THE FAITHFUL DOG.
We all know that animals have no souls, and yet it is sometimes hard to believe it, when they give, as they often do, such proofs of intelligence. I am very sure that I have been as much attached to a dog or a horse, which has been my constant companion, as I have to human beings. And, after all, who more human than they? what beautiful examples they have set us of constancy, of patience, and of kindness to those who have injured them.
Listen, while I tell you a story of a dog belonging to an English nobleman. The farmers in the neighborhood of this gentleman complained to him that the dog frightened their flocks; and one of them finding a dead lamb, one day, brought it in his arms to the nobleman, accusing the dog of the murder. The noblemanhad no proof that his dog killed the lamb; but, as he was just about starting upon a long journey, and not wishing either to take the dog with him, or leave him behind to the angry farmers, he said to his servant, pointing to the dog, who lay upon the carpet, “Take that dog, after I have gone, and give him away to somebody at a distance, that these farmers may not be finding fault with him, and troubling me when I come back.” He then left the room. The dog, who understood, at least, the tones of his master’s voice, and the glance of his eye, if nothing else, waited till he heard his footsteps die away, and then immediately took leave of the house, and all it contained, and started off by himself. In the evening, the nobleman, not seeing the dog about as usual, asked his servant if he had disposed of him. The servant said he had not, and spent an hour to no purpose, in searching for him. All the servants were questioned, but none knew anything of the dog; and they, together with the nobleman, came to the conclusion, that the angry farmer who had imagined that he had killed his lamb, had killed him out of revenge.
About a year after this, the nobleman, whowas journeying with his servant in Scotland, being overtaken by a storm, took shelter in a very poor inn, quite away from the main road. As the storm kept increasing, he concluded to stay all night. The landlord and his wife looked strangely at each other, when he told them this, and the maid servant who spread the cloth for his supper seemed quite disconcerted. “She is evidently not accustomed to wait upon lords,” said the nobleman to his servant, “and is awkward and embarrassed, you see, in consequence.”
He ate with a good appetite the plain fare that she set before him, and was still seated at the table, when the door was pushed open and in came—a dog—hisdog,—the very dog he thought had been killed by the farmer. “Good heavens!” he exclaimed to his servant, “my dear old dog;” and he stretched out his hand to pat him. But the dog, after looking long and earnestly at his master, shrank away from him, and took the first opportunity to go out of the room; but still took his station on the outside, as if watching for something. Of the dog’s history, the nobleman learned from the hostler, that he had followed some travelers there, and beingvery foot-sore and weary, remained there when they went away, and had been there ever since; “and,” added the hostler, “he is as harmless a dog as ever lived.” By and by the nobleman went up to his chamber; when he got to the top of the stairs, the dog sprang before him, with a fierce growl, and planted himself between his old master and the door, as if to prevent his entrance. The nobleman patted him, calling him by the kind old names he used to like, and the dog licked his hand, as if to say, “oh yes, I remember them all;” but still he stood before the door to prevent his master from going inside.
Then the dog, still looking at his master, moved in advance a few paces, would go down one stair, then run back, and tug at his master’s clothes with the greatest violence; then rub his face fondly against his master’s side, and whine and coax, trembling all the while with agitation and excitement.
“One would suppose, by the behavior of my dog, that there was something wrong about this house,” said the nobleman to his servant.
The servant looked anxious, but only said, “I wish we had not come here, your honor.”
“There is no help for it now,” said his master; “the storm is perfectly furious, so I’ll make the best of it and go to bed. We have pistols, if there’s mischief brewing; you sleep, I suppose, in the little room near mine.”
During this conversation, the dog seemed very uneasy, and when the servant left the room he ran to the door, looking back, as if hoping his master would go too; and when he advanced a few steps, he jumped up and down as if beside himself with joy; but, upon finding that he only did it to close the chamber door, he hung his head, and looked as disconsolate as he had just before looked delighted.
His master could not help observing all this, but he felt determined not to give way to his fears. The dog chose a particular part of the room to lie down in, and no entreaties could get him away from that spot. So the nobleman got into bed, and after listening awhile, and hearing nothing but the storm, and being wearied with his journey, fell asleep.
He did not sleep long, for the dog kept pacing about the chamber, sometimes coming close to the bed-curtains, and sometimes whining piteously,and seeming not at all comforted even when his master’s hand patted him so kindly. Again his master fell asleep; but he was soon roused by his faithful four-footed watchman, whom he heard scratching violently at the closet-door, and gnashing his teeth, and growling furiously. His master jumped out of bed and listened; the storm had ceased, so that he heard distinctly every noise. The dog was still trying to force a passage into the closet with his paws, and not being able to do so, attempted with his strong teeth to gnaw at it mouse-fashion.
There is no doubt the mischief, whatever it may be, is in that closet, thought the nobleman; yet it was impossible to open it, because, after forcing the lock, it was found secured on the inside.
A slight rapping was now heard at the chamber door, and the servant whispered through the key-hole—“For mercy’s sake, my lord, let me in.” The nobleman, taking his pistols in his hand, went to the door and opened it.
“I have never closed my eyes,” said the servant; “all seems quiet up stairs and down, but why does that dog keep up such a furious barking?”
“That’s just what I mean to know,” replied his master, bursting in the closet door. The moment the dog saw that, in he rushed with his master and the servant; but unfortunately, just then the candle went out, so that they could see nothing, though they heard a rustling noise at the farther end of the closet, and the nobleman thought best to fire off one of his pistols, by way of alarm; as he did so, the dog uttered a piercing cry, and then a low groan.
“It is not possible I have killed my brave dog my noble defender!” said the nobleman mournfully. He started for a light, and met the landlord coming with one in his hand, which he snatched from him without answering any of his questions; the landlord followed; and giving one glance at the closet, exclaimed to his attendants, who were behind him, “It is all over.”
Well, without horrifying you with particulars, the amount of the matter was, that a door led from that closet out into the stable yard; that through that door, up into the closet, and then into the chamber, the bad landlord had entered, and killed a traveler for his money, just before the nobleman arrived. He had then hurriedlythrust the bloody body into a sack and thrown it into that closet, intending when the nobleman went to sleep to take it away, and then murder him also. But the dog was too keen for him. It made no difference to the dog, that the master, whose life he wished to save, had once turned him, a petted favorite, out of doors. The dog remembered not that he had injured him, but that he was still his master, and was once kind to him, and by every sign,exceptspeech, had he entreated him not to sleep in that room.
The wounded dog, after the discovery, licked his master’s hand, as if to say, “I have saved your life, now I am willing to die.”
You can imagine the feelings of his master as he afterward bound up his wounds, and when the innkeeper and his accomplices were handed over to justice, how tenderly he carried the dog in his arms till he reached his home; how the nobleman’s wife and children hugged and petted him, and made a soft bed for his wounded limb; and how the tears came into their eyes, whenever they thought how generously he had taken his revenge for being turned out of doors. Ah, it will not do for us to call those “brutes” whose daily lives put ours to shame!
One thing more, how surely the Eye that never sleeps, brings hidden wickedness to justice! and what humble agents, as in this case, are sometimes employed to do it, and how often those wretches who plan a murder or robbery with such wonderful skill, yet after all, overlook some little thread which they have left behind, which the law seizes hold of, and winds round their throats. Ah! it is onlyin seemingthat sin prospers.