Presented to the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY
by the
ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY
1980
THE FIRST FRIEND
54792
THE FIRST FRIEND
AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE
FRIENDSHIP OF MAN AND DOG
Compiled from the Literature of all Ag^es
1400 B.C.-1021 A.D. ijt^^^ / *
BY "^
LUCY MENZIES
And toe Woman said: ''His name is not Wild
Dog any more, but the Fi st Friend, because he will
be our friend for always and always and always."
RUDYARD KIPI.ING
5l7y2
LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN, LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40_MUSEUM STREET, W.C.i
DISCARDED
I') ^ ri}
First publishedin ig22
Printed in Grtw Sritgitt
iy Turnbull^ SUnrt^ Edinbu-rgti
Soon after the Creation a chasm broke open
across the earth. Man was left on one side
of it, the animal world on the other. The
animals seemed undisturbed by this separa-
tion from Man — all except the dog. He
whined and ran up and down, seeking a
way across. At last Man saw him and
noticed the pleading look in his eyes.
" Come ! " he cried.
The dog sprang, but the chasm was too
wide for him. He reached the opposite
side only with his front paws, and hung
there struggling vainly to get up.
Then Man put out his hand and pulled
the dog up to safety beside him.
" You shall be my comrade for ever and
ever," he said.
Old Legend
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/firstfriendanthoOOmenzuoft
TO
DANNY
PREFACE
THIS Anthology seeks to show the close bond
which has existed between man and dog
from the earliest times. It is not a collection
of dog-stories, rather a demonstration of how
man and dog have been mutually helpful and
faithful to each other throughout the ages.
The ancient origin of this friendship is not
generally realized. The wild dog — whose heredity
is still a matter of conjecture — finding that
the habits and the food of man appealed to his
own desires, naturally followed the hunter in
the hope that he might share the spoil. Man,
on his part, soon discovered the useful scenting
quahties of the dog, as well as his skill in guarding
and guiding flocks. But although valued at
first only for his usefulness, the dog soon found
a place in the heart of his master.
The Aryan races were dog-lovers. They
believed the dog to be the companion and
guardian of the soul when it left this earth on
its journey to heavenly regions. And so a dog
was always taken to the couch of a dying man,
that he might be comforted by the thought of
his companion on the great adventure.
As early as 1400 B.C., the Vendidad, the sacred
book of Persia, had a set of laws regulating the
punishment of those who ill-treated a dog — ^a
much more heinous offence in those days than
9
killing a man. And in the Maha-Bharata, an
Epic poem of ancient India dating from the
sixth century B.C., the hero refuses the offer of
Indra, the God of the Sky, to take him direct to
Paradise if he may not take his dog with him.
But Indra is only testing him —
Because thou didst not mount
This car divine, lest thy poor hound be shent
Who looked to thee, lo ! there is none in heaven
Shall sit above thee, King !
And just as the fidelity of man to dog has been
great throughout the ages, so also has the fidelity
of dog to man — " the interdependence of both,
living things of like passions, fellow-helpers, the
advancement of the one having kept pace with
the advancement of the other, right up from the
days when in pre-historic times and the Neo-
lithic Age, as is shown by the bones that are
found, the dog shared the home of man and
partook of his food — right up from the days
when the Egyptians, though they dubbed him
unclean, worshipped this animal and, because
of his fidelity and courage, gave him a place as
one of three who were to share with them the
joys of Paradise. . . . The lives of the Man and
the Dog are found to be ever intertwined." ^
Everyone grants the truth of the saying Know
me, Know my dog. But is it not perhaps as true
if we turn it the other way, Know my dog, Know
^ Major Gambier-Parry, Murphy.
ID
me ? "If dogs have lived with people of pluck
and courage," says Colonel Richardson in his
book on British War Dogs, " they will exhibit
these qualities." And so it is not unprofitable
to meet the dogs of great men, nor to study the
attitude of philosophers, writers, explorers and
other Olympians to their dogs.
Cicero praises his fidelity and affection ; Plato
tells us he is a true philosopher ; Horace Walpole
cannot think that two additional legs are any
drawback to such wonderful recommendations
as sense and fidelity ; George EUot advises a
young lady that " a dog is a better friend than
any Christian " ; Burns assures us that in his
devotion to man, his god, the dog put the Christian
to shame. (Dr John Brown declared Burns was
not original in claiming that Man was the god of
the Dog, that he had taken the idea from Bacon's
Essay on Atheisme. That is possible, but it is an
idea that might easily occur to different minds.)
We find our great men testifying not only to
the faithfulness and devotion of their dogs, but
crediting them with a spark of the divine. Sir F.
H. Doyle wrote this Epitaph for his dog :
Not hopeless round this calm sepulchral spot,
A wreath presaging life we twine,
If God be love, what sleeps below was not
Without a spark divine.
Many of the Olympians have gone even further
than that ; they have clung to the hope that
II
they would meet their dogs again. Pope, in his
Essay on Man, says of the Indian :
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Pope probably held that belief about his own
dog-friends. At least we are inclined to think
so from the story of his once claiming that animals
had reasoning powers. The friend to whom he
was speaking, said, " But then they must have
souls too, as imperishable in their nature as ours ? "
" And what harm," Pope rejoined, " would that
be to us ? "
Swinburne wrote at his dog's grave :
If aught of blameless life on earth may claim
Life higher than death, though death's dark wave rise
high
Such life as this among us never came
To die.
Southey, too, mourning a favourite spaniel, con-
cludes :
There is another world
l^or all that live and move — a better one !
In our own day, Vemdde, writing of his English
sheep-dog, ends a dehghtful poem with the words :
Lord ! there'll be deaf angels when we meet.
And you leap up and bark !
The angels have been deafened already, alas ! for
Verndde was killed in action in April 191 7.
12
r
Perhaps the finest of all the passages on this
theme is that in Lamartine's Jocelyn, where the
poet addresses his dog :
No ! when thy love by death shall be o'erthrown
It will revive and in some heaven unknown . . .
We shall love on as we were wont to love
Instinct and soul is one to him above !
Where friendship sheds o'er love its honoured name
Where nature lights a pure and hallowed flame
God will no more extinguish his soft light
That shines not brighter in the stars of night
Than in the faithful spaniel's anxious eye.
That is one side of the picture. But the dog,
Uke his master, has his failings. Often of a
wayward and playful nature, these call for blushes
rather than for anger. Sir Walter Scott, among
hundreds of less famous masters, experienced
that awkward moment when the master of the
dog has to face the mistress of the cat suddenly
shaken out of this life. Sir WilHam Watson, in
an epitaph on his own dog, seems to think this
disUke of cats is only feigned :
His friends he loved. His fellest earthly foes
— Cats — I believe he did but feign to hate.
My hand will miss the insinuated nose,
Mine eyes the tail that wagged contempt at Fate.
It was Addison who said that the dog had
been the companion of man for many thousands
of years and had only learned one of his vices, to
worry his species when he found him in trouble,
13
" Tie a saucepan to a dog's tail and another dog
will fall upon him," said Addison; "put a man
in prison for debt and another will lodge a de-
tainer against him." That may be so. At any
rate we may grant it, for it leaves dog and man
on an even footing.
But of the great faults which waylay human
beings, the dog is singularly free. No dog can
be made to turn traitor to his master. No dog
nature can entertain the petty meannesses which
sometimes disfigures humanity — and to what
heights of sacrifice it can rise ! So great an
authority as the Superintendent of the Zoological
Society's Gardens in London believes the dog to
be the only animal that has a really disinterested
affection for man. Charles Darwin quoted a
saying to much the same effect — " A dog is the
only thing on this earth that luvs you more than
he luvs himself."
Leaving these heights and coming down to the
actual physical help that dog can render man,
we find he still helps the shepherd, as he did at
the beginning of the friendship.
In Polar exploration no account of the help
of dog to man is more fair to both sides than
that of Captain Scott. Though he and his com-
panions cheerily risked their own lives, Scott was
horrified when he found that the weaker animals
had to be sacrificed to circumstance and that
finally none of the dogs could be saved. " We
knew well," he writes, " that they had served
H
their end, that they had carried us much farther
than we could have got by our own exertions ;
but we all felt that we would never willingly face
a repetition of such incidents, and when, in the
following year, I stepped forth in my own harness,
one of a party which was dependent on human
labour alone, it would not be easy adequately
to convey the sense of relief which I felt in the
knowledge that there could be no recurrence of
the horrors of the previous season." This
evidence of Captain Scott's anxiety for the lives
of his dogs is peculiarly moving in view of the
fact that he lost his own Ufe on the subsequent
expedition — having first sent his dogs back to
safety.
As to the use of dogs in warfare, they seem to
have been so employed since Cambyses, King
of Persia, used them in his campaign in Egypt
in 525 B.C.
But the dog speaks for himself throughout these
pages, when his master is not speaking for him,
and we may safely leave them to extol each
other.
There is one last comforting reflection which
comes to everyone fortunate enough to possess
a dog. Your dog believes in you more than you
believe in yourself. Wliatever the world may
think of you, to one faithful friend you are the
wisest and most splendid of beings. Should the
public fail to see the good things in your book,
should your friends be sought after and promoted
15
while you are forgotten, still to your dog you are as
wise as Socrates, as mighty as Napoleon. Above
all, you are to be worshipped as the best of men.
If encouragement and belief in one's powers
are a help in moments of despondency — and
who will say they are not ? — no fortunate owner
of a dog need ever be without them.
L. M.
St Andrews
July 1922
16
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface
.
9
The Partnership
John Galsworthy
23
I. THE ANCIENT WORLD
Fidelity of Dogs
Cicero
26
Origin of Dog-Worship in
Elziar Blaze .
27
Egypt
Dogs of Ancient Egypt .
Gatnbier Parry .
28
Fox-Hounds in Pharaoh's
G. R. Jesse
30
Time
Veneration of the Dog in
The Vendidad .
30
Persia
Man's Fidelity to the Dog
The Maha-Bharata
33
Dogs in Scriptural Times .
L. M. .
37
Dogs in Islam .
Gentleman's Magazine
39
A Mahometan Legend
Sir Edwin Arnold
40
Dogs of Greece and Rome
William Somerville
42
Epitaph on a Favourite
Greek Anthology, J. W
• 45
Dog
Mackail
Odysseus and Argos
Homer {Butcher and 45
Lang)
The Qualities of the Dog .
Plato, The Republic
47
Xanthippus and his Dog .
Plutarch .
51
Fidelity of the Dog .
Pliny
52
Fingal's Dog, Bran .
.
54
A Scandinavian Sheep Dog
Olaf Tryggvason
55
B I
7
II. TWELFTH TO TWENTIETH CENTURY
The God of the Dog
A Greyhound of Henry II.
The Prioress .
The Dog of Montargis
Morte d'Arthur
Sir John Harington praises
his Dog
Man the God of the Dog .
William of Orange and his
Dog
The Dogs of Shakespeare.
Lines upon his Spaniel
Tracie
Agrippa's Pug.
Dogs in Warfare
The Faithful Friend
Dogs in Mediaeval Art
The Grave -Digger .
The Irish Greyhound
Pope and his Dog Bounce
Importance of the Dog
PAGE
Robert Burns, 1759-96 58
Giraldus de Barri, 59
1200
Chaucer, 1 340-1 400 . 59
Edmund de Langley, 60
b. 1341
Sir Thomas Malory, 62
1485
1561-1612 . . 63
Francis Bacon, 1561- 66
1626
Sir Roger Williams, 66
1618
L. M. . . .68
Robert Herrick, 1591- 72
1674
Samuel Butler, i6i2~So 72
Philip Camerarius, 73
1625
Ascribed to Mycillus . 74
L.M.. . ,76
Samuel Pepys, 1633- 79
1703
Katharine Philips, 79
1664
I 688-1 745 . . 80
G. L. L. Buff on, 1707- 82
1788
18.
The Dog and the Water-
Lily
Faithful to Death .
The Ettrick Shepherd's
Dog
The Death of a Favourite
Spaniel
The Lower World .
Boatswain
Sir Walter Scott and his
Dogs
Helvellyn
Wasp, a Dandie-Dinmont.
Beth-Gelert .
Irus' Faithful Wolf-Dog .
Exemplary Nick
Fidelity of the Dog .
To the Memory of a Dog .
La Fontaine and his Dog .
Napoleon and the Dog in
Warfare
Rab ....
To Dr John Brown .
Wylie .
PAGE
Willia m Cowper, 1 73 1 - 86
1800
Crabbe, 1 754-1 832 . 88
James Hogg, 1770- 88
1835
Robert Southey, 1774- 90
1843
Pratt, 1810 . . 90
Lord Byron, iySS-i82/[ 91
1771-1832 . . 93
L.M.
Sir Walter Scott . loi
Sir Walter Scott . 104
W. R. Spencer, 1769- 107
1834
Victor Bourne, trans- 11 1
lated by Charles
Lamb, 1 775-1 834
Sydney Smith, 1771- 113
1845
William Wordsworth, 113
I 770-1 850
William Wordsworth 116
W. S. Landor, 1775- 117
1864
. 119
John Brown, 1810-82 120
R. L. Stevenson, 1850- 121
1894
John Brown . .123
19
PAGB
Mrs Carlyle's Dog . . 1801-66 . . .125
Charles Dickens and his 1812-70 . . .127
Dogs
Diogenes . . . "Nicholas Nickleby'" 130
Tray .... Robert Browning, 132
1812-89
Dogs in George Eliot's 1819-80 . . •134
Novels
Geist's Grave . . . Matthew A mold, iSt.^- 136
1888
The Character of Dogs . R. L. Stevenson^ 1850- 139
1894
At a Dog's Grave . . A. C. Swinburne, 1851- 142
1909
III. TWENTIETH CENTURY
Mute Spirits .
John Galsworthy
146
Dogs in Polar Exploration
R. F. Scott, R.N. .
147
A Dithyramb on a Dog
Alpha of the Plough .
156
To Rufus, a Spaniel .
R. C. Lehmann
161
To a Terrier .
Patrick R. Chalmers .
164
Patsy ....
Patrick R. Chalmers .
165
Pelleas ....
Maurice Maeterlinck .
166
The Affectation of the
E. CE. Somerville and
167
Female Dog
Martin Ross
" A Lamb at Home," etc.
E. CE. Somerville and
Martin Ross
168
A Sensitive Soul
E. CE. Somerville and
Martin Ross
170
Sir Bat-Ears .
Helen Parry Eden
171
The Moral Power of the Dog
Gambier Parry
^7Z
20
To an English Sheep-Dog .
R. E. Vernede .
^7S
Dogs as Companions
/. K. Jerome .
177
The Pessimist .
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
178
Riquet ....
Anaiole France.
179
Hamish ....
Hilton Brown .
183
Danny ....
Alfred OUivant .
185
Dogs in the Great War
E. H. Richardson,
Lt.-Col.
189
To a Bull-Dog .
J. C. Squire .
193
The Turkish Trench Dog .
Geoffrey Dearmer
196
My Dog ....
Francis J ammeSy trans-
lated by Jethvo
Bithell
197
21
THE PARTNERSHIP
JijfAN, no doubt, first hound or bred the dog
to his service and companionship for
purely utilitarian reasons ; hut we of to-day,
by immemorial tradition and a sentiment that
has become almost as inherent in us as the senti-
ment towards children, give him a place in our
lives utterly different from that which we accord
to any other animal [not even excepting cats) ;
a place that he has won for himself throughout
the ages, and that he ever increasingly deserves.
He is by far the nearest thing to man on the face
of the earth ; the one link that we have spiritually
with the animal creation ; the one dumb creature
into whose eyes we can look and tell pretty well
for certain what emotion, even what thought, is
at work within ; the one dumb creature which
— not as a rare exception, but almost always —
steadily feels the sentiments of love and trust.
This special nature of the dog is our own handi-
work, a thing instilled into him through thousands
of years of intimacy, care, and mutual service,
deliberately and ever more carefully fostered ;
extraordinarily precious even to those of us who
profess to be without sentiment. It is one of
the prime factors of our daily lives in all classes
of society — this mute partnership with dogs. . . .
There are innumerable people in all ranks of the
civilized world who would echo the words I heard
23
last night : " If I were condemned to spend
twenty-four hours alone with a single creature,
I would choose to spend them with my dog."
Granting that most people would make two or three
human exceptions, the saying expresses a true
feeling. There is a quiet comfort in the com-
panionship of a dog, with its ever-ready touching
humility ; which human companionship, save of
the nearest, does not bring ; and I assert that this
boon to mankind — of dog's companionship — does
raise the dog on to the peculiar plane of ethical
consideration which we apply to ourselves. . . ,
John Galsworthy
A Sheaf
(Heinemann)
24
I
THE ANCIENT WORLD
Such fidelity of dogs in protecting what is
committed to their charge, such affectionate
attachment to their masters, such jealousy of
strangers, such incredible acuteness of nose in
following a track, such keenness in hunting —
what else do they evince but that these animals
were created for the use of man ?
Cicero
26
The Origin of Dog- Worship in Egypt
THE Egyptians saw in the horizon a superb
star, which appeared always at the exact
time when the overflowing of the Nile began,
and they called this star Sirius. " Sirius is a
god ; the dog renders us a service ; it is a god,"
they said. And so the dog came to be regarded
as the god of the river, which the people repre-
sented with a man's body, but a dog's head.
This river god was also given a genealogy, bearing
the name Anubis, son of Osiris ; its image was
placed at the entrance of the temple of Isis and
Osiris, and ultimately at the gates of all the temples
in Egypt. . . .
The dog being the symbol of vigilance, it was
thus intended to warn princes of their constant
duty to watch over the welfare of their people.
The dbg was worshipped chiefly at Hermopolis
the Great, but ultimately in all the towns of
Egypt. Juvenal writes, " Whole cities worship
the dog ; not one Diana." At a subsequent
period Cynopolis, the City of the Dog, was built
in honour of the dog, and there the priests
celebrated its festivals in great splendour.
ELzf AR Blaze
Histoire du Chien
(Paris, 1843)
27
The Dogs of Ancient Egypt
WITHIN the recollection of all past middle
age, dogs were kept tied to kennels by
heavy chains, seldom allowed in the house, fed
at uncertain hours and taken out at hours still
more uncertain — if at all. . . . We have come
out of all that now, and rather plume ourselves
upon the fact. We have altered our opinions
respecting the proper place and surroundings of
our dogs here ; and many of us are not ashamed
to confess that we hold opinions staunchly re-
garding their place and surroundings hereafter.
. . . Yet let us not forget the fact that others,
in the past, have gone before us, and far ahead
of us, on this same track, of which we often speak
with so much unction. In ancient Egypt dogs
had names, and these are found inscribed in many
places. They were the favourites of the home, and
constantly made much of. They wore collars too,
and often by no means cheap ones. . . . And
if, in many cases, they were small and insignificant,
with short legs like the Dachs, or perhaps the
Aberdeen, implicit trust was placed in their fidelity
as guardians of the home and family. Of course
there were bigger fellows to fulfil the heavier
duties, like the huge Katmir, the dog of the Seven
Sleepers, whom God allowed to speak once and to
answer for himself and others for all time. "I
love those," he said, " who are dear unto God : go
to sleep therefore, and I will guard you."
28
. . . Then, too, there was Anubis, who was given
a dog's head and a man's body : he was worshipped
as a deity and the genius of the Nile, who had
ordered the rising of the great river at the proper
season from the beginning of the world, and
whose doings in this way were marked by the
coming of the Dog-star, with seventy times more
power than the sun. . . .
An animal such as the dog, even if dumb,
which in justice he could scarcely be thought, was
thus judged entitled to a consideration never
vouchsafed to others, and duly received it
therefore at all times, in this enlightened land.
And not only in the fleeting years of his existence,
but equally when he lay down under the common
hand of death. The dog, in those forgotten days,
received embalmment, just as his master and
mistress, and was then carried with some solemnity
to the burial-ground that was set apart for dogs
in every town. And when the last good-bye
had been said, the family to which he had be-
longed returned again to their house, and put
on mourning for their friend and faithful guardian,
shaving their heads and abstaining for a time
from food. So was it with dogs all those
thousands of years ago. We have not come so
very far since then.
Gambier-Parry
Murphy
(John Murray)
29
A Pack of Fox-Hounds in Pharaoh's
Time
IN Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the
Egyptians, there is a representation of as
" varmint " a pack of fox-hounds as modem
eye could wish to see. It is copied from a painting
found in the interior of the tomb of the Pharaoh
under whom Joseph served. Every individual
hound is characteristic of the present breed,
with all their courage and animation.
G. R. Jesse
The Veneration of the Dog in Ancient
Persia
The sacred book of Persia, the Zendavesta} is, like our
own Bible, a collection of books written in different ages.
Zoroaster or Zarathustra, the founder of the old Persian
religion, lived probably about 1400 B.C., and the sacred
books which were used by his followers claim to pre-
serve his teaching. The Vendidad, one of the books
of this collection, is a book of laws, and we find from
it that the dog occupied a high place in ancient Persia :
it was, for instance, " safer to kill a man than to give
bad food to a shepherd's dog, for the manslayer gets
off with ninety stripes, whereas the bad master . . .
mil receive two hundred stripes." In the following
1 A vesta means knowledge and Zend stands for the
commentary afterwards added to the original.
30
extracts, Ahura, the god of agriculturists, is ex-
plaining the virtues of the dog and his fidelity to man.
THE dog, O Spitama Zarathustra ! I, Ahura
Mazda, have made self -clothed and self-
shod, watchful, wakeful and sharp-toothed, born
to take his food from man and to watch over
man's goods. I, Ahura Mazda, have made the
dog strong of body against the evil-doer, and
watchful over your goods when he is of sound
mind.
And whosoever shall awake at his voice, neither
shall the thief nor the wolf steal anything from
his house, without his being warned ; the wolf
shall be smitten and torn in pieces ; he is driven
away, he flees away.
A dog has the characters of eight different
sorts of people :
He has the character of a priest,
He has the character of a warrior,
He has the character of a husbandman,
He has the character of a strolling-singer.
He has the character of a thief,
He has the character of a wild beast.
He has the character of a courtezan.
He has the character of a child.
He eats broken food like a priest ; he is grateful
. . . he is easily satisfied ... he wants only
a small piece of bread ... in these things he
is like unto a priest.
31
He marches in front like a warrior ; he fights
for the beneficent cow ... he goes first out of
the house ... in these things he is hke unto a
warrior.
He is watchful and sleeps lightly, like a hus-
bandman ; he goes first out of the house . . .
he returns last into the house ... in these
things he is like unto a husbandman.
He sings like a strolling singer ; he is intrusive
. . . he is meagre . . . he is poor, in these things
he is like unto a strolling singer.
He likes darkness, like a thief ; he prowls
about in darkness . . . he is a shameless eater
. . . he is an unfaithful keeper ... in these
things he is like unto a thief.
He likes darkness like a wild beast ; he prowls
about in darkness . . . he is a shameless eater
. . . he is an unfaithful keeper ... in these
things he is like unto a wild beast.
He sings like a courtezan ; he is intrusive
... he walks about the roads . . . he is meagre
. . . he is poor ... in these things he is like
unto a courtezan.
He likes sleeping like a child ; he is apt to
run away . . . he is full of tongue ... he goes
on all fours ... in these things he is like unto
a child.
If those two dogs of mine, the shepherd's dog
and the house dog, pass by the house of any of
my faithful people, let them never be kept away
from it. For no house could subsist on the earth
32
made by Ahiira, but for these two dogs of mine,
the shepherd's dog and the house dog.
Vendidad, XIII. vi.-ix.
Sacred Books of the East
(Milford)
Man's Fidelity to the Dog
The Maha-Bharata is an ancient Sanscrit poetical
treasury, deaHng mainly with the story of a war of
the Bharatas which took place before the sixth century
B.C. But the story was added to and embellished
with ancient laws, customs, and philosophies " till it
became an encyclopaedia of the life and knowledge
of ancient India." In the extract which follows
(quoted from the translation of Sir Edwin Arnold)
the hero is journeying to Paradise. His wife and
liis brothers have died on the way and he is going
on alone, followed only by his dog. Indra, the god
of the sky, appears to him and offers to carry him
right up to Paradise in his chariot. The hero,
Yudhishthira, addresses Indra :
O THOUSAND-EYED ! O Lord of all the
gods.
