weaning and teething were carefully -seen to. I am almost sure that he was inoculated for distemper, -either in the ear or under a front leg, at a spot which could not be -reached by tooth or claw; and that the operation was performed by a -distinguished veterinary surgeon, who came from the next large town for -the purpose. - -If I am right, by this means the dog was enabled to escape altogether -the common scourge of the young of the dog race. And I believe the -most distant suspicion of mange, imported by some extraordinary means -to Carlo, would have been enough to have driven the head kennel-man -into a fit, would have covered with gloom the countenance of the young -lord, and would even have brought a cloud over the brow of his father -the earl, who was a famous statesman, and was understood to have the -destinies of nations at his beck. - -That was a great day to more than the dog—on which he was emancipated -from kennel thraldom, and was brought to the castle, where he was -destined to be the companion and friend of the future earl when he -was at home, though by this decision a sacrifice was made, of what -would probably have been Carlo’s laurels as a regular coursing dog. -Carlo might course occasionally, stirred by his master’s presence and -encouragement, but no study or drawing-room dog, whatever his pedigree, -could go in with a hope of winning the great matches equal to that of -the dog who was kept up to the mark, by being maintained solely for -that end. - -It was an evidence of the degree to which social claims are permitted -to prevail in every circle. “De Vaux wishes to have the dog constantly -with him,” said De Vaux’s mother, as if the desire of the heir settled -the question; “and Carlo is such a nice gentlemanly dog. I have been -so frightened for De Vaux’s taking a fancy to a hideous turnspit, or -a rough German boar-hound, or a fighting bull-terrier, with a beauty -spot over one eye, or even to some wretched cur. Young men are so odd -now-a-days,” she finished with a sigh of relief. - -Not a footman or a housemaid was not respectful to Carlo, well-nigh as -to my lord and my lady—tolerant of the trouble he gave the servants, -flattered if he took any notice of them. Like all aristocratic dogs, -he was inclined to keep his distance from the domestics, even from his -old friends of the kennel, so soon as he saw that they were not his -masters—that his master, who was also his familiar friend, proved to -be their master, and stopped short with being so. Carlo was disposed -to keep up an almost unbroken reserve towards the worthy persons, -in their own way, who used the back stairs. He would no more have -thought of visiting the kitchen, or even the housekeeper’s room or -the butler’s pantry, on terms of equality, than I daresay you and I, -my reader, would dream of doing, if we were, like Carlo, not so much -the servant as the privileged member of an earl’s family. But Carlo -was such a gentlemanly dog, as my lady had said, that he was incapable -of arrogance, far less insolence. His manner was, like that of Queen -Charlotte when she curtseyed to her humblest maid-servant, or of King -George when he took off his hat to the gentlemen of his band, always -gracious and affable. - -My lord and my lady had a great partiality for Carlo. My lord would -take him for a walk when the dog’s master was not at home. My lady -would encourage him to sit with her in her morning-room, where -she conducted her correspondence, and to glide after her in her -conservatory and flower-garden, where she gathered flowers, and played -at being a gardener in a big apron and gauntlet gloves, wielding shears -for the destruction of dead leaves and twigs. - -Carlo was introduced into the family picture which a great artist from -London came down to the castle to paint. The dog had been painted -several times before, and photographed on occasions without number—with -De Vaux on his pony, with my lady standing on the terrace, or entering -the family’s almshouses; but it was the first time that Carlo had been -put on the same canvas with the head of the house, and in a picture -which was destined to be one of the great works of the generation, -secured for the castle. My lord, who himself dabbled in art, likened -the introduction of Carlo into the piece to the use made of the white -greyhound by Rubens in the “Arundel Family,” and to the similar -employment of a dog, with the best effect, in Van Dyck’s “Wilton -Family.” One cannot wonder that Carlo felt perfectly justified in -regarding himself as a member of the earl’s family. - -But Carlo was De Vaux’s special property, and the relation between them -continued unbroken, in spite of the young man’s frequent absences on -his travels, during the first period of the connection. These absences -were trying to Carlo, who had little else to do save to miss his -friend, and pine for his return; and the more he pined, the more he was -praised and petted for his fidelity and devotion, till—as the dog had -naturally no dislike, but, on the contrary, a great yearning for praise -and petting, provided they were administered with the delicacy which -he demanded in all the dealings with him—he ran a great risk either of -falling into a normal condition of pining, or of becoming guilty of -the most abominable affectation, passing by insensible degrees into -hardened hypocrisy. - -Carlo was saved from these pitfalls by De Vaux’s return from his -travels, which had of course extended from Europe to Asia, including -Palestine and Damascus; Africa, as far as has been made out of the -course of the Nile; and America, across the continent to the Rocky -Mountains. - -After the celebration of De Vaux coming of age—which, to tell the -truth, was in its exuberant rejoicings a considerable infliction both -on him and Carlo—the heir settled down as far as he was likely to do in -his ancestral home, and took Carlo into his constant society, until the -dog had nothing more left to wish for. - -Ah! there was the rub; it was the having nothing more left to wish for -that threatened to be Carlo’s bane—to weigh him down with satiety, and -oppress him with a sense of life accomplished. De Vaux laboured under -a touch of the same complaint, only it took a higher form in the man -than in the dog, and De Vaux and all his friends gave it another name. -They made out that De Vaux, with his gifts and prospects, was rendered -so difficult to satisfy, while he had such a craving after perfection, -that the whole machinery of history and society disheartened and -distressed him, until he could not make up his mind—and it did not -really seem worth while to make it up—to join any political party, -conservative or reforming, or take up any calling or work in life, -beyond dreaming over what might have been, and deploring what was. - -De Vaux was not unlike Carlo in body and mind, if you make allowance -for the fact that the man was royally endowed compared to the dog. -The young lord was a fine handsome young fellow, more elegant than -muscular, in spite of the muscular education he had received both at -his public school and his university, yet quite manly enough to despise -sybarite indulgences and face hardships when they came in the way of -his sport or travels. What was enervated in him had to do with his -excessive fastidiousness and his want of hopefulness, his mental and -moral languor. He was sufficiently thoughtful always, and courteously -considerate when one came across him personally—so kindly that he would -not have harmed a fly—always unless in the way of sport. - -De Vaux was grieved to disappoint his noble parents, who would have -liked him, with his rank and talents, to enter the world and do his -devoir, and win his spurs gallantly. But to him the game was not worth -the candle; and when he regarded his fellow-players and the weapons -he must use, he shrank unconquerably from the contest. Altogether, he -was of as little use in the toiling, struggling world—except it might -be in affording an example of refraining from the indulgence of gross -appetites which he did not possess, and of pursuing cultivation for its -own sake—as one can well imagine in the case of a highly responsible -man. - -Perhaps, as a consequence, De Vaux suffered greatly, like Carlo, from -that sickening of a vague disease, that inexplicable, unbearable -depression, that weight of sympathy thrown back on itself, which -will always beset such men. I do not know how he could have stood -it, without breaking out into some abnormal eccentricity, or seeking -a miserable refuge from himself and his weakness in excess or vice, -if it had not been for the intellectual and muscular sides of him, -both of which had been carefully developed. They afforded him the -relief of a variety of interests in study, art, science, in long walks -and rides—wherein not only his nerves and muscle were braced, but a -wholesome love of natural history was farther fostered, in fishing, -shooting, deer-stalking, hunting, each in its proper season. Neither -was he, in his father’s house, at liberty to neglect intercourse -with his neighbours, though they afforded him much less solace, and -frequently grated painfully on his fine perceptions, so that they drove -him to give tokens of sinking, with all his advantages, into the life -of a confirmed recluse before he was thirty years of age. - -Withal, it was rather a melancholy spectacle to see De Vaux and Carlo -sitting listlessly together on a glad spring morning, or a serene -summer evening, by the bank of a trout stream, or at the man’s study -window—De Vaux’s long legs crossed, his long hand supporting his -drooping head, his eyes gazing wistfully and moodily into the distance; -while the dog, reflecting closely his master’s expression, if not -his attitude, sat with his head declined also, and his nose sniffing -the air in a kind of tender despondency—both so weary and sad, with -wonderfully treacherous fascination for them in the energy-sapping -sadness—and yet both so goodly in their respective fashions; De Vaux -not yet twenty-three, Carlo not turned ten years. - -There was only one element of light to be thankful for in this, -among the many mysteries of existence. When you thought of the low -life of Prince and his friend Jack, with all their shortcomings and -deprivations, and, in the middle of it, how courageously—though it -might be with a stolid courage—the dog and the lad endured misfortunes -unmerited as well as merited, and what an absolute hearty relish -remained to them wherewith to seize and enjoy every scrap of pleasure -that came in their way in the course of the day’s difficulties; how -they were not weary of life, in spite of the troubles they had known, -but were always looking forward, in the teeth of their experience, -to happier to-morrows—even when Prince was dragging out his dreary -days in Mr. Jerry Noakes’ yard—then you could not help seeing there -was compensation in life both for men and dogs. At least, where men’s -blundering arrangements are concerned, it is the tendency of riches to -produce surfeit, and of polish to sharpen the blade to an impracticable -fineness, till it not only wears out the scabbard, but bends and breaks -in the hand of him who uses it. - -But, for my part, I think the man and dog here were far too much alike -for their good. If they could have been parted, and De Vaux fitted with -a rollicking, though gruff young mastiff or Newfoundland, and Carlo -with a light-hearted, if empty-headed young squire, it would have been -better for both of them. - -In course of time the earl became superannuated, and more -responsibilities were heaped on De Vaux’s shoulders, bending, -notwithstanding their developed muscularity, under their present load, -which the bearer was growing more and more fain to shirk. - -My lady, plied with representations by friends and relatives of the -family, became alarmed at the supineness of her son, with the waste -of all his youthful promise, and his increasing inclination to let -the active current of life sweep by him, while he buried himself in a -remote retreat, taking with him his unemployed talent to rust there. - -One winter evening at the castle the curtains were drawn, and tea had -been brought in and carried out. Mother and son were alone together -in their several corners, behind their respective screens, and having -their private little tables, laden with books, drawing materials, -ladies’ work, and flowers, between them and the blazing fire. Carlo -was stretched decorously on the white bear skin which served as a -hearthrug. Then the countess spoke out, and urged on De Vaux all the -arguments which could stir his principles or rouse his ambition. But he -had always the same answer. - -Was it his father’s wishes that were pled? Ah! it was too late, so far -as affording his father gratification went; besides, De Vaux had been -persuaded from the first that, since he must have followed his own -convictions, he would have run counter to his father’s opinions, and -only contrived to vex and disappoint him in a public career. - -Was it the good of his country he was bidden mind? De Vaux laughed -softly, but with more pensive sadness than cynical bitterness in the -laugh, at the idea of his being of any service to speak of to the -nation. There were better qualified men than he to do the country’s -work—men who could stick to a party, and have all the consistency -and combined strength which such resolute adhesion gave; men not too -scrupulous—not cumbered with a double sight, which saw both sides of -a question, or with a vague, hazy farsightedness—he did not count it -a gain, he was not meaning to praise himself in reckoning the defects -which prevented him from observing clearly and concisely—which was -always anticipating dim consequences, magnified to giants in their -dimness. At the same time, he really felt he could not work—he could -not do himself or any other body justice in union with fellows who -were tools of a faction, or slaves to a theory; and he was not such -a Don Quixote as to propose to fight the battles of the country and -Parliament single-handed. - -Was it a suggestion of authorship? He had been a prize-man at Oxford; -he had been fond of making researches in various fields of intellect; -his style, as shown in his letters when he had been on his travels, -had been commended by distinguished literary men and diners out as the -_juste milieu_ between simplicity and brilliance. The family papers -alone might supply him with delightful subjects for essays. - -De Vaux laughed again, and protested that the world was too full of -books; that the making of books in his generation, much more than -in that of Solomon, was “vanity,” and he was not fool enough to add -without any distinct calling to those toppling monster heaps, which, -however evanescent, threatened to crush for the present, by the mere -force of numbers, the half-dozen books capable of surviving the -catastrophe. As for the records of the house, he was not disposed to -turn them out for daws to peck at, neither had he any desire to wash -his dirty linen in public, if she would forgive him the coarseness of -the simile. - -Was it a proposal of giving more personal attention to the management -of the estate, now that his father was no longer able to take any part -in it, or even to consult with the agent, in near prospect of the time -when De Vaux should be sole master? - -Here the poor lady began to cry, half at being forced to allude to the -approaching death of her old husband, half at the recollection that he -had always told her that to be an earl and a great landed proprietor -were not the sinecures that ignorant people imagined they were. Yet -De Vaux, who might have known better from what he had seen of his -father’s cares and worries, and with his own cleverness, was taking his -future position with unbecoming indifference, and declining to serve -any apprenticeship to it since the time when he had been a bright boy, -proud to accompany his father to the offices and the home farm. - -De Vaux’s affectionate heart was touched. He assured his mother that he -hoped his father would still be spared, and trusted he might rally and -resume some of his former habits. “In such a case, my dear mother,” he -said, “do you think he would like to find me prematurely interfering -with his plans, and overturning his arrangements, particularly when -Anwell is the briskest, most trustworthy old fellow out. He has a -greater knowledge of the capabilities of the estate, and of country -interests, than even my father had—don’t be angry; I have often heard -him say so—or, I need not add, than I am likely to acquire, though I -live to the age of Methuselah, which God forbid. It must have been a -heavy task for the oldest of the antediluvians to get along without -the comfort of so much as a contemporary to share his penalties. No, -no; ‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’ We have Scripture -authority for that, and I shall recommend the vicar to take the text -for his homily next Sunday if you will fret about my future troubles. -I shall think I am in your way if you are so anxious to get rid of me -and my spare time. In order to bring about that, there ought to be a -new crusade—quite enough in the unaccountable laziness of your son to -justify that. Eh, mum?” He ended with a flash of youthful fun, which -was some consolation to his mother for her failure. - -But she was more puzzled than ever. It was all De Vaux’s superior -cultivation, ability, and good feeling which stood in the way, of -course. There was a great deal of good taste, good sense, and good -feeling in what he had said, especially in his reluctance to grasp the -sceptre falling from his poor father’s hands. It was so different with -Lady Netherby’s son, who was little better than an amateur coachman—in -those days, too, when coaches had almost ceased to exist; or Lord -Dorchester, who was a learned prig as well as a marquis; or young -Ascham of Ryelands, who, as everybody knew, had sold himself to the -Jews, and was eagerly anticipating his father’s death for his release. -She recognised the difference thankfully. On the other hand, though -she and her lord had been fairly polished, intelligent, well-disposed -persons, she had not been, so to speak, - - “Too wise and good - For human nature’s daily food;” - -and it was a little hard to have a son whose genius and virtue took -this turn. But De Vaux was the product of the age. - -The countess hit on a new device. She would have young people about -the house. It might be that De Vaux, though he was too kind and -long-suffering to own it, even to himself, found his home a little -slow, shut up, as he was, with a couple of elderly people, one of -the two growing more and more infirm every day. No doubt the unequal -association told on the boy’s spirits—even his dog Carlo looked dull. A -disadvantage like that was enough to confirm De Vaux in those mooning, -moping habits—his one fault, and which somebody had frightened her by -foreboding might end in valetudinarianism; citing Lord Paulet, who had -not been beyond his own park for years, though he was not over forty, -and Sir Charles Ridley, who could not face a stranger to save his life. - -She would begin by having girls, since it would be rather a delicate -matter, and have the air of an act of interference on her part, if -she were to bring young men about the place who were not even of De -Vaux’s old quad or college, and were certainly not of his selection and -invitation. - -It showed the extent of the countess’s secret alarm on her son’s -account, and of her unselfish devotion to his welfare, when she fixed -upon getting girls to the castle to entertain him. Good woman as she -was, she had not loved to contemplate her successor, and she had been -tempted to keep her boy to herself as long as she could. But she would -encounter the danger, and even bring herself to make the sacrifice -cheerfully, because of the true mother’s love which she bore him. - -De Vaux had an utter aversion to loud, fast girls, and two or three -even nice girls, with their incessant claims on his attention, might be -too much for him and Carlo—might serve to bore rather than enliven him. -But there was one quiet little girl, the daughter of a favourite cousin -of her ladyship and of a brother peer, held in especial esteem by her -husband, and who my lady thought would be the very material for a first -experiment. Accordingly, Lady Margaret was invited to spend a little -time at the castle, and the invitation was accepted. - -De Vaux had made no objection when he heard of the probable guest. He -thought a young woman’s company for a few weeks might be a boon to his -mother, and though he was becoming every day more of a hermit, and -more averse to the slightest exertion out of the ordinary routine, he -would not interfere with his mother’s pleasure, and he too would bear a -little on his mother’s account. - -When Lady Margaret arrived she did not look like a person who would -be in anybody’s way, and even Carlo did not insist on sitting at -attention, and refusing in a melancholy manner to be at home in her -company. She was a very quiet, very shy, very young girl—on first -acquaintance almost too quiet, shy, and young for the countess’s -purpose, she feared. Lady Margaret required to be drawn out herself -in place of drawing out De Vaux; and she was hardly even pretty, for -her fair hair had been cut out on account of an illness, and was -only half-grown and thin; while she was as thin as her hair, and so -pale, that she resembled a wan, washed-out little ghost. My lady felt -disappointed. - -If the countess and De Vaux had known it, poor Lady Margaret was -undergoing a severe ordeal, and was suffering, without any sign, -agonies of _mauvais honte_ and of incipient home sickness. It was the -first time that she had been away among strangers without either her -mother or her governess. She was naturally timid, and she had only -recently recovered from a bad illness which had shaken her nerves. -Everything was strange and overwhelming to her; even the sound of her -own titled name startled her, seeing that she was accustomed to be -called Peggy at home. - -The countess was very kind, and De Vaux looked a _preux chevalier_; but -Lady Margaret did not know them, and they did not know her. She could -not tell in the least how they should ever become acquainted, or how -she should get over the weeks she must spend at the castle. But mamma -had wished her to come. Berry had said the change would be good for -her, and she knew she was a silly, spoilt girl. No doubt the trial was -beneficial, and she ought to make the best of it. - -The best was within the reach of a creature so humble, so full of -good-will and generous enthusiasm, in spite of her bashfulness -and nervousness. In a marvellously short time Lady Margaret began -to be reconciled to her situation, and to get the better of its -disadvantages. Every day she was a fresh surprise to my lady and De -Vaux—she opened up into such brightness and bonniness, as well as -sweetness, before their admiring eyes. - -The girl’s health was profiting by the change, combined with the -friendliness of her entertainers. She was coming out in her natural -colours of innocent trustfulness and happiness. My lady was getting as -fond of her as if Lady Margaret had been the countess’s daughter. - -Lady Margaret was a perpetual wonder to De Vaux, after she was at ease -with him, and he could remark how constantly she was occupied, and how -fresh and unflagging was her interest in whatever she was engaged with, -whether it was reading a new book, or drawing an original design for -the countess’s work, or borrowing a hint from the castle schools for -her own schools, or learning from Mrs. Woods the hen-wife, or Forbes -the gardener, the last plans for prairie chickens and orchises. She -was as ardent as a child, and her ardour knew no decrease. She carried -about with her a perennial spring of gladness, which was not impaired -by her earnestness and seriousness; for she could be very earnest and -serious on grave topics, and she was not an ignorant girl—I mean, not -ignorant of the sorrowful, terrible verities of life. She had been -brought up in a family that took a deep interest in humanity at large, -and were early accustomed to see the world as it is, and not to fear -to soil their raiment by coming in contact with the draggled garments -of others. These people were possessed with a passion of humanity, -the fervent conviction that to the pure all things are pure, while to -the strong and the good is appointed, under God’s grace, the task of -supporting and bringing back the weak and the bad. - -De Vaux believed that Lady Margaret’s mind had been too great for -her body—not that she was exceptionally clever, only unboundedly -sympathetic, unweariedly helpful. But all the drain of the sympathy and -help she afforded, in addition to the delicate health she had suffered, -did not suffice to take the girlish lightheartedness and mirth out of -her, after it was no longer checked by her first reserve. - -He was amused watching her in the park one day, when she thought she -was alone with Carlo. She had a bit of stick in her hand, which she -was throwing away from her with a great show of _empressement_, to -encourage the dog to follow and pick it up. He could guess she was -saying, “I should like to see you run for a bit of fun. Good dog. Oh -dear! is there no fun in you?—I know there is very little left in your -master. I wonder if you can run, except after a hare. If you only -would, I think it might shake you up, and put a little spirit in you. -Of course I should not expect you to run like my Buzfuz or Berry’s -Reiver; but if you would just try a little bit to please me.” - -All that she got Carlo to do was to wag his tail as if he were shaking -his head. “I believe the brute thinks it would lower his dignity and -mine if he were to run,” said De Vaux to himself, impatiently. He could -have found it in his heart to rise up from under the tree where he lay, -and go and run for her delectation, and to show her that he could run, -though he had not exerted his long legs, save at cricket, since they -were short legs, and had done their best at football. - -“Do you never whistle, Lord De Vaux?” she asked curiously one day. “My -brother Berry is a great whistler, and I miss the music. I know it is -very homely music, but none seems to me so blythe or so straight from -the heart. I wish girls might whistle if they could. I will confess to -you I have tried and failed. Berry said it was the feeblest attempt at -the magnificent—like a mouse squeaking.” - -He did not answer her that he had no heart-hilarity from which to -whistle, and that he had sometimes been moved to envy a ploughboy who -went whistling joyously past him, only pausing to take off his cap to -the young lord on his walk or ride. - -The next time De Vaux was in his room, with the door ajar, and was -aware that Lady Margaret was going along the corridor, he whistled -with all his might, though it took away his breath, so unwonted was -the performance; and involuntarily he fell into a solemn and stately -measure, like the “Dead March in Saul.” Still, he responded to her -suggestion better than Carlo had done, and he made her laugh—though he -was happily unconscious of it—at his doleful strain. She called him to -herself “the melancholy Jaques,” and said, though he was a product of -the age, a specimen of the kind existed in the time of Queen Elizabeth. - -But I don’t know that Lady Margaret thought the worse of him, or -liked him the less, because of her private wit at his expense; -though he—being, like other young men, stupid where young girls are -concerned—might have been at that date hurt and offended, and even -imagined that she despised him because she made game of him. - -One morning, as an excuse for his elegant idleness—of which he began to -feel slightly ashamed, when he was forced to see how busy this delicate -little girl was, and generally on the behalf of others—he repeated to -her the speech he had addressed to his mother, of his wanting a modern -crusade to induce him to put on his armor. - -“But there is a crusade going on all around us, for every one of us, -always,” she said, opening her eyes wide. “We have never been without -one since”—she stopped, but he knew what she meant. - -“I quite envy those fellows who have their own way to make in the -world,” he observed on another occasion, still with an underlying -motive of self-defence, and speaking in allusion to her younger -brothers’ work in their military and naval schools. - -“Oh! but Berry does most of all,” she explained promptly; “and he is -an eldest son—like you, I had almost said, but you are an only son and -child. I pity you, if you will forgive me for pitying you.” - -“Not forgive, but thank you, and I pity myself,” he answered quickly, -for it had at that moment struck him that, if he had possessed an -admiring sister to quote him as she quoted “Berry,” or to look up to -and depend upon him as she described her schoolboy brothers looking up -to and depending on their elder brother, he might have had more faith -in himself, and more inducement for exertion. - -“Lord Beresford is going into Parliament,”—she continued the -conversation, always delighted to speak about Berry,—“and, do you know, -Berry will never make a great speaker?” she confided to him, as if it -were a matter of extreme surprise, no less than regret, to more than -herself. “Berry acts, he does not speak. He has few words, except on -rare occasions. He says he could not be eloquent to save his life. But -that is nonsense; at least I have heard him what I call eloquent—to -save other people’s lives, when he had to argue against the bad water -and worse drainage in Friarton, the town next us. He hopes to be a -useful member; and he says though he hates to be in town, and it makes -him shiver to think there is the most distant chance of his having -to speak within earshot of the reporters and the strangers’ gallery, -and ironical cheers from the opposition benches, yet he ought to make -himself acquainted with the working of the House of Commons, and to put -himself in training, since, if he live, he must sit in the other House -one day.” - -“He is very good,” said De Vaux, abstractedly. - -“Oh yes,” said Lady Margaret warmly, without any affectation of -contradicting him. “I must not tell you what I think, because Berry -says, if I go about praising him or any of the others, we shall be -set down as the Mutual Admiration Society; only I may be permitted to -mention that he does not need to go into Parliament for occupation. -Our vicar—with whom, by-the-bye, Berry has some differences—always -maintains that my eldest brother, what with his clubs, societies, and -night-schools, his allotment schemes and co-operative experiments, is -the hardest-worked man in the parish.” - -“For a member of the bloated aristocracy,” commented De Vaux, with -somewhat grim humour. - -“Yes; is it not an odd order for Berry, as well as yourself, to belong -to?” she asked, laughing merrily; and then she added seriously—“But -it is no laughing matter. Berry says he does not wonder at that, or -indeed at any term of opprobrium, after the awful gulf which has been -permitted to yawn and deepen between the ranks.” - -“Lord Beresford will never fill it,” said Lord De Vaux dogmatically, -and with a suspicion of irritation. “Not above a tithe of the people -for whom he is spending himself will even understand him—far less be a -bit the better for his waste of life and energy.” - -“Berry says a man’s life would be well spent in helping a handful of -his fellow-creatures, especially his countrymen—not to say our own -people down at Southfolds,” said Lady Margaret serenely. - -“Did I say a tithe? Probably not more than one will follow your -brother’s lead.” - -“Berry says he would not grudge his work if one man, woman, or child -were the gainer by it,” said Lady Margaret proudly. - -“What manner of man, woman, or child ought he or she to be who is to -cost so much,” protested De Vaux ironically. “A beer-drinking clown, -a long-tongued slattern, a dirty-faced imp of mischief—one and all of -them dropping their r’s and revelling in their h’s.” - -“Lord De Vaux!” said Lady Margaret, taken in by his tone, and getting -red and indignant. “Berry says he has heard as good sense and as -poetic thoughts from men and women who abused their r’s and h’s, as he -ever listened to from their neighbours who respected these important -letters. He is tempted to hold that it is a prejudice to be so -particular about their disposal. More than that, he protests that, if -the use of a tooth-brush would cause him to have a profound aversion to -and contempt for the multitude who do not employ such an aid to their -toilet, he would rather renounce tooth-brushes for ever, and continue -to care for his brother.” - -Lady Margaret had recovered her good-humour by this time, and saw he -was trying her; so she added waggishly, “I must tell you, Lord De Vaux, -that I have the greatest respect for an honest old woman who commits -the enormity of taking snuff, as papa remembers your great-grandmother -and mine doing freely, and that Berry’s model boy has red hair and a -face covered with freckles.” - -“What will you do without Berry?” he questioned her insidiously. - -“I don’t know,” she answered, her face falling, and herself dropping -forthwith into the new trap laid for her. “We’ll miss him dreadfully, -and we are only to go to town after Easter for a few weeks, just that -I may be presented, as mamma does not think that I am strong enough to -stand the season. Berry will have nobody from home with him for the -rest of the time, except Reiver, to make him feel less lonely, poor -dear fellow.” - -“You might take Carlo and me in exchange for Reiver and Berry. I think -you could make something of us—get us to run unprofessionally, and do a -little work in time.” - -She looked up quickly to see how much he was in jest, and how much in -earnest. She looked down again, and said hastily, “Carlo and you do not -need me or any one to make you run and work, when it is in you both to -run faster and work better than the rest of the world, if you choose.” - -She did not intend to flatter him by any means, but he was not -displeased with her answer—not though she put aside his petition. - -The conviction had been growing upon De Vaux, till it was like an -inspiration, that Lady Margaret and her brother held the right standard -which he had missed—the one bracing and ennobling view of life—in which -a man can live and die, serve God and man, and cast behind him self -with all its weakness and waywardness. - -He could do it as he was a Christian man, Heaven helping him. He had -known what she had meant by a crusade all around us, for every man -and woman, always. He had remembered who had first bidden man take up -the cross, and condemned the servant who had hidden his talent in the -earth. It made De Vaux thoughtful and sorrowful; but in spite of his -sorrow, and the humility which was at its root, he was more hopeful -than he had been since boyhood in taking these reflections to heart, -and in seeing in the light of Lady Margaret’s conception of duty what -an egotist he had been, and how near he had got to making shipwreck of -his life, by yielding to scruples and whims, and forgetting the great -call which is on him and every man. - -My lady never had reason to regret having summoned Lady Margaret to -stimulate De Vaux. Lady Margaret did finally take both man and brute -in hand; but De Vaux had learned to work to purpose long before then, -having, as she had said, the power to work in him, while it was his -own fault if it lay dormant and shrivelled away. She never could or -would accept the credit of his working, but she was ready to allow that -she had helped to make Carlo a more cheerful dog than she had found -him. She had not done everything, for Carlo had always reflected his -master’s mood, and when De Vaux looked alive, and stepped out briskly -to keep some engagement which went against the grain with him, but the -obligation of which he had come to recognise, Carlo looked alive also, -and accommodated himself to his master’s quickened pace, and even to -the spring which had entered into the young man’s tread with the light -in his eye. But Carlo could not go everywhere with his master—could not -even be so much with him as formerly, after De Vaux grew a busy man -with ever-increasing engagements; so that it was all the better for the -dog that he had a brave little lady by whose side he could trot on her -numberless errands, until he had no time left to fall back into his old -painful consideration of the stumbles, the blunders, the coarseness and -vulgarity of his neighbours, or to indulge in morbid moping and pining. - - - - -[Illustration] - -CHAPTER III. - -“SUSPENSE.” - - -FLORA was a species of dog that had a dash of the bloodhound in -her. She was a great, somewhat gaunt creature, standing high on the -legs, and with a broad sagacious jowl, as different as possible from -Carlo’s fine, supercilious, pensive mouth. Flora, like many of her -sex—especially those of them whose personal qualities are not their -great distinction, and who have not, therefore, been followed and -fawned upon by a crowd of fools—was a dog of strong affections. It was -for her capacity in this respect, together with her admirable patience -and a kind of broad good sense, that she was valued. - -In the picture, Flora is sitting waiting, as she so often sat, -expectation and longing in every bristling hair, but without a single -demonstration of violence or obstreperous appeal. The door is closed, -and it is not for her to batter it, as Flora knows right well, neither -will she disturb her friends and owners by intruding her wishes on them -in barking and yelping. It is not that she has tried the artillery and -found it fail; it is that she is too reasonable, too long-suffering, -too unexacting and unselfish to practice with the weapons of a -smaller dog in every way. - -[Illustration] - -There she is, a great, not over-comely, and somewhat uncouth dog, -but loyal and loving to the heart’s core—as considerate as a dog can -be—full of a great trust in and an absolute submission to her master, -who is her lord and king, and in her master’s absence to his family and -representatives. She is so strong that she can afford to dispense with -bullying, and is meek in her strength and mild in her power. - -She sits to the artist, full of the anxiety and desire which you can -read in a thousand signs—by her wide-apart legs, the one foot slightly -raised, as on tiptoe—by the head bent in the attitude of intent -listening—by the fixed eyes, a little mournful, as deeply-loving eyes -are apt to be—by the hair rising on the crest of the back—by the very -squat of the haunches, and the utterly flat and flaccid condition -of the great tail laid at rest on the floor; for you will please to -observe that Flora, though hearkening with all her ears, does not -catch the faintest murmur of sound. It is the dog’s instinct and -affection—whatever she has for a mind—that is on the rack, and not -her nerves or her senses. She remains perfectly still and silent—a -monument of watching and hope, which are not undashed with fear and -doubt, almost despair; for the dog is capable of very keen and constant -attachment, and she has little knowledge wherewith to lighten the -apprehensions and solace the pangs of devotion put on its hardest -trial. But should Flora’s hope deferred sink in the end into fathomless -despondency, the dog will still contain herself. She will be no burden -to anybody. She will not add to the grief of others, who have a better -right than she has to mourn. She will wear a decent veil of reserve -over her anguish. What is she that she should cry out against destiny? -She will go about her usual avocations, and even faintly wag her tail -and make a formal show of joy at her friends’ advances, or on any -occasion of hilarity. There will be no idle baying at the moon, or wild -howling in the dead of night, causing the blood of other watchers to -curdle, in Flora’s case; she knows how to suffer and be silent, nay, -to put the best face on suffering. Only the old dog’s tread will grow -heavier and heavier, in proportion to the increasing heaviness of her -heart, as she stalks about her business. She will get ever gaunter, -without attracting much notice to her spectral condition, until one -day she will be found stretched stark and still on some spot, hallowed -by association, where her master was wont to whistle her to his side -to start for the day’s sport—where he cleaned his gun on their return, -and she, after lapping the cold tea which his care provided for her -refreshment, sat and looked on, not too tired to enter with interest -and admiration into the operation. Or she will be discovered on the -mat by the closed door—opening no more—of his room; dying without -complaint, and seeking to cause no trouble in her death, as she had -tried to give as little as possible in her life. - -Flora was brought up in a middle station of life to that of Prince or -of Carlo. She was not the next thing to an outcast, neither was she a -pampered dog of high degree. She was one of a litter of puppies that -arrived at a country parsonage, when there was no great need of such -an addition to the family. Neither was she, nor her mother before -her, particularly precious for purity or excellence of breed, though -they were members of a race of stout serviceable dogs which could be -turned to account in various ways, and could be trained to prove of -considerable use, both as setters and retrievers, among the turnips and -clover, and in the young plantations. But the perpetual curate who was -master of the parsonage was an elderly man, and no great sportsman, and -one dog was quite enough for him and his friends. - -Flora was sentenced to death along with her brothers and sisters, and -if it had not been for Master Harry her history would have been of the -briefest. He was not the sole hope of the house, like De Vaux; neither -had he any honours beyond an honest name to succeed to. But he was the -youngest born of his family. He was growing up in a healthy, hardy, -happy boyhood, after the elder members had gone out into the world, and -were married and settled in households of their own. Master Harry was -the last young bird that kept the parent nest tenanted by more than the -old pair. He was the Benjamin of their mature years, and therefore it -was difficult to deny him a small request—not that Harry’s father and -mother did not strive to do their duty by him, in contradicting and -correcting him, as they had dealt by their elder children, in order -to bring him up in the way he should go. His mother, who was a tall -gaunt woman, as gaunt as Flora became in later days, and yet as active -and managing as if she had been one of your little boneless, tireless -women, and the apple of whose eye Harry was, especially laboured -conscientiously to mortify her own inclinations and hold her youngest -son in check. Even in the matter of Flora, though she yielded to let -the dog be reared, it was always under protest and with reservations—if -the dog proved a thoroughly good dog, and was in every respect well -conducted from her puppyhood; if Mrs. Bloomfield saw no reason to -change her mind at any point of Flora’s career, and cause the dog to be -consigned, after all, to the water-hole in the furze quarry, by common -consent—the grave of all the criminal, mangy, forsaken dogs in the -parish of Rushbrook. - -As the best of dogs, like the best of men, are fallible, Flora may be -said to have grown up under a sentence of death, and was only spared -by a succession of reprieves from the execution of the warrant. Once -or twice she made very narrow escapes, and perhaps her rescue was -due to more than Harry’s powers of piteous pleading. She had been -gradually, by the pertinacious efforts of her master, introduced into -the house, instead of living at the stables with her mother, according -to Mrs. Bloomfield’s original decree, and so had established a claim of -familiarity on the regard of the stern censor herself. - -Two marked instances of Flora’s rubbing shoulders with that eminence -above the water-hole in the quarry, which may be compared to the -Tarpeian Rock, are on record. - -Mrs. Bloomfield, who prided herself on her success in her poultry yard, -had to listen at one period to various mysterious and doleful accounts -from her cook and boy-of-all-work on the inexplicable disappearance of -new-laid eggs and newly-fledged chickens. As there were no disreputable -characters about, and neither fox nor hawk in the vicinity, and -as the innocence of Flora’s mother was as well established as the -incorruptibility of the parsonage servants who brought the reports, a -grave suspicion attached from the beginning to Flora as the depredator. -But in the absence of positive proof, and in the face of Harry’s -indignant denial, the dark suggestion only hovered in the light of a -suspicion, and did not settle in the form of a conviction in people’s -minds. - -As good or ill luck would have it, Harry had a half-holiday, and -proposed gallantly to escort his mother round the offices, offering her -his arm for the purpose. The two proceeded, chatting easily, the best -of friends, past the kitchen garden, the paddock where the Guernsey cow -and her calf fed, the shed where the pony phaeton stood, and the stable -which held the curate’s cob, and his wife and Harry’s ponies. The pair -came in course of time opposite the door of the well-ordered hen-house, -or the hennery, as some ladies of Mrs. Bloomfield’s acquaintance, -ambitious of euphemism, preferred to term it. There was an unusual -commotion about the place; the door, with its crescent hole for hens -to enter or issue at pleasure, had been forced ajar, and at the very -moment when Mrs. Bloomfield and her son appeared on the scene it was -driven still more violently open. There rushed out a loudly protesting, -terrified hen-mother, with all her black feathers ruffled, and some -of them half pulled out, hanging by the tips of the pens. Behind her -tore along Flora, not subdued and decorous, as we have seen her, but -inflamed with riot and in hot pursuit. Her jaws were dripping yellow -with the yolks of eggs, to which was added, in horrid significance, a -fringe of the fluffy down which is the covering of recently hatched -chickens. - -The sight struck Mrs. Bloomfield and Harry dumb. She had too much -feeling for her son, as the master of Flora, to say a word to him at -first. He could not bring forward a syllable in defence of the dog, -caught red-handed, or yellow and feathery jawed—which came to the same -thing—in this instance. - -Though Mrs. Bloomfield said nothing, she let her hand, which had been -resting lightly on Harry’s jacket sleeve, tighten its grasp. Thus she -marched the boy to the house. Flora, who had taken guilt to herself, -stopped short in her headlong career, let the plundered and insulted -hen go, and slunk at a safe distance after the mother and son to the -parsonage. - -“Now, Harry, what have you to say for yourself and that brute of -yours?” asked Mrs. Bloomfield, in the tone of a righteous and -relentless judge. - -“I had nothing to do with it, mother,” cried Harry in desperation; “and -Flo is only a dog.” - -“Flo is only a dog,” echoed his mother severely; “and those who should -know better, and keep her to the injury of poor helpless fowls, and the -destruction of as fine a brood of chickens as cook ever set, have the -more to answer for. Harry, Flora goes this very night.” - -“Mother, it is the first time,” pled Harry faintly. - -“The first and the last,” said his mother. “I have heard that a taste -for eggs, not to say chickens, is never eradicated in a dog.” - -“Oh no, mother, you are wrong there,” cried Harry eagerly. “Tom -Cartright’s Juno was as destructive a beast to turkeys and geese, even -to lambs, when he was half-grown——” - -“Hold your tongue, Harry, and don’t contradict your mother.” - -Harry was cut short in his argument, and submitted more unresistingly -than usual. - -“I cannot have the dog about the place for another night,” went on -Mrs. Bloomfield, in a high authoritative key. “Hoppus,” naming the -gardener, “will take her away quietly, and put an end to her without -any unnecessary pain. It must be done, Harry; there is no help for it, -and you must bear it like a man. You know I have often told you, when -you would insist on keeping pets, that you must be prepared for their -coming to grief, and causing you to suffer in your turn.” - -“I don’t mind my own sufferings,” muttered Harry indignantly; “but I’ll -tell you what, mother, if Flo is to be killed, I—I’ll kill her myself,” -he said, with quivering lips and a husky voice, but making a manful -fight to keep down his feelings. “I have a right to be let do it. -Nobody will care so much that she shall not suffer as I will. And Flo -will do anything for me. She will even jump over the quarry when I tell -her, and not believe her senses that it can hurt her, because it is I -who bid her do it,” he ended, unable to restrain a sob. - -Mrs. Bloomfield hesitated, while she was conscious of some troublesome -moisture in her eyes. It was true what Harry urged, that he had a -right—and she was the last woman to deny a right, if he claimed it—to -save Flora from pain, and make her death as inconceivable to her to the -last moment as was possible. But could she condemn her boy to such a -task? She would consult his father. - -The curate, like his wife, shrank from making Harry his dog’s -executioner. Harry stood firm. The matter was argued, and the -fulfilment of the sentence delayed, till at last it was commuted to a -sound whipping, and _that_ Harry consented to relegate to the hands of -the gardener. So faithfully did Hoppus discharge his mission, and so -susceptible was Flora, from these early days, to reason—whether it was -conveyed in kind careful instruction or wholesome chastisement—that -from that hour she respected the poultry yard, and always looked -another way when she had to pass a nest, or when a chicken crossed her -path. So magnanimous did she become in her age, that she has been known -to allow a daring young cock, or stolid middle-aged hen, to advance and -peck at the bone beside which she lay reposing. - -The next perilous crisis through which Flora passed occurred later in -time, and in Harry’s absence from home—which proved, nevertheless, a -fortunate circumstance. Flora was grown, and had her first litter of -puppies, which were taken from her and destroyed. Ill, sad—missing -Harry as well as her puppies—the ordinarily quiet, well-behaved dog -fretted herself into a very frenzy of destructiveness, under the -influence of which she roamed in secret all over the house, gratifying -her gnawing and tearing propensities. She got possession of a visitor’s -ermine boa, and rent it in fragments. She was found ensconced in a -spare bedroom, and established in the bed, the Marseilles quilt of -which she had chewed till it was riddled with holes. Finally, she -managed to secure a bandbox, containing two maid-servants’ Sunday -bonnets, and made short work with the pink ribbons and the artificial -flowers. - -Mrs. Bloomfield replaced the wholesale wreck; but she could stand such -conduct no longer, though she was too well-informed a woman to fall -into a panic, under the impression that the dog was mad. In reference -to the right in Flora stringently asserted by Harry when he was a mere -boy, she could not—now that her son was a big lad—do more than order -the dog to be tied up, while she waited word from Harry in answer to -her inquiry as to how his _protegée_ was to be disposed of. It happened -to be the end of the week, when Harry frequently returned home from his -public school to remain over the Sunday. And it had been noticed before -that the dog was cognizant of these stated visits, and looked eagerly -out for the arrival of her master. - -In the season allowed to Flora for cooling down and contrition, while -she had the knowledge forced upon her that she could no longer rush -to greet Harry with an open face and a clear conscience, but must -be sought out by the lad, smarting under a fellow-feeling with her -disgrace, Flora became so overpowered by the consequences of her -previous self-indulgence of restless grief and longing, that she cast -to the winds the silent endurance which had been from her youth a -marked feature in the big, brave dog’s character. She refused to eat -and sleep, and expressed her poignant regret and repentance, in a mode -most unlike herself, by filling the air with her howls and moans. - -At the end of two days and nights Flora had howled herself perfectly -hoarse, until Mrs. Bloomfield’s—not to say the curate’s—ears and hearts -ached with the dog’s husky distress. In sheer self-defence they sent -instructions to loose her, but to detain her a prisoner on parole, -banished from their presence. - -But Flora did not understand anything about parole, or reservations -in pardon. With a succession of joyous bounds at her release, she -spurned all efforts to detain her, and never stopped till she had -pushed her way, worn and dishevelled as she was with unrest, hunger, -and the constant agitation of eight-and-forty hours, into her offended -judge’s august presence, leaping upon her and the curate—up to their -very shoulders and heads—in her fond gladness, licking the hem of Mrs. -Bloomfield’s garment, falling grovelling at her feet, whining in a very -passion of gratitude and delight. - -What was to be done? It was not in hearts which were not steel to -resist such unbounded dependence on their regard and their goodness. -Mrs. Bloomfield professed to frown and pull away her gown from the -dog’s touch; Mr. Bloomfield pshawed and read on at his paper; but I -believe both secretly caressed the confiding culprit. Certainly no more -notice was taken of her misdemeanours. As for Master Harry, on his -return he had the coolness to take high ground, and maintain that the -accidents were all owing to the ignorance and carelessness of the dog’s -keepers, and that if he had been at home, and had Flora in charge, not -a single misadventure would have happened. - -Soon after this escapade, changes occurred in the curate’s family which -established Flora’s position there so firmly that nothing short of -a capital crime could have dislodged her. Flora’s character was far -removed from a capital crime; she was an honest, worthy dog, noble -and sterling in her unaffected humility and steadfast attachment. She -had laid aside her youthful indiscretions—whether the probations and -penalties of these days had anything to do with the peculiar staidness -and propriety which ultimately, except on rare and exceptional -occasions, distinguished her bearing. The dog, that was at first -permitted to live as a favour, and brought up under protest, reached at -last to as high honour as ever dog attained. - -However, it was long previous to this climax that Flora had many happy -days with Harry, attending him sedulously, and assisting him with all -her ability in his raids on rabbits, hares, pheasants, wild ducks, or -rats in the barn. Flora was not particular; any game came right to her, -which was one advantage of her mixed descent. Harry averred that she -would have gone at a deer had she got the chance of deer-stalking. He -was proud of her skill in pointing and in bringing him the game, though -he was free to admit that she was not probably just such a dog as that -which the poet Earl of Surrey—with the true poetic insight into animal -nature, and power of drawing forth and tutoring animal gifts—first -taught to point. - -I don’t know whether Harry or Flora enjoyed most those early autumn -mornings, when the silvery white mist drew a bridal veil over the -orange and tawny woodlands, when the young man’s foot crushed out the -aromatic fragrance from the thyme and mint in the pasture; or those -winter and spring afternoons, when the sunset reddened the prevailing -gray, and the two crouched, stiff but staunch, among the frozen sedges -by the silent brook, and trudged home content—although they had got -but a single green-necked duck, or were empty-handed—in the gathering -darkness, with the stars coming out and twinkling over their heads. The -two were excellent company, and in room of speech Harry whistled—oh! -with what untiring wind, and how cheerily—in a way that it would have -done Lady Margaret’s heart good to hear, leaving echoes which rang -pathetically in other hearts throughout the long years. - -The first great change which made good Flora’s footing in the curate’s -family, was Harry’s ultimate choice of the navy for a profession. He -had delayed his resolve out of a regard to his father and mother’s -reluctance to grant their consent. They were quite elderly people, and -were loath to agree to the son of their old age following a rough and -dangerous vocation, which, at the best, would take him far from those -who had not much time left to spend on earth. But Harry’s bent was too -strong, and his father and mother were too wise and kind long to resist -the clear inclination, or to call on their son to sacrifice it, with -its inspiration of hearty liking, to the growing timidity of their -years, and the very clinging love they bore him. - -It was not the less a trial, which so broke down even the younger and -stronger of the two, that Mrs. Bloomfield, who had been known as a -highly practical woman, actually took to discoursing to Flora on the -subject, doubtless since she could not trust herself to speak to more -responsive auditors—least of all to her equally interested old husband. -“We’ll miss him, Flora. Ay, you need not wag your tail; there will be -few waggings of the tail in the dull days that are coming. I thought -you had more sense, old dog. But perhaps you mean that he’ll serve -his Maker and his fellow-men as well in a ship as in an office, even -as in a church, where I would fain have seen my Harry—only Providence -has settled it otherwise, and Providence knows best. We are following -unerring guidance; that is one thing to be thankful for. Some old -sailor—I daresay Harry could tell me his name and all about him—said he -was as near heaven on sea as on land, and so it will be with my boy.” - -It was after the wrench of Harry’s departure, for many months, that -Flora was first seen to assume that attitude of supreme watching -and expectation in which she has been painted. She had been shut up -to keep her from running off to the railway station—just as I have -known another faithful dog go regularly and take up his position at a -particular hour, in order to be present on the arrival of a coach by -which his master had been wont to return home. The dog was under the -impression that the man would make his appearance in the old accustomed -fashion, and, although he was doomed to disappointment night after -night, he kept up the bootless practice for weeks. - -The attitude expressive of suspense became frequent, almost habitual, -with Flora. In the early days of Harry’s service, he happened to have -tolerably frequent opportunities of coming home, so that his dog -grew familiar with arrivals and departures. And Harry’s father and -mother, now cherishing Flora as a relic of their absent son, were fain -to allege that she showed marvellous, certainly superhuman, if not -supernatural, discrimination in detecting the most distant signs of -her master’s approach; and that they were often made aware of Harry’s -unexpected nearness, before they could otherwise have known it, simply -by the actions of the dog. - -In addition, Flora had her susceptibilities keenly alive to any -trace of Harry, or any association with him, so that on the sight of -some article which had belonged to him, such as his cap or his old -overcoat, or even on her catching the distant sound of the sportsmen’s -dropping shots on the first of September, Flora would fall into an -expectant position, and sit motionless and listening for hours. The -last expression of her remembrance unquestionably detracted from the -correctness of her premonitions of Harry’s reappearance; but his -father and mother argued that there was a perceptible difference -between Flora’s air when she sat thus waiting for her master, without -any hope of seeing him, and her whole gait and manner when she flung -up her bent head triumphantly before she made a bolt at the door or -the open window, crying as plainly as if she had made the remark in so -many words—“Ah! don’t you know Master Harry is at the gate?” Either -expression was clear to Harry’s father and mother, who had a sympathy -with the dog, and whose own dim eyes showed a reflection of the aimless -wistfulness which was creeping into Flora’s brighter orbs. - -A sore test was in store for all Harry’s friends, human and canine. In -the course of honourable promotion he became a person of importance, -and his absences were much longer, his returns briefer and less -unfailing. At last there came a day when he had the pride of showing a -lieutenant’s uniform; but as a qualification to the satisfaction, where -his friends were concerned, he sailed for a distant station, from which -he could not return for a period of years. - -Slowly the days passed in the quiet parsonage, where the snows of -winter had gathered thickly on the old curate’s head, and he was seldom -fit to totter up the stairs to his pulpit, and where Mrs. Bloomfield -had at last to avail herself of spectacles; and to own to a touch of -rheumatism, so that she had to employ young deputies to do the entire -decorations of the church at Christmas, and even to teach in the Sunday -school, and undertake, under the old lady’s superintendence, her -district visiting. Flora herself, by far the youngest of the household, -was neither so young nor so active as she had been. - -But whatever powers of seeing, hearing, and discharging professional -duties were passing away from the members of the little party, there -was one thing they were still fit for—to count the hours and look out -for the appointed time of Harry’s return. - -Alas! the hours were counted in vain. Although the long-desired season -came duly round, it did not herald the event which was to have rendered -it illustrious in one remote spot in Great Britain. Harry did not walk -into the old house and rouse its slumberous inmates. His cutter was not -even heard of; it had not been reported for many months. - -Gradually misgivings and apprehensions, the sickness of hope deferred, -the agony of the worst forebodings, gathered and darkened over the -parsonage. - -Everybody in the parish shook his or her head, and commiserated the -bereaved parents: surely they were bereaved, though it was natural in -them to cling to the last chance, and refuse to give up hope. Still, -it would be better for them if they could resign their son, with his -messmates, to an unknown death and a nameless grave. - -Harry had been a favourite in the parish, and there was sincere -mourning for his untimely fate, as well as real sympathy with his aged -father and mother, even when their grief took a trying phase, and they -shut themselves up—not to say refusing to be comforted, but declining -to believe in their loss. “We won’t give him up so soon, old dog,” Mrs. -Bloomfield was heard to say to Flora. “You still look out for him; -don’t you? You would teach people, who ought to know better, greater -confidence in God and His mercy, and more fidelity to their friends, -instead of calling us afflicted, whom God has not afflicted.” And she -refused to put on mourning. - -Then people began to say it was a bad example from those who should -be the first to show resignation to the Divine will, and that Mrs. -Bloomfield was guilty of lamentable weakness and superstitious folly in -paying heed to Harry’s dog and its ways. It was the grossest absurdity -to suppose that a dumb animal could be aware whether its master had -perished, or was sailing in strange waters, or had been cast away on a -virgin island. It was well known that the Admiralty had given up the -cutter. The speakers would not have expected such inconsistency in poor -old Mrs. Bloomfield, who had been a clever, sensible woman in her day, -though she was breaking up fast. - -Harry’s mother got all the blame with reason, since the curate had -grown so feeble in mind, as well as in body, that he was only able -to take in what his wife told him; and if she had assured him that -Harry had never been away at all, but had been all this while in the -cricket-ground, or off with his gun and Flora, he would have called for -his hat and stick, and claimed her arm, to go out and chide the boy for -his thoughtless delay. - -The elder sons and daughters of the family, middle-aged people, with -growing-up children of their own, put themselves about to come from -various distances to condole and remonstrate gently with their mother, -until poor Mrs. Bloomfield’s forlorn hope was at its last tremulous -gasp. Even Flora threatened to fail her, for the old dog began, not so -much to sit listening, as to crouch down, it seemed in despair. - -But one April day, when the country air was full of the scent of -blossoming furze bushes and the songs of birds, awakening to the -knowledge that summer was at hand, Flora pricked her ears, started up, -and pawed eagerly at the door. - -“There! I told you; there is Harry at last,” cried a shrill quavering -voice, and then Mrs. Bloomfield fell back in a dead faint; for, even -as she had spoken, she had recognised that it was only the postman who -was advancing to give his accustomed rap, and her strained nerves and -breaking heart could not stand the bitter disappointment. - -“This delusion will kill my mother,” said one of the daughters, -hurrying to attend to Mrs. Bloomfield, while one of the sons received -the letters. “That wretched dog of poor Harry’s must be taken away from -the place.” - -“Yes, Conty,” said her brother hastily; “but this is very like—it -cannot be—good Heavens! it is Harry’s handwriting, and