Give that my brothers come with me who fell.
Not without them is Swarga (Paradise) sweet
to me.
She, too, the dear and kind and queenly — she
Whose perfect virtue Paradise must crown —
Grant her to come with us ! Dost thou grant
this ? "
c 33
The God replied : "In heaven thou shalt see
Thy kinsmen and thy queen — these will attain —
And Krishna. Grieve no longer for thy dead.
Thou chief of men ! their mortal covering stripped,
They have their places ; but to thee the gods
Allot an unknown grace : thou shalt go up
Living and in thy form, to the immortal homes."
But the king answered : " O thou Wisest One,
Who know'st what was and is and is to be,
Still one more grace ! This hound hath ate with
me,
Followed me, loved me : must I leave him
now ? "
" Monarch," spake Indra, " thou art now as we,
Deathless, divine : thou art become a god ;
Glory and power and gifts celestial
And all the joys of heaven are thine for aye :
What hath a beast with these ? Leave here thy
hound ! "
Yet Yudhishthira answered, " O Most High,
0 Thousand-eyed and Wisest. Can it be
That one exalted should seem pitiless ?
Nay, let me lose such glory : for its sake
1 would not leave one living thing I loved."
Then sternly Indra spake, " He is unclean
And into Swarga such shall enter not.
Bethink thee, Dharmaraj ! quit now this beast
That which is seemly is not hard of heart."
34
Still he replied : " 'Tis written that to spurn
A suppliant equals in offence to slay
A twice-born ; wherefore not for Swarga's bliss
Quit I, Mahendra ! this poor clinging dog —
So without any hope or friend save me,
So wistful fawning for my faithfulness.
So agonized to die, unless I help.
Who among men was called steadfast and just."
Quoth Indra, " Nay ! the altar-flame is foul
Where a dog passeth ; angry angels sweep
The ascending smoke aside and all the fruits
Of offering, and the merit of the prayer
Of him whom a hound toucheth. Leave it here.
He that will enter heaven must enter pure.
Why didst thou quit thy brethren on the way.
And Krishna, and the dear-loved Draupadi,
Attaining firm and glorious to this Mount
Through perfect deeds, to linger for a brute ?
Hath Yudhishthira vanquished self, to melt
With one poor passion at the door of bliss ?
Stay'st thou for this, who did'st not stay for them —
Draupadi, Bhima ? "
But the king yet spake —
" 'Tis known that none can hurt or help the dead.
They, the delightful ones who sank and died
Following my footsteps, could not live again
Though I had turned — therefore I did not turn ;
But could help profit, I had turned to help.
There be four sins, O Sakra, grievous sins :
35
The first is making suppliants despair,
The second is to slay a nursing wife,
The third is spoiling Brahmans' goods by force,
The fourth is injuring an ancient friend.
These four I deem but equal to one sin,
If one, in coming forth from woe to weal.
Abandon any meanest comrade then."
Straight as he spake, brightly great Indra smiled ;
Vanished the hound and in its stead stood there
The Lord of Death and Justice, Dharma's self !
Sweet were the words which fell from those dread
lips,
Precious the lovely praise : " O thou true King !
Thou that dost bring to harvest the good seed
Of Pandu's righteousness ; thou that hast ruth
As he before, on all which lives ! O Son
I tried thee in the Dwaita wood, what time
They smote thy brothers, bringing water ; then
Thou prayed'st for Nakula's life — tender and just —
Hear thou my word ! Because thou did'st not
mount
This car divine, lest the poor hound be shent
Who looked to thee, lo ! there is none in heaven
Shall sit above thee. King ! — Bharata's son.
Enter thou now to the eternal joys.
Living and in thy form. Justice and Love
Welcome thee. Monarch ! Thou shalt throne
with them ! "
Sir Edwin Arnold
Indian Idylls (1883)
(Trubner & Co.)
36
Dogs in Scriptural Times
IT is strange, considering how highly the
Egyptians prized their dogs, that in the
Old Testament they are only mentioned with
aversion, even abhorrence. But the Hebrews
were not animal-lovers : they regarded all animals
who did not chew the cud as unclean. That is
one reason why we meet with no dogs of noble
type in the Bible. And when we think of the
Pariah dogs, the amateur scavengers of the East,
we see another explanation of the contemptuous
attitude of Scriptural writers to the dog, for the
unfortunate Pariah dogs probably occupy the
same position to-day as their progenitors did in
Scriptural times. " Lean and hungry, outcast
and wretched, packs of dogs haunt the streets
of Eastern cities playing scavenger and devouring
offal as they did thousands of years since, when
the wicked Queen was cast down and ' dogs
licked the blood of Jezebel.' " Pariah dogs
have no home, they are not attached to any
human being, and the sleek European dog, secure
of his place in the heart and home of his master,
looks at him with disdain.
The Israelite kings were not huntsmen as the
Assyrian kings were : they did not require dogs
for the chase, but only as watchdogs to guard
their dwelling-places and their herds. Dogs in
that land seem never to have been raised to the
status of first friend. Might this perhaps be
37
accounted for by the oppression the Israelites
suffered at the hands of the Egyptians during their
sojourn in Egypt ? The Egyptians worshipped
the dog, and the contrariness of human nature
is perhaps sufficient to explain why the Israelites,
for that very reason, abhorred it. And, of course,
the Israelites found the dog taboo in Egypt,
belonging to a deity, and therefore not to be
defiled by the touch of ordinary mortals, far less
by Israelite slaves.
At any rate, and for whatever reason it may
have been, mention of the dog in the Bible is
only made when something is to be compared to
the lowest form of life — " Am I a dog ? " — is
the protest of the Jew when he thinks himself
unfairly used. There are only two references
to dogs in the Old Testament which may bear
a kindlier interpretation. The first is to that
nameless dog who went with Tobit on his pilgrim-
age, and is mentioned, without enthusiasm
certainly, but also without contempt. The
second is to " an idol of the Anites, mentioned
under the name of Nihhaz, which the Hebrew
commentators interpret as barker, and they
assert that this idol was made in the form of a
dog " (2 Kings xvii. 31).
But it is interesting that Caleb, whose name
means Dog of God, was renowned for his faithful-
ness, all the more that the Jews used to name
people after their mental characteristics. We
can hardly regard this as pure coincidence.
38
" The inhabitants of Granada," wrote a con-
tributor to the Gentleman's Magazine (Nov. 1895),
" are careful to call their dogs Melampo, Cubilon,
or Lubina, as these are said to have been
the names of the three who accompanied their
shepherd masters to look on the Holy Babe at
Bethlehem, and dogs so-called are said never to
go mad. A beautiful old Eastern legend tells
how our Blessed Lord and His disciples one day
approached the dead body of a dog. All others
were loud in abhorrence and loathing of the
unclean beast, when the voice of the Master fell
on their ears —
" Pearls are not whiter than his teeth."
It is probable that by the tiine of Christ there
was sympathy between men and dogs in Palestine.
Some words in the Gospel of St Mark (vii. 28),
Even 'the dogs under the table eat of the children's
crumbs — show that they had at least won their
way into the households of their owners.
L. M.
Dogs in Islam
THE Mahometan Creed admits two dogs into
Paradise ^ — the dog of Tobit, and Katmir,
the dog of the Seven Sleepers, whose supposed
descendants are greatly prized by the wandering
* Balaam's ass, and the camel that carried Mahomet
when he fled from Mecca, were the only other
animals admitted to the Moslem paradise.
39
tribes of Central Asia, though they probably
do not equal their great ancestor in size — his
stature being that of a donkey and his profession
that of a collie. " He would not throw a bone
to the dog of the Seven Sleepers," is an Arabian
way of describing a specially stingy person.
" I love those who are dear unto God ; go and
sleep therefore, and I will guard you," Katmir
is alleged to have said to the sleepers in the
Mahometan version of the legend, speech being
divinely given him for the occasion. His name,
written on a scrap of paper, is still used among
the Arabs as a charm against the dangers of
travelling.
Gentleman's Magazine
November 1895
(Chatto & Windus)
A Mahometan Legend
(A woman is being led along the hot, dusty street
to the place of her execution.)
HIGH noon it was, and the hot Khamseen's
breath
Blew from the desert sands and parched the town.
The crows gasped, and the kine went up and down
With lolling tongues ; the camels moaned ; a
crowd
Pressed with their pitchers, wrangling high and
loud
About the tank ; and one dog by a well
40
Nigh dead with thirst, lay where he yelped and
fell
Glaring upon the water out of reach.
And praying succour in a silent speech,
So piteous were its eyes. Which, when she
saw,
This woman from her foot her shoe did draw
Albeit death-sorrowful ; and looping up
The long silk of her girdle, made a cap
Of the heel's hollow, and thus let it sink
Until it touched the cool black water's brink ;
So filled th'embroidered shoe, and gave a draught
To the spent beast, which whined and fawned
and quaffed
Her kind gift to the dregs ; next licked her hand
With such glad looks that all might understand
He held his life from her ; then at her feet
He followed close all down the cruel street.
Her one friend in that city.
But the King,
Riding within his Utter, marked the thing.
And how^ the woman on her way to die,
Had such compassion for the misery
Of that parched hound : " Take off her chain
and place
The veil once more above the sinner's face,
And lead her to her house in peace ! " he said.
" The law is that the people stone thee dead.
For that which thou hast wrought ; but there is
come
Fawning around thy feet, a witness dumb,
41
Not heard upon thy trial ; this brute beast
Testifies for thee, sister ! whose weak breast
Death could not make ungentle. I hold rule
In Allah's stead, who is the Merciful,
And hope for Mercy ; therefore go thou free —
I dare not show less pity unto thee."
Sir Edwin Arnold
Pearls of the Faith
(Trubner & Co.)
The Dogs of Ancient Greece and Rome
IT is most certain that Hunting was the exercise
of the greatest Heroes in Antiquity. By
this they form'd themselves for War ; and their
Exploits against wild beasts were a Prelude to
their future Victories. Xenophon says that
almost all the ancient Heroes, Nestor, Theseus,
Castor, Pollux, Ulysses, Diomedes, Achilles, etc.,
were Disciples of Hunting ; being taught care-
fully that Art, as what would be highly serviceable
to them in military Discipline. And Pliny
observes, those who were designed for great
Captains were first taught to contest with the
swiftest wild Beasts, in Speed ; with the boldest,
in Strength; with the most cunning, in Craft
and Subtilty. And the Roman Emperors, in
those Monuments they erected to transmit their
Actions to future Ages, made no scruple to join
the Glories of the Chace to their most celebrated
Triumphs. Neither were there wanting Poets
to do justice to this heroick Exercise. Beside
that of Oppian in Greek, we have several Poems
in Latin upon Hunting. Gratius was contem-
porary with Ovid ; as appears by this verse —
Gratius shall arm the Huntsman for the Chace.
But of his Works only some Fragments remain.
There are many others of more modem date.
. . . We might indeed have expected to have
seen it treated more at large by Virgil in his
third Georgick, since it is expressly Part of his
Subject. But he has favoured us only with ten
verses ; and what he says of Dogs relates wholly
to Greyhounds and Mastiffs —
The Greyhound swift, and MastifE's furious Breed.
And he directs us to feed them with Butter-
Milk. He has it is true touched upon the Chace
in the 4th and 7th Books of the JEneid. But
it is evident that the Art of Hunting is very
different now, from what it was in his Days,
and very much altered and improved in these
latter Ages. It does not appear to me that the
Ancients had any Notion of pursuing Wild Beasts
by the Scent only, with a regular and well-
disciplin'd Pack of Hounds, and therefore they
must have passed for Poachers amongst our
modem Sportsmen. The Muster Roll given us
by Ovid, in his Story of Acteon, is of all Sorts of
43
Dogs, and of all Countries. And the description
of the ancient Hunting, as we find it in the Anti-
quities of Pere de Montfaucon, taken from the
Sepulchre of Nasos, and the Arch of Constantine,
has not the least Trace of the Manner now in
Use. . . .
Whenever the Ancients mention Dogs following
by the Scent, they mean no more than finding
out the Game by the Nose of one single Dog.
Oppian has a long description of these Dogs in
his first Book. ... He also observes that the
best sort of these finders were brought from
Britain ; this Island having always been famous
(as it is at this Day) for the best breed of Hounds,
for Persons the best skilled in the Art of Hunting,
and for Horses the most enduring to follow the
Chace. . . .
The Ancients esteemed Hunting, not only as
a manly and warlike Exercise, but as highly
conducive to Health. The famous Galen re-
commends it above all others, as not only
exercising the body, but giving Delight and
Entertainment to the Mind. And he calls the
Inventors of this Art, wise Men, and well skilled
in Human Nature.
William Somerville
(1675-1742)
44
Epitaph on a Favourite Dog
THOU who passest on the path ; if haply
thou dost mark this monument, laugh not
I pray thee, though it is a dog's grave ; tears
fell for me and the dust was heaped above me
by a master's hands who likewise engraved these
words on my tomb.
J. W. Mackail
Greek Anthology
(Longmans)
Odysseus and his Dog Argos
(Odysseus, after his wanderings, comes back to his
home. He speaks to the swineherd, Eumaeus, who
does not recognize his master.)
THUS they spake one to the other. And lo,
a hound raised up his head and pricked
his ears, even where he lay, Argos, the hound of
Odysseus, of the hardy heart, which of old himself
had bred, but had got no joy of him, for ere that,
he went to sacred Ilios. Now in time past the
young men used to lead the hound against wild
goats and deer and hares ; but as then, despised
he lay (his master being afar) in the deep dung
of mules and kine, whereof an ample bed was
spread before the doors, till the thralls of Odysseus
should carry it away to dung therewith his wide
demesne. There lay the dog Argos, full of vermin.
Yet even now when he was aware of Odysseus
45
standing by, he wagged his tail and dropped
both his ears, but nearer to his master he had
not now the strength to draw. But Odysseus
looked aside and wiped away a tear that he
easily hid from Eumaeus, and straightway he
asked him saying :
" Eumaeus, verily this is a great marvel, this
hound lying here in the dung. Truly he is goodly
of growth, but I know not certainly if he have
speed with this beauty, or if he be comely only,
like as are men's trencher dogs that their lords
keep for the pleasure of the eye."
Then didst thou make answer, swineherd
Eumaeus : "In very truth this is the dog of a
man that has died in a far land. If he were
what once he was in limb and in the feats of the
chase, when Odysseus left him to go to Troy,
soon wouldst thou marvel at the sight of his
swiftness and his strength. There was no beast
that could flee from him in the deep places of
the wood, when he was in pursuit ; for even on
a track he was the keenest hound. But now
he is holden in an evil case, and his lord hath
perished far from his own country, and the careless
women take no charge of him."
The Odyssey of Homer, XVII.
(From the translation of Butcher & Lang)
(Macmillan & Co.)
46
Plato's Conception of the Qualities of
the Dog
(Socrates and Glaucon are discussing the duties of
the guardians of the State.)
SOCRATES. Then we shall have to select
natures which are suited to their task of
guarding the city ?
Glaucon. We shall.
Socrates. And the selection will be no easy-
task, I said ; but still we must endeavour to
do our best as far as we can ?
Glaucon. We must.
Socrates. The dog is a watcher, I said, and
the guardian is also a watcher ; and in this point
of view, is not the noble youth very like a well-
bred dog ?
Glaucon. How do you mean ?
Socrates. I mean that both of them ought
to be quick to see and swift to overtake the enemy ;
and strong too if, when they have caught him,
they have to fight with him.
Glaucon. All these qualities will certainly
be required.
Socrates. Well, and your guardian must be
brave if he is to fight well ?
Glaucon. Certainly.
Socrates. And is he likely to be brave who
has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other
animal ? Have you never observed how the
47
presence of spirit makes the soul of any creature
absolutely fearless and invincible ?
Glaucon. I have.
Socrates. Then now we have a clear idea of
the bodily qualities which are required in the
guardian.
Glaucon. True.
Socrates. And also of the mental ones ;
his soul is to be full of spirit ?
Glaucon. Yes.
Socrates. But then, Glaucon, those spirited
natures are apt to be furious with one another
and with everybody else.
Glaucon. There is the difficulty.
Socrates. Whereas they ought to be gentle
to their friends, and dangerous to their enemies ;
or instead of their enemies destroying them, they
will destroy themselves.
Glaucon. True.
Socrates. What is to be done then ; how
shall we find a gentle nature which has also a
great spirit, for they seem to be inconsistent
with one another ?
Glaucon. True.
Socrates. And yet he will not be a good
guardian who is wanting in either of these two
quaUties ; and as the combination of them
appears to be impossible, this is equivalent to
saying that to be a good guardian is also
impossible.
Glaucon. I am afraid that what you say is true.
48
Socrates. [Perplexed] My friend, we deserve
to be in a puzzle ; for we have lost sight of the
simile with which we started.
Glaucon. What do you mean ?
Socrates. I mean to say that there do exist
natures gifted with those opposite qualities.
Glaucon. And where do you find them ?
Socrates. Many animals furnish examples of
them ; our friend the dog is a very good one ;
you know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle
to their familiars and acquaintances and the
reverse to strangers ?
Glaucon. Yes, I know.
Socrates. Then there is nothing impossible
or out of the order of nature in our finding
a guardian who has a similar combination of
quaUties ?
Glaucon. Certainly not.
Socrates. Would you say that he should
combine with the spirited nature the qualities
of a philosopher ?
Glaucon. I do not apprehend your meaning.
Socrates. The trait of which I am speaking
may be also seen in the dog and is remarkable
in an animal.
Glaucon. What trait ?
Socrates. Why, a dog, when he sees a stranger,
is angry ; when an acquaintance he welcomes
him, although the one has never done him any
harm, nor the other any good. Did this never
strike you as curious ?
D 49
Glaucon. I never thought of it before. . . .
Socrates. And surely this instinct of the
dog is very charming ; your dog is a true
philosopher.
Glaucon. Why ?
Socrates. Why, because he distinguishes the
face of a friend and of an enemy only by the
criterion of knowing and not knowing. And
must not the creature be fond of learning who
determines what is friendly and what is unfriendly
by the test of knowledge and ignorance ?
Glaucon. Most assuredly.
Socrates, And is not the love of learning the
love of wisdom, which is philosophy ?
Glaucon. They are the same.
Socrates. And may we not say confidently
of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle
to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature
be a lover of wisdom and knowledge ?
Glaucon. That we may safely affirm.
Socrates. Then he who is to be a really good
and noble guardian of the State will require
to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and
swiftness and strength ?
Glaucon. Undoubtedly.
Plato, Republic, Book II.
(Jowett's translation)
(Oxford University Press)
50
Xanthippus and his Dog
KINDNESS indeed is of wider application
than mere justice, for we naturally treat
men alone according to justice and the laws,
while kindness and gratitude, as though from a
plenteous spring, often extend even to irrational
animals. It is right for man to feed horses which
have been worn out in his service, and not merely
to train dogs when they are young, but to take
care of them when they are old. . . . Many
persons, too, have made friends and companions
of dogs, as did Xanthippus in old times, whose
dog swam all the way to Salamis beside his
master's ship when the Athenians left their city,
and which he buried on the promontory which
to this day is called the Dog's Tomb. We ought
not to treat living things as we do our clothes
and our shoes, and throw them away after we
have worn them out ; but we ought to accustom
ourselves to show kindness in these cases, if only
in order to teach ourselves the duty towards one
another. For my own part, I would not even
sell an ox that had laboured for me because he
was old. . . .
Plutarch
Life of Cato, V.
51
The Qualities of the Dog: Examples of
its Attachment to its Master.
AMONG the animals also that are domesti-
cated with mankind, there are many
circumstances that are far from undeserving
of being known : among these there are more
particularly that most faithful friend of man,
the dog. . . . We have an account of a dog
that fought against a band of robbers in defending
its master ; and although it was pierced with
wounds, still it would not leave the body, from
which it drove away all birds and beasts. Another
dog, again in Epirus, recognized the murderer of
its master in the midst of an assemblage of people,
and by biting and barking at him, extorted from
him a confession of his crime. . . . The people
of Colophon and Castabala kept troops of dogs
for the purposes of war ; and these used to fight
in the front rank and never retreat ; they were
the most faithful of auxiharies, and yet required
no pay. ... A dog to which Darius gives the
name of Hyrcanus, upon the funeral pile of King
Lysimachus being lighted, threw itself into the
flames, and the dog of King Hiero did the
same. . . .
But a more extraordinary fact than all is what
took place in our own times, and is testified by
the public register of the Roman people. In
the consulship of Appius Junius and P. SiUus,
when Titus Sabinus was put to death, together
52
with his slaves, for the affair of Nero, the son
of Germanicus, it was found impossible to drive
away a dog, which belonged to one of them, from
the prison ; nor could it be forced away from the
body, which had been cast down the Gemitorian
steps. But there it stood howling, in the presence
of vast multitudes of people ; and when some
one threw a piece of bread to it, the anmial carried
it to the mouth of its master. Afterwards when
the body was thrown into the Tiber, the dog
swam into the river and endeavoured to raise it
out of the water ; quite a throng of people being
collected to witness this instance of an animal's
fidehty.
Dogs are the only animals that are sure to
know their masters ; and if they suddenly meet
him as a stranger, they will instantly recognize
him. They are the only animals that will answer
to their names and recognize the voices of the
family. They recollect a road along which they
have passed, however long it may be. Next to
man, there is no living creature whose memory is
so retentive. . . .
In daily Ufa we have discovered many other
valuable quaUties in this animal ; but its in-
telUgence and sagacity are more especially shown
in the chase. It discovers and traces out the
tracks of the animal, leading . . . the sportsman
who accompanies it, straight up to the prey ;
and as soon as ever it has perceived it, how silent
it is, and how secret but significant is the in-
53
dication which it gives, first by the tail and
afterwards by the nose. Hence it is that even
when worn out with old age, blind and feeble,
they are carried by the huntsman in his arms,
being still able to point out the coverts where
the game is concealed, by snuffing with their
muzzles at the wind. . . .
Pliny
Natural History, Chap. Ixi.
Fingars Dog, Bran
FIONN or Fingal, King of the Alba-men (or
Caledonians) in the land of the great
mountains, is a traditional hero in Celtic folk-
lore. He is reputed to have been the father of
Ossian, and there is probably foundation in fact
for the heroic sagas and folk-tales that centre
round his figure. His date is about a.d. 200.
Fingal was always accompanied by Bran " his
famous and well-beloved hound." It was while
rescuing three children from a giant's castle
that two puppies were found lying beside their
mother, a large deer-hound. Fingal's emissary
stole the two pups, " these were the most valuable
things which he saw inside." Bran is one of the
immortal heroes of Celtic folk-lore ; an old Celtic
poem gives a description of his breed :
An eye of sloe with ear not low,
With horse's breast, with depth of chest,
54
With breadth of loin and curve in groin
And nape set far behind the head —
Such were the dogs that Fingal bred.
In Ossian's poems we find a description of
Fingal's joyous hunting :
" Call," said Fingal, " call to the chase,
Dogs slim and choice in travelling the moor :
Call Bran of the whitest chest ;
Call Neart and Kiar and Lu-a ;
Fillan, Ryno — ^he is in his grave.
My son is in the sleep of death !
Fillan and Fergus, blow the horn ;
Let joy arise on hill and cairn,
Let deer start up in Cromala,
And by the lake of roes — their home."
The shrill sound rang throughout the wood ;
Slowly started a herd on Cromla.
A thousand dogs sprang over the heath ;
' A deer fell down to every dog :
Fell three to Bran alone ;
And towards Fionn he turned the three,
To give great joy to the king.
A Scandinavian Sheep- Dog
So it came to pass that Olaf wedded Gyda
and abode for the most part in England, but
sometimes in Ireland. Once when Olaf was out
on a foray it fell that it was needful that they
should foray ashore for provisions, and accordingly
went his men to land and drove down a number
55
of cattle to the shore. Then came a peasant
after them and prayed Olaf give him back his
cows, and Olaf bade him take his cows could he
find them : " But let liim not delay our journey."
The peasant had with him a big cattle-dog.
This dog sent he into the herd of neat whereof
were being driven many hundreds, and the animal
hither and thither ran among the drove, singling
out as many cows as the peasant said he owned,
and all of them were marked in the same manner.
Now knowing that the dog had chosen rightly
it seemed to them that this was passing clever,
and so Olaf asked the peasant whether he would
give him the dog. " Willingly," answered he,
and Olaf in exchange therefor gave him a gold
ring, and the promise of his friendship. That
dog was named Vigi, and it was the best of all
dogs ; Olaf had pleasure in him for a long time
thereafter.
Saga of Olaf Tryggvason
circa a.d. iooo
II
TWELFTH TO TWENTIETH
CENTURY
Man is the god of the dog ; he knows no
other ; he can understand no other. A nd see
how he worships him ! with what reverence he
crouches at his feet ! with what love he fawns
upon him ! with what dependence he looks up to
him ! with what cheerful alacrity he obeys him !
His whole soul is wrapt up in his god ! all
the powers and faculties of his nature are
devoted to his service ! and these powers and
faculties are ennobled by the intercourse.
Divines tell us that it just ought to be so with
the Christian — but the dog puts the Christian
to shame.
Robert Burns (1759-96)
58
A Greyhound of King Henry II.
CADWALLADON, through inveterate malice^
slew his brother Owen ; a greyhound
belonging to the aforesaid Owen, large, beautiful,
and curiously spotted with a variety of colours,
received seven wounds from arrows and lances in
the defence of his master, and on his part did
much injury to the enemy and assassins. When
his wounds were healed, he was sent to King
Henry II. by William, Earl of Gloucester, in
testimony of so great and extraordinary a deed.
A dog, of all animals, is most attached to man,
and most easily distinguishes him ; sometimes,
when deprived of his master, he refuses to live,
and in his master's defence is bold enough to
brave death ; ready therefore to die, either with
or for his master.
GiRALDUS DE BaRRI
circa 1200
The Prioress
She was so charitable and so pitous.
She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous
Caught in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde.
Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde
Wit rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel brede.
But sore wept she if on of hem were dede,
Or if men smote it with a yerde smert :
And all was conscience and tendre herte.
Chaucer (1340 ?-i40o)
Canterbury Tales
59
The Dog of Montargis ^
To affirm the nobleness of hounds I shall tell
a tale of a greyhound, that of Aubrey of
Montdider, the which men may see painted in
the realm of France in many places.
That Aubrey was a squire of the King's house
of France, and upon a day he was going from
the Court to his own house, and as he passed by
the woods of Bondy . . . and led with him a
fair greyhound that he had nourished up, a man
that hated him for great envy without any other
reason and was called Macaire, ran upon him
within the wood and slew him without
warning. . . .
And when the greyhound sought his master
and found him dead, he covered him with earth
and leaves with his paws and his muzzle as best
he could ; and when he had been for three days
and might no longer bide for hunger, he turned
again to the King's Court, and there he found
Macaire which was a great gentleman and had
slain his master. And also as soon as the
greyhound had seen Macaire, he ran upon him
and should have maimed him, if men had let
him. The King of France, the which was wise
1 The spelling has been modernized. This grey-
hound is known as the Dog of Montargis because a
stone mantlepiece, which stood for many hundred
years in the Castle of Montargis, bore a carved repre-
sentation of the fight.
60
and perceiving, asked what it was ; and men
told him all the story. The greyhound took
from the tables what he might, and brought it
to his master and put meat in his mouth, and
this same the greyhound did every three days ;
and then the King made men follow the grey-
hound to see whither he bore the meat he took
in the Court. And then they found him dead
and buried the said Aubrey, and the King made
come many men of his Court, and made him
stroke the greyhound and him cherish, and made
his men lead him by the collar along by the house,
but he strayed never.
And then the King commanded Macaire to
take a gobbet of flesh and give it to the greyhound ;
and as soon as the greyhound saw Macaire he left
the flesh and would have run upon him. And
when the King saw that, he held great suspicion
upon Macaire ; he said to Macaire, You must
fight against the greyhound ; and then he began
to look dull. . . . The which Macaire had a great
two-handed staff . . . yet was discomfitted.
And the King commanded that the greyhound,
the which had Macaire under him, should be
taken up, and then made enquiry of the truth
at Macaire, the which acknowledged he had slain
Aubrey by treason, and therefore he was hanged
and drawn.
Edmund de Langley
(Son of Edward III., b. 1341)
Master of Game
6j
Morte d'Arthur
(Sir Tristram is taken home to his own castle, where
no one, not even his wife, La Beale Isoud, recognizes
him.)
THEN the Queen had always a little brachet
with her, that Sir Tristram gave her the
first time that ever she came into Cornwall, and
never would the brachet depart from her but if
Sir Tristram was nigh there as was La Beale
Isoud ; and this brachet was sent from the King's
daughter of France unto Sir Tristram, for great
love. And anon as this little brachet felt a savour
of Sir Tristram, she leaped upon him, and licked
his cheeks and his ears, and then she whined and
quested, and she smelled at his feet and at his
hands, and on all parts of his body that she
might come to. Ah ! my lady, said Dame Brag-
waine unto La Beale Isoud, alas ! alas ! said
she, I see it is mine own lord. Sir Tristram.
And thereupon Isoud fell down in a swoon and
so lay a great while ; and when she might speak
she said, " My lord, Sir Tristram, blessed be
God ye have your life ; and now I am sure ye
shall be discovered by this little brachet for she
will never leave you. . . ."
Sir Thomas Malory
(First printed by William Caxton, 1485)
62
A Letter from Sir John Harington about
his Dog Bungey
(Harington was a poet, a soldier, and a godson of
Queen Elizabeth, but is best known as the translator
of Ariosto.)
MAY it please your Highness to accept in
good sort what I now offer as hath
been done aforetime ; and I may say, I pede
fausto ; but having good reason to think your
Highness had goodwill and liking to read what
others have told of my rare Dog, I will even give
a brief history of his good deeds and strange
feats ; and herein will I not play the cur myself,
but in good soothe relate what is no more nore
less than the bare verity. Although I mean
not to disparage the deeds of Alexander's horse,
I will match my Dog (Bungey) against him for
good carriage ; for, if he did not bear a great
Prince on his back, I am bold to say he did often
bear the sweet words of a great Princess on his neck.
I did once relate to your Highness after what
sort his tackling was, wherewith he did sojourn
from my house at the Bath (Somersetshire) to
Greenwich Palace, and deliver up to the Court
there such matters as were entrusted to his care.
This he hath often done, and come safe to the
Bath, or my house here at Kelstone, with goodly
returns from such NobiHty as were pleased to
employ him ; nor was it ever told our Lady
Queen that this Messenger did ever blab ought
63
concerning his high trust, as others have done
in more special matters. Neither must it be
forgotten as how he once was sent with two
charges of sack wine from the Bath to my house
by my man Combe, and on his way the cordage
did slacken, but my trusty bearer did now bear
himself so wisely as to covertly hide one flasket
in the rushes, and take the other in his teeth to
the house ; after which he went forth and returned
with the other part of his burden to dinner.
Hereat your Highness may perchance marvel
and doubt ; but we have living testimony of these
who wrought in the fields, and espied his work,
and now live to tell they did much long to play
the dog and give stowage to the wine themselves ;
but they did refrain, and watched the passage
of the whole business.
I need not say how much I did once grieve at
missing this Dog ; for on my journey towards
London some idle pastimers did divert them-
selves with hunting mallards in a pond, and
conveyed him to the Spanish Ambassador's ;
where (in a happy hour) after six weeks I did
hear of him ; but such was the court he did pay
to the Don, that he was no less in good liking
there than at home. Nor did the household
listen to any claim or challenge, till I rested my
suit on the Dog's own proofs, and made him
perform such feats before the Nobles assembled
as put it past doubt that I was his maste^-. I
did send him to the hall in the tim.e of dinner,
64
and made him bring thence a pheasant out of
the dish, which created much mirth ; but much
more, when he returned at my commandment
to the table and put it again in the same cover.
Herewith the company was well content to allow
me my claim, and we both were well content
to accept it, and came homewards. I could
dwell more on this matter, but jubes renovare
dolorem. I will now say in what manner he
died. As we travelled towards the Bath, he
leaped on my horse's neck, and was more earnest
in fawning and courting my notice, than what
I had observed for some time back ; and, after
my chiding his disturbing my passing forwards,
he gave me some glances of such affection as
moved me to cajole him ; but alas ! he crept
suddenly into a thorny brake and died in a short
time.
. .' . Now let Ulysses praise his Dog Argus,
or Tobit be led by that Dog whose name doth
not appear ; yet could I say such things of
my Bungey ... as might shame them both,
either for good faith, clear wit, or wonderful
deeds. ... Of all the Dogs near your father's
court not one hath more love, more diligence to
please, or less pay for pleasing, than him I write
of ; for verily a bone would content my servant,
when some expect greater matters, or will
knavishly find out a bone of contention.
Sir John Harington
(Of Kelstone, near Bath, 1561-1612)
E 65
Man the God of the Dog
FOR take an Example of a Dog ; And mark
what a Generosity and Courage he will
put on, when he findes himself e maintained by
a Man ; who to him is in stead of a God, or
Melior Naiura ; which courage is manifestly
such as that creature, without that confidence
of a better Nature then his owne, could never
attaine.
Francis Bacon (1551-1626)
Essay on Atheisme
How William of Orange was saved by
his Dog
(In 1572 a night attack was made upon the camp of
William of Orange, led by Julian Romero under the
Duke of Alva.)
JULIAN . . . forced all the guards that he
found in his way into the place of armes
before the Prince's tent. Here he entered divers
tents ; among the rest his men killed two of the
Prince's secretaries hard by the Prince's tent,
and the Prince himself escaped very narrowly.
I heard the Prince say often, that he thought
but for a dog he had been taken. The camisado
was given with such resolution, that the place
of armes tooke no alarme until their fellowes
were running in with the enemies in their tailes ;
66
whereupon this dogge, hearing a great noyse,
fell to scratching and crying, and withall leapt
upon the Prince's face, awaking him being asleepe,
before any of his men. And albeit the Prince lay
in his armes with a lackey alwaies holding one of
his horses ready bridled, yet at the going out
of his tent, with much adoe hee recovered his
horse before the enemie arrived. Nevertheless
one of his squires was slain taking horse presently
after him, and divers of his servants were forced
to escape amongst the guardes of foote, which
could not recover their horses ; for, in troth,
ever since, untill the Prince's dying day, he kept
one of that dog's race, so did many of his friends
and followers. The most or all of these dogs
were white little hounds with crooked noses
called Camuses {i.e. fiat-nosed).
Sir Roger Williams (i6i8)
A ctions of the Low Countries
This account led to the belief that the dog in question
was a pug, but Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic,
calls it a spaniel. " But for the little dog's watch-
fulness," he writes, " William of Orange, upon whose
shoulders the whole weight of his country's fortunes
depended, would have been led within a week to an
ignominious death. To his dying day the Prince
ever afterwards kept a spaniel of the same race in his
bed-chamber. In the statues of the Prince a little
dog is frequently sculptured at his feet."
67
The Dogs of Shakespeare
THERE are innumerable references to dogs
in Shakespeare's plays. Although he does
not seem, to have been a dog-lover in our modem
sense of the term, the idea that Shakespeare never
said a good word for a dog is a mistaken one.
What he says about dogs through his characters
shows that he had not only understanding but
sympathy for them. There are many passages,
it must be confessed, in which he uses comparison
with the dog as the most contemptible com-
parison he can think of. But this custom of using
the dog's name as a term of ignominy and re-
proach, crept into our language, a relic from
Scriptural times, before the dog had come into
his own in Britain. It is strange that the custom
has persisted to our own day of almost idolatrous
dog-worship. The strangest part of it all is that
now it means nothing — it is just a generally
accepted term of belittlement and has no con-
nection in our minds with our friend the dog.
We speak of someone " dying a dog's death,"
of some irresponsible rogue being " a gay dog,"
but neither expression has anything in reason
behind it. And it appears that Shakespeare
was no exception in this misuse of language.
In the Merchant of Venice, Shylock, before making
his bargain with Antonio, charges him with the
insults he has heaped upon him :
68
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog . . .
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur. . . .
. . . another time
You call'd me dog. . . .
There is the excuse of course that in Shake-
speare's time the dog had not attained to the
favoured position he occupies in our households
now, sometimes as friend, often as lord and
master. But in King Lear we find an advance.
When the Earl of Kent upbraids Regan, . who
would sentence him to the stocks, he says :
Why madam, if I were your father's dog,
You would not use me so.
But though an advance, this still implies that a
dog would be badly used as a matter of course. In
the same play Shakespeare suddenly delights us by
seeming to claim that men value the good opinion
of their dogs. When Lear, old, miserable and for-
saken, fancies that his very dogs have deserted
him, the last pang is added to his bitterness :
The little dogs and all :
Tray, Blanch and Sweet-heart ; see, they bark at me !
As dogs were valued chiefly for their use in
hunting in Shakespeare's time, most of the refer-
ences to them in the plays are connected with
sport. From the freshness and vigour of these
pieces — ahve in every joyous picture they set
before us — one gathers what delight Shakespeare
had in the chase. There are legends that in his
69
early days the joys of poaching were not unknown
to him. The most famous of the passages about
the chase comes in the Midsummer Night's Dream
(iv. i), where we have this wonderful description
of the music of the hounds :
Theseus. Go, one of you, find out the forester :
For now our observation is performed ;
And since we have the vaward of the day,
My love shall hear the music of the hounds.
Uncouple in the western valley, let them go •.
Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.
We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
HippoLYTA. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
When in a wood of Crete they bayed the bear
With hounds of Sparta : never did I hear
Such gallant chiding ; for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seemed all one mutual cry. I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
Theseus. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan
kind,
So flewed, so sanded ; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew ;
Crook-kneed, and dew-lapped like Thessalian bulls ;
Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,
Each under each . A cry more tunable
Was never holla'd to, nor cheered with horn.
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly :
Judge when you hear.
Such examples of Shakespeare's appreciation
of dogs could be multiplied many times, and the
70
search for allusions only brings his knowledge of
their ways and virtues to fuller light. Most of
these allusions, however, are more appropriate to
a study of Shakespeare than to a study of the
dog. They are only mentioned here because no
anthology could venture into print without some
reference to Shakespeare.
But let us have one final quotation from Timon
of Athens, where we find probably the fullest
appreciation in Shakespeare of the devotion of
the dog to his master. The choice seems at first
sight an unfortunate one, for this play is con-
sidered to be only in part the work of Shakespeare,
but Act IV., from which the quotation is taken,
is thought by authorities to be undoubtedly by
Shakespeare himself.
Speaking to Alcibiades, Timon says :
,1 am misanthropes, and hate mankind.
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
That I might love thee something.
Further on in the same scene, talking with the
gloomy philosopher, Apemantus, we have the
following dialogue :
Apem. . . . What man didst thou ever know unthrift
that was beloved after his means ?
Timon. Who, without these means thou talkest of,
didst thou ever know beloved ?
Apem. Myself.
Timon. I understand thee : thou hadst some means
to keep a dog.
L. M.
71
Upon his Spaniel, Tracie
Now thou art dead, no eye shall ever see
For shape and service spaniel like to thee.
This shall my love do, give thy sad death one
Tear, that deserves of me a million.
Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Agrippa's Pug
AGRIPPA kept a Stygian pug
I' th' Garb and Habit of a Dog,
That was his Tutor and the Cur
Read to th' occult Philosopher,
And taught him subtly to maintain
All other Sciences are vain.
To this quoth Sidrophel, " Oh ! Sir,
Agrippa was no conjuror,
Nor Paracelsus, no nor Behmen,
Nor was the Dog a Cacodaemon,
But a true Dog that would show tricks
For th' Emperor, and leap o'er Sticks ;
Would fetch and carry, was more civil
Than other Dogs, but yet no Devil :
And whatso'er he's said to do.
He went the self -same way we go."
Samuel Butler (1612-80)
Htidibras
72
Dogs in Warfare
THE faithfulnesse of a dog hath been the cause
that many have chosen to trust their
hves with that beast, and to commit themselves
to the good of him rather than of reasonable
men. As we read of King Massanissa, who by
the barking of dogs freed himself many times
from the ambuscadoes that were laid for him,
discovered afar off the coming of his enemies,
stood upon his guard, and, by the helpe of dogs,
sometimes carry ed away the victorie. . . . We
read also that the King of the Garmantes, driven
by sedition out of his realme, was re-establisht
againe by the helpe of two hundred hunting
dogs. It may be that Henry the VIII. , King of
England . . . had an eye to this prompt fidelitie
of dogs, when in the armie which he sent to the
Emperor Charles the Fifth against the French
King, there were foure hundred souldiers that
had the charge of the like number of dogs, all
of them garnished with good yron coUers after
the fashion of that countrey : no man being
able to say, whither they were appointed to be
the sentinels in the night, or to serve for some
stratagem for obtaining the victorie. Strabo
saith, that the like was practised in old time,
and that the English dogs went to warre with the
Gaules : and there is mention of a Procurator
or Commissarie that had charge of the dogs of
Britanie, in the Emperour's behalf e. And at
73
this day there be some of them found, which
Camden calleth Agase-hounds, and named
Agasaei by Oppian. Andrew Thenet, speaking
of the King of Cephala, write th, That when
he will give battel to his enemies, he commonly
mingleth many troupes of dogs among the
squadrons of his souldiers. We will hereafter
make mention of a dog so couragious in the
warre, that the Indians were more afraid of his
teeth, than of any other Spanish weapons, and
that the owner received extraordmary pay every
moneth for the services that were done by that
dog.
Philip Camerarius (1625)
Living Librarie
The Faithful Friend
OF any beast, none is more faithful found
Nor yeelds more pastime in house, plaine,
or woods.
Nor keepes his master's person, nor his goods.
With greater care, than doth the dog or hound.
Command ; he thee obeyes most readily.
Strike him ; he whines and falls down at thy
feet.
Call him : he leaves his game and comes to thee
With wagging taile, offr'ing his service meeke.
74
In summer's heat he follows by thy pace :
In winter's cold he never leaveth thee :
In mountaines wild he by thee close doth trace ;
In all thy feares and dangers true is he.
Thy friends he loves ; and in thy presence lives
By day : by night he watcheth faithfully
That thou in peace mayst sleep ; he never gives
Good entertainment to thine enemie.
Course, hunt, in hills, in valleyes, or in plains ;
He joyes to run and stretch out every lim :
To please but thee, he spareth for no paines :
His hurt (for thee) is greatest good to him.
Sometimes he doth present thee with a Hare,
Sometimes he hunts the Stag, the Fox, the
Boare,
Another time he baits the Bull and Beare,
And all to make thee sport, and for no more.
If so thou wilt, a Collar he will weare ;
And when thou Ust to take it off againe
Unto thy feet he coucheth downe most faire,
As if thy will were all his good and gaine.
In fields abroad he lookes unto thy flockes.
Keeping them safe from Wolves and other
beasts ;
And oftentimes he beares away the knocks
Of some odd thief, that many a fold infests.
75
And as he is the faithful bodies guard,
So is he good within a fort or hold.
Against a quicke surprise to watch and ward ;
And all his hire is bread mustie and old.
Canst thou then such a creature hate and spume ?
Or barre him from such poore and simple food ?
Being so fit and faithful for thy tume.
And no beast else can do thee halfe such good !
Attributed to J. Mycillus, a Latin poet ;
translated by J. Mole and his son from the
Living Librarie of Philip Camerarius (1625)
Dogs in Mediaeval Art and in the Lives
of the Saints
ALTHOUGH the Bible pays no tribute to
the dog, mediaeval art uses liim as one
of its symbols of fidelity. The Crusaders are
often found in sculpture with their feet resting
on a dog, to show they had followed the Cross
as faithfully as a dog follows his master.
The chief instances of the fidelity of the dog
in the Lives of the Saints are connected with
St Roch, St Margaret of Cortona, St Dominic,
St Hubert, and St Eustace.
St Roch, while nursing plague-stricken patients
in a hospital at Piacenza, was himself struck
down by plague. He suffered so much that he
76
could not help groaning, and as he was afraid
of disturbing the other patients, he crawled
out of the hospital away to a wood outside the
town and there lay down, as he thought, to die.
Every one shunned him, no passer-by came near
him. But his little dog (it is generally a small
dog) did not forsake him. It had followed
him on all his wanderings — St Roch was a native
of Montpellier — and now, the legend tells us, it
brought him a loaf of bread from the town every
day. An angel came and dressed his plague-
spot, and he recovered. In art the Saint is always
found pathetically lifting his robe to show his
plague-spot and is always accompanied by his
little dog.
St Margaret of Cortona, when her knight was
murdered by robbers, was led to the place by
his little dog. It attached itself entirely to her
after that, and in pictures of her is nearly always
to be found at her feet.
Before St Dominic was bom, his mother dreamt
that she had given birth to a dog carrying a
flaming torch in its mouth. She regarded that
afterwards as symbolic of the message to be
spoken all over Europe by the Saint and his
Order. On account of this legend his followers
were sometimes called Domini Cane, which
explains those pictures of black and white dogs
worrying wolves, for the Dominicans wore black
and white habits and they overcame the heretics
or wolves. St Dominic himself is often found
77
with a dog carrying a lighted torch in its mouth,
(This whole legend probably arose from a pun
on the name of the Order.)
St Eustace and St Hubert, the patron saints
of huntsmen, are often represented with hounds
by their sides, because they appeared to their
followers in that way. Shepherds used to go to
church on St Hubert's day (Nov. 3), to ask a
blessing for themselves and their dogs, and to
obtain the wafers which were supposed to act
as charms against hydrophobia. St Hubert's
hounds are familiar to us from the reference in
the Lady of the Lake :
Two hounds of black St Hubert's breed,
Unmatched for courage, breath or speed. . . .
In a note on this verse. Sir Walter Scott quotes
an extract from an old book on the Art of Venerie
or Hunting, published in 161 1. "The hounds
which we call St Hubert's hounds are commonly
all blacks, yet nevertheless their race is so
mingled that we find them of all colours. These
are the hounds which the Abbots of St Hubert
have always kept ... in remembrance of the
Saint, which was a hunter with St Eustace.
Whereupon we may conceive (by grace of God)
that all good huntsmen shall follow them into
paradise."
L. M.
78
The Grave-Digger
SEPTEMBER ii, 1661. To Dr WilUams
who did carry me into his garden, where
he hath abundance of grapes : and he did show
me how a dog that he hath do kill all the cats
that come thither to kill his pigeons ; and do
afterwards bury them ; and do it with so much
care that they shall be quite covered ; that if
the tip of the tail hangs out, he will take up
the cat again and dig the hole deeper ; which is
strange. And he tells me he do believe he hath
killed above an hundred cats.
Samuel Pepys
(1633-1703)
The Irish Greyhound
BEHOLD this Creature's Form and state,
Which Nature therefore did create,
That to the World might be exprest
What meen there can be in a Beast ;
And that we in this shape may find
A Lion of another kind.
For this Heroick beast does seem
In Majesty to Rival him ;
And yet vouchsafes to Man, to shew
Both service and submission too.
From whence we this distinction have.
That Beast is fierce, but this is brave.
This Dog hath so himself subdued,
79
That hunger cannot make him rude :
And his behaviour doth conless
True Courage dwells with Gentleness.
With sternest Wolves he dares engage,
And acts on them successful rage.
Yet too much courtcsie ma^^ chance
To put him out of countenance.
When in his opposer's blood,
Fortune hath made his vertue good ;
This Creature from an act so brave
Grows not more sullen, but more grave.
Man's Guard he would be, not his sport.
Believing he hath ventur'd for't ;
But yet no blood or shed or spent
Can ever make him insolent.