see”—pointing to -the end of a letter he had torn open—“here is his signature. Could the -brute have scented it a hundred yards off?” - -“Oh! never mind, if dear Harry be only alive and well. Find out all -about it, that we may tell mamma the first thing after she knows what -we are saying. There, the red is coming into her poor lips again; but -I am sure nothing will bring her back like such good news. No, Jem, I -have no fear for the shock; it is sorrow and not joy which drains the -blood from the heart; and the knowledge that she and Flora have been -proved right, and all the rest of us wrong, will help to steady her. -Don’t you know so much of human nature?” demanded the half-laughing, -half-crying, middle-aged daughter. - -Harry’s story was one not altogether strange to men’s experience, and -which occurs once and again in a generation, but when it happens is -always regarded as a marvel with the attributes of a romance. - -The cutter had been lost in a stormy night on a coral reef in the -southern seas; but a boat’s-load of the crew, among whom was the junior -lieutenant, had managed to land on an uninhabited island, and make good -a living there for four dreary months. “If I had only got Flora with -me,” Harry wrote in the letter—in which he was at last able to announce -his rescue, and in which he sought to make light of the hardships he -and his companions had undergone—to his father and mother, “the old -lass would have found plenty to do among the rabbits and a kind of -partridge. She would have been invaluable, if her very value had not -proved the ruin of her, and if she had not fallen a victim to her -general gaminess, as other poor beggars were like to do; but that is -all over now.” - -When the castaway men were at last taken off the island, it was by a -foreign ship that carried them thousands of miles out of their track; -but the sufferers had been treated with every attention and kindness -by good Samaritans in the guise of Brazilian sailors, and by the time -Harry’s letter should reach the parsonage, to disperse any little -anxiety that might be entertained there, the writer would be far on his -way home. - -Mrs. Bloomfield had enough spirit to undertake a journey to Portsmouth, -in order to be the first of all the friends who accompanied her to -greet her son. Her husband was not able to escort her; he waited -placidly with Flora, satisfied to be taken to the railway station to -meet the appointed train. - -I need not say that the old dog was an object of great interest, -while she comported herself with her own exemplary sobriety. If she -had an intuition that her master was on the road, she did not betray -it on this occasion. She had no call to announce to the idle world -of Rushbrook—and it was rather an idle holiday world, with a marked -inclination to congregate at the railway station on another fine spring -morning—that Master Harry was coming. Withal, Flora’s sagacity and -devotion could hardly be expected to compass the fact that late events -had intensified the importance of such information. She submitted -to have a sailor’s blue ribbon tied round her neck, in honour of -the day and her master; but she wore the decoration rather with -imperturbability than with conscious pride, and she took no notice of -the flags and evergreens which were displayed with kindly zeal. - -When the train steamed into the station, and a brown face appeared -at the window of a carriage, crowded with brothers and sisters, in -addition to an old mother, Flora did strain violently at the chain -by which Hoppus, for greater precaution, held her, and it was with -difficulty that she was induced to have the grace to permit Harry to -pay his respects first to his father—who, as by an involuntary motion, -uncovered his white head to receive his lost son—before she sprang upon -her master in a rapture of welcome, which Harry’s “Hold on, old dog; -don’t worry me outright!” only raised to a higher pitch of ecstasy. - -But Flora was not naturally a demonstrative, far less a forward dog. -She soon controlled herself, and recalled the superior claims of -others, falling respectfully, and with a shadow of shamefacedness for -her late unwonted ebullition, to heel, and following decorously, for -the rest of the way, in the little procession. - -Only one trouble occurred with the dog. It had been arranged that the -reunited family, with their friends and the parishioners present, -should proceed first to the church, in order to join together in a -solemn service of thanksgiving for a great act of mercy vouchsafed by -Almighty God to some of His children—a ceremony which is touching in -proportion to its rarity in this world of care and discontent. - -Flora, who had never been to church before, and who was, as I said, -walking in her place in the procession just behind Harry, who was -between his father and mother, showed no sign of stopping short in the -porch. - -There was considerable hesitation in the breasts of the brothers and -sisters, who noticed the dog’s proceedings, and in the mind of Hoppus, -who considered that he had her particularly in charge. Indeed, that -consequential functionary had been giving himself sundry airs on -account of the guardianship, seeing that if Master Harry were the hero -of the day, Master Harry’s dog, which had never ceased to look out for -him, might surely be regarded as playing second fiddle to her master, -reflecting glory on her keeper for the next twelve hours at least. But -what would become of the glory if Flora were let get into a scrape? -The official spirits of the clerk, beadle, and pew-opener were also -sensibly stirred by the _contretemps_. - -Was the harmony to be broken, and a disturbance to be created, by the -forcible arrest and expulsion of the dog?—no easy task if Flora made up -her mind to stick closely to her newly-found master. Would a scandal -be created if a dog were suffered to make one of the congregation in a -thanksgiving service? - -The matter settled itself. As the principals concerned walked -unconsciously within the sacred walls, and Harry took the old place -he had occupied when a boy in the family pew, Flora did not wait till -the objectors had formed a resolution; she advanced steadily in her -line of march in the rear of her master, and lay down in her festival -blue ribbon at his feet, with the coolness of unchallengeable right. It -would have been impossible to dislodge her then. As it was, she soon -stilled the alarm she had raised, by remaining perfectly quiet, and -behaving as if she had attended church every Sunday from her puppyhood; -like Scotch collies that wait discreetly on the diets of worship in -pastoral Presbyterian kirks. But I am bound to confess that was the -first and last occasion on which Flora went to church. - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration] - -CHAPTER IV. - -“THE HUMBLE FRIEND.” - - -“CÆSAR will be the death of Dash some day, Tot,” said Nelly Pollard -to her favourite brother—not a little boy in petticoats, as his name -might imply, but a young man upwards of six feet, and “bearded like -the pard.” The origin of his inappropriate name was capable of easy -explanation, when it came to be investigated. He had been christened -Reginald—an imposing and euphonious title which his numerous brothers -and sisters in the nursery abbreviated unceremoniously to “Wretch.” -The child naturally objecting to this corruption, an indulgent mother -substituted the neutral epithet “Tot,” which was in keeping with a mite -in a white frock and blue shoes; but “Tot,” in spite of the glaring -discrepancy, stuck to the man after he had attained his full stature, -and the frock and the shoes had been exchanged for a frock-coat and -Blücher boots. - -“I am afraid that will be about it,” said Tot, with all a man’s -barbarous _sang-froid_, in marked contrast to the accent of trepidation -and terror with which Nelly had spoken. - -[Illustration] - -“Serve him right. Why need he play Boswell unasked to Cæsar’s Johnson?” - -“But if father would only see that Cæsar is a dreadful brute, and have -him put away in time to save Dash,” she said pleadingly. - -“Why, you cannot complain of our father’s predilection, when it is -shared to so great an extent by your silly favourite,” remonstrated -Tot. “It is on the principle of Carlyle’s admiration of Frederick the -Great, and of the present furor for Bismarck,” added Tot, who was fond -of historical parallels. “What do you mean by putting away?” he pressed -Nelly with pitiless directness. “I have no patience with euphemisms, -Nell. Say at once that you would have Cæsar shot or hanged, in order to -protect Dash from the natural consequences of his folly. Well, though I -must say that is a queer kind of justice, by way of mercy, too——” - -“Oh! not shot or hanged, Tot. You know I did not mean that,” exclaimed -Nelly piteously, interrupting her brother; “and you do not like Cæsar -yourself.” - -“I am perfectly aware that he is a truculent ruffian,” said Tot, -composedly. “He has grossly imposed on the governor. I would see him -despatched with all the pleasure in life——” - -“I don’t believe you,” Nelly interrupted him again with energy. - -“Wait till I have finished my sentence,” complained Tot. “I was going -to say that while I should have no objection to Cæsar’s meeting his -deserts, I really cannot recognise the propriety of his falling a -sacrifice to the stubborn idiotcy of Dash.” - -Cæsar _was_ a truculent ruffian, with hardly a redeeming trait; though, -from his life as a chained-up watch-dog—which, to give the beast his -due, might have helped to brutalise his disposition—he was removed from -the opportunity of doing much mischief, and though he was able with all -his stupidity—and he was as stupid as he was savage—to throw dust in -his master’s eyes. He ought not to have been named for a brave Roman -soldier, granting he did overthrow a republic. Timour or Tippoo was too -good a name for the dog. - -You may see him in the illustration—a huge, half-bred brute, without -any of the nobility or magnanimity of the true mastiff. There he lies -sprawling, half out of his den, with his muzzle and his unwieldy paws -guarding a piece of meat, while he glares at you with a jealous scowl. -There is no harmony in his bulk, which, in place of being imposing, is -simply repulsive. The girth of his neck is tremendous, while his bull -head is furnished with comparatively short, thick ears. His broad, -flat, black and red nose is stolid in the extreme, and destitute of -speculation apart from its animal scent. - -Yet Cæsar is not without his admirers; not only does his master, worthy -gentleman, refuse to believe that the dog is coarser, more insensate -and vicious than other dogs—there is a poor little weak-minded spaniel -Dash, that hankers after the ugly, hard, selfish tyrant, haunts his -den, and makes timid advances to him. - -Dash also is to be seen in the illustration, bowing and begging to -Cæsar. Dash’s silky, wavy hair, prominent eyebrows, pendant ears, -the abject inclination of his head, the slobbering of his tongue in -sneaking kindness—half for Cæsar, half for his piece of meat—are all -keenly characteristic of the spaniel, with his fawning, frightened -ways; and alas! alas! there are in him, along with his gentleness and -surface amiability, the elements of a liar and a traitor. - -There cannot be a wider distinction in dog-life, and in the human life -of which, in Landseer’s hands, the first was the type, than that which -exists between the despicable, precarious relations of Cæsar and Dash, -and the chivalrous enduring connection that knit together two such dogs -as figure in the group, “Dignity and Impudence.” - -I do not mean that poor Dash’s infatuated _penchant_ for Cæsar—at -the best always surly to him, and whose rude tolerance was bought by -the relish which Cæsar, with other tyrants, had for low flattery—was -entirely a cake and pudding, or, I should say more fitly here, a beef -and bone attachment. I do not wish to imply more than that, in such an -unreasonable, unreasoning passion as that which not unfrequently links -a Dash to a Cæsar, I have generally found beneath the weak creature’s -softness, silliness, flagrant imprudence, and apparent self-abnegation, -a very considerable leaven of self-will and selfishness, with a lively -appreciation of what are to the victim the good things of this life. -Still I am willing to admit these are not the only motives for such a -perverse, well-nigh degrading subjection, and that even the spaniel -Dash entertained an incomprehensible tenderness for the brute Cæsar, -apart from the hope of the reversion of Cæsar’s bones, which, when -thoroughly sated himself, he permitted sometimes to his visitor. - -I know there exists an odd fascination in outward inequality, when the -foundations of character are tolerably balanced. It was the brusque -manner and slightly hectoring tones of Tot—who was in the main a -thoroughly kind-hearted fellow, and quite a different character from -Cæsar—that rendered him the favourite brother of his gentlest sister -Nelly. But Nelly, again, was not like Dash; she was, with all her -delicate womanliness, not merely transparent as crystal and true as -steel, but firm as a rock on questions of moment to her; and it is to -cowardly, vacillating natures that I am inclined to ascribe—in addition -to the attraction which boldness has for softness—double motives, and a -constitutional tendency to artful manœuvring and secret defiance. - -It was in secret defiance that Dash waited on Cæsar. Dog as he was, -Dash knew perfectly well that he was warned away from the precincts -of the watch-dog’s couch, and that every effort was made to show him -it was not in accordance with his own welfare, any more than with -his owners’ wishes, that he should expose himself to Cæsar’s coarse -companionship and often grisly humour. And Dash had not even the excuse -of the fly for yielding to the wiles of the spider. Cæsar certainly did -not invite the spaniel into his “chamber.” He was neither complacent -nor cunning enough to solicit his satellite’s company; he did no more -than permit it, with a sort of insolent indifference. Dash chose -to risk himself in a combination of credulous vanity, lurking—not -open—naughtiness, misplaced affection, and greed. - -The intimacy, if so it could be called, continued in spite of Nelly -Pollard’s prohibitions, and the barriers raised by her—notwithstanding -Tot’s rougher reminders of his duty to the spaniel, and attempts at -coercing Cæsar—till a prolonged howl of terror and anguish arose one -morning, and caused the brother and sister to rush simultaneously—Tot -from his chemical experiments, Nell from her gardening—to the back -court where the watch-dog’s couch stood, and from which the cry -proceeded. - -Sure enough, Dash had been a little too importunate, and a shade -indiscreet in his greeting, when Cæsar was engaged with his morning -meal; and the tyrant had leaped upon his slave, rolled him over, and -though Cæsar had thought fit to spare life and limb, he had planted -with his fangs more than one terrible love-token in Dash’s quivering -flesh. - -When Tot and Nelly ran into the court, the criminal retired growling -to his fastness, and Dash, who had actually fainted, lay prostrate and -mangled—a miserable warning to all foolish, wayward dogs and men. He -was loudly bemoaned, tenderly borne off the field, and succoured to the -best of his doctor’s and nurse’s powers—even Tot forgot for the moment -to remark it was Dash’s own blame. - -With great care and trouble the spaniel’s wounds were healed; and where -do you think he limped the first time he could drag his shattered -little carcase abroad once more? Not to Tot’s room—though Tot had -expended on the dog every particle of his skill as a medical student; -not to Nelly’s room—though Nelly had prayed to be allowed to have his -basket by her fire, in order to see to his wants during the night—as a -mother watches her baby—and had lost not a few hours of beauty sleep -in consequence. Dash had licked the hands of his doctor and nurse most -impartially all the time they were in attendance on him. He had whined -and wagged his tail, and absolutely grovelled to them, as if they were -the objects of his profoundest gratitude, his lowliest adoration. -Doubtless the dog was grateful, and did love his young friends; but -his own will was more to him than his gratitude, and his fitful -inclinations than his allegiance. It does not sound well in a dog; -yet I have heard and read of such conduct in a man, above all in a -woman, when it was narrated coolly without a word of censure—nay, with -strongly expressed notes of admiration! - -The first moment Dash could hobble out by himself, he covertly -disowned Tot and Nelly’s authority, and put to scorn their opinion, -by stealthily seeking the abode of the dog that had all but slain -him. Dash was detected begging forgiveness of Cæsar for having so -nearly proved his victim, instead of awarding forgiveness on his own -account. He was at his old trick of toad-eating, with pauses between -times, to recover his lapsed strength, and to peer round so as to avoid -observation. If any one calls such an action pathetic, so cannot I. If -any one admires such fickleness and faithlessness where true and tried -friendship was concerned, such annihilation of right principle and -self-respect before the idle fancy of a day, I do not, and never will. - -Tot and Nelly had no resource but to keep Dash a close prisoner, in -order to save him from the worst death a dog can die, till Cæsar was -guilty of another fierce outbreak, and this time, as it had a man and -not a dog for its victim, he was summarily sentenced to the death which -he richly deserved. - -Dash was released, went on the sly to Cæsar’s empty couch, and sniffed -once all round it wonderingly. But his moan was soon made; he did not -raise a single useless lamentation, for such weak dogs have often a -curious counter-vein of extreme rationality and worldly wisdom. He at -once transferred his homage to a lazy, phlegmatic sheep-dog, and, for -any sign that could be seen, completely forgot his late savage crony. - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration] - -CHAPTER V. - -“THE CAVALIER’S PETS.” - - -DIFFERENT generations are marked by their different favourites, -especially among those who have the means and the leisure for the -cultivation of such predilections, in newly introduced animals and -plants. Even human beings are included in this category, and so we -had an era of dwarfs and an era of black boys, as half-attendants, -half-playthings for fine ladies and gentlemen. Among the lower animals -there was a monkey period and a macaw period, both of which have -passed away in a great measure. Among plants we have had the seasons -when dahlias and pansies first came into vogue and became objects of -absorbing interest, and the year which saw the importation of the -glorious Tom Thumb geranium. - -Dogs are no exception to this influence of fashion, so that there is a -double sense in which “every dog has its day.” Even living persons have -seen many canine candidates for such honours. The spotted Danish hound -had his day, so had the bouncing, curly, jet black Newfoundland, the -grand liver-coloured mastiff, the fierce white bull-dog, the hideous -crooked-legged turnspit, the hardly less ugly, long-bodied, pig-headed -boar-hound, the Pomeranian, with its sleek hair and fox’s head, and the -little cocker, with its indescribably comical, crushed-up nose. - -The origin of some of these manias must have been whimsical enough; but -our concern is with the fact that in the reign of the first Charles -there became prominent as pets in England a race of small dogs known -as the King Charles spaniel, and that at a later period the Blenheim -spaniel came into notice. Both races were and are aristocrats of the -first water, connected in the very names of the species with royal and -ducal houses. - -I speak as an ignorant woman; but my impression is, that the King -Charles is of French nationality, and that the little brute not only -came to England in the train of pretty, foolish, flighty Henrietta -Maria, but that it made its appearance in Scotland two generations -earlier, in the suite of the beautiful and miserable Mary Stewart. -Unless tradition lie, such a dog crept beside the block at Fotheringhay— - - “The little dog that licked her hand, the last of all the crowd - Which sunned themselves beneath her glance, and round her footsteps - bowed.” - -King Charles spaniels were at a premium in England in the reigns of -the two sovereigns of that name. I don’t doubt that they were under a -cloud during the Protectorate, and that stout Oliver Cromwell owned -none of them; but we find one in the study of Sir Isaac Newton, in its -ignorant unconsciousness working dire mischief among the philosopher’s -priceless calculations, and drawing down on its empty head the mildest -rebuke—“Diamond, Diamond! thou little knowest the mischief thou hast -done.” However, I think the spaniels fell somewhat into disgrace, in -consequence of the bad company they kept in the second Charles’ reign; -and because that most unheroic of merry monarchs played with his little -dogs, and fed his ducks, when he ought to have been fighting the Dutch -on the Thames, or relieving the sufferers in plague-stricken London. - -No doubt, in the archives of the house of Marlborough there is an -account of the rise of the Blenheim dogs; but though I bow to the -authority of Landseer, I am driven to conclude them a more modern -“fancy,” even as the renown of Blenheim has its origin in John -Churchill, and his victories in Queen Anne’s reign. Yet here are a King -Charles and a Blenheim lying side by side, one of them on the very -brim of a cavalier’s steeple-crowned hat, with its ostrich feather. -The black and tan of the King Charles, relieved by a little white here -and there, contrasts admirably with the mass of milky white, picked -out with liver-colour, in the Blenheim. The silkiness of their long -flapping ears is only matched by the glossy