Few Men, of him, to do great things have learn 'd
And when th'are done to be so unconcerned.
Katherine Philips (16G4)
A Letter from Pope about his Dog
Bounce
I WILL give you some account of him, a
thing not wholly unprecedented, since
Montaigne (to whom I am but a dog in com-
parison) has done the same thing of his cat.
Die mihi quid melius desidiosiis agam ? You
are to know then, that as it is likeness that begets
affection, so my favourite dog is a little one, a
lean one, and none of the finest shaped. He is
80
not much spaniel in his fawning, but has (what
might be worth any man's while to imitate him
in) a dumb, surly sort of kindness that rather
shows itself when he thinks me ill-used by others,
than when we walk quietly or peaceably by
ourselves. If it be the chief point of friendship
to comply with a friend's motions and inclina-
tions, he possesses this in an eminent degree :
he lies down when I sit, and walks when I walk,
which is more than many good friends can pretend
to. Witness our walk a year ago in St James's
Park. Histories are more full of examples of
the fidelity of dogs than of friends, but I will
not insist upon many of them, because it is
possible some may be almost as fabulous as those
of Pylades and Orestes. I ^vill only say, for
the honour of dogs, that the two most ancient
and estimable books, sacred and profane extant
(the Scripture and Homer), have shown a par-
ticular regard to these animals. That of Tobit
is the more remarkable, because there seemed
no manner of reason to take notice of the dog,
besides the great humanity of the author. . . .
" This respect to a dog in the most polite people
in the world is very observable. A modem
instance of gratitude to a dog is, that the chief
order of Denmark (now injuriously called the
order of the elephant) was instituted in memory
of the fidelity of a dog named Wild-brat, to
one of their kings who had been deserted by his
subjects ; he gave his order this motto, or to
F 8i
this effect . . . Wild-brat was faithful. Sir
William Trumbull has told me a story (said to
be in Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs) which he
heard from one that was present : King Charles I.
being with some of his court during his troubles,
a discourse arose what sort of dogs deserved
pre-eminence, and it being on all hands agreed
to belong either to the spaniel or greyhound, the
King gave his opinion on the part of the grey-
hound, because (said he) it has all the good
nature of the other, without fawning. A good
piece of satire upon his courtiers, with which I
will conclude my discourse of dogs. Call me
a cynic or what you please, in revenge for all this
impertinence. I will be contented, provided
you will but believe me when I say — a bold word
for a Christian — that, of all dogs, you will find
none more faithful than your, etc.
Alexander Pope"
(1688-1745)
Importance of the Dog in the Order
of Nature
THE dog, independently of his beauty, vivacity,
strength, and swiftness, has all the interior
qualities which can attract the regard of man.
The tame dog comes crawling to lay at his
master's feet his courage, strength, and talents,
and waits his orders to use them ; he consults,
82
interrogates, and beseeches ; the glance of his
eye is sufficient ; he understands the signs of his
will ; without the vices of man, he has all the
ardour of sentiment, and what is more, he has
the fidelity and constancy in his affections ; no
ambition, no interest, no desire of revenge, no
fear but that of displeasing him ; he is all zeal,
all warmth, and all obedience ; more sensible
to the remembrance of benefits than of wrong,
he soon forgets or only remembers them to make
his attachment the stronger ; far from irritating
or running away, he even exposes himself to
new proofs ; he licks the hand which is the cause
of his pain, he only opposes it by his cries, and
at length entirely disarms it by his patience and
submission.
More docile and flexible than any other animal,
the dog is not only instructed in a short time,
but he even conforms himself to the motions,
manners, and habits of those who command
him ; he has all the manners of the house where
he inhabits ; like the other domestics he is dis-
dainful with the great, and rustical in the country,
always attentive to his master ; and, striving
to anticipate the wants of his friends, he gives
no attention to indifferent people, and declares
against those whose station makes them im-
portunate ; he knows them by their dress, their
voice, their gestures, and prevents their approach.
When the care of the house is entrusted to him
during the night, he becomes more fiery and
83
sometimes ferocious ; he watches, he walks his
rounds, he scents strangers afar off ; and if they
happen to stop or attempt to break in he flies
to oppose them, and by reiterated barkings,
efforts, and cries of passion, he gives the alarm.
As furious against men of prey as against
devouring animals, he flies upon, wounds, and
tears them, and takes from them what they
were endeavouring to steal ; but, content with
having conquered, he rests himself on the spoils,
will not touch it even to satisfy his appetite,
and at once gives an example of courage,
temperance, and fidelity.
Thus we may see of what importance this
species is in the order of nature. By supposing
for a moment that they had never existed ;
without the assistance of the dog, how could
man have been able to tame, and reduce into
slavery, other animals ? How could he have
hunted, discovered, and destroyed wild and
obnoxious animals ? To keep himself in safety
and to render himself master of the living universe,
it was necessary to begin by making himself
friends among animals, in order to oppose them
to others. The first art, then, of mankind,
was the education of dogs, and the fruit of this
art was the conquest and peaceable possession
of the earth. . . .
The dog may be said to be the only animal
whose fidelity may be put to the proof ; the
only one which always knows his master and
84
his friends ; the only one which, as soon as an
unknown person arrives, perceives it . . . the
only one which in a long journey, a journey that
perhaps he has been but once, will remember
the way and find the road ; the only one, in fine,
whose talents are evident, and whose education
is always good.
Of all animals, moreover, the dog is the one
whose understanding is most susceptible of
impressions, and most easily taught by moral
causes ; he is also, above all other creatures,
most subject to the variety and other alterations
caused by physical influences. The tempera-
ment, the faculties, the habits of the body, vary
prodigiously, and the form is not uniform ; in
the same country one dog is very different from
another dog, and the species is quite different
in itself in different climates. . . .
As among domestic animals, the dog is, above
all others, that which is most attached to man ;
that which, living like man, lives also the most
irregularly ; that in which sentiment predominates
enough to render him docile, obedient, and
susceptible of all impressions, and even of all
constraint, it is not astonishing, that of all animals
this should be that in which we find the greatest
variety, not only in figure, in height, and in colour,
but in every other quality.
G. L. L. BuFFON
(1707-1788)
85
The Dog and the Water-Lily
No Fable
THE noon was shady and soft airs
Swept Ouse's silent tide,
When, 'scaped from Uterary cares,
I wandered on his side.
My spaniel, prettiest of his race,
And high in pedigree,
(Two nymphs adorned with every grace,
That spaniel found for me).
Now wantoned lost in flags and reeds,
Now starting into sight
Pursued the swallow o'er the meads
With scarce a slower flight.
It was the time when Ouse displayed
His lilies newly blown ;
Their beauties I intent surveyed :
And one I wished my own.
With cane extended far I sought
To steer it close to land ;
But still the prize, though nearly caught.
Escaped my eager hand.
Beau marked my unsuccessful pains
With fixt considerate face,
86
And puzzling set his puppy brains
To comprehend the case.
But with a chirrup clear and strong.
Dispersing all his dream,
I thence withdrew, and followed long
My ramble finished, I returned.
Beau trotting far before
The floating wreath again discerned,
And plunging left the shore.
I saw him with that lily cropped
Impatient swim to meet
My quick approach, and soon he dropped
The treasure at my feet.
Charmed with the sight, the world, I cried.
Shall hear of this thy deed.
My dog shall mortify the pride
Of man's superior breed ;
But, chief, myself I will enjoin.
Awake at duty's call.
To show a love as prompt as thine
To Him who gives me all.
William Cowper
(1 731-1800)
87
Faithful unto Death
WITH eye upraised his master's look to scan.
The joy, the solace, and the aid of man ;
The rich man's guardian and the poor man's
friend,
The only creature faithful to the end.
Attributed to Crabbe
(1 754-1 832)
The Ettrick Shepherd's Dog
" ly /fY dog Sirrah was, beyond all comparison,
J-Vi. the best dog I ever saw. He had a
somewhat surly temper, disdaining all flattery,
and not caring to be caressed ; but his attention
to my wishes and interests will never be sur-
passed. When I bought him he was scarcely
a year old, and knew so little of herding that
he had never turned a sheep in his life ; but as
he soon discovered that it was his duty to do
so, and that it obliged me, I can never forget
with what anxiety and eagerness he learned
his different evolutions ; and when he had once
understood a direction, he never forgot or
mistook it."
On one night, a large flock of lambs that were
under Hogg's care, frightened by something,
scampered away in three different directions
across the hills, in spite of all he could do.
" Sirrah," said he to his dog, " they're all awa' 1 "
88
It was growing dark, and which way to go
Hogg knew not. But Sirrah had comprehended
the whole mischief, and he set off through the
darkness to find the fugitives. Hogg and an
assistant traversed every neighbouring hill in
search of the lambs ; but he could see nothing
of them, nor could he get any tidings. He would
have to return to his master with the doleful
tidings that a flock of seven hundred lambs had
been wholly lost. But as the morning dawned,
and they were sorrowfully turning homeward,
they descried a number of lambs at the bottom
of a deep ravine, and soon they were rejoiced
to see that their own Sirrah was keeping guard
over them. They concluded that one of the
three parties of runaways had been found, and
that the dog was taking care of them. But what
was their astonishment when they found, on
coming to the spot, that the whole flock was
there ; that not one lamb of the seven hundred
was missing. How the dog had achieved this,
in what way he had got all the three parties
together, was, says Hogg, " Quite beyond my
comprehension. All I can say is, that I never
felt so grateful to any living creature as I did
to my honest Sirrah that morning."
James Hogg (i 770-1835)
Quoted from Dog-Life
89
On the Death of a Favourite old Spaniel
AH, poor companion ! when thou foUowedst last
Thy master's parting footsteps to the gate
Which closed for ever on him, thou didst lose
Thy truest friend, and none was left to plead
For the old age of brute fidelity.
But fare thee well ! Mine is no narrow creed ;
And He who gave thee being did not frame
The mystery of life to be the sport
Of merciless man ! There is another world
For all that live and move — a better one !
Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine
Infinite Goodness to the little bounds
Of their own charity, may envy thee !
Robert Southey
(1774-1843)
The Lower World
. . . through the pressing throng.
See how yon terrier gently leads along
The feeble beggar, to his custom'd stand,
With piteous tale to woo the bounteous hand ;
In willing bonds, but master of the way,
Ne'er leads that trusted friend, his charge, astray ;
With slow, soft step, as conscious of his care,
As if his own deep sorrows form'd the prayer.
Should yielding charity the scrip supply,
Tho' hunger pressed, untouched the boon would lie ;
Eyes to the bhnd, he notes the passing thief,
And guards the good Saniaritan's relief ;
90
A faithful steward, amidst unbounded power,
Patient he waits the home-returning hour ;
Then reconducts his master to his shed,
And grateful, banquets on the coarsest bread.
And were that cheerless shed, by fortune plac'd
In the chill cavern, or the naked waste.
The sport of every storm, unroofed and bare.
This faithful slave would find a palace there ;
Would feel the labours of his love o'erpaid
Near to his monarch master's pillow laid ;
Unchanged by change of circumstance or place ;
A sacred lesson to a prouder race !
Pratt (i8io)
Byron's Dog, Boatswain
When Byron's favourite dog died, the poet had a
marble monument erected to his memory, with this
inscription :
NEAR THIS SPOT
ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF ONE
WHO POSSESSED BEAUTY WITHOUT VANITY,
STRENGTH WITHOUT INSOLENCE,
COURAGE WITHOUT FEROCITY,
AND ALL THE VIRTUES OF MAN WITHOUT HIS VICES.
THIS PRAISE, WHICH WOULD BE UNMEANING
FLATTERY
IF INSCRIBED OVER HUMAN ASHES,
IS BUT A JUST TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF
BOATSWAIN, A Dog,
WHO WAS BORN AT NEWFOUNDLAND, MAY 1803,
AND DIED AT NEWSTEAD ABBEY, NOV. 1 8, 1808.
91
EPITAPH
WHEN some proud son of man returns to
earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth.
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe.
And storied urns record who rest below :
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been :
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master's own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes, for him alone,
Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth.
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth :
While man, vain insect ! hopes to be forgiven.
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man ! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power.
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust !
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit !
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for
shame.
Ye ! who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on — it honours none you wish to mourn :
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise ;
I never knew but one — and here he lies.
Byron (1788-1S24)
92
Sir Walter Scott and his Dogs
The Almighty, who gave the dog to be the com-
panion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested
him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit.
He forgets neither friend nor foe ; remembers with
accuracy both benefit and injury. He hath a share
of man's intelligence but no share of man's falsehood.
You may bribe an assassin to slay a man, or a witness
to take his life by false accusation, but you cannot
make a dog tear his benefactor. He is the friend of
man, save when man justly incurs his enmity.
The Talisman
SIR WALTER SCOTT was a true dog-lover.
His terrier, Camp, his deerhound Maida,
his greyhounds and his Dandie-Dinmonts — the
vogue for whom he created — all played an
intimate part in his life. When not obliged
to be in Edinburgh at the Law Courts, he lived
the life of a country squire ; he shot, hunted,
coursed, and explored the whole countryside,
sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback,
but always accompanied by his dogs. His ex-
peditions were often prolonged by their vagaries,
and in following the game they started, Scott
and his friends were sometimes led far out of
their way on the hillside. How he respected
the friendship of his dogs we see in the following
extracts from his Life, his Letters, and his Journal.
When Washington Irving visited Scott at
93
Abbotsford, he wrote an account of his ex-
periences, quoted by Lockhart.
" The noise of my chaise," says Irving, " had
disturbed the quiet of the establishment. Out
salUed the warder of the castle, a black greyhound,
and leaping on one of the blocks of stone, began
a furious barking. This alarm brought out the
whole garrison of dogs, all open-mouthed and
vociferous. In a little while the lord of the
castle himself made his appearance. I knew
him at once by the likenesses that had been
published of him. He came limping up the
gravel walk, aiding himself by a stout walking-
staff, but moving rapidly and with vigour. By
his side jogged a large iron-grey deerhound,
of most grave demeanour, who took no part
in the clamour of the canine rabble, but seemed
to consider himself bound, for the dignity of the
house, to give me a courteous reception. . . ."
(Later in the day, when Scott had done his
task for the morning — at that time probably
a chapter of Rob Roy — and Irving had been
shown the ruins of Melrose Abbey, the two
authors set out for a ramble together.)
"As we sallied forth," writes Irving, " every
dog in the establishment turned out to attend
us. There was the old deerhound, Maida, that
I have already mentioned, a noble animal; and
Hamlet, the black greyhound, a wild thoughtless
youngster not yet arrived at the years of
discretion ; and Finette, a beautiful setter, with
94
soft, silken hair, long pendant ears and a mild
eye, the parlour favourite. When in front of
the house we were joined by a superannuated
greyhound who came from the kitchen wagging
his tail, and was cheered by Scott as an old
friend and comrade. In our walks he would
frequently pause in conversation to notice his
dogs, and speak to them as if to rational com-
panions ; and indeed there appears to be a vast
deal of rationality in these faithful attendants
on man, derived from close intimacy with him.
Maida deported himself with a gravity becoming
his age and size, and seemed to consider himself
called upon to preserve a great degree of dignity
and decorum in our society. As he jogged along
at a little distance ahead of us, the young dogs
would gambol about him, leap on his neck, worry
at his ears and endeavour to tease him into a
gambol. The old dog would keep on for a long
time with imperturbable solemnity, now and
then seeming to rebuke the wantonness of his
young companions. At length he would make
a sudden turn, seize one of them and tumble
him in the dust, then, giving a glance at us, as
much as to say, ' You see, gentlemen, I can't
help giving way to this nonsense,' would resume
his gravity and jog on as before. Scott amused
himself with these peculiarities. ' I make no
doubt,' said he, ' when Maida is alone with these
young dogs, he throws gravity aside, and plays
the boy as much as any of them ; but he is
95
ashamed to do so in our company and seems
to say : Ha' done with your nonsense, youngsters ;
what will the laird and that other gentleman
think of me if I give way to such foolery ? ' "
" Scott's appearance," writes Washington
Irsdng, "as he sat reading in a large arm-chair,
with his favourite hound, Maida, at his feet, and
surrounded by books and reliques and Border
trophies, would have formed an admirable and
most characteristic picture." This idea occurred
to many artists to the great discomfiture of
Scott and his dogs. Writing of his promise
to sit to a young artist for his portrait, Scott
says, " This is far from being agreeable, as I
submitted to this distressing state of constraint
last year, to Newton ... to Leslie ... to
Wilkie, and someone besides. I am as tired of
the operation as old Maida, who had been so
often sketched that he got up and went away
with signs of loathing whenever he saw an artist
unfurl his paper and handle his brushes." In
Cunningham's Painters, Sir Walter is reported
to have said, " Maida, who had little philosophy,
conceived such a dislike to painters that whenever
he saw a man take out pencil and paper and look
at him, he set up a howl and ran off to the Eildon
Hill. His unfortunate master, however well
he can howl, was never able to run much (Scott
was lame from boyhood), he was therefore obliged
to abide the event " (vi. 125).
Of Scott's most intimate dog friends, Camp
96
is the first whose name has come down to us.
" He was very handsome, very intelUgent and
naturally very fierce, but gentle as a lamb among
the children. As for a brace of hghter pets
styled Douglas and Percy, Scott kept one window
of his study open, whatever might^be the weather,
that they might leap out and in as the fancy
moved them. He always talked to Camp as
if he understood what was said — and the animal
certainly did understand not a little of it — in
particular it seemed as if he perfectly compre-
hended on all occasions that his master con-
sidered him as a sensible and steady friend —
the greyhounds as volatile young creatures whose
freaks must be borne with."
" Camp preserved his affection and sagacity
to the last," writes Mr Lockhart. " At Ashestiel,
as the, servant was la^dng the cloth for dinner,
he would say, ' Camp, my good fellow, the Sheriff's
coming home by the ford — or by the hill ' (Scott
was Sheriff of Selkirkshire), and the sick animal
would immediately bestir himself to welcome his
master, going out at the back or the front door
according to the direction given, and advancing
as far as he was able either towards the Tweed
or the Glenkinnon bum. He was buried on
a fine moonlight night in the little garden beliind
the house in Castle Street (Edinburgh), im-
mediately opposite to the window at which
Scott usually sat writing. My wife (Scott's
daughter Sophia) told me that she remembered
G 97
the whole family standing in tears above the
grave as her father himself smoothed down the
turf above Camp with the saddest expression
of face she had ever seen in him. He had been
engaged to dine abroad that day, but apologized
on account of ' the death of a dear old friend.' "
Maida, the second favourite in point of time,
is described in Woodstock under the name of
Bevis — " a large wolf-dog, in strength a mastiff,
in form and almost in fleetness a greyhound
. . . tawny-coloured like a lion, with black
muzzle and black feet, just edged with a line
of white round the toes. He was as tractable
as he was strong and bold." Scott writes of
the arrival of Maida : "I have got from my
friend Glengarry the noblest dog ever seen on
the border since Johnnie Armstrong's time.
He is between the wolf and the deerhound, about
six feet long from the tip of the nose to the tail,
and high and strong in proportion." Towards
the end of Maida's life, Scott wrote to his friend
Miss Edgeworth, " I have sometimes thought
of the final cause of dogs having such short lives
and I am quite satisfied it is in crmpassion to
the human race ; for if we suffer so much in
losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or
twelve years, what would it be if they were to
live double that time ? " And soon after this
Maida died, " the noblest, most celebrated of
all his dogs." Writing to his son Charles, Scott
concludes, " I have little domestic news to tell
98
you. Old Maida died quietly in his straw last
week, after a good supper. Considering his
weak state, it was rather a deliverance. He is
buried below his monument, ^ on which the
following epitaph is engraved — though it is
audacity to send Teviotdale Latin to Brasenose :
" Maidae Marmorae dermis sub imagine Maida,
Ad januam domini sit tibi terra levis."
Thus Englished by an eminent hand,
Beneath the sculptured form which late you wore,
Sleep soundly, Maida, at your master's door.
Writing of his daily life, Scott mentions
many escapades with his dogs. We come upon
entries like this in the Journal : " Wrote my task :
then walked from one till half-past four. Dogs
took a hare. They always catch one on Sunday
... a Puritan would say the devil was in them."
The Editor of the Journal adds a note, " That
these afternoon rambles were not always so
tranquil may be gathered from an incident in
which an unsuspecting cat at a cottage door
was demolished by Nimrod in one of his gambols."
Sir Walter's purse was in his hand, and as his
friend wrote, " I am very sure it was not his
fault if the cat had a poor funeral. In the con-
fusion of the moment, I am afraid the culprit
^ The monument was a leaping-on stone to which
the skill of Scott's master-mason had given the shape
of Maida recumbent.
99
went off without even a reprimand." Nimrod
was an old offender. " Alack-a-day ! " exclaimed
Sir Walter, " my poor cat Hinse, my acquaintance
and in some sort my friend of fifteen years
was snapped at even by the paynim Nimrod.
What could I say to him but what Brant6me
said to some ferrailleur who had been too successful
in a duel, 'Ah! mon grand ami, vous avez tii4
mon autre grand ami ! ' "
When Scott's financial troubles came upon him,
and he almost resolved never to see Abbotsford
again, " My dogs will wait for me in vain," he
writes. "It is foolish, but the thoughts of
parting from these dumb creatures have moved
me more than any of the painful reflections I
have put down. Poor things, I must get them
kind masters ; there may yet be those who,
loving me, may love my dog because he has
been mine. ... I find my dogs' feet on my
knees. I hear them whining and seeking me
everywhere. This is nonsense, but it is what
they would do, could they know how things
are. ..." It was fortunately never necessary
for Scott to part from his dogs, and throughout
those hard years they meant much to him.
When he was no longer able for his daily walk,
"Bran, poor fellow," he wrote, "lies yawning
at my feet and cannot think what is become of
the daily scamper."
A few months before his death Scott went
abroad in search of health. Brought back to
lOO
Abbotsford and carried for the last time into
his dining-room, " the dogs assembled about his
chair, they began to fawn upon him and to lick
his hands. . . ."
L. M.
Helvellyn
ICLIMB'D the dark brow of the mighty
Helvellyn,
Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed
misty and wide ;
All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was
yelling,
And starting around me the echoes repHed.
On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn
was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge was defending.
One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending.
Where I mark'd the sad spot where the wand'rer
had died.
Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain -
heather.
Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in
decay.
Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to
weather.
Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless
clay.
lOI
Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended.
For, faithful in death his mute favourite attended,
The much loved remains of her master defended.
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.
How long did'st thou think that his silence was
slumber ?
When the wind waved his garments, how oft
did'st thou start ?
How many long days and long weeks didst thou
number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy
heart ?
And, oh, was it meet that — no requiem read o'er
him —
No mother to weep, no friend to deplore him.
And thou, little guardian, alone stretch'd before
him —
Unhonoured the Pilgrim from life should
depart ?
When a Prince to the fate of the Peasant has
yielded.
The tap'stry waves dark round the dim-lighted
hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded.
And pages stand mute by the canopied pall :
Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches
are gleaming
In the proudly-arch'd chapel the banners are
beaming,
I02
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a Chief of the people should fall.
But meeter for thee, gentle lover of Nature,
To lay down thy head like the meek mountain-
lamb.
When, wilder 'd, he drops from some cliff huge in
stature.
And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.
And more stately thy couch by this desert lake
lying,
Thy obsequies sung by the grey plover flying,
With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying.
In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam.^
Sir Walter Scott
(1771-1832)
1 See Wordsworth's poem on the same subject,
p. 113. "Sir Walter Scott and his wife made a short
excursion to the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmore-
land ... in company with Mr Wordsworth. . . .
One of the days they spent together was destined to
furnish a theme for the verse of each, namely, that
which they gave to the ascent of Helvellyn, where, in
the course of the preceding spring, a young naturalist
called Gough had lost his way in the mists which came
over the mountain, and was killed by falling over a
precipice. His remains were discovered three months
afterwards, still watched by his faithful terrier, who
liad been his constant attendant on his nature rambles.