texture of their coats -and the featheriness of their tails. Their soft paws are made for -begging, or for resting their faces between them, as in the case of the -Blenheim in the illustration. Their eyes are big, with an odd jumble -of wilfulness and beseeching, like the eyes of some spoiled children. -They are the loveliest and the idlest little pets in the world. They -are adepts at coaxing and caressing, which form, indeed, a large part -of their stock-in-trade—not that they are necessarily insincere, but -they are very useless, very dependent, and they can but fondle like -a child, as a small return for all the care and kindness lavished -upon them. They are made to be decked in ribbons, not as part of a -grand festive display—when even a huge gaunt Flora may submit to the -unsuitable accompaniment, simply to do honour to the occasion—but -because frippery of knots and bows belongs to them as to babies and -beauties and dandies. The little dogs like their ribbons as they like -their combings, washings, and gay baskets, all of which bigger dogs -would look upon as an unmitigated nuisance. - -Withal, the King Charleses and the Blenheims have one serious personal -disadvantage. Their voices are not like Cordelia’s, low and sweet, -neither are they, of course, sonorous, like the voice of a big dog. -They have a high-pitched, thin, wearisome yelp, which, when they are -vexed or angry, becomes painfully querulous, or peevishly vixenish. - -All the other dogs we have discussed could do something for their -living, besides looking pretty, wriggling and chasing their tails. Even -Carlo could course when he was requested; but Roi—or Roy, as his name -was corrupted into old English—and Reine were destitute of resources -beyond the simple ones mentioned. Were those gifts enough to entitle -the dogs to the daintiest maintenance? Were the shallow creatures -worthy of being a man’s companions and friends? Alas! if our receipts -were measured by our deserts, many of us would fare but badly. The -little dogs were endowed with one quality which we may be thankful -appeals more forcibly than any other to the hearts of men—not of weak -men alone or principally, but of the manliest and most generous of -their kind. Roy and Reine were helpless as delicate women and feeble -children, and in that very helplessness lay their charm to the strong -and capable, who were not bullies in their strength, or arrogant in -their power. - -I do not say that there is not a subtle flattery and deep danger -in this appeal of weakness to strength. I do not pretend that it -has not ruined, unawares, many a Samson, destroying him by his very -magnanimity. But I do hold that the tenderness for beings at men’s -mercy belongs to one of the noblest, gentlest instincts of the human -heart, and that it is not only chivalrous in its development, it is, -when rightly judged, profoundly Christian in its sympathies. - -Roy and Reine lived considerably more than two hundred years ago, when -there was another England from the one we live in to-day, an England of -keen political strife. (Well, perhaps that is peculiar to no time, or -at least occurs periodically once in every generation.) But it was also -an England of such civil war and bloodshed, polluting its fresh fields, -and darkening its peaceful hearths, as happily has not been seen since -then—not when Monmouth was routed at Sedgemoor—not when the last James -fled in his turn, and William of Orange landed, and appropriated -the crown left vacant, which became twin circlets for his head and -Mary’s—not when Bonnie Prince Charlie—a fatal title, which could not -give way to anything more trustworthy—marched with his Highlanders as -far south as Derby. - -Charles the First and his Star Chamber, with his French queen and -her French manœuvres, had turned the people of England against -their government. The last Parliaments had proved either divided or -rebellious. John Hampden had refused to pay the illegal ship-money; the -train bands had been mustered; the whole country had risen to arms. -England was parted into two warlike camps, Royalist and Roundhead. - -We can see now that there were good and devoted men on both sides, -and of every shade of opinion. We can think dispassionately of Lord -Falkland the Royalist, and Colonel Hutchinson the Roundhead—of Milton -and Andrew Marvel on the one hand, and Jeremy Taylor on the other. But -it was fearfully difficult then—in the midst of bitter accusations, -hard blows, and cruel wrongs, inflicted almost inevitably by both the -contending parties—to distinguish that there was any merit, or any -quality save base subserviency or turbulent anarchy, on that side which -differed from the faction of the person speaking. - -It would be no easy task to decide which of the camps indulged most -largely in abusing and slandering the other; but it belonged to the -nature of things, and to the characteristics of the men and their -leaders, that the Cavaliers, taking them all in all, were the most -careless and reckless in the expression of their feelings. It was part -of the profession of every Cavalier, from Prince Rupert downwards, to -be easy-minded and light-hearted, as he was loyal, to the backbone. He -made it a matter of honour that his joviality should be a proof that -his conscience was clear, and his cause that of the divine right of -kings and the unquestioning obedience of subjects. The very nickname, -“crop-eared knave,” which one man applied to his adversary, as opposed -to the term “malignant,” given by the Puritan to the Cavalier, showed -the light scorn of complacent superiority pitted against deadly -earnestness and desperate condemnation. - -As it happened in the long run, to their mutual profit, the stout -defiant Cavaliers were forced to respect the equally stout and dogged -Roundheads, and to carry rueful hearts within their bold breasts under -their bluff exteriors; and the Roundheads were compelled to grant grace -to men who—in spite of their effeminate love-looks, the levity of their -songs, even the profanity of their oaths—struggled against defeat like -Englishmen, endured like men, and, with all their follies and sins, -were the countrymen and neighbours of their conquerors. As they were -human and Christian, these conquerors could not see the beaten foemen -biting the dust and wallowing in their blood silently, and think of -the near and far halls and granges which these deaths, that were their -deed, would leave desolate, without groaning in spirit over some of the -fruits of victory, even while the fighters were persuaded it was the -Lord’s triumph over the Man of Sin and Satan. - -Roy and Reine’s master was a Cavalier, a man in the prime of life, who -had seen the loss of a good many things he valued, before the civil war -deprived him at last of his already dilapidated old court, and sent him -adrift to wander in disguise here and there, and lie in hiding till -better days came round, and the King should enjoy his own again. He -was a Master Neville of the Alders, himself a scion, and his estate a -fragment, of what had been, so far back as the Wars of the Roses, the -mighty Neville family, with their vast domains. - -When peace yet prevailed in England, and the storm was only brewing in -the sky, Master Neville went to court and ruffled it with the best. -He was then a young man, and made a picturesque figure in his slashed -velvet satin doublet, his long Spanish leather boots, his falling -collar, and just such a hat and feather as is to be seen in the -picture, shading one of those swarthy oval faces which the peaked beard -of the time became, while his dark hair was suffered to grow, and was -tied by a ribbon—such as Roy and Reine are represented wearing—till -it hung in one long scented curl down his back. He was by no means -so destitute of resources as Roy and Reine were, apart from their -beauty and their winning ways. He was a bold, dashing, clever enough -young fellow, rather accomplished for his day. He could not compose a -madrigal like Lovelace, but he could sing it after it was composed. He -could fence, dance, fight, even speak when graceful fluent oratory was -all that was called for. He could bandy a jest with a court wit, and -manage a pageant with a master of the ceremonies. - -In those days Master Neville married a court beauty in white satin -and pearls, with her yellow hair crisped in curls all round her pink -and white face, and brought her down to the Alders. The two did not -tarry long there with all their charms and accomplishments; the -simplicity and quiet of the country were too much for them, and they -were attracted back without fail to London, with its splendid court and -ceaseless stir, its water-parties and masks, cabals and intrigues, in -which the husband and wife played their parts in such company as that -of arrogant, magnificent Buckingham, and fair, frivolous Lucy Percy, -Countess of Carlisle. - -But such company was neither safe nor economical for a mere aspiring -squire and his sympathetic madam. Many a fine oak and beech at the -Alders, and even some of its massive silver plate, paid for the master -and mistress’s addiction to town living with its extravagance. - -At last there was an enforced retreat to the court, after it had been -stripped and impoverished of its most prized treasures, when the -nakedness of the land was a constant eye-sore and reproach to its -reluctantly returned owners. They had never cultivated the graces of -patience and contentment, and they had no gift which could lighten the -dreary monotony of what threatened to be a long banishment from their -paradise. They might have drifted fast into the evil refuge of bandying -reproaches and recriminations, and quarrelling away the dragging hours, -as Roy and Reine did not quarrel over their bits of sugar biscuit—only -madam was about as pretty, silly, and easily affectionate as the little -dogs, with no more exasperating practices of fretting and scolding -than they gave way to at times; so that Master Neville, who remained -perfectly conscious that he was a being more fully armed and highly -endowed, could not find it in his heart to blame her severely, or to -wreak on her a revenge for his own misdoings. - -Doubtless he had been a little disappointed in her. In the days of -his young love, when he had extolled her yellow hair and pink and -white cheeks, he could hardly have contemplated mating himself to an -intellectual baby, who was never to grow any older—rather she was to -him then an embryo goddess, who was shortly to find her wisdom and -power. But he had enough justice to admit that the disappointment -was not her fault, and he took compensation in a certain amusement -which he found in his wife’s simplicity, as in that of Roy and Reine, -combined as it was with a due regard for him, and as much admiration -and reverence for his superior faculties as really narrow natures are -capable of; for be it remembered that essentially narrow natures, which -are circumscribed both morally and intellectually, can only compass a -languid and limited amount of admiration and reverence. - -Master Neville was fairly kind and indulgent to his wife, though -men would have said that she had not been of the least service to -him—unless it be service to foster conceit, abet prodigality, and raise -an idle laugh. But men take a good deal upon them when they place -restrictions on the services of any creature that God has made, though -man may have done his best to mar it, while out of evil God brings -forth good. It might be that the protecting impulse which Madam Neville -drew forth in her husband preserved in him the seed of better things, -and kept him from being a harder and worse man than he became. - -Then a strain of human sadness—all the more ineffable that it sounded -strangely foreign to the poor genteel comedy—entered into it. Madam -Neville’s children, that she had borne and spoiled in sheer weakness, -died one after another. Their mother, who would have been quickly -consoled—like a child to whom another toy is substituted for that which -has been removed—only that she was soon spent by a little watching and -weeping, fell into a rapid consumption before she could throw off her -grief, and followed her children. - -The world looked on as at the crushing of a butterfly, or the -introducing of a tragic pathos into the soulless life of a fairy. But -there was a soul in this stunted human fairy, while a butterfly was -the ancients’ emblem of immortality; so good Master Arundel comforted -himself, as he strove with all his might to introduce a supernatural -element which should give a new aspect to the apparently pitiless -destruction, and cause it to be, after all, a miracle of divine mercy. - -No question but Master Neville felt the double bereavement—the very -shock of it strewed silver threads in his black hair. But he was one of -those men who, with an outward frankness of address, keep their inner -lives as sealed books from their neighbours—almost, it would seem, -from the men themselves. He made no sign as he sat alone in his empty -hall, drank his flagon of wine or tankard of ale, and professed to busy -himself with his steward’s accounts, the flies for his fishing, or the -play-books he was fond of studying. He rode, and hunted, and visited -his neighbours much as usual. There might be a shade of greater reserve -and sternness in his manner, and he was in no haste to replace the -madam who was gone by a new madam to preside over the old court; but he -was still a man who trolled his song, took his wild jest, and rather -made a parade of his half-boisterous, half-sardonic philosophy. - -But he always spared kindly notice for Roy and Reine—made them be seen -to, had them about him, playing with them, pulling their long ears, -teaching them tricks, praising and rewarding them with tit-bits—only -not plaguing them so much as of old—not more than the creatures liked -now. He certainly preferred the small encumbrances to any fox-hound or -lurcher in his kennel, which had brought him credit, or secured him a -prey. He would sooner suffer inconvenience himself than have Roy and -Reine disturbed; he would shrug his broad shoulders and take another -seat, to the great disgust of his old housekeeper, when he found -the two nestling together, fast asleep, in the depths of his great -arm-chair. - -The vicar’s eyes used to moisten when he came upon the tall strong man -and his pets. “I suppose their utter unconsciousness, together with -their fondness, doth soothe the soreness and the void in his heart,” -said Master Arundel to himself; “and their entire dependence on him -makes an appeal to the tenderness that is at the bottom of Master -Neville’s imperious, boastful nature.” - -The time came when Master Neville, with every man of any mind or energy -in the country, was roused by the state of public affairs—when he had -no longer leisure to manufacture his flies and ponder over his stage -saws—when he was rarely at home, or else had a host of company with -him. Riders and runners—posts, with carefully sealed and disposed of -letters, were constantly drawing bridle, or pausing footsore under -the gateway of the court. There was an eager rummaging out of rusty -matchlocks and swords, and an arming and marshalling of the servants, -and such tenants as Master Neville’s example and authority constrained. -At last a compact band of some twenty or thirty retainers, with -the squire—looking a proper man in his glittering steel morion and -breastplate—dashed with a flourish out of the courtyard. - -But first Master Neville stood ready to start in the hall, and looked -for an instant all around him, from the musicians’ gallery to the deep -recesses of the window that were draped with clematis and jessamine. -There was nobody to take leave of save Roy and Reine, till Dame -Hynd, covertly wiping her eyes, stole to the door, under pretence of -receiving her master’s last orders, for he was not a man who could -brook spying on his privacy, or an unsolicited intrusion into states of -feeling which he did not confess even to himself, whether the offender -were intimate friend or old servant. She discovered Master Neville, in -what looked like a reverie, drawing Roy’s ears through the fingers of -one hand, and holding up a finger of the other to enjoin on Reine the -refraining from that jealousy to which she was prone. - -“I am afraid the little brutes will have forgot my pretty lessons, and -will be as stupid and fat as yourself, dame, before I return,” he said, -with a mixture of mockery and rudeness, testy at the interruption; -and then he turned and begged her to forgive him, with an odd candid -sweetness that went far to breaking her heart. “Very likely that day -will never come, and so you will not mind this piece of impudence any -more than the rest of my offences. You will keep the house, though it -be for my worshipful cousin and heir, and see that, so far as you can -help it, neither old horse nor dog” (he was somewhat ashamed of his -partiality for the foolish spaniels, and thus did not particularise -them further), “which I am leaving behind me, come to grief. And you -will wish me good-bye and good luck; hey, dame?” - -It was a breezy summer morning when Master Neville rode away at the -head of his band. It was a foggy winter day, with years between, when -he came back, attended by no more than two followers, and, shrouded -in the early darkness of a December afternoon, sought to get into the -old court, to spend a single night there. His arrival was unexpected; -but though it had been otherwise, neither Dame Hynd, who remembered -not only his marriage but his baptism, nor any other attached family -friend, dared have made the least demonstration of joy and welcome. - -Fortune, or the will of Providence, had been against Master Neville and -his cause. The King’s troops had been beaten again and again, alike in -fenced cities and in the open field, before three weary men, soiled -with travel and rough living, approached by back ways and side gates, -skulking in the gloom into the house of which one of them was the -master. - -“Alack and well-a-day!” cried Dame Hynd, wringing her hands at the -sorry plight of a gallant gentleman. - -“It is the fortune of war, dame,” he cried, relishing condolence as -little as ever. He liked better the greeting of Roy and Reine, that -no Parliament or Lord Protector or Fairfax’s men in the neighbourhood -could prevent—timid creatures though the welcomers were—from rushing -to hail his arrival, with acclamation, little ringing yelps, much -scuttling to and fro and clambering up his legs, with lavish licking of -his muddy boots. - -Having heard that the vicar was from home—indeed the worthy man -was in hiding with greater sinners—Master Neville proceeded to the -business which had brought him there—the destruction of private papers, -in anticipation of a visit to his house from a detachment of the -Parliamentary army. - -“I don’t think you have anything to fear at the rogues’ hands,” he told -his housekeeper, as he prepared to leave again in the dank dawn of -the next morning. “You have my leave to speak them fair. As for me, I -think I shall make the country quit of me—like others I will not name; -God be praised, they are out of danger;” and he raised his beaver for -an instant—“till better times. I see my way to the coast, and I shall -do my best to survive a term of existence in some wretched mouldy or -whitewashed French or Dutch town. Why, I should not care to carry off -my beauties with me to bear me company,” he cried on a sudden impulse, -catching up Roy and Reine, the one after the other, and depositing -them in the deep pockets of his coat. He had often stowed them there -when they were wearied with trotting at his heels in his walks in the -park or the meadows—or when he passed through his herds of cattle, -of which the little spaniels were inordinately afraid, so that if he -forgot them they would grovel unperceived in some furrow, and lie -there panting and half-dead with terror, though the oxen were not even -looking at them, till he missed them and returned to search for, rally, -and fetch them home. - -“I wot you’ll take something there’s more sense in, master,” -remonstrated Dame Hynd, loath to oppose him at such a moment, yet -driven almost past her patience by the freak. - -“There is sense enough in the proposal,” he insisted. “They are my -esteemed play-fellows, and they may serve me for a breakfast some -fine morning, when hunger craves and all other provisions fail,” he -added, in allusion to the Cavaliers’ favourite jest of one of Rupert’s -troopers, when they were riding through a town in the Puritan interest, -snatching up a fat baby, and poising it screaming before him on the -crupper of his saddle, as he announced, amidst a grinning roar of -assent from his comrades—while the horrified populace mobbed them, -raging powerlessly—that here would be a nice roast wherewith to break a -long fast. - -Master Neville, with the little dogs in his pockets, turned away -laughing from the old home which he might never see again. - -The Cavalier squire proved wrong in his calculation as to gaining the -coast forthwith; instead, he had to go through a lengthened experience -of that most humiliating ordeal to a man—fleeing before the enemies -he has despised. He had to move here and there in various irksome -disguises—to seek help from friends ill able to afford it—to elude the -vigilance of wide-awake, sometimes vindictive foes—to endure no scant -measure of pains and penalties. But, through all, he never abandoned -the poor pets with which he had rashly cumbered himself. - -Occasionally, when he was so well up in the world as to represent a -pedlar, with his pack on his back, vending his wares from one country -house to another, or from town to town, he would display the little -animals openly, and freely admit they had belonged to a gentleman in -trouble. Then if some grave father or mother, brother or friend, so far -relaxed in their lofty scorn of all toys as to propose to chaffer for -the dogs in behalf of a doted-on grandson or a