103
Wasp
A
VOLUME of Shakespeare in each
pocket, a small bundle with a change
of linen slung over his shoulders, an oaken cudgel
in his hand, complete our pedestrian's accom-
modations ; and in this equipage we present
him to our readers. ... A rough terrier dog, his
constant companion, who rivalled his master in
glee, scampered at large in a thousand wheels
round the heath, and came back to jump up on
him, and assure him that he participated in the
pleasure of the journey.
(Remembering presently that he is hungry,
our hero repairs to a small public-house where
a tall, stout, country-looking man was busy
discussing huge slices of cold boiled beef.)
For a while his opposite neighbour and he
were too busy to take much notice of each other,
except by a good-humoured nod as each in turn
raised the tankard to his head. At length when
our pedestrian began to supply the wants of
little Wasp, the Scotch store-farmer, for such
was Mr Dinmont, found himself at leisure to
enter into conversation.
" A bonny terrier that, sir — and a fell chield
at the vermin, I warrant him — that is, if he's
been weel entered, for it a' lies in that."
" Really, sir," said Brown, " his education has
been somewhat neglected, and his chief property
is being a pleasant companion."
104
" Ay, sir ? that's a pity, begging your pardon
— it's a great pity that — beast or body, education
should aye be minded. I have six terriers at
hame, forbye twa couple of slow-hounds, five
grews and a wheen other dogs. There's auld
Pepper and auld Mustard, and young Pepper
and young Mustard, and httle Pepper and little
Mustard ; I had them a' regularly entered, first
wi' rottens — then wi' stoats or weasels — and
then wi' the tods and brocks — and now they
fear naething that ever cam wi' a hairy skin
on t.
" I have no doubt, sir, they are thoroughbred
— ^but, to have so many dogs, you seem to have
a very limited variety of names for them ? "
" O, that's a fancy of my ain to mark the
breed, sir. The Deuke himsell has sent as far
as Ch9,rlies-hope to get ane o' Dandie Dinmont's
Pepper and Mustard terriers — Lord, man, he sent
Tarn Hudson the keeper, and sicken a day as
we had wi' the fumarts and the tods, and sicken
a blyth gaedown as we had again e'en ! Faith,
that was a night ! "
(Brown having accepted Dandie Dinmont's
offer to visit his farm, the two fall in with robbers
on their way, who wound the honest farmer.
They beat them off and proceed to CharHes-hope.)
A most furious barking was set up at their
approach by the whole three generations of
Mustard and Pepper, and a number of allies,
names unknown. The farmer made his well-
known voice lustily heard to restore order, the
door opened and a half-dressed ewe-milker . . .
shut it in their faces that she might run ben the
hoose to cry, " Mistress, mistress, it's the master
and another man wi' him." . . . Mrs Dinmont, a
well-favoured buxom dame, welcomed her husband
with unfeigned rapture. . . . " But, gude gracious !
what's the matter wi' ye baith ? " for they were
now in her little parlour, and the candle showed
the streaks of blood which Dinmont's wounded
head had plentifully imparted to the clothes of
his companion as well as to his own. . . . When
Dandie Dinmont, after executing two or three
caprioles and cutting the Highland fling, by
way of ridicule of his wife's anxiety, at last deigned
to sit down and commit his round, black, shaggy
bullet of a head to her inspection. Brown
thought he had seen the regimental surgeon look
grave upon a more trifling case. The gudewife,
however, showed some knowledge of chirurgery.
. . . Some contusions on the brow and shoulders
she fomented with brandy, which the patient
did not permit till the medicine had paid heavy
toll to his mouth. Mrs Dinmont then simply
but kindly offered her assistance to Brown.
He assured her he had no occasion for anything
but the accommodation of a basin and towel. . . .
Dinmont then exerted himself ... all the
dogs were kicked out, excepting the venerable
patriarchs, old Pepper and old Mustard, whom
frequent castigation and the advance of years
io6
had inspired with such a share of passive
hospitahty, that, after mutual explanation and
remonstrance in the shape of some growling,
they admitted Wasp, who had hitherto judged
it safe to keep beneath his master's chair. . . .
Sir Walter Scott (i 771-1832)
Guy Mannering
Beth-Gelert
(An Aryan myth found in all literatures and as early
as the third century b.c, but traditional about Llewelyn
the Great who lived at the foot of Snowdon. Llewelyn's
father-in-law, King John, is said to have presented him
with the dog Gelert in 1205.)
THE speannan heard the bugle sound,
And cheerily smiled the morn ;
And many a brach and many a hound.
Obeyed Llewelyn's horn.
And still he blew a louder blast.
And gave a lustier cheer :
" Come, Gelert, come, wert never last
Llewelyn's horn to hear —
" Oh, where does faithful Gelert roam.
The flower of all his race ;
So true, so brave, a lamb at home,
A lion in the chase ? "
107
'Twas only at Llewelyn's board
The faithful Gelert fed ;
He watched, he served, he cheered his lord,
And sentinelled his bed.
In sooth he was a peerless hound.
The gift of royal John ;
But now no Gelert could be found.
And all the chase rode on.
And now, as o'er the rocks and dells
The gallant chidings rise.
All Snowdon's craggy chaos yells,
The many mingled cries.
That day Llewelyn little loved
The chase of hart and hare ;
And scant and small the booty proved.
For Gelert was not there.
Unpleased Llewelyn homeward hied,
When, near the portal seat.
His truant Gelert he espied.
Bounding his lord to greet.
But when he gained his castle door,
Aghast the chieftain stood ;
The hound all o'er was smeared with gore,
His lips, his fangs, ran blood.
io8
Llewelyn gazed with fierce surprise ;
Unused such looks to meet,
His favourite checked his joyful guise,
And crouched and Ucked his feet.
Onward in haste, Llewelyn passed,
And on went Gelert too.
And still, where'er his eyes he cast,
Fresh blood gouts shocked his view.
O'ertumed his infants bed he found.
With blood-stained covert rent ;
And all around the walls and ground
With recent blood besprent.
He called his child — ^no voice replied —
' He reached with terror wild ;
Blood, blood, he found on every side.
But nowhere found his child.
" Hell-hound ! my child's by thee devoured !
The frantic father cried ;
And to the hilt his vengeful sword
He plunged in Gelert's side.
His suppliant looks as prone he fell.
No pity could impart ;
But still his Gelert's dying yell
Passed heavy o'er his heart.
109
Aroused by Gelert's dying yell,
Some slumberer wakened nigh —
What words the parents joy could tell
To hear his infant's cry !
Concealed beneath a tumbled heap
His hurried search had missed.
All glowing from his rosy sleep,
The cherub boy he kissed.
Nor scathe had he, nor harm, nor dread,
But the same couch beneath
Lay a gaunt wolf, all torn and dead,
Tremendous still in death.
Ah, what was then Llewelyn's pain,
For now the truth was clear :
His gallant hound the wolf had slain.
To save Llewelyn's heir.
Vain, vain, was all Llewelyn's woe :
" Best of thy kind, adieu.
The frantic blow which laid thee low
This heart shall ever rue."
And now a gallant tomb they raise.
With costly sculpture decked ;
And marbles storied with his praise
Poor Gelert's bones protect.
no
There never could the spearman pass
Or forester, unmoved ;
There oft the tear-besprinkled grass
Llewelyn's sorrow proved.
And there he hung his horn and spear ;
And there, as evening fell,
In fancy's ear he oft would hear
Poor Gelert's dying yell.
And, till great Snowdon's rocks grow old.
And cease the storms to brave,
The consecrated spot shall hold
The name of Gelert's grave.
W. R. Spencer
(1 769-1 834)
Irus' Faithful Wolf-Dog
POOR Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie.
That wont to tend my old blind master's
steps,
His guide and guard ; nor, while my service
lasted,
Had he occasion for that staff, with which
He now goes picking out his path in fear
Over the highways and crossings, but would plant
Safe in the conduct of my friendly string,
A frnn foot forward still, till he had reached
III
His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide
Of passers-by in thickest confluence flowed :
To whom with loud and passionate laments
From mom to eve his dark estate he wailed.
Nor wailed to all in vain : some here and there,
The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave.
I meantime at his feet obsequious slept ;
Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear
Pricked up at his least motion, to receive
At his kind hand my customary crumbs,
And common portion in his feast of scraps ;
Or when night warned us homeward, tired and
spent
With our long day and tedious beggaiy.
These were my manners, this my way of life,
Till age and slow disease me overtook,
And severed from my sightless master's side.
But lest the grace of so good deeds should die,
Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost.
This slender tomb of turf hath Irus reared,
Cheap monument of an ungrudging hand.
And with short verse inscribed it, to attest,
In long and lasting union to attest.
The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog.
Translated by Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
from the Latin of Victor Bourne
112
Exemplary Nick
HERE lies poor Nick, an honest creature,
Of faithful, gentle, courteous nature ;
A parlour pet unspoiled by favour,
A pattern of good dog behaviour.
Without a wish, without a dream.
Beyond his home and friends at Cheam,
Contentedly through hfe he trotted
Along the path that fate allotted ;
Till Time, his aged body wearing.
Bereaved him of his sight and hearing,
Then laid them down without a pain
To sleep, and never wake again.
Sydney Smith (i 771-1845)
Fidelity of the Dog
A BARKING sound the shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox ;
He halts, and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks :
And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern ;
And instantly a dog is seen.
Glancing through that covert green.
The dog is not of mountain breed ;
Its motions too are wild and shy ;
With something, as the shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry.
H 113
Nor is there anyone in sight
All round, in hollow, or on height ;
Nor shout, nor whistle, strikes his ear ;
What is the creature doing here ?
It was a cove, a huge recess.
That keeps till June December's snow ;
A lofty precipice in front,
A silent tarn below !
Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land.
From trace of human foot or hand.
There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer ;
The crags repeat the raven's croak.
In symphony austere ;
Thither the rainbow comes — the cloud —
And mists that spread the flying shroud ;
And sunbeams, and the sounding blast,
That if it could would hurry past ;
But that enormous barrier binds it fast.
Not free from boding thoughts, awhile
The shepherd stood ; then makes his way
Towards the dog, o'er rocks and stones,
As quickly as he may ;
Not far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground ;
114
The appall'd discoverer with a sigh.
Looks round to learn the history.
From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The man had fall'n that place of fear !
At length upon the shepherd's mind
It breaks and all is clear ;
He instantly recalled the name.
And who he was and whence he came ;
Remember 'd too the very day
On which the traveller pass'd this way.
But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell !
A lasting monument of words
This wonder merits well.
The dog which still was hovering nigh.
Repealing the same timid cry.
This dog had been, through three months* space,
A dweller in that savage place.
Yes, proof was plain that since the day.
When this ill-fated traveller died.
The dog had watched about the spot.
Or by his master's side :
How nourish'd here through such long time,
He knows who gave that love subUme ;
And gave that strength of feeling great
Above all human estimate.
William Wordsworth
(1770-1850)
"5
To the Memory of a Dog
LIE here, without a record of thy worth,
Beneath a covering of the common earth !
It is not for unwilHngness to praise,
Or want of love, that here no stone we raise ;
More thou deserv'st ; but this man gives to man.
Brother to brother, this is all we can.
Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear
Shall find thee through all changes of the year :
This oak points out thy grave ; the silent tree
Will gladly stand, a monument of thee.
We grieved for thee and wished thy end were past ;
And willingly have laid thee here at last :
For thou hadst lived till everything that cheers
In thee had yielded to the weight of years ;
Extreme old age had wasted thee away,
And left thee but a glimmering of the day ;
Thy ears were deaf, and feeble were thy knees —
I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze,
Too weak to stand against its sportive breath,
And ready for the gentlest stroke of death.
It came, and we were glad ; yet tears were shed ;
Both man and woman wept when thou wert dead ;
Not only for a thousand thoughts that were
Old household thoughts in which thou hadst thy
share,
But for some precious boons vouchsafed to thee
Found scarcely anywhere in like degree !
For love that comes wherever life and sense
Ii6
Are given by God, in thee was most intense ;
A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind,
A tender sympathy, which did thee bind
Not only to us men, but to thy kind :
Yea, for thy fellow-brutes in thee we saw
A soul of love, love's intellectual law : —
Hence, if we wept, it was not done in shame ;
Our tears from passion and from reason came,
And therefore shalt thou be an honoured name !
William Wordsworth
{1770-1850)
(These lines were written on the death of Wordsworth's
favourite dog, " Little Music")
La Fontaine and his Dog
(In Lander's Imaginary Conversation between M. de
la Rochefoucauld and La Fontaiue, the latter sits on
one chair, whilst the only other in the room is occupied
by his dog. Rochefoucauld is taking his leave when
La Fontaine suddenly realizes his visitor has been
standing all the time.)
LA FONTAINE. Sad doings! Sad over-
sight ! The other two chairs were sent
yesterday evening to be scoured and mended.
But that dog is the best-tempered dog ! an
angel of a dog. I do assure you he would
have gone down in a moment, at a word ! I am
quite ashamed of myself for such inattention.
117
With your sentiments of friendship for me, why
could you not have taken the Hberty to shove
him gently off, rather than give me this un-
easiness ? . . . I must reprove that animal
when he uncurls his body. He seems to be
dreaming of Paradise and Houris. Ay, twitch
thy ear, my child !
Rochefoucauld. Dogs are not very modest.
La Fontaine. Never say that, de la Roche-
foucauld ! The most modest people upon earth !
Look at a dog's eyes ; he half-closes them
and gently turns them away, with a motion of
the lips which he licks languidly, and of the
tail which he stirs tremulously, begging your
forbearance. I am neither blind nor indifferent
to the defects of these good and gracious creatures.
They are subject to many, such as men are subject
to. . . . But it must be something present or
near that excites them; and they calculate not
the extent of the evil they may do or suffer.
Rochefoucauld. Certainly not. How should
dogs calculate ?
La Fontaine. I know nothing of the process.
I am unable to inform you how they leap over
hedges and brooks with exertion just sufficient
and no more. In regard to honour and a sense
of dignity, let me tell you a dog accepts the
subsidies of his friends, but never claims them :
a dog would not take the field to obtain power
for a son, but would leave the son to obtain
it by his own activity and prowess. He conducts
1x8
his visitor or intimate out a-hunting and makes
a present of the game to him as freely as an
Emperor to an elector. Fond as he is of slumber,
which is indeed one of the pleasantest and best
things in the universe, particularly after dinner,
he shakes it off as willingly as he would a gadfly
in order to defend his master from theft or violence.
Let the robber or assailant speak as courteously
as he may, he waives your diplomatical terms,
gives his reasons in plain language and makes
war. I could say many other things to his
advantage ; but I was never mahcious and would
rather let both parties plead for themselves.
Give me the dog, however.
W. S. Landor (1775-1864)
Imaginary Conversations
Napoleon and the Dog in Warfare
WHEN Napoleon was riding over the battle-
field of Bassano, he noticed a dog keeping
guard beside the body of his dead master.
Turning to his staff, " There, gentlemen," he
said, " that dog teaches us a lesson of humanity."
The use of dogs in warfare had occurred to
Napoleon, for he wrote to Marmont in 1799,
" They ought to have at Alexandria a large
number of dogs, which you can easily make use
of by fastening a large number at a short distance
from your walls."
119
Rab
I WISH you could have seen him. There are
no such dogs now. He belonged to a lost
tribe. As I have said, he was brindled and
grey like Rubislaw granite ; his hair short, hard
and close, like a lion's ; his body thick-set, like
a little bull — a sort of compressed Hercules of
a dog. He must have been ninety pounds'
weight, at the least ; he had a large blunt head ;
his muzzle black as night, his mouth blacker
than any night ; a tooth or two — being all he had
— gleaming out of his jaws of darkness. His
head was scarred with the records of old wounds,
a sort of series of fields of battle all over it ; one
eye out, one ear cropped close as was Archbishop
Leighton's father's ; the remaining eye had the
power of two ; and above it, and in constant
communication with it, was a tattered rag of an
ear, which was for ever unfurling itself, like an
old flag ; and then that bud of a tail, about
one inch long, if it could in any sense be said to
be long, being as broad as long — the mobility,
the instantaneousness of that bud were very
funny and surprising, and its expressive twinklings
and winkings, the intercommunications between
the eye, the ear, and it, were of the oddest and
swiftest.
Rab had the dignity and simplicity of great
size — and having fought his way all along the
road to absolute supremacy, he was as mighty in
1 20
his own line as Julius Caesar or the Duke of
Wellington, and had the gravity of all great
fighters.
John Brown (1810-1882)
To Dr John Brown
TTZHAN the dear doctor, dear to a'
y f^ Was still amang us here belaw,
I set my pipes his praise to hlaw
Wi' a' my speerit :
But noo, Dear Doctor ! he's awa\
An' ne'er can hear it.
By Lyne and Tyne, by Thames and Tees,
By a' the various river-Dee's,
In Mars and Manors 'yont the seas
Or here at hame,
Whaure'er there's kindly folk to please,
They ken your name.
They ken your name, they ken your tyke,
They ken the honey from your bike ;
But mebbe after a' your fyke,
(The truth to tell)
It's just your honest Rab they Uke,
An' no yoursel'.
Your e'e was gleg, your fingers dink ;
Ye didnae fash yoursel' to think,
121
But wove, as fast as puss can link,
Your denty wab :
Ye stapped your pen into the ink,
An' there was Rab !
Sinsyne, whaure'er your fortune lay
By dowie den, by canty brae.
Simmer an' winter, nicht an' day,
Rab was aye wi' ye ;
An' a' the folk on a' the way
Were blithe to see ye.
O sir, the gods are kind indeed.
An' hauld ye for an honoured heid,
That for a wee bit clarkit screed
Sae weel reward ye.
An' lend — puir Rabbie bein' deid —
His ghaist to guard ye.
For though, whaure'er yoursel' may be,
We've just to turn an' glisk a wee.
An' Rab at heel we're shure to see
Wi' gladsome caper :
The bogle of a bogle, he
A ghaist o' paper !
And as the auld farrand hero sees
In Hell a bogle Hercules,
Rt there the lesser deid to please.
While he himsel'
Dwalls wi' the muckle gods at ease
Far raised frae hell:
122
Sae the true Rabbie far has gane
On kmdlier business o' his ain
Wi' aulder Men's ; an' his breist-ban?
An' stumpie taiUe,
He birstles at a new hearth stane
By James and Aihe.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Poems
(Chatto & Windus)
Wylie
OUR next friend was an exquisite shepherd's
dog; fleet, thin-flanked, dainty, and hand-
some as a small greyhound, with all the grace
of silky waving black and tan hair. . . .
We had been admiring the beauty and gentle-
ness and perfect shape of Wylie, the finest collie
I ever saw, and said, " What are you going to
do with Wylie ? " (Old Adam, the shepherd,
was going to live with his son in Glasgow.)
" 'Deed," says he, "I hardly ken. I canna
think o' sellin' her, though she's worth four
pound, and she'll no like the toun." I said,
" Would you let me have her ? " and Adam,
looking at her fondly — she came up instantly
to him and made of him — said, " Ay, I wuU,
if ye '11 be gude to her" ; and it was settled that
when Adam left for Glasgow she should be sent
into Albany Street by the carrier.
123
She came, and was at once taken to all our
hearts, even grandmother liked her ; and though
she was often pensive, as if thinking of her master
and her work on the hills, she made herself at
home, and behaved in all respects like a lady.
When out with me, if she saw sheep in the
streets or road, she got quite excited, and helped
the work, and was curiously useful, the being
so making her wonderfully happy. And so her
life went on, never doing wrong, always blithe
and kind and beautiful. But some months after
she came there was a mystery about her :
every Tuesday evening she disappeared ; we tried
to watch her, but in vain, she was always off
by nine p.m., and was away all night, coming
back next day, wearied and all over mud, as if
she had travelled far. She slept all next day.
This went on for some months and we could
make nothing of it. Poor dear creature, she
looked at us wistfully when she came in, as if
she would have told us if she could, and was
especially fond, though tired.
Well, one day I was walking across the Grass-
market, with Wylie at my heels, when two
shepherds started, and looking at her, one said,
" That's her ; that's the wonderful wee bitch
that naebody kens." I asked him what he meant,
and he told me that for months past she had
made her appearance by the first daylight at
the " Buchts " or sheep pens in the cattle market,
and worked incessantly, and to excellent purpose,
124
in helping the shepherds to get their sheep and
lambs in. " She's a perfect meeracle ; flees
aboot like a speerit, and never gangs wrang ;
wears but never grups, and beats a' oor dowgs.
She's a perfect meeracle, and as soople as a
maukin." Then he related how they all knew
her, and said, " There's that wee fell yin ; we'll
get them in noo." They tried to coax her to
stop and be caught, but no, she was gentle, but
off ; and for many a day that " wee fell yin "
was spoken of by these rough fellows. She
continued this amateur work till she died, which
she did in peace.
John Brown
HorcB Subseciva
Mrs Carlyle's Dog
NERO is introduced to us in a spirited letter
to a friend. " Oh Lord ! I forgot to
tell you I have got a little dog," wrote Mrs
Carlyle. " Mr C. has accepted it with amiability !
To be sure when he comes down gloomy in the
morning, or comes in wearied from his walk,
the infatuated little beast dances round him on
its hind legs, as I ought to do and can't, and
he feels flattered and surprised by such unwonted
capers to his honour and glory."
Later on, when Carlyle was in Dundee, and
asked why there was no mention of Nero in his
wife's letter, she repHed, " As to Nero, poor darling,
125
it is not forgetfulness of him that has kept me
silent on his subject, but rather that he is part
and parcel of myself : when I say I am well it
means Nero also is well! Nero c'est moi ; moi
c'est Nero ! "
Nero had therefore a happy life, but when
nearly eleven years old he " became a source
of great sorrow, his tendency to asthma having
been dreadfully developed since the Butcher's
cart went over his throat," Soon after that
Mrs Carlyle went away from home for a few
days. On her return, " It was in sickening
apprehension that I arrived at my own door,"
she wrote. " I had left my poor wee dog so ill
of old age, compUcated with asthma, that I
doubted that I should find him alive. It was
the first time for eleven years that his welcoming
bark had failed me ! Was he really dead then ?
No ! strange to say he was actually a little better,
and had run up the kitchen stairs to welcome
me as usual ; but there he had been arrested by
a paroxysm of coughing and the more he tried
to show his joy the more he could not do it !
Mr C, keeps insisting on ' a httle prussic acid '
for him. At the same time he was overheard
saying to him in the garden one day, * Poor
little fellow ! I declare I am heartily sorry for
you ! If I could make you young again, upon
my soul I would ! ' "
A month later she writes : " For the rest, I
am still not laid up. . . . But if I am less ill
126
than usual this winter, I am more than usually
sorrowful, for I have lost my dear little com-
panion of eleven years' standing : my little
Nero is dead ! And the grief his death has caused
me has been wonderful even to myself. His
patience and gentleness and loving struggle to
do all his bits of duties under his painful illness
up to the last hour of his life was very strange
and touching to see, and had so endeared him
to everybody in the house, that I was happily
spared all reproaches for wasting so much feeling
on a dog. Mr C. couldn't have reproached me,
for he himself was in tears at the poor little thing's
end ; and his own heart was (as he phrased it)
' unexpectedly and distractedly torn to pieces
with it ! '" 1
Charles Dickens and his Dogs
THE first dog Dickens tells us about in his
letters is Timber, a little white Havana
spaniel, who was reared for Dickens by the
manager of a theatre in the States. He was
called Mr Snittle Timber after the character of
that name in Nicholas Nicklehy, and went every-
where with the Dickens' family, even to Switzer-
land and Italy, Writing from Albano, Dickens
says, " I don't know what to do with Timber.
* Quoted by permission of Mr Alexander Carlylc
from New Letters and Memorials. London, John Lane.
127
He is as ill-adapted to the climate at this time
of year as a suit of fur. I have had him made a
lion dog ; but the fleas flock in such crowds
into the hair he has left, that they drive him
nearly frantic. . . . Apropos, as we were crossing
the Seine within two stages of Paris, Roche
suddenly said to me : * The little dog 'ave got
a great Up ! ' I was thinking of things remote
and couldn't comprehend why any
peculiarity in this feature should excite a man
so much. As I was musing upon it, my ears
were attracted by shouts of ' Helo ! hola ! Hi,
hi, hi ! Le voila ! Regardez ! ' and the like.
And looking down among the oxen — we were m
the centre of a numerous drove — I saw him.
Timber, lying in the road, curled up like a lobster,
yelping dismally in the pain of his ' lip ' from
the roof of the carriage ; and between the aching
of his bones, his horror of the oxen and his dread
of me (whom he evidently took to be the
immediate agent in and cause of the damage),
singing out to an extent which I believe to be
perfectly unprecedented ; while every Frenchman
and French boy within sight, roared for company.
He wasn't hurt."
Writing to thank a friend for the gift of an
Irish bloodhound, he says, " I cannot thank you
too much for Sultan. He is a noble fellow, has
fallen into the ways of the family with a grace
and dignity that denote the gentleman, and
came down to the railway a day or two since to
128
welcome me home with a profound absence of
interest in my individual opinion of him, which
captivated me completely. I am going home
to-day to take him about the country and im-
prove his acquaintance. You will find a perfect
understanding between us, I hope, when next
you come to Gad's Hill. He has only swallowed
Bouncer once, and temporarily (Bouncer was his
daughter's blue-eyed kitten).
Returning to Gad's Hill from a long absence,
Dickens writes : " The two Newfoundland dogs,
coming to meet me with the usual carriage and
the usual driver, and beholding me coming in
my usual dress out at the usual door, it struck
me that their recollection of my having been
absent for any unusual time was at once can-
celled. They behaved (they are both young
dogs) exactly in their usual manner; coming
behind the basket-phaeton as we trotted along,
and lifting their heads to have their ears pulled
— a special attention which they receive from no
one else. But when I drove into the stable yard,
Linda (the St Bernard) was greatly excited,
weeping profusely and throwing herself on her
back that she might caress my foot with her
great fore-paws."
129
Diogenes
" TF you'd like to have him, he's at the door.
J- I brought him on purpose for you. He
ain't a lady's dog, you know," said Mr Toots,
" but you won't mind that, will you ? "
In fact, Diogenes was at that moment, as they
presently ascertained from looking down into
the street, staring through the window of a
hackney cabriolet, into which ... he had been
ensnared on a false pretence of rats among the
straw. Sooth to say he was as unlike a lady's
dog as dog might be ; and in his gruff anxiety
to get out, presented an appearance sufficiently
unpromising, as he gave short yelps out of one
side of his mouth, and overbalancing himself
by the intensity of every one of those efforts,
tumbled down into the straw, and then sprung
up again, putting out his tongue as if he had
come express to a dispensary to be examined
for his health.
But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog
as one would meet with on a summer's day ; a
blundering, ill-favoured, clumsy, bullet-headed
dog, continually acting on a wrong idea that
there was an enemy in the neighbourhood whom
it was meritorious to bark at ; and though he
was far from good-tempered and certainly was
not clever, and had hair all over his eyes, and
a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff
voice, he was dearer to Florence in virtue of
130
Paul's parting remembrance of him and that
request that he might be taken care of, than
the most valuable and beautiful of his kind.
So dear, indeed, was this same ugly Diogenes,
and so welcome to her, that she took the jewelled
hand of Mr Toots and kissed it in her gratitude.
And when Diogenes, released, came tearing up
the stairs and bouncing into the room . . .
diving under all the furniture, and wound a long
iron chain that dangled round his neck round
legs of chairs and tables, and then tugged at it
until his eyes became unnaturally visible, in
consequence of their nearly starting out of his
head ; and when he growled at Mr Toots, who
afEected familiarity ; and went pell-mell at
Towlinson, morally convinced that he was the
enemy whom he had barked at round the comer
all his Ufe, and had never seen yet ; Florence
was as pleased with him as if he had been a miracle
of discretion. . . .
" Come, then, Di ! Dear Di ! Make friends
with your new mistress. Let us love each other,
Di ! " said Florence, fondhng his shaggy head.
And Di, the rough and gruff, as if his hairy hide
were pervious to the tear that dropped upon it,
and his dog's heart melted as it fell, put his nose
up to her face and swore fidelity.
Diogenes the man did not speak plainer to
Alexander the Great than Diogenes the dog spoke
to Florence. He subscribed to the offer of his
little mistress cheerfully and devoted himself
to her service. A banquet was immediately
provided for him in a corner ; and when he had
eaten and drunk his fill, he went to the window
where Florence was sitting, looking on, rose up
on his hind legs, with his awkward fore-paws
on her shoulders, licked her face and hands,
nestled his great head against her heart, and
wagged his tail till he was tired. Finally
Diogenes coiled himself up at her feet and went
to sleep.
Charles Dickens {1812-70)
Nicholas Nicklehy
Tray
SING me a hero ! Quench my thirst
Of soul, ye bards !
Quoth Bard the first
" Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don
His helm and eke his habergeon . . ."
Sir Olaf and his bard — ! '
" That sin-scathed brow " (quoth Bard the
second)
" That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned
My hero to some steep beneath
Which precipice smiled tempting death . . ."
You too without your host have reckoned I
" A beggar-child " (let's hear this third !)
" Sat on a quay's edge : like a bird
132
Sang to herself at careless play.
And fell into the stream. * Dismay !
Help, you the standers-by ! ' None stirred.
" Bystanders reason, think of wives
And children ere they risk their lives.
Over the balustrade has bounced
A mere instinctive dog, and pounced
Plumb on the prize. ' How well he dives !
" * Up he comes with the child, see, tight
In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite
A depth of ten feet — twelve, I bet !
Good dog ! What, ofi again ? There's yet
Another child to save ? All right !
" ' How strange we saw no other fall !
It's instinct in the animal.
Good dog ! But he's a long while under :
If he got drowned I should not wonder —
Strong current that, against the wall !
" ' Here he comes, holds in mouth this time
— What may the thing be ? Well, that's prime 1
Now, did you ever ? Reason reigns
In man alone, since all Tray's pains
Have fished — the child's doll from the slime I '
" And so amid the laughter gay,
Trotted my hero off, — old Tray —
Till somebody, prerogatived
133
With reason, reasoned : ' Why he dived,
His brain would show us, I should say.
" ' John, go and catch, or if needs be,
Purchase — that animal for me !
By vivisection, at expense
Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence,
How brain secretes dog's soul we'll see ! * "
Robert Browning (1812-89)
(John Murray)
Dogs in George Eliot's Novels
THE moment the schoolmaster appeared at
the kitchen door with the candle in his
hand, a faint whimpering began in the chimney-
comer, and a brown-and-tan coloured bitch,
of that wise-looking breed with short legs and
long body, known to an unmechanical generation
as turn-spits, came creeping along the floor,
wagging her tail, and hesitating at every other
step, as if her affections were painfully divided
between the hamper in the chimney-comer
and the master, whom she could not leave without
a greeting.
" Well, Vixen, well then, how are the babbies ? "
said the schoolmaster, making haste towards
the chimney-comer, and holding the candle
over the low hamper, where two extremely blind
puppies lifted their heads towards the light,
134
from a nest of flannel and wool. Vixen could
not even see her master look at them without
painful excitement : she got into the hamper
and got out again the next moment, and behaved
with true feminine folly, though looking all the
while as wise as a dwarf with a large old-fashioned
head and body on the most abbreviated legs.
Poor dog ! I've a strange feeling about the
dumb things, as if they wanted to speak, and
it was a trouble to 'em because they couldn't.
I can't help being sorry for the dogs a lump,
though perhaps there's no need. But they
may well have more in them than they know
how to make us understand, for we can't say
half what we feel with all our words. . . .
" When I've made up my mind that I can't
afford to buy a tempting dog, I take no notice
of him, because if he took a strong fancy to me,
and looked lovingly at me, the struggle between
arithmetic and inclination might become un-
pleasantly severe. I pique myself on my wisdom
there."
" Hev' a dog, miss. They're better friends nor
any Christian. Lor ! it's a fine thing to have
a dumb brute fond on you ; it'll stick to you,
and make no jaw."
George Eliot (1819-80)
135
Geist's Grave
FOUR years ! and didst thou stay above
The ground which hides thee now, but four ?
And all that life and all that love
Were crowded, Geist, into no more ?
Only four years those winning ways,
Which make me for thy presence yearn,
Call'd us to pet thee or to praise.
Dear little friend ! at every turn.
That loving heart, that patient soul.
Had they indeed no longer span,
To run their course, and reach their goal.
And read their homily to man ?
That liquid, melancholy eye,
From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs
Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry ^
The sense of tears in mortal things —
That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled
By spirits gloriously gay.
And temper of heroic mould —
\Vhat, was four years their whole short day ?
Yes, only four ! — and not the course
Of all the centuries to come,
* Sunt lacrimcB rerum !
136
And not the infinite resource
Of Nature, with her countless sum
Of figures, with her fulness vast
Of new creation evermore.
Can ever quite repeat the past,
Or just thy httle self restore.
Stem law of every mortal lot !
Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear,
And builds himself I know not what
Of second life I know not where.
But thou, when struck, thine hour to go.
On us, who stood despondent by,
A meek last glance of love didst throw.
And humbly lay thee down to die.
Yet would we keep thee in our heart —
Would fix our favourite on the scene,
Nor let thee utterly depart.
And be as if thou ne'er hadst been.
And so there rise these lines of verse
On lips that rarely form them now ;
While to each other we rehearse :
Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou.
We stroke thy broad brown paws again.
We bid thee to thy vacant chair.
We greet thee by the window-pane.
We hear thy scuffle on the stair.
137
We see the flaps of thy large ears
Quick raised to ask which way we go ;
Crossing the frozen lake, appears
Thy small black figure on the snow !
Nor to us only art thou dear
Who mourn thee in thine English honte ;
Thou hast thine absent master's tear
Dropt by the far Australian foam.
Thy memory lasts both here and tlere,
And thou shalt live as long as we.
And after that — thou didst not c^re !
In us was all the world to thee.
Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame
Even to a date beyond our own
We strive to carry down thy na^e,
By mounded turf and graven i^one.
We lay thee, close within oun'each,
Here, where the grass is sm'^th and warm,
Between the holly and the eech.
Where oft we watched thy^^ouchant form,
Asleep, yet lending hal^^n ear
To travellers on the P^tsmouth road ;—
There build we thee, ^ guardian dear,
Marked with a stone^hy last abode !
j8
Then some, who through this garden pass,
When we too, Uke thyself, are clay.
Shall see thy grave upon the grass
And stop before the stone and say :
People who lived here long ago
Did by this stone it seems intend
To name for future times to know
The dachshound Geist their little friend.^
Matthew Arnold (1822-88)
(Macmillan & Co.)
The Character of Dogs
WOMAN, with the dog, has been long
enfranchised. Incessant massacre of
female innocents has changed the proportions
of the sexes and perv^erted their relations. Thus,
when we regard the manners of the dog, we
see a romantic and monagamous animal, once
perhaps as dehcate as the cat, at war with im-
^ In his Recollections (1. 126), Viscount Morley writes :
" Nowhere was Arnold so delighted and delightful as
in his Surrey cottage, joyous in the play of warm home
affection ; in watching the cedars, flowers, blossoms,
lawns of his skilfully-tended garden ; in the faithful
salutation of favourite bird or dog — ^fidelity repaid by
an immortality in verse that moves the lover of the
dog like the lines where the Father of Poetry makes
the old hound Argos prick up his ears at the voice of
his long-absent master and then close his eyes in dark
death."
139
possible conditions. Man has much to answer
for ; and the part he plays is yet more damnable
and parlous than Corin's in the eyes of Touch-
stone. But his intervention has at least created
an imperial situation for the rare surviving ladies.
In that society they reign without a rival :
conscious queens ; and in the only instance of
a canine wife-beater that has ever fallen under
my notice, the criminal was somewhat excused
by the circumstances of his story. He is a little,
very alert, well-bred, intelligent Skye, as black
as a hat, with a wet bramble for a nose and two
cairngorms for eyes. To the human observer,
he is decidedly well-looking ; but to the ladies
of his race, he seems abhorrent. A thorough
elaborate gentleman, of the plume and sword-
knot order, he was bom with a nice sense of
gallantry to women. He took at their hands
the most outrageous treatment ; I have heard
him bleating like a sheep, I have seen him
streaming blood, and his ear tattered like a re-
gimental banner ; and yet he would scorn to
make reprisals. Nay, more, when a human
lady upraised the contumelious whip against
the very dame who had been so cruelly misusing
him, my little great-heart gave but one hoarse
cry and fell upon the tyrant tooth and nail.
This is the tale of a soul's tragedy. After three
years of unavailing chivalry, he suddenly, in
one hour, threw off the yoke of obligation ; had
he been Shakespeare he would then have written
140
Troilus and Cressida to brand the offending
sex ; but being only a little dog, he began to
bite them. The surprise of the ladies whom he
attacked indicated the monstrosity of his offence ;
but he had fairly beaten off his better angel,
fairly committed moral suicide ; for almost in
the same hour, throwing aside the last rags of
decency, he proceeded to attack the aged also.
The fact is worth remark, showing, as it does,
that ethical laws are common both to dogs and
men ; and that with both a single deUberate
violation of the conscience loosens all. " But
while the lamp holds on to bum," says the
paraphrase, " the greatest sinner may return."
I have been cheered to see symptoms of effectual
penitence in my sweet ruffian ; and by the
handling that he accepted uncomplainingly the
other day from an indignant fair one, I begin to
hope the period of Sturm und Drang is closed.
R. L. Stevenson (1850-94)
Memories and Portraits
(Chatto & Windus)
I4«
At a Dog's Grave
I
GOOD-NIGHT, we say, when comes the time
to win
The daily death divine that shuts up sight.
Sleep, that assures for all who dwell therein
Good -night.
The shadow shed round those we love shines
bright
As love's own face, when death, sleep's gentler
twin.
From them divides us even as night from light.
Shall friends bom lower in life, though pure of sin,
Though clothed with love and faith to usward
plight,
Perish and pass unbidden of us, their kin.
Good-night ?
II
To die a dog's death once was held for shame.
Not all men so beloved and mourned shall lie
As many of these, whose time untimely came.
To die.
His years were full : his years were joyous : why
Must love be sorrow, when his gracious name
Recalls his lovely Ufe of limb and eye ?
142
If aught of blameless life on earth may claim
Life higher than death, though death's dark wave
rise high,
Such life as this among us never came
To die.
Ill
White violets, there by hands more sweet than they
Planted, shall sweeten Aprils fiowerful air
About a grave that shows to night and day
White violets there.
A child's Ught hands, whose touch makes flowers
more fair.
Keep fair as these for many a March and May
That Hght of days that are because they were.
It shall not Uke a blossom pass away ;
It broods and brightens with the days that bear
Fresh fruits of love, but leave, as love might pray.
White violets there.
A. C. Swinburne (i 837-1909)
(Heinemann)
143
Ill
TWENTIETH CENTURY
If a man does not soon pass beyond the though
" By what shall this dog profit me?'' into the
large state of simple gladness to be with dog, he
shall never know the very essence of that com-
panionship which depends not on the points of
dog, but on some strange and subtle mingling of
mute spirits. For it is by muteness that a dog
becomes for one so utterly beyond value, with him
one is at peace where words play no torturing
tricks. When he just sits loving and knows that
he is being loved, those are the moments that I
think are precious to a dog : when, with his
adoring soul coming through his eyes, he feels
that you are really thinking of him. . . .
John Galsworthy
Memories
146
The Use of Dogs in Polar Exploration
THE VOYAGE OF THE DISCOVERY. ^
THE use of dogs for sledging is a subject about
which there has been much controversy.
Broadly speaking, there are two ways in which
dogs may be used — they may be taken with the
idea of bringing them all back safe and sound,
or they may be treated as pawns in the game,
from which the best value is to be got regardless
of their lives. . . . This method of using dogs
is one which can only be adopted with reluctance.
One cannot calmly contemplate the murder of
animals which possess such intelligence, which
have frequently such endearing qualities, and
which very possibly one has learnt to regard as
friends and companions. On the other hand, it
may be pointed out with good reason that to
forego the great objects which may be achieved
by the sacrifice of dog-life is carrying sentiment
to undue length. . . . My plans for utilising
our dog-team was compounded of the two
methods which I have sketched above. We
faced the situation that the weaker animals
must be sacrificed to the exigencies of the work,
though we hoped that a remnant of the larger
and stronger beasts would survive to enjoy again
a life of luxury and ease ; but, as events turned
out, we saved none : all were lost under the
^ John Murray.
147
unavoidable pressure of circumstances. Probably
our experience was an exceptionally sad one in
tliis respect, but it left in each one of our
small party an unconquerable aversion to the
employment of dogs in this ruthless fashion. . . .
The harness, as regards the dog itself, we kept
a permanency. Each dog was measured for
his suit and then it was sewn securely about
him. . . . We had also many trials to find out
how the dogs should be placed with regard to
the sledge, finally arranging a long central trace
along which they were secured in pairs. . . .
Even with this simple arrangement the traces
would sometimes be worked into a bad tangle,
which it was only possible to unravel with bare
fingers — ^a task which was not looked forward
to with any pleasure, especially in the early
morning. In this respect there is a curious
habit in dogs which appears to be some revival
of a remote wild age and which most people
will doubtless have noticed : a dog rarely coils
himself down to sleep without turning round
several times, as though arranging some imaginary
lair. However pleasing this habit may be to
watch on ordinary occasions, one does not con-
template it with deHght in a sledge dog, knowing
that one will eventually have to disentangle the
twisted confusion that results. . . .
There can be few scenes more beautiful than
that which is about us on a calm moonlight
148
night. During the noon hours the silver rays
are lost, and the moon itself is changed to a deep
orange yellow in the diffused twiUght cast by
the gleaming crimson band to the north ; but
as the red glow slowly travels around and is
lost beliind the western hills, our white world is
left alone with the moon and the stars. The
cold, white light falls on the colder, whiter snow
against which the dark rock and the intricate
outline of the ship stand out in blackest contrast.
Each sharp peak and every object about us casts
a deep shadow and is clearly outlined against
the sky, but beyond our immediate surroundings
is fairyland. The eye travels on and on over
the gleaming plain till it meets the misty white
horizon, and above and beyond the soft, silvery
outUnes of the mountains. Did one not know
them -of old, it would sometimes be difficult to
think them real, so deep a spell of enchantment
seems to rest on the scene. And indeed it is not
a spell that rests on man alone, for it is on such
nights that the dogs lift up their voices and join in
a chant which disturbs the most restful sleepers.
What lingering instinct of bygone ages can
impel them to this extraordinary custom is
beyond guessing ; but on these calm, clear
moonlit nights, when all are coiled down placidly
sleeping, one will suddenly raise his head and
from the depths of his throat send forth a pro-
longed, dismal wail, utterly unUke any sound
he can produce on ordinary occasions. As the
149
note dies away another animal takes it up, and
then another and another, until the hills re-echo
with the same unutterable dreary plaint. There
is no undue haste and no snapping or snarling,
which makes it very evident that this is a solemn
function, some sacred rite which must be per-
formed in these circumstances. If one is senti-
mentally inclined, as may be forgiven on such
a night, this chorus almost seems to possess the
woes of ages : as an accompaniment to the vast
desolation without, it touches the lowest depths of
sadness.
But if one is not sentimentally inclined, and
rather bent on refreshing sleep, it possesses so
little charm that one endeavours to correct
matters by shouts and pieces of ice. As a rule
the animals are so absorbed in their occupation
and so lost to their surroundings that even
these monitions have no power to disturb them,
and one has at length to bribe them basely with
a biscuit or a piece of seal-meat.
I do not think it would be possible to take
more care of the dogs than we do. Each dog
has his own particular master among the men,
and each master seems to take a particular delight
in seeing that his animal is well cared for. The
most thoughtful arc constantly out building
extra shelters, covering the kennels with sacking
and generally endeavouring to make their charges
comfortable.
150
Scott's Last Expedition*
On the Voyage. . . . The dogs are in great form
again ; for them the greatest circumstance of
discomfort is to be constantly wet. It was this
circumstance, prolonged throughout the gale, which
nearly lost us our splendid leader " Osman."
In the morning he was discovered utterly ex-
hausted and only feebly trembling ; life was very
nearly out of him. He was buried in hay, and
lay so for twenty-four hours, refusing food —
the wonderful hardihood of his species was again
shown by the fact that within another twenty-
four hours he was to all appearance as fit as
ever. . . .
Later. — Sledging began as usual this morning ;
seven ponies and the dog teams were hard at
it all the forenoon. I ran six journeys with
five dogs, driving them in the Siberian fashion
for the first time. It was not difficult, but I
kept forgetting the Russian words at critical
moments. . . .
The dogs are very tired to-night. I have
definitely handed control of the second team
to Wilson. He was very eager to have it and
will do well I'm sure — ^but certainly also the
dogs will not pull heavy loads. Five hundred
pounds proved a back-breaking load for eleven
* On this expedition Scott had 33 sledging dogs,
31 Siberian and 2 Esquimaux. They were gifted
to the expedition by various English schools.
151
dogs to-day — they brought it at a snail's pace.
Meares has estimated to give them two-thirds
of a pound of biscuit a day. I have felt sure
he will find this too little. . . .
Hunger and fear are the only realities in dog
life.i An empty stomach makes a fierce dog.
There is something almost alarming in the sudden
fierce display of natural instinct in a tame
creature. Instinct becomes a blind, unreasoning,
relentless passion. For instance, the dogs are,
as a rule, all very good friends in harness :
they pull side by side, rubbing shoulders, they
walk over each other as they nestle to rest,
relations seem quite peaceful and quiet. But the
moment food is in their thoughts their passions
awaken ; each dog is suspicious of his neighbour,
and the smallest circumstance produces a fight.
With like suddenness their rage flares out in-
stantaneously if they get mixed up on the march
— a quiet, peaceable team which has been lazily
stretching itself with wagging tails one moment
will become a set of raging, tearing, fighting
devils the next. It is such stern facts that resign
one to the sacrifice of animal life in the effort to
advance such human projects as this.
^ Scott, it must be remembered, is speaking of
dogs not very far removed from wolf forbears.
152
Impressions
The deep dreamless sleep that follows the long
march and the satisfying supper. The surface
crust which breaks with a snap and sinks with
a snap, startling men and animals.
Custom robs it of dread but not of interest
to the dogs, who come to imagine such sounds
as the result of some strange freak of hidden
creatures. They become all alert and spring from
side to side, hoping to catch the creature. The hope
clings in spite of continual disappointment.
A dog must be either eating, asleep, or interested.
His eagerness to snatch at interest, to chain his
attention to something, is almost pathetic. The
monotony of marching kills him.
This is the fearfuUest difficulty for the dog
driver on a snow plain without leading marks
or objects in sight. The dog is almost human in
its demand for Hving interest, yet fatally less
than human in its inability to foresee.
The dog Uves for the day, the hour, even the
moment. The human being can live and support
discomfort for a future. . . .
The way in which they keep up a steady jog-
trot for hour after hour is wonderful. Their
legs seem steel springs, fatigue unknown — for
at the end of a tiring march any unusual incident
will arouse them to full vigour. . . .
(About a month later, however, after new
trials and discouragements, Scott writes, " Bit
153
by bit I am losing all faith in the dogs. I'm
afraid they will never go the pace we look for.")
The dogs are the main sufferers by this con-
tinuance of phenomenally terrible weather. At
least four are in a bad state ; some six or seven
others are by no means fit and well, but oddly
enough some ten or a dozen animals are as fit
as they can be. . . . It is so impossible to keep
the dogs comfortable in the traces and so laborious
to be continually attempting it, that we have
decided to let the majority run loose. It will
be wonderful if we can avoid one or two murders,
but on the other hand, probably more would die
if we kept them in leash. . . . We shall try and
keep the quarrelsome dogs chained up. The main
trouble that seems to come on the poor wretches is
the icing up of their hindquarters ; once the ice gets
thoroughly into the coat the hind legs get half-
paralysed with cold. The hope is that the animals
will free themselves of this by running about.