tender-hearted maiden, -the reputed pedlar would excuse himself in a flow of specious words, -explaining, with a double meaning in the assertion, that he was only -conveying the dogs for their rightful owner, and had no warrant to -dispose of them. - -At other times, when Master Neville was playing the beggar, asking alms -from door to door, he had cunningly to conceal Roy and Reine, lest he -should become liable to the suspicion of having stolen them. - -The dogs and their master shared and fared alike, and though they had -good days and bad days, it soon befell that Roy and Reine, who had -been reared on dainties, and who had at first turned up their noses in -disgust, like petted children, at plain food, and rather gone without a -meal than deigned to touch it, were fain, like Master Neville, to eat -heartily and thankfully of homely scraps. Though all three were often -hungry enough before they came to this pass, I need not say that the -day never dawned when the Cavalier was reduced to kindling a fire in -the shelter of the hedge, gipsy fashion, and cooking Roy and Reine for -breakfast, dinner, or supper. - -But another day arrived when the prescribed fugitive had wandered many -a mile, and sat down faint and weary by a brooklet that crossed his -path. He had turned aside for the purpose into a little wood through -which the stream gurgled. It was a golden harvest day, with the green -of the fern changing to straw-colour, and the leaves of the wild -cherry-trees becoming brushed with crimson. He could hear the hearty -voices of the reapers from a cornfield beyond the wood in which he -had taken shelter; but there was no harvest or ingathering for Master -Neville. He scrupled even to draw near to his fellow-creatures and ask -grace from them in their rejoicing, since he was in a specially hostile -district. - -However, it was not his way to complain. He sat and courted repose -after his fatigue, while he listened to the trill of the robin which -was taking up the fuller song of earlier song-birds. He had a hunch of -bread in his wallet, and he prepared to divide it with Roy and Reine. - -The little dogs had lost much of their sleekness and trimness. No -ribbons adorned their necks; their master had cut off the last faded -rag long ago. As he watched them listlessly, he was sorry to see the -tokens of adversity in their roughening coats, in the griminess of -Reine, which gave her white livery a strong resemblance to the greasy -shabbiness of a disreputable white kitten that has run the gauntlet of -all the pots and pans in a kitchen. Then he glanced at his own ragged -sleeve and at the weather-stained skin beneath, and reflected that the -appearance of the dogs was in keeping with that of their master. - -Reine certainly did not take ill with reverses; though she was getting -up in years, she was more frisky than he recollected to have known -her. As he was about to give her the crust which was her due, she -voluntarily stood up on her hind legs, and, quite ignoring the fact -that dancing was prohibited by the Puritans, began to execute a _pas -seul_ which he had taught her when he was an idle gentleman and she -a pampered favourite in the hall of the Alders. The spectacle of the -dirty, dishevelled little dog, in the untoward circumstances, capering -demurely, of her own accord, like Queen Elizabeth before the Scotch -Ambassador, overcame a man in whom a sense of the ridiculous was -naturally strong, and he laughed till the tears ran down his battered -cheeks. - -Afterwards his attention was drawn to Roy, that was not joining in -the dance, and had only sniffed at the bit of bread he had already -received. The action had not been disdainful, as of old, but wistful, -and with a certain heaviness before the dog turned away from his meal, -and crept back, with hanging head and drooping tail, to crouch down -near his master. Master Neville remembered that Roy had fallen behind -in the morning’s walk. He spoke encouragingly to the dog, and invited -him to his knee, which had always been a coveted couch and throne of -honour with the little pair. - -But all Roy’s response was to look up with the eyes which were so -like a child’s, dim and glazing over, to draw a shivering sigh, to -utter a little whimper of distress in which there was the most piteous -meek resignation, and to make one final effort to drag himself nearer -for help and comfort to his master, in which the dog’s head fell -helplessly on Master Neville’s worn boot. - -“Ah! has it come to this, my dog?” cried Master Neville, bending -hastily over the slightly convulsed limbs. “Poor little soul!” he said -to the creature which had no soul; “I would give much to lend the help -you ask;” and he groaned as his own misfortunes had never forced a -groan from his lips—not since another than Roy had appealed to him for -aid which he could not bestow. - -In a second it was all over, and Reine, with an instinct of something -wrong about her motionless companion, had not only given over dancing, -but leaped scared into her master’s arms, to which he had bidden Roy in -vain. - -It was only the death of a little dog to him who had lost wife and -children, house and lands, and position—who had seen the ghastly -horrors of battle-fields, and known his King lay down his head on the -block. - -But at this moment his own powerlessness to save, together with his -loneliness, his utter loneliness, if Reine should die likewise, pressed -sorely on Master Neville. He saw once more the young bride he had -brought to the Alders, while the sound of his children’s pattering -feet came again into his ears. He looked back on the thoughtlessness -and vanity of his early manhood, on the hours he had wasted, and the -opportunities he had lost, never to return. He recalled words he -had heard Master Arundel say in the pulpit and out of it. He even -remembered what he had witnessed of the conviction of the Puritans, -that their God was ever with them to sustain and satisfy. - -Master Neville gathered himself up, dug a hole in the ground with his -pocket-knife, and buried away Roy. He trudged on his road with Reine. -The very next day he heard of the long looked for means of leaving -England. He was successful in making his way to the seaport. He sailed -and reached Holland, where he found friends and assistance for his -destitution, till an adventurous soldier like Monk, chiming in with the -reactionary spirit of the hour, restored the King, and gave back to the -Cavaliers, who were in exile with him, their country, and what was left -of their possessions and careers. - -Master Neville dwelt once more at the court, with Dame Hynd reinstated -as his housekeeper; but it could not be said of him, as it was recorded -of the royal Stewarts and Bourbons, that in their absence from their -kingdoms they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. He was a more -sober-minded and gentler-hearted man for his troubles. One incident -which he never forgot was that half-hour in the wood when the ferns -were getting sere, and the leaves growing red and yellow—when Reine -danced and Roy died, and their master sat and looked on, a broken-down, -forlorn man. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -[Illustration] - -CHAPTER VI. - -“DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE.” - - -ONE of the most successful and popular of Sir Edward Landseer’s -delineations is the picture, “Dignity and Impudence.” It is even better -known and more widely prized than his exquisitely comical sick dog, -that is so sorry for itself, while the keeper is examining its paw; and -his deeply pathetic “Last Mourner,” in which the shepherd’s dog keeps -solitary watch by its master’s coffin. - -The noble mastiff lies stately and serene, his vast bulk tempered by -his perfect proportions, and by a gait worthy of the king of dogs. His -well-opened hazel eyes look with honest straightforwardness full in -your face. His huge ears hang down quietly. His jaws are closed and -overlapped by his deep jowl. He is the _beau-ideal_ of strength in -restraint and repose, as he lies there with one paw, like that of a -lion’s cub, hanging idly over the framework of his couch, and the other -half-turned inwards, as if he were about to put it on his heart, in -token of the true gentleman he is. - -From within the same pent-house, where he is freely tolerated as a -lively child companion, protrudes the small confident head—bristling -with hair, the knowing little ears erect, the tongue half-thrust out -at one side, equivalent to being stuck in the cheek—of the briskest, -most undaunted of terriers. I suppose it is because we all know many -versions—both human and canine—of this pair of friends, that we are so -fond of looking at them and admiring their union in diversity. - -I can never see “Dignity and Impudence” without thinking of a couple -of dogs belonging to friends of mine, and that were said to bear a -striking and exact resemblance to the dogs in the picture. I had not -the good fortune to know this living “Dignity and Impudence,” though -I long looked forward to the pleasure; but I happened to hear a great -deal of them, and registered their traits with interest. - -Wallace and Dick were north-country dogs, as is evidenced by the -name of the first—he would have been Bevis in England. They dwelt -within sight of a purple spur of the Grampians, known as the Braes -of Angus. Their home was a hospitable farm-house, among fresh breezy -uplands, with that element of breadth and freedom which belongs to -hill countries, where, side by side with the cultivated fields, lies -a wide moor and remnant of ancient forest, and where the ground is -broken—and now falls gradually in a sunny slope—now dips abruptly -into a shady dell, or den, as we call it in Scotland. The last is a -place of spreading beeches, feathery larches, waving birks, and a -great wealth of ferns and wild flowers in spring and early summer, -and with a never-failing wimpling burn threading its recesses. It -is quite distinct from a wild heathery glen. The neighbourhood to -which I allude has quaint old mansions, some of which existed in the -stirring times when the glens and dens served as passes for “John -Hielandman,” rustling in his plaid and kilt, and bristling with his -claymore and skene-dhu. He did not bring down cattle—long-horned -kylies—like the modern drover, but came, saw, and lifted what “nowt” -he fancied on lowland pastures, goading them up among the mountains to -the headquarters of the chief and his dhuinnewassels. An ancient town -with steep, narrow streets, having a feudal castle on a tree-crowned -rock above a brawling river, and the remains of an abbey, is the market -town of the district. On the road to this town one has a glimpse from a -distance of the silver shield of the German ocean, with a larger town -on its brink. - -Wallace and Dick could not have been more highly favoured in the -matter of locality, though they had been lovers of the picturesque—not -the picturesque on a stage scale, but the quality which is large and -primitive—and though they had deliberately gratified their æsthetic -tastes by pitching their tents in this region, which is fresh on -the hottest summer day, and has a bracing keenness, not a chill -sluggishness, in its winter cold. - -Wallace came first to the farm-house a tremendous puppy, for the most -part generous and docile in his conscious power, but not without -elements of savageness and danger in him, if he were suffered to grow -up undisciplined. - -I have heard his master tell that, when Wallace was a young dog, one -winter night he took more than his own share of the hearthrug, on which -his master’s solitary chair was also drawn up. The man, desiring more -space to move in, gave the dog an unceremonious push, which roused in -him such lurking ill-humour as besets us all at times; only Wallace -was a mighty brute, unsupplied with the reins of reason and conscience -wherewith to check his passions, and furnished on the other hand with -the instinct of quick retaliation and fierce, disproportioned revenge. -He gave a low growl, like muttered thunder, and made a half-spring at -his master, who recognised on the instant that an unexpected crisis had -come, which was to settle whether he was to be the master of the beast -or the beast was to be his master, and which placed for the moment his -very life in danger. Acting on the impulse of self-preservation, rather -than on any deliberate design, he snatched up the poker, and dealt the -dog a blow which felled him, and left him stunned and motionless. Quick -remorse followed the deed, as the assailant asked himself, had he slain -his comrade outright on the spot, and that for the merest ebullition of -temper? If Wallace had betrayed some traces of the savage, who else had -been cruel in unsparing punishment? - -But Wallace came to himself almost before his master could make the -compunctious reflection, rose and took himself off with lowered crest -and submissive head and tail, clearly acknowledging himself beaten, -and as clearly evincing the extreme of shame, for having been guilty -of provoking the unequal contest. Unlike man, the dog bore no malice -for his defeat; it simply called out in him that unswerving loyalty -which has no parallel. From that day to the hour of his death, in a -ripe old age, Wallace never again disputed his master’s sovereign will, -or disobeyed his direct command, but awarded him the most devoted -allegiance. The dog’s great strength, his solid sense for a dog, his -rare magnanimity, were, from the era of his conquest, laid, together -with his fervent attachment, at the feet of his conqueror—for the dog -is another St. Christopher. - -Under the influence of this absolute submission[A] to his master, -rather than from any mere superficial cleverness, such as may be -readily found in mere trick-performing dogs, Wallace could be taught -a variety of acquirements, and was in the end so accomplished a dog -that I fear I cannot call to mind a tithe of his attainments. I believe -he could sit up in any attitude or assumption of character, or throw -down his body in any required posture, and remain so for a given time. -He could mimic swimming at the word of command. He could constitute -himself a pony for little children—indeed he was not less than some -Shetland ponies—and he would carry them decorously round the room or -the garden on his back. He could—and this was probably the hardest -task of all—at his master’s bidding, lie down in a meadow where a -herd of cattle fed, and permit the whole of the oxen to gather lowing -round him, and even to lick him with their rough tongues, without his -stirring or offering the smallest resistance. - -Wallace was somewhat up in years before Dick came on the scene. He also -arrived at the farm-house a puppy, but it was not at first intended -that he should remain there. The master of the house had kindly -procured Dick with the intention of giving him to a friend when he -himself became so enamoured of the little dog’s briskness and pluck, -and at the same time so persuaded that these qualities would be wasted -in the quiet life of the woman for whom Dick had been originally got, -that he substituted another and more suitable dog, and kept the little -man for his own portion. - -As I have been assured, there never was a blyther, bolder, more -irrepressible spirit than that which lodged in the body of the small -terrier. Like his friend Wallace, he needed to be tamed, and to the -last he could not stand teasing for any length of time without a strong -inclination to show his fine white teeth in a way which was not play. -The fact was, that on these occasions he got into a white heat of rage, -in which he was in danger of ceasing to be master of his actions. - -Once, when Dick was a young dog, under some provocation he flew at and -slightly bit his mistress, who had no resource but to show him the -iniquity of the deed in a manner which, I believe, is effectual when -it is possible to practise it. According to strict injunctions as to -the conduct required in the circumstances, and in the stern necessity -of preventing a repetition of the offence, which might have cost the -life of the offender, she caught Dick by the refractory cuff of his -neck, carried him to the door of a room into which she could throw him -when the time came, and while holding him in the air—which is the great -secret of the effectiveness of the punishment, since the culprit feels -himself, during the infliction, absolutely powerless in the grasp of -the dispenser of justice—cuffed him soundly, and then flung him from -her into the open door at hand, closing it quickly after him, and so -preventing any possibility of a hostile attack from the dog while still -writhing and struggling under his penalty. The result was, that the -tender-hearted young mistress withdrew sick from giving the painful -lesson she had been imperatively called on to teach. But, as in the -case of Wallace, and as in that of the mastiff which Emily Brontë cowed -by one box in the ear, the lesson had been learned thoroughly; Dick -never again, unless in such an instance of wilful protracted teasing as -I have referred to, took to biting his friends. - -His affection was as ardent as his temper was quick, and the -convulsions of delight, the ecstatic caresses he lavished on members -of the family when they returned from a temporary absence, were -demonstrations to see rather than to hear of. - -Dick is said to have been the most entertaining companion in a walk, -always making amusing discoveries, full of the freshest zest and the -most unwearied energy. He had a passion for sport, of which I shall -have more to say hereafter; but, sport or no sport, he never failed to -find objects of interest on his way, and to impart the interest to his -fortunate companion. - -Like Wallace, Dick could be easily induced to go through a variety of -tricks—which, in my opinion, are slightly disparaging to very sensible -or bright dogs, seeing that these tricks are purely artificial, -entirely distinct from the dog’s natural sagacity and genuine feats, -and can be imparted, if proper pains be taken, to far inferior -dogs—I mean dogs that have merely the faculty of mimicry, apart from -intuition, steadfastness, and a power of love which makes wise. One of -Dick’s many tricks was to go through the form of sitting in his own -chair at table with the family when they were at meals (though his food -was taken elsewhere), and of speaking when he was told—that is, at a -certain word and sign, starting off in his own dog language of yelping -and whining, till he was requested to be quiet. - -From his introduction to the farm as a puppy, Dick entertained an -immense admiration—rapidly progressing, in a dog of his frank, -confident character, into a trustful, rather encroaching affection—for -the veteran Wallace. The mastiff responded by testifying the most -amiable indulgence for his liliputian friend. The indulgence proved its -own reward, for there was no question that the eager, joyous little dog -brought some of its own eagerness and joy into what was becoming the -fading, failing life of his mighty ally. - -A ludicrous position which the dogs often assumed has been described -to me. Wallace had the usual sterlingly honest dog’s aversion to -tramps and disreputable characters (in the dog’s eyes). Dick shared -this repugnance; but in spite of his constitutional audacity, he was -apt to mingle discretion with his valour here. When a particularly -ill-looking traveller approached the farm gate, where Wallace and Dick -were on sentry, Dick had a custom of nimbly insinuating himself between -Wallace’s fore paws and standing upright beneath the arch of the chest -without difficulty; from this vantage-ground he would issue his sharp -volley of barks as a rattling accompaniment to the bass cannon-like -boom of Wallace’s challenge. - -When the two dogs lay down to sleep, Dick would take the most manifest -advantage of his friend’s neck, or shoulder, or side, nestling himself -within or against it, for the promotion of his own warmth and ease, -without sustaining the least rebuke from the gentle giant. - -Sometimes when Dick wished a game of play, for which Wallace felt -himself quite too old, Dick would beset his friend like a little -pestering spoiled child, pawing and pulling, and making darts and dabs -at Wallace’s ears, which would have nearly covered Dick’s body, or -at the jaw, one shake from which would have dismissed the life from -the little dog in a twinkling. But Dick was comfortably persuaded that -he was entirely privileged, and he did not argue without his host, -though Wallace, after much endurance, could assert himself so far as to -send off his tormentor. Yet he was never known to do it, save in the -kindest, most friendly fashion. No paralysing stroke from his paw, no -crushing snap from his teeth, ever scared the fun and familiarity out -of little Dick. He received his _congé_ in the shape of a mild, if firm -refusal, which left him free to come sidling into his crony’s presence -again within the next five minutes. - -I have mentioned Dick’s love of sport. Wallace had the same love -to a marked extent; indeed, it was the one temptation which proved -irresistible, and seduced him once and again from his adherence to his -master. It was not that the dog openly resisted or defied orders, but -that he showed craft in snatching an opportunity to evade them, in -slipping off unperceived, and conducting his hunts in an independent -style in the preserves and on the great moor at hand—coming home with -a dogged fidelity, and yet with the self-convicted air of a culprit, -after his lust for the pursuit of prey was satisfied, to the punishment -which he was perfectly aware remained in store for him. Of course, -for a dog like Wallace to roam abroad unattended, on such an errand, -was to expose both him and his master to certain penalties, and every -effort was made, for the dog’s own sake as well as for his master’s -credit, to break him of so dangerous a propensity. The attempt was not -altogether successful. The ruling passion was so strong in Wallace -that it rivalled even his conception of duty. But the consequences -of his escapades always fell short of the condign punishment at the -hands of incensed proprietors which his master dreaded for the dog, and -repentance, forgiveness, amendment followed till the next outbreak. - -These outbreaks would probably have decreased in number and died out as -Wallace’s spirit of enterprise abated with his advancing age;[B] but -I am sorry to say Dick proved an artful decoy and subtle tempter. The -two dogs did not venture on a forbidden expedition under the very eye -of their master; but the moment his back was turned to go from home, -I have been assured that the certainty and celerity with which the -conspirators detected his absence was something marvellous. Wallace -and Dick set off like the wind—or at least as like the wind as the old -dog’s lagging limbs would allow—to the nefarious indulgence of their -appetite. Nothing short of chaining up Wallace before his master left -could prevent the catastrophe. No efforts of his young mistress—of -whom, at the same time, he was exceedingly fond, and whose escort and -protector he was generally proud to be—were of the least avail to -detain him; she has told me how she would run out to intercept the dogs -on the first hint of their decamping, and try to hold them back by main -force, but Wallace would wrest himself from her grasp, and trot after -Dick, already scampering away in the distance. - -Sometimes these hunts lasted as long as three or four days. Naturally, -the dogs were unwilling to come back to the disgrace which awaited -them, and they could subsist in the meantime on the spoil which they -caught and slew. The neighbourhood of the great wide moor and fragment -of forest—a broad brown and dark green tract stretching, with a -suggestion of wonder and mystery, along the whole expanse of cultivated -country—rendered it specially difficult to discover the direction -the dogs had taken, running as the birds flew, and making nothing of -hedges, ditches, and “dykes” in their progress, after they were fairly -out of sight. It was the solving of a puzzle to pursue and apprehend -them. Sometimes a wayfarer passed and recognised them, and brought the -tidings of their whereabouts to “the farm town.” Sometimes the dogs’ -master, when he went to the weekly market in the quaint town I have -described, received information from a neighbour which enabled him -to track the fugitives. Oftenest they returned of their own accord, -spent and sated, brought back by some compulsion of law, some tie of -dependence and affection, which was in the end too powerful for their -desire to rove, so that they could not become wild dogs again, or -desert their aggrieved human friends for a permanence. - -Knowing the district as I do, I have great sympathy with Wallace and -Dick. Had I possessed Wallace’s capacity of endurance, or Dick’s -youthful fleetness of foot and length of wind—had I shared their relish -for hares and rabbits, torn limb from limb, and their capacity of -thriving on the same—I too should have liked to wander for days among -these fresh fields, with their yellowing corn or rich pasture, on -which sturdy bullocks or skittish colts were having a pleasant time. I -could have dived with good-will into these tree-girdled quarries, and -roamed along these high roads, ample enough for two coaches-and-six -to drive abreast, and bordered with bands of yellow lady’s bedstraw -and azure veronica, and later in the season by miniature forests of -nodding harebells; or down these rough by-roads, with their patches of -yellow broom and trailing garlands of brambles, to the outlying heather -on the verge of the moor, about which great humble bees were always -humming. My heart would have hankered, like theirs, for that grand, -gaunt old moor of Mendrummond—or, as it is called in local parlance, -“Munrummon”—with its pale liverwort and white grass of Parnassus, its -bronze stemmed firs and stunted oaks, its lone green glades. One can -still feel that here, as among the mountains of old Scotland, there -linger vestiges of a virgin world. - -As a human being and not a dog, I am not at all clear that I should -have returned so faithfully to cutting reproaches and a good beating as -Wallace and Dick had the courage to do. - -The dogs used to display judiciousness in selecting the cover of night -for their reappearance, and they sometimes brought home a mutilated -hare or rabbit, as if it were intended for a propitiation. But Wallace -at least reported himself, in full view of the result, with manly -straightforwardness and resignation. He was accustomed to go beneath -his master’s window, and by a deep prolonged “bow-f-f” announce that -there he was ready to submit to whatever his master imposed on him. - -I regret to own that Dick, on the contrary, stole round the house on -tiptoe, and, if he found an open window on the ground floor, crept in -and hid himself beneath a convenient sofa or bed, in a short-sighted, -childish notion that he might evade the righteous sentence he had -provoked. - -On the last secret hunt in which the dog-friends engaged, Wallace was -so enfeebled by age that the exertion exhausted the little strength -left to him, and he was unable to return home. Dick had to face the -wrath of his master alone, while he was unable to account for his -missing comrade. - -Happily the mastiff reached a neighbouring farm-house, where he -was recognised—for he was a well-known and valued dog—and where he -was hospitably entertained, till word could be sent to his master, -who despatched a cart for the disabled sportsman. But fancy the -mortification of poor Wallace, once so invulnerable at every point, so -renowned a warrior and hunter, to be brought home like a dead donkey, -stretched at the bottom of a cart! - -Wallace survived his last hunt some time, but the evidence of the decay -of his powers became always more unmistakeable. He was a mere bony -wreck of what he had been. He subsisted principally on great “diets” of -milk freely lavished on him to prolong his days. At last he fell into -a habit of stealing away and secreting himself in some solitary spot -of the garden or grounds, an ominous inclination which superstitious -servants called “looking for his grave,” and that was in reality -prompted by the curious pathetic instinct which causes every stricken -animal to draw away from the herd, and hide itself from its kind. - -But Wallace was not to die apart from human hands and the friends he -had loved. No one saw him die; but a servant, preparing to sweep out -the dining-room early one morning, found the old dog stretched stark -and cold on his master’s sofa—“like a Christian,” as she protested, -half awed, half scandalised. And what gave the last touch to the -situation was that little lively Dick—always fond of establishing -himself by his friend—was discovered lying trembling, with that -consciousness of death of which a dog is supposed to be unconscious, -behind Wallace, that he had not dared to disturb—the first time Wallace -had frightened Dick. - -I think Wallace’s master, by his own choice, helped to dig the dog’s -grave; I know that the spot selected was one which had been long chosen -for his last resting-place. Care was taken that Dick should not know -the place, or be tempted to disturb it, when it was little thought -that the terrier would soon lie by his comrade’s side. Not that Dick -died of his mourning; I never heard of a dog pining to death for a -fellow-dog—only for his master. I am not even aware that Dick gave -great signs of missing his companion after the first few days, for dogs -will be dogs after all; and undoubtedly Dick recovered the full flow of -his constitutionally high spirits within a short period. - -Merry Dick’s death was so much the more tragical that it was not in -the course of nature; it was the result of an accident—the product of -such carelessness as it is hard to forgive. The offices belonging to -Dick’s master’s farm were infested with rats to such an extent that -even a terrier was insufficient to keep the vermin down, and poison was -employed for their destruction. A portion of strychnine passed into the -keeping of a kitchen maid, who was to sprinkle it on bread and butter, -to be exposed, with due precaution, near the rats’ holes. The plate -of bread and butter, with the fatal powder invisible on it, was left -heedlessly on a kitchen table, where it was only by the good providence -of God that some man or woman—ignorant of anything unusual in the -innocent-looking slices—did not eat what was intended for the rats, and -perish by a horrible death. - -Only poor Dick was destined to be the victim. Attending on the -footsteps of his mistress as usual, he came into the kitchen, and, -spying the attractive luncheon, sprang up and seized a half-slice. - -“It is the poisoned bread,” cried the rash servant, observing what had -happened, and thinking she had done enough when she had given the tardy -warning. - -Dick’s mistress snatched the perilous morsel from between his teeth -and flung it in the fire. So instantaneous was the whole occurrence, -that even she—never doubting that she had rescued the dog from all evil -consequences—forgot the circumstances in the occupation she was engaged -in. - -Dick, in his usual excellent health and enjoyment of life, accompanied -his mistress in a walk, with all his ordinary pleasure in the -privilege. It was not till some hours later, in the bustle of guests -assembling for dinner, that Dick’s master suddenly summoned his -mistress from her toilet with the grievous news that Dick was dying. -The little dog had been discovered rigid in a fit. So entirely was -the result of what had taken place in the morning unapprehended, that -it was not till various remedies had been tried in vain that Dick’s -mistress suddenly recalled the episode of the poisoned bread. A clever -young veterinary surgeon who was within reach came and administered -antidotes, which poor little Dick, in the intervals between his -paroxysms, was induced to take from the mistress who was so bitterly -distressed by his fate; but all was of no avail, the dog succumbed -speedily to the deadly poison, and died before the dinner guests had -met. - -So Dick and Wallace rest together, like true comrades, in what was once -their pleasant playground. - -[Illustration] - -FOOTNOTES: - -[A] In addition to the instinct of obedience which in itself rendered -Wallace tractable, the great dog had a little weakness, of which I -have heard his master say he made use in conducting his four-footed -retainer’s education. “Wallace wight” “would have gone round the world” -for a bit of sugar—the usual reward of a _fait accompli_. - -[B] However, I have heard of an old terrier who had lived many years -leading an entirely domestic life in a large town, and who, on being -taken by its owners to country quarters—which happened, unfortunately, -to be in a game country—ran off the very night of his arrival, hunted -the whole summer night through, and turned up the next morning, after -his friends had resigned all hope of recovering him. He was dead tired, -and in a few hours was crying out under paroxysms of rheumatism, which -his unwonted exposure, together with his weight of years, brought upon -him. - - - - -[Illustration] - -CHAPTER VII. - -MY EARLY FRIENDS. - - -ONE of the remotest visions of my infancy—dim as the pearly dawn -itself—is of two dogs called Flora and Danger, priest-grey and -brown-and-yellow terriers respectively, which filled a prominent -place in my baby regard. They soon vanished from the scene, and some -time elapsed before they were succeeded by Fido—a small, sleek, -short-haired, brown dog, resembling an English terrier, which was -partly my own property, and, much more than any doll or toy, the -darling of my early childhood. - -I fancy Fido was not very well descended, and that his small size -was due to accident, or to some arresting process practised in his -puppyhood. But he was a well-made little dog; he had a keen tiny face, -with erect ears; and he was amazingly agile in his habits. In fact -his agility, together with his audacity, brought about his untimely -death—the manner of which remains, at this distance of time, more -impressed on my mind than any incident in his short life. - -I remember the scene and circumstances as if the event had happened -yesterday. My mother had strolled beyond the garden to “the front of -the brae,” as it was called, or the brow of the green, grassy hill on -which the old white house was built. It commanded a wide stretch of -links or downs, met by the blue girdle of the Frith, having for its -fringe, all along the coast, clusters of ancient villages—fishing or -trading—with red-tiled or blue-slated houses, and round-belfried or -sharp-pointed steeples of parish kirks. - -I think no place was ever fresher or sunnier than that “front of the -brae” on a summer morning, though in winter it was a bleak and windy -station enough. Some young colts, feeding, as they usually did, on the -links, had ventured to the summit of the brae, and were approaching the -stackyard. Fido was scampering among the yellow ragwort and purple bur -thistles in my mother’s vicinity, and on the impulse of the moment she -sent him after the young horses. - -The rash suggestion was only too acceptable. Without a shade of -hesitation or fear, the morsel of a dog made a dart at the heels of -what were the hugest elephants to him, and though the colts had turned -to retreat, he reached them in time to be spurned by one of the flying -hoofs, and to fall down with his back or neck broken. - -I have a vivid recollection of the consternation and grief of the -little group that gathered in the great kitchen, into which the -lifeless little dog was carried—of one of Fido’s young mistresses -wildly entreating to have wine put within the half-open jaws of -the dead dog—of the grave shake of the head with which some senior -negatived the desperate proposal, and of my mother’s kindly distress -at having caused the catastrophe, which had extinguished the spark of -life in one of God’s happy creatures, and occasioned such affliction to -the children. - -I remember what a blight came over the bright day; how I rose from my -dinner in a passion of sorrow, because in a moment of forgetfulness -I had begun to lay aside some scrap for the dog which had ceased to -need scraps; and how I walked in the garden among the Maundy roses and -tall white Canterbury bells, and gathered—to store for a melancholy -memorial—some early seeds of the nasturtium with which the little -animal had been fond of playing, and in which there remained the marks -of his tiny teeth. I have had greater losses since then, but I have not -forgotten that first shock and stab of irretrievable separation. - -To console us children for being deprived of our pet—and, I daresay, -as some small atonement in her own person—my mother furnished us with -money to buy another dog; an act in which there was a departure from -the family practice of not spending what little money was to spare -unnecessarily, and, above all, of not accustoming the children to -anything that could be regarded as extravagance or self-indulgence. In -our whole connection with dogs, this was the only instance in which one -became ours by purchase. - -I cannot recall that it grated on my feelings that the empty place -of my dead pet should be filled up. I daresay I made some protest at -first—that I would not be consoled, and that I could never like (we say -_like_ in Scotland, where an English child would say _love_) another -doggie as I had liked Fido. But I was not then sufficiently faithful—or -shall I say proud and passionate enough?—to be long able to resist the -prospect of the dreary blank in the house and in my affections having -another occupant, with the wholesome hope that I might take to it and -be comforted, though I did not forget Fido. - -I know I went in great glee, in the company of a sister a little older -than myself, to the village where we had heard of a suitable dog for -sale—indeed, I think we had gone and inspected it previously—and -where we were to pay down our purchase-money—it was no more than five -shillings—and receive our prize, which had belonged previously to a -tradesman. - -The dog was a small black and white animal, with straight sleek hair, -and a pretty round face, set between pendant ears. I was a timid child, -and did not venture to lay hands on our purchase while it was yet -strange to us, and my sister undertook to carry it home in her arms. -On our way we encountered a gentleman who was an acquaintance of the -family, and who, not understanding how we were situated, insisted on -shaking hands with us children. My sister was compelled partly to let -go her captive—it did not escape, it only scrambled to her shoulder, -from which she was unable to dislodge it, and where, to our affront, it -stood barking wrathfully at the new-comer. - -The dog had been named “Jessie Mackie,” a very human title, of which we -did not approve for a dog, and so we called her “Rona,” the name of a -dog of a friend’s friend. The title struck our fancy, and we believed -that it had belonged originally to an island on the west coast of -Scotland—rather a dignified source for a name. But I cannot say that I -ever met any person who had visited the island of Rona, or who could -tell exactly whereabouts in the Atlantic—from wild St. Kilda to wooded -Rothesay—it was to be found. - -Rona answered our expectations, and soon took Fido’s position in -the house. She was a thoroughly worthy little dog; I don’t know -that she was very clever, but I can vouch that she was exceedingly -companionable. In her prime she was perfectly good-humoured to her -friends, though I do not think that she was ever very accessible to -strangers. She had queer ways of her own. She was very fond of fish, -to which, as an article of food, dogs have either a great liking or -loathing. She slept on the lower shelf of a cupboard, reserved for -her use, in a dressing-room attached to the nursery. She would retire -there for a morning snooze, and members of the family, unaware of -her proximity, would be startled, on going into the nursery, by loud -snores, exactly resembling those of a human being guilty of snoring, -proceeding from the dressing-room at high noon. She had been taught to -beg, and had great faith in the efficacy of the supplication. She would -be found in a room alone begging with great patience to a closed door, -and confidently expecting it would yield to the appeal. - -Rona was peculiarly affected by certain kinds of music, as dogs -sometimes are. I have read different opinions expressed of the -impression made by music on dogs, with an attempt to decide whether it -is pain or pleasure which is produced on the creature by the melody -that awakens its attention and rouses its emotions. The preponderance -of evidence tends to indicate that it is pain, or at least some form -of fear or distress, which music causes in the dog. What I remember of -Rona’s behaviour when so excited confirms this idea, though we children -chose to class the performance as singing, and boasted loudly of it to -our companions, who used to wait breathlessly for it to begin, and -were filled with delighted wonder, amounting to awe, when the dog was -got to exhibit its talent. The sound of a piano or of singing did not -move her in the least, but an accordion drawn out, or a violin played, -touched the chord which vibrated to music in Rona’s composition. She -would generally retire beneath a chair or sofa, with a restless, -disturbed air (I suppose we made out her withdrawal to be the assumed -modesty of a great performer); and if the music were continued, she -would raise her head and utter in prolonged bays and howls what, I am -satisfied, was her protest against the sound which, for some occult -reason, both excited and rendered her miserable. It was an evident -relief to her when the concert, in which she had felt bound to bear a -part, was brought to a conclusion. - -I think it was for Rona that we children first manufactured a set -of garments which figured on more than one dog. There was a pair of -flannel pantaloons, into which we inserted the dog’s unwilling legs, -fastening the pantaloons by strings across her back. There was a -flannel gown, which we called a dressing-gown, and suspended round her -shoulders. The costume was finished by a round cap, like a Highland -bonnet, which we put on her head, tying it under her chin—or jaw: on -high occasions we stuck a feather unto this cap. - -Of course Rona objected strongly, in her own mind, to these incongruous -decorations, though she had to submit outwardly to our will on that -point. The pantaloons, after they had been donned, were least in her -way, and she would appear to forget them and run about in them without -protest for hours. - -I remember one day, during a period of rainy weather, when even the -sandy roads of that district were wet and miry, that an elder sister, -who had gone to make calls in the village, came back half-a-mile with -Rona. The dog had stolen out and kept at a safe distance in the rear, -till she considered that she was beyond the danger of being marched -home, when she capered to the front, and her unconscious companion not -only perceived who was her attendant, but discovered, to her mingled -diversion and chagrin, that the dog was dressed in that supremely -absurd pair of pantaloons, plentifully bespattered with mud. - -By the time the younger members of the family were sent to school, -poor Rona was up in years, and had become peevish and snappish in her -growing infirmities, so that it was judged advisable that she should -be quietly put out of the way in her mistresses’ absence. When we came -home jubilant, we found no Rona waddling out to greet us, and I am -afraid we had so many to meet, and so much to occupy us, that we hardly -missed our humble friend. - -A contemporary of Rona’s was a tall, gaunt, black—with silver hairs, -peculiarly