At one of the series of lectures I gave an outline
of my plans next season. ... I could not but
hint that in my opinion the problem of reaching
the Pole can best be solved by relying on the ponies
and manhaulage. ... Everyone seems to distrust
the dogs when it comes to glacier and summit. ^
1 As a matter of fact, dogs accompanied the last
expedition for some distance, being sent back when
conditions of travel became unsuitable for them, and
when the party had to be divided that the rations might
last the longer.
154
During our trip to the ice, and the sledge
journey, one of our dogs, Vaida, was especially
distinguished for his savage temper and generally
uncouth manners. He became a bad wreck
with his poor coat at Hut Point, and in this
condition I used to massage him ; at first the
operation was mistrusted, and only continued
to the accompaniment of much growhng, but
later he evidently grew to like the warming
effect and sidled up to me whenever I came out
of the hut, though still with some suspicion.
On returning here he seemed to know me at
once, and now comes and buries his head in my
legs whenever I go out of doors ; he allows me
to rub him and push him about without the
slightest protest and scampers about me as I
walk abroad. He is a strange beast — I imagine
so unused to kindness that it took him time to
appreciate it. . . . Pouting and Gran went
round the bergs late last night. On returning
they saw a dog coming over the floe from the
north. The animal rushed towards and leapt
about them with every sign of intense joy. Then
they realized that it was our long lost Julick.
His mane was crusted with blood and he smelt
strongly of seal blubber — his stomach was full,
but the sharpness of backbone showed that
this condition had only been temporary. By
daylight he looks very fit and strong, and he is
evidently very pleased to be home again. We
are absolutely at a loss to account for his
^55
adventures. It is exactly a month since he was
missed — what on earth can have happened to
him all this time ? One would give a great deal
to hear his tale. Everything is against the
theory that he was a wilful absentee — his previous
habits and his joy at getting back. ... I cannot
but think the animal has been cut off, but this
can only have happened by his being carried
away on broken sea ice, and as far as we know
the open water has never been nearer than ten
or twelve miles at the least. It is another enigma.
On the last Expedition. — The days are simply
splendid. ... I take the dogs on for half a
day to-morrow, and then send them back home
(to the Hut). . . .
The dogs should get back quite easily ; there
is food all along the line. . . .
Robert Falcon Scott, R.N.
A Dithyramb on a Dog
CHUM, roped securely to a cherry tree, is
barking at the universe in general and at
the cows in the paddock beyond the orchard
in particular. Occasionally he pauses to snap
at passing bees, of which the orchard is full on
this bright May morning ; but he soon tires of
this diversion and resumes his loud-voiced demand
to share in the good things that are going. For
the sun is high, the cuckoo is shouting over the
156
valley and the woods are calling him to unknown
adventures. They shall not call in vain. Work
shall be suspended and this morning shall be
dedicated to his service. For this is the day
of deliverance. The word is spoken and the
shadow of the sword is lifted. The battle for
his biscuit is won.
He does not know what a narrow shave he
has had. He does not know that for weeks
past he has been under sentence of death as an
encumbrance, a luxury that this savage world
of men could no longer afford ; that having taken
away his bones we were about to take away his
biscuits and leave his cheerful companionship
a memory of the dream world we Hved in before
the Great Killing began. All this he does not
know. That is one of the numerous advantages
of being a dog. He knows nothing of the infamies
of men or of the incertitudes of hfe. He does
not look before and after and pine for what is
not. He has no yesterday and no to-morrow
— only the happy or the unhappy present. He
does not, as Whitman says, " Ue awake at night
thinking of his soul," or lamenting liis past or
worrying about his future. His bereavements
do not disturb him and he doesn't care twopence
about his career. He has no debts and hungers
for no honours. He would rather have a bone
than a baronetcy. He does not turn over old
albums, with their pictured records of forgotten
hoUdays and happy scenes, and yearn for the
157
*' tender grace of a day that is dead," or wonder
whether he will keep his job and what will become
of his " poor old family," as Stevenson used
to say, if he doesn't, or speculate whether the
war will end this year, next year, some time,
or never. He doesn't even know there is a war.
Think of it ! He doesn't know there is a war.
0 happy dog I Give him a bone, a biscuit, a
good word, and a scamper in the woods, and his
cup of joy is full. Would that my needs were
as few and as easily satisfied.
And now his biscuit is safe and I have the
rare privilege of rejoicing with Sir Frederick
Banbury. I do not know that I should go so far
as he seems to go, for in that touching little
speech of his at the Cannon Street Hotel he
indicated that nothing in the heavens above
or in the earth beneath should stand between
him and his dogs. " In August 1914," he said,
" my son went to France. The night before
he left he said, ' Father, look after my dogs and
horses while I am away.' I said, * Don't you
worry about them.' He was killed in December,
and I have got the horses and dogs now. As
1 said to Mr Bonar Law last year, I should like
to see the man who would tell me I have not to
look after my son's dogs and horses." Well,
I suppose that if the choice were between a German
victory and a dog biscuit, the dog biscuit would
have to go. Sir Frederick. But I rejoice with
you that we have not to make the choice. I
158
rejoice that the sentence of death has passed
from your dead son's horses and dogs, and from
that noble creature under the cherry tree.
Look at him, barking now at the cows, now
with eloquent appeal to me, and then, having
caught my eye, turning sportively to worry
the hated rope. He knows that my intentions
this morning are honourable. I think he feels
that, in spite of appearances, I am in that humour
in which at any radiant moment the magic word
" Walk " may leap from my lips. What a word
that is. No sleep so sound that it will not
penetrate its depths and bring him, passionately
awake, to his feet. He would sacrifice the whole
dictionary for that one electric syllable. That
and its brother " Bones." Give him these good,
sound, sensible words, and all the fancies of the
poets and all the rhetoric of the statesmen may
whistle down the winds. He has no use for
them. " Walk " and " Bones " — that is the
speech a fellow can understand.
Yes, Chum knows very well that I am think-
ing about him, and thinking about him in an
uncommonly friendly way. That is the secret
of the strange intimacy between us. We
may love other animals, and other animals may
respond to our affection, but the dog is the
only animal who has a reciprocal intelUgence.
As Coleridge says, he is the only animal that
looks upward to man, strains to catch his meanings,
hungers for his approval. Stroke a cat or a
159
horse, and it will have a physical pleasure ; but
pat Chum and call him " Good dog ! " and he has
a spiritual pleasure. He feels good. He is
pleased because you are pleased. His tail, his
eyebrows, every part of him proclaim that
" God's in his heaven, all's right with the world,"
and that he himself is on the side of the angels.
And just as he has the sense of virtue, so also
he has the sense of sin. A cat may be taught
not to do certain things, but if it is caught out
and flees, it flees not from shame, but from fear.
But the shame of a dog touches an abyss of misery
as bottomless as any human emotion. He has
fallen out of the state of grace, and nothing but
the absolution and remission of his sin will restore
him to happiness. By his association with man
he seems to have caught something of his capacity
for spiritual misery. I had an Airedale once
who had moods of despondency as abysmal as
my own. He was as sentimental as any minor
poet, and at the sound of certain tunes on the
piano he would break into paroxysms of grief,
whining and moaning as if, in one moment of
concentrated anguish, he recalled every bereave-
ment he had endured, every bone he had lost,
every stone heaved at him by his hated enemy,
the butcher's boy. Indeed, there are times
when the dog approximates so close to our in-
telligence that he seems to be of us, a sort of
humble relation of ourselves, with our elementary
feelings, but not our gift of expression, our joy
i6o
but not our laughter, our misery but not our
tears, our thoughts but not our speech. To
sentence him to death would be almost like
homicide, and the day of his reprieve should be
celebrated as a festival. . . .
Come, old friend. Let us away to the woods.
" Walk."
Alpha of the Plough
(J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.)
To Rufus : A Spaniel
RUFUS, a bright New Year ! A savoury stew.
Bones, broth, and biscuits, is prepared for
you.
See how it steams in your enamelled dish.
Mixed in each part according to your wish.
Hide in your straw the bones you cannot crunch —
They'll come in handy for to-morrow's lunch ;
Abstract with care each tasty scrap of meat,
Remove each biscuit to a fresh retreat
(A dog, I judge, would deem himself disgraced
Who ate a biscuit where he found it placed) ;
Then nuzzle round and make your final sweep,
And sleep, replete, your after-dinner sleep.
High in our hall we've piled the fire with logs
For you, the doyen of our corps of dogs.
There, when the stroll that health demands is
done,
Your right to ease by due exertion won,
L i6i
There shall you come, and on your long-haired
mat,
Thrice turning round, shall tread the jungle flat,
And, rhythmically snoring, dream away
The peaceful evening of your New Year's Day.
Rufus ! there are who hesitate to own
Merits, they say, your master sees alone.
They judge you stupid, for you show no bent
To any poodle-dog accomplishment.
Your stubborn nature never stooped to learn
Tricks by which mumming dogs their biscuits
earn.
Men mostly find you, if they change their seat,
Couchant obnoxious to their blundering feet ;
Then, when a door is closed, you steadily
Misjudge the side on which you ought to be ;
Yelping outside when all your friends are in.
You raise the echoes with your ceaseless din.
Or, always wrong, but turn and turn about.
Howling inside when all the world is out.
They scorn your gestures and interpret ill
Your humble signs of friendship and goodwill.
Laugh at your gambols, and pursue with jeers
The ringlets clustered on your spreading ears ;
See without sympathy your sore distress
When Ray obtains the coveted caress.
And you, a jealous lump of growl and glare.
Hide from the world your head beneath a chair.
They say your legs are bandy — so they are :
Nature so formed them that they might go far ;
l62
They cannot brook your music ; they assail
The joyful quiverings of your stumpy tail —
In short, in one anathema confound
Shape, mind, and heart, and all my Uttle hound.
Well, let them rail. If, since your life began.
Beyond the customary lot of man
Staunchness was yours ; if of your faithful heart
Malice and scorn could never claim a part ;
If in your master, loving while you live,
You own no fault or own it to forgive ;
If, as you lay your head upon his knee.
Your deep-drawn sighs proclaim your sympathy ;
If faith and friendship, growing with your age.
Speak through your eyes, and all his love engage
If by that master's wish your life you rule —
If this be folly, Rufus, you're a fool.
Old dog-, content you ; Rufus, have no fear :
While Hfe is yours and mine your place is here.
And when the day shall come, as come it must,
When Rufus goes to mingle with the dust
(If fate ordains that you shall pass before
To the abhorred and sunless Stygian shore),
I think old Charon, punting through the dark,
Will hear a sudden friendly little bark ;
And on the shore he'll mark without a frown
A flap-eared doggie, bandy-legged and brown.
He'll take you in : since watermen are kind.
He'd scorn to leave my little dog behind.
He'll ask no obol, but instal you there
On Styx's further bank without a fare.
163
There shall you sniff his cargoes as they come,
And droop your head, and turn, and still be
dumb—
Till one fine day, half joyful, half in fear,
You run and prick a recognizing ear.
And last, oh, rapture ! leaping to his hand,
Salute your master as he steps to land.
R. C. Lehman N
Crumbs of Pity
(Blackwood)
To a Terrier
CRIB, on your grave beneath the chestnut
boughs.
To-day no fragrance falls nor summer air.
Only a master's love who laid you there
Perchance may warm the earth 'neath which
you drowse
In dreams from which no dinner gong may rouse,
Unwakeable, though close the rat may dare,
Deaf, though the rabbit thump in playful scare.
Silent, though twenty tabbies pay their vows.
And yet, mayhap, some night when shadows pass.
And from the fir the brown owl hoots on high.
That should one whistle 'neath a favouring star
Your small white shade shall patter o'er the grass,
Questing for him you loved o' days gone by.
Ere Death, the Dog-Thief, carried you afar !
Patrick R. Chalmers
(November 1910)
164
Patsy
PUPPY DOG, rough as a bramble,
Eyed like a saint,
Beggar to slobber and gambol,
Corky and quaint,
Chasing your tail like a fubsy turbillion.
Plaguing a playmate with fuss of a milHon
Gnats,
But keen as a kestrel
And fierce as a stoat is,
A-thrill to ancestral
Furies at notice
Of rats,
Rats, little hound of Beelzebub, rats !
And as you sleep off a surfeit.
Mischief and tea,
-Prone on the summer- warm turf, it
Surely must be
(Rapturous whimper and tremulant twitching),
Somewhere or other there's hunting bewitching ;
That's
More blessed than biscuit ;
I'll lay, through your slumbers.
They squeak and they frisk it
In shadowy numbers,
R-r-rats,
Rats, little hound of Beelzebub, rats !
Patrick R. Chalmers
Green Days and Blue Days
(Maunsell)
165
Pelleas
I
N the aggregate of intelligent creatures
that have rights, duties, a mission,
and a destiny, the dog is a really privileged
animal. He occupies in this world a position
that stands alone, and is enviable among all. He
is the only living being that has found and
recognizes an indubitable, tangible, unexception-
able and definite god. He knows to what to devote
the best that is in him. He knows to whom
above him to give himself. He has not to seek
for a perfect, superior, and infinite power in the
darkness, amid successive lies, hypotheses, and
dreams. That power is there, before him ; and
he moves in its light. He knows the supreme
duties which we all do not know. He has a
morality which surpasses all that he is able to
discover within himself and which he can practise
without scruple and without fear. He possesses
truth in its fulness. He has a positive and certain
ideal.
And it was thus that, the other day, before
his illness, I saw my little Pelleas sitting on his
tail at the foot of my writing-table, his head a
little on one side the better to question me, at
once attentive and tranquil, as a saint should be
in the presence of God. He was happy with
the happiness which we, perhaps, shall never
know, since it sprang from the smile and the
approval of a life incomparably higher than his
i66
own. He was there, studying, drinking in all
my looks, and he replied to them gravely, as
from equal to equal, to inform me, no doubt,
that, at least through the eyes, the almost im-
material organ that transformed into affectionate
intelligence the light which we enjoyed, he well
knew that he was saying to me all that love should
say. And, when I saw him thus, young, ardent,
and believing, bringing me in some wise, from
the depths of unwearied nature, quite fresh news
of life, trusting and wonder-struck, as though
he were the first of his race that had come to
inaugurate the earth, and as though we were
still in the first days of the world's existence, I
envied the gladness of his certainty, compared it
with the destiny of man, still plunged on every
side in darkness, and said to myself that the
dog who meets with a good master is the happier
of the two.
Maurice Maeterlinck
My Dog
(George Allen & Unwin)
The Affectation of the Female Dog
M MAETERLINCK has written of dogs
• with deep discernment, yet not, I think,
in quite the right spirit. No dogs, save perhaps
hounds, should speak of " Master," or " Mistress."
The relationship should be as that of a parent ;
at farthest, that of a fond governess. R. L.
167
Stevenson's Essay, " The Character of Dogs,"
treats of dogs with all his enchanting perception
and subtlety, and contains the matchless phrase
" That mass of cameying affectations, the female
dog " ; yet memorable as the phrase is, I would
venture to protest against the assumption that
is implicit in it, namely, that affectation is a
thing to be reprobated. Martin's and my opinion
has ever been that it is one of the most bewitching
of qualities. I believe I rather enjoy it in young
ladies ; I adore it in " the female dog." But it
must be genuine affectation. The hauteur of
a fox-terrier lady with a stranger cad-dog is made
infinitely more precious by the certainty ' that
when the Parent's eye is removed, it will
immediately become transmuted into the most
unbridled familiarity.
E. CE. SOMERVILLE AND MaRTIN RoSS
Irish Memories
(Longmans)
** A Lamb at Home : a Lion in the
Chase "
TO-MORROW proved a heavenly morning,
touched with frost, gilt with sun. I started
early, and the mists were still smoking up from
the calm, all-reflecting lake as the Quaker stepped
out along the level road, smashing the thin ice
on the puddles with his big feet. Behind the
i68
calves of my legs sat Maria, Philippa's brown
Irish water-spaniel, assiduously licking the barrels
of my gun, as was her custom when the ecstasy
of going out shooting was hers. Maria had been
given to Philippa as a wedding-present, and since
then it had been my wife's ambition that she
should conform to the Beth-Gelert standard of
being " a lamb at home, a lion in the chase."
Maria did pretty well as a lion : she hunted
all dogs unmistakably smaller than herself, and
whenever it was reasonably possible to do so
she devoured the spoils of the chase, notably
Jack Snipe. It was as a lamb that she failed ;
objectionable as I have no doubt a lamb would
be as a domestic pet, it at least would not snatch
the cold beef from the luncheon table, nor yet,
if banished for its crimes, would it spend the
night in scratching the paint off the hall door.
Maria bit beggars (who valued their disgusting
limbs at five shillings the square inch), she
bullied the servants, she concealed ducks' claws
and fishes' backbones behind the sofa cushions,
and yet, when she laid her brown snout upon
my knee, and rolled her blackguard amber eyes
upon me, it was impossible to remember her
iniquities against her. On shooting mornings
Maria ceased to be a buccaneer, a glutton, and a
hypocrite. From the moment when I put my
gun together, her breakfast stood untouched
until it suffered the final degradation of being
eaten by the cats, and now in the trap she was
169
shivering with excitement, and agonizing in her
soul lest she should even yet be left behind.
E. (E, SOMERVILLE AND MaRTIN RoSS
Experiences of an Irish R.M.
(Longmans)
A Sensitive Soul
LITTLE Lizzie was sitting in the stable yard
waiting for his return ; she crept into the
house after him, and followed him to the room
known as his office. She watched him as he
threw himself down in an arm-chair and began
to try and read a book . . . and then betook
herself to her own basket in a remote comer.
She did not lie down, but sat with her head
up, and her small eyes fixed on him as if he
were a hole from which, at any moment, a
rat's head might emerge. Lizzie never obtruded
her affection on the god of her adoration ; she
disapproved of demonstrations as much, even, as
Mrs Palliser, but she, unlike Mrs Palliser, had a
soul as sensitive as an aneroid to variations
of mood. When Dan dropped the book, and
leaned back in his chair with a long sigh of nerve-
tension . . . she understood that he was troubled,
and consequently in need of the prop of her
presence. She noiselessly left her basket and
stole across the room, and abruptly poked a
nose as sharp and fine as a fox's into the big
170
listless hand that hung near to the floor over
the edge of the chair. The hand instinctively
gathered the little head into it, fondlingly. She
waited an instant, and then, with a hop sparingly
adjusted to the effort of reaching Dan's knee, she
landed herself in the haven where she would be, and
having given the god's chin a lick so brief and stem
and dry as to suggest the striking of a match, she
settled down, with a slight groan, on his knees.
" Thank you, Lizzie," said Dan, who was
always polite to dogs, " that's very kind of you.
But I'm afraid you can't help me much."
E. CE. SOMERVILLE AND MaRTIN RoSS
An Enthusiast
(Longmans)
Sir Bat-Ears
(Reprinted by kind permission of the Proprietors of
Punch.)
SIR BAT-EARS was a dog of birth
And bred in Aberdeen,
But he favoured not his noble kin
And so his lot is mean.
And Sir Bat-Ears sits by the alms-houses
On the stones with grass between.
Under the ancient archway
His pleasure is to wait
Between the two stone pine-apples
171
And old, old alms-persons go by,
All rusty, bent, and black,
" Good day, good day. Sir Bat-Ears ! "
They say, and stroke his back.
And old, old alms-persons go by,
Shaking and wellnigh dead,
" Good-night, good-night. Sir Bat-Ears !
They say, and pat his head.
So courted and considered
He sits out hour by hour.
Benignant in the sunshine
And prudent in the shower.
(Nay, stoutly can he stand a storm
And stiffly breast the rain.
That rising when the cloud is gone.
He leaves a circle of dry stone
Thereon to sit again.)
A dozen little doorsteps
Under the arch are seen,
A dozen aged alms-persons
To keep them bright and clean ;
Two wrinkled hands to scour each step
With a square of yellow stone —
But print-marks of Sir Bat-Ears' paws
Bespeckle every one.
l^2
And little eats an alms-person,
But, though his board be bare.
There never lacks a bone of the best
To be Sir Bat-Ears' share.
Mendicant muzzle and shrewd nose,
He quests from door to door ;
Their grace they say, his shadow grey
Is instant on the floor —
Humblest of all the dogs there be,
A pensioner of the poor.
Helen Parry Eden
The Moral Power of the Dog
ON the shores of a lake in Travancore, not
far from the remote cantonment of Quillon,
stands a monument to the memory of a dog.
He was left to watch his master's clothes while
bathing. Presently he was seen to be doing
everything in his power to attract attention, by
barking and running excitedly backwards and
forwards on the shore. An advancing ripple
was then discerned on the smooth surface of
the lake, and the next instant the meaning of
this flashed home. A crocodile had got between
the swimmer and the landing-place, and was
coming out to seize his prey. Hope might well
173
have been stricken dead in the face of such
a situation. But the dog did not hesitate.
Plunging into the water, he swam out to get
between the horrid reptile and his master, and
thus to head him off. It meant his own certain
death ; but the saving of his master's life. A
moment later there was a violent agitation of
the water, and the dog disappeared for ever.
Thus there stands to record his splendid action
this well-known monument, erected by his master
in deepest gratitude, and that passers-by might
learn of what a dog is capable.
. . . It is because of the exhibition of such
qualities that the moral power of the dog reaches
to greater lengths than is generally supposed.
There is indeed ample evidence for believing
that the beauties often traceable in the character
of the dog react unconsciously, and for infinite
good, upon the roughest of our own kind. . . .
In Kingsley's Hypatia, Raphael Ben Azra,
his head filled with a false philosophy, is made
again and again to act otherwise than he would
by the mastiff Bran. The " dog looks up in
his face as only a dog can," and causes him to
follow her and to retrace his steps against his
will. There are her puppies. Is she to leave
them to their fate ? He tells her to choose between
the ties of family and duty : it is a specious
form of appeal. To her, duties began with the
family ; the puppies cannot be left behind. Nor
can she carry them herself. She takes Raphael
»74
by the skirt, after bringing the puppies to him
one by one. He must carry them, she tells him ;
and once again he finds himself doing the opposite
of what he would : the puppies are transferred
to his blanket, and he and his dog go forward
together.
. . . The experiences of the philosopher in
the novel are only those of many in real life.
Man is not the only civiUzing agent in this world
of many mysteries. And if we often exclaim,
" Bother the dog ! " we have still very frequently
to follow where he leads, and often to our most
definite enrichment in the end.
Gambier Parry
Murphy
(John Murray)
To an English Sheep-Dog
OLD Dog, what times we had, you, she, and I,
Since first you came and with your trustful
air
Blundered into her lap — a vaUant, shy.
Small tub-shaped woolly bear.
What lovely days we had ; how fast they flew
In hill-side ramblings, gallopings by the sea :
You grew too large for laps but never grew
Too large for loyalty.
175
We have known friends who hvmg passed away —
Your faith no man could turn, no passion kill ;
Even when Death called, you would scarce obey
Until you knew our will.
Out in the fields I bore you in my arms,
Dear Thick-Coat, on your grave the grasses spring ;
But He that sees no sparrow meets with harms
Hath your soul's shepherding.
And will that King who knows all hearts and ways
Kennel you where the winds blow long and fair.
That you who ever loathed the warm still days
May snuff an upland air ?
And will He let you scamper o'er the meads
Where His hills close their everlasting ranks,
And show you pools that mirror gray-green reeds
To cool your heaving flanks ?
And will He feed you with good things at even,
Bringing the bowl with His own hands maybe ?
And will you, hunting in your dreams in Heaven,
Dream that you hunt with me ?
Yes, you will not forget ; and when we come,
What time or by what gate we may not tell.
Hastening to meet our friend that men called dumb
Across the ditch of Hell,
176
You'll hear — you first of all — oh, stiong and fleet.
How you will dash, an arrow to the mark !
Lord ! there'll be deaf angels when we meet —
And you leap up and bark !