ugly, and valuable sheep-dog, which was my father’s friend. -His ugliness was the result either of disease or of an accident, which -had removed a portion of the lip and exposed his teeth on one side, -but which did not impair his health, or detract from his merit as a -wise and an efficient collie. His name, which was not given by us, was -peculiar. I imagine it was either a mistake or a corruption. Instead of -being termed “Yarrow,” “Tweed,” or “Heather,” the traditional names for -Scotch collies, he was called “Gasto,” which I have a notion must have -been a perversion of “Gaston,” though how a Scotch collie came to bear -a chivalrous French Christian name I have not the faintest idea. - -He was a dog that had his proper business to mind, and did not take -much account of us children. Shepherds who have the rearing of such -dogs do not encourage their association with children, and regard -it, where it occurs, as liable to be a source of deterioration in an -animal which is bred to endure hardship, and to live under a sense of -responsibility. And when the creature is trained to perfection, it is -as valuable and important a member of the establishment on a sheep-farm -as an ox or a horse on another farm. Gasto was one of the gravest dogs -I ever saw, far too sober for play of any kind. Looking back, I cannot -help associating him with wintry blasts and snow-drifts, in which he is -buffeting the blast and wading through the drift, intent on his calling. - -Gasto knew but one master, my father, and for him he lived and -laboured with a still, deep devotion. On one occasion, when my father -was attacked by a dangerous illness, and confined to his room for a -time, the sheep-dog wandered about disconsolately, declining even to -attend to his ordinarily rigidly discharged office, at the bidding -of any other than his master. As the days wore on, about the time -that the disease approached its crisis, the dog stationed himself -on the garden wall, and in a manner foreign to his usually rather -impassive, preoccupied demeanour when he was not about his work, howled -dismally—conduct which, however well meant, was not calculated to cheer -the invalid, or the watchers in the sick-room. The dog then refused -to touch food, and it was feared he would die. After every other mode -of coaxing was tried, without effect, Gasto was taken into the room -where my father, by that time recovering, lay in bed—was shown his -master, and spoken to by him. I don’t think the dog attempted to leap -on the bed, or did more than wag his bushy tail with immense relief -and repressed gladness; but when a plate with his food was offered -to him in the loved presence, he ate it quietly without further -demur. Forthwith he went about his business, content to discharge it -faithfully, as a trust committed to him, and to wait hopefully for the -reappearance of his master. - -Poor Gasto, to my father’s great regret and indignation, was cruelly -poisoned by some ill-disposed persons in the neighbourhood. Another dog -of ours fell a victim to their misdeeds. He was a huge, fawn-coloured, -young watch-dog, named “Neptune,” that was thus summarily cut -off before he had got the beyond boisterous uncouthness of this -hobble-de-hoyism. - -I have come to the advent of a prized dog, so long a much esteemed -member of the household, that she was regarded, not only by ourselves -but our friends, as one of the family. She was a pure bred and -fine terrier, given when she was about a year old to my brother, -as the parting gift of a friend about to sail for Ceylon. She was -dear for his sake as well as for her own, but she soon needed no -external recommendation to make her a chief favourite. I have only a -hazy recollection of her introduction to us, but a fragment of her -illustrious pedigree, which was imparted with befitting seriousness, -lingers in my mind. “Her mother was a lineal descendant of the dog that -fought the lion at Warwick.” What sort of lion-baiting this was? how -it happened to take place at Warwick? what was the date of the event? -whether the whole story were not a tradition of the great Bevis? -were questions never answered. But we were accustomed to repeat the -assertion as a solemn attestation to Skatta’s claims to superiority. - -Skatta, like Rona, was named for an island in the West—an island which -has a substantial existence. Yet though we were told, and implicitly -believed for many a day, that the dog was of Western origin, a Skye -terrier, this was ultimately disputed. I have been assured that she -was a fine Dandie Dinmont terrier, of the renowned mustard species, -and that she and her forbears ought to have been traced to pastoral -Liddesdale in the South, and not to the corries of Cuchullin in -the Land of Mist. I am sorry that I am not possessed of sufficient -erudition to settle the point. - -In the eyes of connoisseurs Skatta was a beautiful dog, though I am -doubtful whether the uninitiated world would have perceived the extent -of her claims. Her colour hovered between a sulphur yellow and a buff. -She was short in the legs and rather long in the body, but not with -such an ungainly length as I am told a true Skye terrier should show, -just as a genuine Belgian canary-bird ought to be slightly hump-backed. -The hair on her back was rough and wiry—one of her good points in our -estimation; it was softer on her breast, legs, and feathery tail, -and on her head, especially in the case of an admired lock that lay -on her forehead, the texture of which was almost as fine as that of -floss-silk. Her acute ears were of course erect. Her subtlest of noses -was, in accordance with her complexion, red, not black. Her honest -affectionate eyes were of warm hazel. - -Skatta was by instinct alone an excellent game dog, and her glory -was to be in attendance on the taking down of a stack in the yard, -to sit watching with all her wits about her, and to pounce on and -despatch each rat as it appeared. There were rabbit warrens in the -neighbourhood, not without danger to the terrier. In her hot pursuit -of the rabbits, she would follow them into their burrows by passages -and windings too narrow for her to turn herself in, while the sandy -soil fell down behind her, and she was detained till her absence was -remarked. The dog’s half-suffocated yelps indicated her subterranean -place of imprisonment, when aid was speedily lent to restore her to the -upper world. - -On other occasions Skatta’s feet were caught in the traps set by the -rabbit-catchers, and though her bones were strong enough to resist -the pressure, and she was not maimed, as so many of our cats became, -but generally freed herself after a struggle, and returned home -triumphantly without much injury, in two instances she was a serious -sufferer from the accident. In the first it was not known that she had -been caught in a trap, and nobody guessed why she paid such sedulous -attention to one of her front paws, till after an interval of weeks, -in the face of an impending lameness, a close examination detected -a portion of brass-wire bound tightly round, and eating into the -festering flesh. At a much later date, when Skatta was an old dog, her -master missed her from his heel after crossing one of these warrens. -It was a dark night, and he could not stay to search for her, even if -it had been possible to find her. He trusted that, if she had been -caught in a trap, she would free herself, as she had been wont to do, -and follow on his steps. As she remained absent, however, the entire -night—an unexampled incident in her history—my brother started early -next morning in search of her, and found her lying unable to stir, with -one of her legs terribly lacerated. She was carried carefully home, and -after being tended for weeks, during which she showed great patience -and gratitude, she was restored to the full use of her limbs. - -In spite of the danger, the rabbit-haunted links, with their wild -thyme, cowslips, and harebells in the seasons, presented the utmost -fascination in life to Skatta. After the links, she cared for the -weasel and rat-frequented fields and ditches of the strath, with their -bugloses and poppies, brooklime and irises; but the links formed _par -excellence_ her happy hunting-ground. I have heard her master say that -on returning home, or taking a stroll before retiring to rest on a -summer night, her mute entreaty was sometimes so irresistible, that he -would turn away from the house and take the path to the solemn sea and -the silent links, to grant her the half-hour’s indulgence she besought. - -At one period she walked with the women of the family every afternoon, -and amused them by her uncontrollable disappointment and chagrin—though -she was for the most part a modest, reasonable dog—when they resorted -to the rocks and the sands as their place of promenade. She would sit -down beside them while they rested, and begin to shiver, though she was -in perfect health, and to whimper under her breath a reproach for their -perversity. Why were they so provoking? Why could they not have walked -on the springy turf of the links, or by the pleasant field path? Then -she might have hunted to her heart’s content, and still have been in -their company. - -When my brother was at home, Skatta made a marked distinction between -him and the rest of the family, acknowledging him pointedly as her -master, and electing herself his constant companion. When he first left -home, she was very disconsolate for a few days, and sat a good deal on -the garden wall, howling as Gasto did when my father was ill. After a -time she seemed to make up her mind to the separation, and transferred -her primary allegiance in a measure, and for the moment, to my father. -(Though she was of the female sex herself, she gave no support to the -rights of women, farther than being social and happy with us girls.) -Her real master’s absence was sometimes for many months, and lasted -over a period of years; but the moment he reappeared on the scene -she returned unfailingly to her first love. So perfect was the good -understanding between man and dog, and so blameless was the conduct of -the latter as a rule, that I have heard my brother say he only struck -his dog twice in the whole course of their long connection. On the -first occasion the blow was administered to correct a fault, but on -the second his stick fell on the wrong dog in a combat which had been -thrust on Skatta, and which he was trying to stop. He averred that he -could not bear to look his dog in the face afterwards, because of the -meek wonder with which she submitted to the unjust stroke, and, as he -complained, he had not the comfort of explaining to her that it was all -a mistake. - -Skatta was never more than friendly to people outside her family, -and there was one family friend whom she, like most reflective dogs, -held in abhorrence. She hated the doctor, and laid aside her peaceful -character to growl out her enmity every time she was in his company. -I have heard various reasons assigned for the dislike of dogs to -doctors.[C] Do their delicate noses detect and find fault with any -subtle aroma hanging about the man who orders drugs? Are the dogs’ -affectionate hearts moved by sympathy with the signs of suffering and -anxiety, which they are quick to read, in the faces of the family? -The dumb animals are clever enough to connect these tokens with -the presence of the doctor, while they are not sufficiently well -informed—given to leap at conclusions as they are—to comprehend that he -is there to relieve distress instead of being its author. - -If dogs detest doctors, they do not often extend their dislike to -clergymen. Skatta was not only on perfectly civil terms with the -“minister” of her master’s kirk, she herself knew the Sunday, and was -disposed to respect its observance like a true-blue Presbyterian. -She did not, to be sure, go to the kirk like the dog of one of the -ministers in the village,[D] but she consented to stay at home without -any protest, and only burst out and greeted her family rather -uproariously on their return in the ranks of their fellow-worshippers. - -On other occasions, to stay at home when her friends were going -abroad, or to submit to confinement, was so severe a trial of Skatta’s -philosophy, that it was the one decree which found and left her -rebellious. It was no easy task to detain a dog that, when shut into a -room on the second floor of the house, with the windows closed, broke -through a pane of glass, and precipitated herself twelve or fifteen -feet to the ground; and with such rapidity did she clear the glass in -taking the leap, that she was not punished for her defiant temerity by -more than a few inconsiderable scratches and bruises. - -She once walked a distance of fifteen miles with her master, and at -the end of the journey was tied up in a stable, since he was going -where she could not conveniently accompany him. I need not say that she -gnawed through the string, seized an opportunity, when the stable-door -was open, to make her escape, and, not being able to trace her master, -ran the whole way home again, and arrived in the course of two more -hours, very travel-stained, tired, and hungry, but content. This is -nothing of a feat compared to that performed by an Argyleshire terrier, -which, having been conveyed in a carriage through one of the passes -into an entirely different district, set off at the first available -moment, and crossed a great solitary mountain range—taking a week to do -it—arriving at last, a gaunt but happy skeleton, at what it persisted -in regarding as its own door. How the poor animal subsisted in the -meantime was only known to Him who feedeth the young ravens when they -cry. - -I remember Skatta’s being lent to a sportsman, who was very desirous -of availing himself of her powers; but no bribe of game or sport would -detain her from her friends. So soon as she was let loose, she broke -away and rushed back to them, the quick pattering of her feet sounding -in every room of the house, her gleaming eyes and vibrating tail -appealing to each member of the family in turn with a “Here I am, you -see; I could not and I would not stay away.” - -The pertinacity with which Skatta followed her master sometimes -produced awkward results. He was attending the funeral of an old -retainer of the family, to whom he desired to pay particular respect. -He believed that the dog was safe at a distance when he was motioned -to a place of honour close to the open grave. He observed a little -disturbance among the ring of mourners, and, to his horror, discovered -Skatta in the centre, by his side, with her head poked inquisitively -forward over what was to her a great black hole. - -Skatta came to us when some of us were young enough to dress her in -Rona’s cast-off clothes; she lived sufficiently long with us to see -the steps of the youngest grow slow, and care settling on their brows. -She was a silent witness to many changes—to the passing away of one -honoured face, the breaking up of the old home, the dispersion of the -family. She herself was so old that both her sight and hearing were -nearly gone, and she could hardly answer to the signal of the master -she had loved so well. Her life was becoming a burden to her—she was -getting diseased as well as infirm. It was feared she would prove -dangerous to a child in the house where she lived, as she had always -been jealous of children where her master was concerned, disliking to -see him take them into his arms, sniffing and growling at them if -they came too near him according to her ideas, and fiercely resenting -any liberty taken with herself under the circumstances. So old Skatta -was sentenced—with what regret may be imagined—to a death quick and -painless, for the sake of higher humanity. - -A contemporary of Skatta’s was a huge black and white watch-dog, named -“Foam,” a good-natured, but formidable creature, which, when it was -let loose, used to come bounding to greet us, and such was its impetus -that, when it planted a paw on each shoulder, it caused each one of us -to reel and stagger under its caress. - -An interregnum in our connection with dogs occurred, during which, -as I have heard masters and mistresses say after the loss of a -confidential and trusty servant, various unavailable retainers passed -across the domestic stage without making a lengthened stay, or filling -successfully the vacant post. - -There was “James Craig,” a white, straight-haired terrier, boasting the -becoming contrast of lively black eyes and a black nose. His temper -was irascible, and his life was rendered so unendurable to him by the -mischievous attentions of several lads, whose office chanced to be in -the vicinity of his home, and who insisted on stamping their feet at -him, that he in turn made life unbearable to his human neighbours, and -had to be banished from the establishment. His fate was hard. He was -always an excitable dog, and he managed, while quite in his senses, to -inspire some credulous panic-stricken people with the notion that he -was mad, under which delusion he was stoned to death. - -There was “Bobby,” a pretty, but weak-minded black spaniel, which also -suffered a violent death. He had not the sense to get out of the way of -a coach which drove over him. - -There was a poor dog—the very name of which I have forgotten—that was -summarily shot by a sanguinary gamekeeper for deserting his master’s -side, for one brief moment, to encroach on a jealously guarded preserve. - -There was “Massey Redan,” a promising little pepper-and-salt terrier, -that was picked up at the door of the house in the town where we then -lived, and driven off in a “cadger’s” cart by a company of successful -amateur dog-stealers. - -There was “Juno,” a brown retriever, so crazy about taking to the water -that she would desert her master to spend the whole day by the sea, -plunging in for whatever stick or stone the children, who delighted in -her swimming powers, might throw her. - -There was “William Alexander,” another retriever, a handsome, powerful, -jet-black dog, which had a predilection for nuts, and would pounce on a -sack in a grocer’s shop, abstract, crack, and eat the contents for her -delectation. She used to sit up on her haunches by her master’s side -while he sat writing or reading, and when William Alexander thought -they had both had enough of the work, he would slap his master smartly -on the arm with his paw in order to call his attention to the fact. - -His master had trained the dog to bring him his boots every morning; -but so headlong was William Alexander’s race with them, up and down -stairs, that he would have thrown to the ground any unhappy individual -who had happened to impede his progress. Indeed there was always -something of a whirlwind about the dog, and when to his restlessness -and boisterousness were added the reflection of the same qualities in a -child visitor, the house seemed too small to hold the two. - -William Alexander had a remarkable objection to seeing any of his -friends ill in bed, and on such occasions would begin to growl as at a -personal offence. - -The dog had a trick, in accordance with his species, of bringing -everything to his master. Once, when a pet canary-bird got out of its -cage, and began flying wildly about the room, William Alexander caught -it, closing his great jaws upon it with a snap, so that it was lost to -sight, and the spectators never doubted killed on the instant. But when -he delivered up the bird to his master, it was uninjured save by fright. - -Poor William Alexander tried this trick once too often. He was caught -attempting to lift a baby, which happened to be in the same house with -him, by the breast of its white frock, to take it to his master. He was -conducting the operation with the greatest gentleness and care, but -naturally the baby’s mother had an insuperable prejudice against the -performance, and William Alexander too had to be sent away. - -[Illustration] - - - Marcus Ward & Co., Royal Ulster Works, Belfast. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[C] I need not say this has no reference to dogs which have doctors for -their masters, or that belong to any member of the family of a medical -man. - -[D] This dog, a collie, had been reared in a pastoral parish, where -such dogs often accompany the shepherds to the kirk, and lie at their -masters’ feet during the service. The collie in question had been the -favourite of a bachelor clergyman, and was in the habit of walking -sedately at his heels into his church, ascending the pulpit stairs and -disposing itself quietly outside the pulpit door, to wait there till -the “diet of worship” had terminated. The congregation were so used to -the proceeding that it offended nobody’s sense of propriety. In course -of time the clergyman took to himself a wife, who rather objected to -his intrusive four-footed companion. In consequence of her sentiments -the dog was thrown a good deal on its own devices, and thought fit to -get up a friendship with a clergyman of a rival denomination in the -place. This worthy gentleman threw his people into a ferment by walking -up the aisle of his church one morning, followed unconsciously by his -professional opponent’s dog, which thus publicly showed that it had -seceded from one religious body and joined another. - - - - -List of New Books - -JUST PUBLISHED BY - -MARCUS WARD & CO. - - -_Floral Poetry and the Language of Flowers._ A collection of choice -poems on Flowers with most complete Indexes to the Language of Flowers -and eight exquisite Chromographs. Small quarto, cloth elegant, gilt -edge, 10/6. - -_English Echoes of German Song._ Translated by Dr. R. E. WALLIS, Dr. -J. D. MORELL, and F. D’ANVERS. Edited by N. D’ANVERS. With Twelve -beautiful engravings on Steel. Small quarto, cloth elegant, gilt edges, -10/6. - -_Childhood a Hundred Years Ago._ By SARAH TYTLER, Author of “Papers for -Thoughtful Girls,” &c., &c. With Six Chromos, after Paintings by Sir -JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 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