R. E. VERNfeDE
Killed in Action, April 191 7
(Heinemann)
Dogs as Companions
THEY are much superior to human beings
as companions. They do not quarrel or
argue with you. They never talk about them-
selves but Hsten to you while you talk about
yourself, and keep up an appearance of being
interested in the conversation. They never
make stupid remarks. . . . And they never
ask a young author with fourteen tragedies,
sixteen comedies, seven farces, and a couple of
burlesques in his desk, why he doesn't write a
play. They never say unkind things. They
never tell us our faults, " merely for our own
good." They do not at inconvenient moments
mildly remind us of our past follies and
mistakes. . . . They never inform us, like our
inamoratas sometimes do, that we are not nearly
so nice as we used to be. We are always the
same to them. He is very imprudent, a dog
is. He never makes it his business to inquire
whether you are in the right or in the wrong,
M 177
never bothers as to whether you are going up
or down upon life's ladder, never asks whether
you are rich or poor, silly or wise, sinner or saint.
You are his pal. That is enough for him, and
come luck or misfortune, good repute or bad,
honour or shame, he is going to stick to you,
to comfort you, guard you, give his life for you,
if need be — foolish, brainless, soulless dog !
Jerome K. Jerome
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
(Hurst & Blackett)
The Pessimist
HIS body bulged with puppies — little eyes
Peeped out of every pocket, black and
bright ;
And with as innocent, round-eyed surprise
He watched the glittering traffic of the night.
" What this world's coming to I cannot tell," ''
He muttered as I passed him, with a whine —
" Things surely must be making slap for hell,
Wlien no one wants these little dogs of mine."
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
Friends
(Elkin Mathews)
178
Riquet
QUARTER-DAY had come. With his sister
and daughter Monsieur Bergeret was
leaving the dilapidated old house in the Rue de
Seine to take up his abode in a modem flat in
the Rue de Vaugirard. Such was the decision
of Zoe and the fates.
During the long hours of the morning Riquet
wandered sadly through the devastated rooms.
His most cherished habits were upset. Strange
men, badly dressed, rude and foul-mouthed,
disturbed his repose. They penetrated even
to the kitchen, where they stepped into his dish
of biscuit and his bowl of fresh water. The
chairs were carried off as fast as he curled himself
up on them ; the carpets were pulled roughly
from under his weary limbs. There was no
abiding place for him, not even in his own home.
To his credit be it said that at first he attempted
resistance ... he barked furiously at the enemy.
But no one responded to his appeal ; no one
encouraged him ; there was no doubt about it,
his efforts were regarded with disapproval. . . .
Henceforth he would abstain from useless
warnings. He would cease to strive alone for
the public weal. In silence he deplored the
devastation of the household. From room to
room he sought in vain for a little quiet. When
the furniture removers penetrated into a room
where he had taken refuge, he prudently hid
179
beneath an as yet unmolested table or chest
of drawers. But this precaution proved worse
than useless ; for soon the piece of furniture
tottered over him, rose, then fell with a crash,
threatening to crush him. Terrified, with his
hair all turned up the wrong way, he fled to
another refuge no safer than the first. But these
inconveniences and even dangers were as nothing
to the agony he was suffering at heart. His
sentiments were the most deeply affected.
The household furniture he regarded not as
things inert, but as living benevolent creatures,
beneficent spirits, whose departure foreshadowed
cruel misfortunes. Dishes, sugar-basins, pots
and pans, all the kitchen divinities ; arm-chairs,
carpets, cushions, all the fetishes of the hearth,
its lares and its domestic gods had vanished.
He could not believe that so great a disaster
would ever be repaired. And sorrow filled his
little heart to overflowing. Fortunately Riquet's
heart resembled human hearts in being easily
distracted and quick to forget its misfortunes. . . .
In the street. Monsieur Bergeret and his dog
beheld the sad sight of their household furniture
scattered over the pavement. . . . Riquet was
patting his master's legs with his paws, looking
up at him with sorrowing beautiful e^-es, which
seemed to say :
" Thou, who wert once so rich and powerful,
canst thou have become poor ? Canst thou
have lost thy power, O my Master ? Thou
1 80
permittest men clothed in vile rags to invade
thy sitting-room, thy bedroom, thy dining-room,
to throw themselves upon thy furniture and
pull it out of doors, to drag down the staircase
thy deep arm-chair, thy chair and mine, for in
it we repose side by side in the evening, and
sometimes in the morning too. I heard it groan
in the arms of those tatter demalions ; that
chair which is a fetish and a benignant spirit.
Thou didst offer no resistance to the invaders.
But if thou dost no longer possess any of those
genii who once filled thy dwelling, if thou hast
lost all, even those little divinities, which thou
didst put on in the morning when getting out
of bed, those slippers which I used to bite in
my play, if thou art indigent and poor, O my
Master, then what will become of me ? "
The Meditations of Riquet
Men, beasts, and stones grow great as they
come near and loom enormous when they are
upon me. I remain equally great wherever
I am.
My master keeps me warm when I lie behind
him in his chair. It is because he is a god. In
front of the fire-place is a hot stone. That stone
is divine.
i8i
I speak when I please. From my master's
mouth proceed likewise sounds which make
sense. But his meaning is not so clear as that
expressed by the sounds of my voice. Every
sound that I utter has a meaning. From my
master's lips come forth many idle noises. It
is difficult but necessary to divine the thoughts
of the master.
To eat is good. To have eaten is better. For
the enemy who lieth in wait to take your food
is quick and crafty.
All is flux and reflux. I alone remain.
I am the centre of all things ; men, beasts,
and things, friendly and adverse, are ranged
about me.
Prayer. — O my master, Bergeret, god of courage,
I adore thee. When thou art terrible, be thou
praised. When thou art kind, be thou praised.
I crouch at thy feet : I lick thy hands. When,
seated before thy table spread, thou devourest
meats in abundance, thou art very great and
very beautiful. Very great art thou and very
beautiful when, striking fire out of a thin splint
of wood, thou changest night into day. Keep
me in thine house and keep out every other dog.
And thou, Angelique, the cook, divinity good
182
and great, I fear thee and I venerate thee in order
that thou mayest give me much to eat.
Men possess the divine power of opening all
doors. I by myself am only able to open a few.
Doors are great fetishes which do not readily
obey dogs.
It is impossible to know whether one has acted
well towards men. One must worship them
without seeking to understand them. Their
wisdom is mysterious.
Anatole France
Crainquebille ^
Hamish : A Scots Terrier
LITTLE lad, Httle lad, and who's for an airing.
Who's for the river and who's for a run ;
Four little pads to go fitfully faring,
Looking for trouble and calling it fun ?
Down in the sedges the water-rats revel.
Up in the woods there are bunnies at play.
With a weather-eye wide for a Little Black Devil,
But the Little Black Devil won't come to-day.
To-day at the farm the ducks may slumber,
To-day may the tabbies in anthem raise,
Rat and rabbit beyond all number
To-day untroubled may go their ways :
^ Quoted from the authorized translation (John Lane).
183
To-day is an end of the shepherd's labour,
No more will the sheep be hunted astray,
And the Irish terrier, foe and neighbour.
Says, " What's old Hamish about to-day ? "
Ay, what indeed, in the nether spaces
Will the soul of a little black dog despair ?
Will the Quiet Folk scare him with shadow faces.
And how will he tackle the strange beasts there ?
Tail held high, I'll warrant, and bristling.
Marching stoutly, if sore afraid.
Padding it steadily, softly whistling —
That's how the Little Black Devil was made.
Then well-a-day for a " can tie callant,"
A heart of gold and a soul of glee —
Sportsman, gentleman, squire and gallant —
Teacher maybe of you and me.
Spread the turf on him high and level,
Grave him a headstone clear and true,
" Here lies Hamish, the Little Black Devil,
And half of the heart of his Mistress too."
Hilton Brown
Spectator y February 22, 191 3
184
Danny : The Story of a Dandie Dinmont
(Danny is lying on the bed of his dying mistress.)
THEY tried to entice him from her room with
soft words and meat-offerings ; they sought
to hound him forth with hushed abuse and
buUyings ; but he lay at the foot of her bed
like a sea-gray log and refused to budge.
Then Deborah Awe made an effort to carry
him away by force : in vain.
" Dirty tyke ! " she muttered. " He heavies
himsel' till I canna lift him. . . ."
" Better not try, Deb," urged the voice from the
bed. " You'll only hurt yourself."
"Eh, but ye heard what the Doctor said,
dearie ? "
"But the Doctor's an owl, Deb," came the
voice. '" What was it he said about your herb
tea ? Quack-Quack, wasn't it ? "
" And one day he will be called to his account
for thae words," said the grim Woman. "But
there ! What's a man like to know of sickness ?
let alone a Doctor."
She marched out, and as the door closed, Missie,
lying with pale face and clouds of aureole hair,
winked, while Danny smote a resounding blow
upon the bed with his tail.
Later, while she slept, there came the Laird
himself, he of the great hands and thunder brow
whom Danny hated, and bore him away to the
185
birch-woods on the face of the brae, and there
lost him in the evening at the time when the
wild things of the woods begin to stir for their
night-huntings. But Danny, who of wont needed no
cajoling to go a-slaying, would not be tempted now.
Before the Laird was clear of the woods Danny
was off the hill-side, stealing over dewy lawns,
quiet as the shadow of coming night, guilty as a
haunted soul. He entered the house by way of the
open window of the morning-room, crept up to his
lady's chamber, and there lay outside the door,
so still that when the Woman, hurrying ungainly,
entered, he, ambushed behind her, entered too.
There he hid beneath the muslin curtains of the
dressing-table, and did not stir forth till she was
gone. Then tilting up against the bed, he licked
the long fingers that drooped from beneath the
coverlet.
They stirred, seeking his brow.
" That you, Danny ? " said a sleepy voice, and
did not seem at all displeased. So, velvet-footed,
he leaped upon the bed and crept along it till
he came to the pillows with the shadowy pale
face upon them, weary with the toil of living.
With tender teeth he pinched her ear as he
was wont to do to show her that he was there
and loved her ; and she shook her head and
smiled, not opening her eyes.
So he laid his gray muzzle along the pillows
and lay there beside her, watching her.
Later, there sounded along the passage a
1 86
ponderous hushed tramp as of an elephant
marching upon his toes.
" Master, Danny ! " whispered his lady, with
dark-frilled eyes still shut. And Danny, with
bristling back, waited until the feet were at the
door, then stole off the bed and crept beneath it.
But he of the thunder brow marked a tail Uke
a trail of dew vanishing away, thrust in a brutal
hand and haled him forth, and holding him
prisoner, marched to the door still with hushed
elephantine tread. . . .
(A few days pass . . . )
At noon Danny stole out of his prison . . . and
made for the house and his lady. . . . He entered
the house swiftly and unseen, by way of the
kitchen, and then along dim stone passages with
patter of swift tick- tacking feet.
The hall was strangely dark as he entered it,
and there was an unwonted stir of people, silent-
footed as in church. At the bottom of the stairs
was a drift of fair white flowers, piled deep, un-
famiUar in that gaunt hall as a heap of liUes on
a bleak hill-side ; and dimly seen through the
heart of them, a shining slab of oak.
Danny fled past.
Threading his way amid strange legs clothed
in black and still smelhng of the tailor's iron,
he sped upstairs to the door of his lady.
It was shut. He called to her through the
crack at the bottom, low and very tenderly as
was his way, and waited for the sound of skipping
187
feet, the little laughter, and flash of half-hidden
ankles as of old when she came to admit him of
mornings, home from his foray with Robin in the
dew.
In a passion of expectation he waited, watching
the crack with burning eyes ; now thrusting
at the door with impatient paw, now crying a
soft call, now taking a little eager turn down the
passage as though to seek help, returning again to
snuffle, shiver, and cry to her to come.
She did not come, and at last he lay down
to wait, crouching close, lest there, in the house
of his enemy, he should be seen.
Then a far door opened.
Down the passage came his enemy like an old
blind giant tramping in his sleep, and stumbled
against the watchman at the door.
He looked down with eyes that did not see.
" Eh ? " he said. " Eh ? " as one lost in a
mist.
"It is Danny, sir," sniffled the Woman at his
heels.
The Laird opened the door without a word.
Danny shot in. With a little glad cry he leaped
upon the bed ; and then he knew.
Back he came with a fury of onslaught.
Too late.
The door was shut.
In the dusk of the evening the Laird entered
Missie's room.
i88
Danny lay at the foot of the white bed — a
sea-gray patch with lion eyes ; and clutched
covetously beneath his chin a silver slipper. . . ,
Alfred Ollivant
Danny
(Revised Edition, George Allen & Unwin,
1919)
Dogs in the Great War
THE messenger-dog came very much to the
front, and has come to stay in modem
warfare. ... At first there were many sceptics,
but as the barrage form of attack became part
of the army system, the casualties among runners
increased at a terrible rate. Could the dogs
take their place ? Would they face shell-fire ?
Could they be depended on ? These questions
came to be answered in the affirmative.
Yes ! They did their duty nobly, passing
rapidly through the danger areas and often
over land surface impossible of traverse by man,
and thus saved countless lives — not only the
lives of runners, but also those of individual
units whose urgent messages they carried.
One of the chief advantages of emplo)dng
dogs is that it saves man-power. One dog can
guard a situation and give the alarm that six
men would be required to watch. As messengers,
the dog from its low position is less exposed to
189
danger than a man. A dog can often carry
a communication safely over a position where a
man would be instantly shot down. . . .
Despatch referring to Col. Richardson's
War Dogs
" In continuation of my letter, No. 549, dated on
7th inst., during the operations against Wytschaete
Ridge, two messenger dogs attached to this
brigade were sent forward at i a.m. . . . After
being led up through communication trenches
during darkness they went forward as soon as
the attack was launched, passing through the
smoke barrage. . . . Both dogs reached brigade
headquarters, travelling a distance, as the crow
flies of 4000 yards, over ground they had never
seen before, and over an exceptionally difficult
terrain. The dog dispatched at 12.45 p.m.
reached his destination under the hour, bringing
in an important message, and this was the first
message which was received, all visual com-
munication having failed."
Signed, D.C., 56th Brigade, R.F.A.
In one Division on certain days there was no
communication by telephone as they suspected the
enemy of tapping the wire with some instrument,
and dogs did the running, which was usually a
list of requirements to be taken up at dark, as
no one was allowed to travel during daylight.
190
At different times our officers had silent days,
when no wires were used, only runners and dogs.
Of course the dogs beat the runners every time,
and never made one mistake. It was a very
unhealthy spot — a lot of shelling. Poor " Maggie "
was shell-shocked. I buried her in a little hut
I used to keep her in . . .
Keeper Osbourne's Statement
You will be highly gratified to learn that little
Jim, by his excellent services and consistency,
has justly earned our C.O.'s commendation,
who thinks he is easily the finest dog we have in
France. . . .
While in the recent offensive in Belgium he
carried important despatches in wonderful quick
time, and it is certain no one else could have
delivered, such despatches under such terrific
and heavy shell-fire without meeting with bodily
harm. At present we are on a much more quiet
part of the front where long distances of trenches
have to be traversed, and invariably Uttle Jim
covers the distance of approximately four kilos
in the very good time of fifteen minutes. . . .
On another occasion, while in the first line
trenches, little Jim was instrumental in first
giving the warning of gas, due, no doubt, to his
highly sensitive nose, thereupon he was im-
mediately released with the warning to Head-
quarters, arriving there a little more than three-
quarters of an hour earUer than the warning
191
given by wire. His worth is beyond value, and
his services beyond praise, and I feel honoured
to take care of such a very serviceable animal.
At such times when gas is about I have to
see to the putting of Jimmy's head in a man's
P.H. Smoke Helmet, and I should be greatly
pleased if you could inform me where to secure
a mask for his proper protection, as, of course,
a P.H. Helmet is made solely for the requirements
of man, and does not adequately safeguard a
dog. (Jim was a cross between a retriever and
a spaniel ; his speed was three or four times
that of a runner.)
Another Australian officer told me that one
of the sights that impressed him most was
his first sight of a messenger-dog. He saw it
first coming from the direction of the front-line
trenches — a little Welsh terrier. The ground
it was going over was in a terrible condition, and
was absolutely water-logged. The little creature
was running along, hopping, jumping, and
plunging, and with the most obvious concentra-
tion of purpose. He could not imagine what
it was doing until it came near and he saw the
message-carrier on its neck. As the dog sped
past he noticed the earnest expression in its
face. . . .
E. H. Richardson
British War Dogs
(Skeffington)
192
To a Bull Dog
(W. H. S., Captain [Acting Major], R.F.A. ; killed,
April 12, 1917.)
WE shan't see Willie any more, Mamie,
He won't be coming any more :
He came back once and again and again.
But he won't get leave any more.
We looked from the window and there was his
cab,
And we ran downstairs like a streak,
And he said, "Hullo, you bad dog," and you
crouched to the floor.
Paralysed to hear him speak.
And then let fly at his face and his chest
Till I hsid to hold you down,
"^'hile he took off his cap and his gloves and his
coat.
And his bag and his thonged Sam Browne.
We went upstairs to the studio,
The three of us just as of old.
And you lay down and I sat and talked to him
As round the room he strolled.
Here in the room where years ago,
Before the old life stopped,
He worked all day with his slippers and his pipe.
He would pick up the threads he'd dropped.
N 193
Fondling all the drawings he had left behind,
Glad to find them all still the same,
And opening the cupboards to look at his
belongings
. . . Every time he came.
But now I know what a dog doesn't know,
Though you'll thrust your head on my knee.
And try to draw me from the absent-mindedness
That you find so dull in me.
And all your life you will never know
What I wouldn't tell you even if I could,
That the last time we waved him away
Willy went for good.
But sometimes as you lie on the hearthrug
Sleeping in the warmth of the stove.
Even through your muddled old canine brain
Shapes from the past may rove.
You'll scarcely remember, even in a dream,
How we brought home a silly little pup,
With a big square head and little crooked legs
That could scarcely bear him up.
But your tail will tap at the memory
Of a man whose friend you were.
Who was always kind though he called you a
naughty dog
When he found you on his chair ;
194
Who'd make you face a reproving finger
And solemnly lecture you
Till your head hung downwards and you looked
very sheepish :
And you'll dream of your triumphs too.
Of summer evening chases in the garden
When you dodged us all about with a bone :
We were three boys, and you were the cleverest.
But now we're two alone.
When summer comes again,
And the long sunsets fade,
We shall have to go on playing the feeble game
for two
That since the war we've played.
And though you run expectant as you always do
To the uniforms we meet.
You'll never find WiUy among all the soldiers
In even the longest street
Nor in any crowd ; yet, strange and bitter thought.
Even now were the old words said.
If I tried the old trick and said " Where's Willy ? "
You would quiver and lift your head.
And your brown eyes would look to ask if I was
serious,
And wait for the word to spring.
Sleep undisturbed : I shan't say thai again,
You innocent old thing.
195
I must sit, not speaking, on the sofa,
While you He asleep on the floor ;
For he's suffered a thing that dogs couldn't dream
of.
And he won't be coming here any more.
J. C. Squire
(Hodder & Stoughton)
The Turkish Trench Dog
NIGHT held me as I crawled and scrambled
near
The Turkish lines. Above, the mocking stars
Silvered the curving parapet, and clear
Cloud-latticed beams o'erfiecked the land with
bars ;
I, crouching, lay between
Tense-listening armies peering through the night,
Twin giants bound by tentacles unseen.
Here in dim-shadowed light
I saw him, as a sudden movement turned
His eyes towards me, glowing eyes that burned
A moment ere his snuffling muzzle found
My trail ; and then as serpents mesmerize
He chained me with these unrelenting eyes.
That muscle-sliding rhythm, knit and bound
In spare-limbed symmetry, those perfect jaws
And soft approaching pitter-patter paws.
Nearer and nearer like a wolf he crept —
196
That moment had my swift revolver leapt —
But terror seized me, terror bom of shame
Brought flooding revelation. For he came
As one who offers comradeship deserved,
An open alley of the human race.
And sniffling at my prostrate form unnerved
He Ucked my face !
Geoffrey Dearmer
(Heinemann)
My Dog
Now you are dead, my faithful dog, my
humble friend,
Dead of the death that like a wasp you fled.
When under the table you would hide. Your
head
Was turned to me in the brief and bitter end.
O mate of man ! Blest being ! You that shared
Your master's hunger and his meals as well ! . . .
You that in days of old, in pilgrimage fared
With young Tobias and the angel Raphael. . . .
Servant that loved me with a love intense.
As saints love God, my great exemplar be 1 . . .
The mystery of your deep intelligence
Dwells in a guiltless, glad eternity.
197
Dear Lord ! If you should grant me by Your
grace
To see You face to face in Heaven, O then
Grant that a poor dog look into the face
Of him who was his god here among men ! . . .
Francis Jammes
Translated by Jethro Bithell
(Reprinted by kind permission of Mr Jethro Bithell
and Mr Bertram Lloyd, from the latter's Anthology,
The Great Kinship (George Allen & Unwin).)
198
Note
T OWE grateful thanks to the following authors
^ and publishers for their kind permission
to reprint copyright prose and poems : to
Mr Rudyard Kipling for a quotation which
suggested the title; to Mr John Galsworthy
for much encouragement and for permission to
quote from A Sheaf and Memories (Heinemann) ;
to Major Gambier Parry for quotations from
Murphy (John Murray) ; to Humphrey Milford
for an extract from the Zendavesta {Wisdom of
the East) ; to Messrs Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner
& Co., Ltd., for quotations from Sir Edwin
Arnold's Indian Idylls and Pearls of the Faith ;
to Messrs Chatto & Windus and Charles Scribner's
Sons for a passage from R. L. Stevenson's
Memories and Portraits, and for a Poem ; to
Chatto '& Windus for a quotation from the
Gentleman's Magazine ; to Mr J. W. MacKail
for a quotation from his Greek Anthology
(Longmans, Green & Co.) ; to Mr Charles Crawley
for a passage from Butcher and Lang's Odyssey
(Macmillan & Co.) ; to the Delegates of the
Oxford University Press for a passage from
Plato's Republic (Jowett's translation) ; to
Mr John Murray for Browning's poem Tray ;
to Mr Alexander Carlyle for passages from Mrs
Carlyle's letters (John Lane) ; to Messrs Macmillan
& Co. for a poem by Matthew Arnold ; to William
Heinemann for poems by A. C. Swinburne and
Mr Geoffrey Dearmer ; to Mrs Hilton Young for
199
permission to quote from Captain Scott's Voyage
of the Discovery and Scott's Last Expedition (John
Murray) ; to Mr R. C. Lehmann for a poem
To Rufus (Blackwood) ; to " Alpha of the
Plough " for his Dithyramb on a Dog (Dent &
Sons) ; to Mr Patrick R. Chalmers for two poems
from Green Days and Blue Days (Maunsell) ; to
Messrs George Allen & Unwin for a quotation from
Maeterlinck, My Dog ; to Miss E. CE. Somerville
for passages written in collaboration with Martin
Ross (Longmans, Green & Co.) ; to Mrs Denis
Eden and the Proprietors of Punch for a poem ;
to J. B. Pinker & Son for a poem by the late
Mr Vemdde ; to Mr J. K. Jerome for a quotation
from Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (Hurst &
Blackett) ; to Mr Wilfrid Gibson for a poem
from Friends (Elkin Mathews) ; to Messrs
John Lane for a quotation from their authorized
translation of Anatole France ; to Mr Hilton
Brown and the Editor of the Spectator for a poem ;
to Mr Alfred OUivant for a passage from Danny
(George Allen & Unwin) ; to Colonel Richardson
for quotations from British War Dogs (Skeffing-
ton) ; to Mr J. C. Squire for a poem (Hodder &
Stoughton) ; to Mr Jethro Bithell for his transla-
tion of a poem by Francis Jammes which first
appeared in Mr Bertram Lloyd's Anthology, The
Great Kinship (George Allen & Unwin) .
If I have failed to acknowledge any obligation,
I offer humble apologies for the omission.
L. M.
July 1922,
f
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