SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS DOGS.
Master Frederick Little-John has of late struck up quite a friendship with me, and haunts my footsteps about house to remind me of my promise to write some more dog stories. Master Fred has just received a present from his father of a great Newfoundland that stands a good deal higher in his stocking-feet than his little master in his highest-heeled boots, and he has named him Prince, in honor of the Prince that I told you about last month, that used to drive the cows to pasture, and take down the bars with his teeth. We have daily and hourly accounts in the family circle of Prince’s sayings and doings; for Master Freddy insists upon it that Prince speaks, and daily insists upon placing a piece of bread on the top of Prince’s nose, which at the word of command he fires into the air, and catches in his mouth, closing the performance with a snap like a rifle. Fred also makes much of showing him a bit of meat held high in the air, from which he is requested to “speak,”—the speaking consisting in very short exclamations of the deepest bow-wow. Certain it is that Prince shows on these occasions that he has the voice for a public speaker, and that, if he does not go about the country lecturing, it is because he wants timeyet to make up his mind what to say on the topics of the day.
Fred is somewhat puzzled to make good the ground of his favorite with Aunt Zeroiah, who does not love dogs, and is constantly casting reflections on them as nuisances, dirt-makers, flea-catchers, and flea-scatterers, and insinuating a plea that Prince should be given away, or in some manner sold or otherwise disposed of.
“Aunt Zeroiah thinks that there is nothing so mean as a dog,” said Master Fred to me as he sat with his arm around the neck of his favorite. “She really seems to grudge every morsel of meat a dog eats, and to think that every kindness you show a dog is almost a sin. Now I think dogs are noble creatures, and have noble feelings,—they are so faithful, and so kind and loving. Now I do wish you would make haste and write something to show her that dogs have been thought a good deal of.”
“Well, Master Freddy,” said I, “I will tell you in the first place about Sir Walter Scott, whose poems and novels have been the delight of whole generations.”
He was just of your opinion about dogs, and he had a great many of them. When Washington Irving visited Sir Walter at Abbotsford, he found him surrounded by his dogs, which formed as much a part of the family as his children.
In the morning, when they started for a ramble, thedogs would all be on the alert to join them. There was first a tall old staghound named Maida, that considered himself the confidential friend of his master, walked by his side, and looked into his eyes as if asserting a partnership in his thoughts. Then there was a black greyhound named Hamlet, a more frisky and thoughtless youth, that gambolled and pranced and barked and cut capers with the wildest glee; and there was a beautiful setternamed Finette, with large mild eyes, soft silken hair, and long curly ears,—the favorite of the parlor; and then a venerable old greyhound, wagging his tail, came out to join the party as he saw them going by his quarters, and was cheered by Scott with a hearty, kind word as an old friend and comrade.
In his walks Scott would often stop and talk to one or another of his four-footed friends, as if they were in fact rational companions; and, from being talked to and treated in this way, they really seemed to acquire more sagacity than other dogs.
Old Maida seemed to consider himself as a sort of president of the younger dogs, as a dog of years and reflection, whose mind was upon more serious and weighty topics than theirs. As he padded along, the younger dogs would sometimes try to ensnare him into a frolic, by jumping upon his neck and making a snap at his ears. Old Maida would bear this in silent dignity for a while, and then suddenly, as if his patience were exhausted, he would catch one of his tormentors by the neck and tumble him in the dirt, giving an apologetic look to his master at the same time, as much as to say, “You see, sir, I can’t help joining a little in this nonsense.”
“Ah,” said Scott, “I’ve no doubt that, when Maida is alone with these young dogs, he throws dignity aside and plays the boy as much as any of them, but he is ashamedto do it in our company, and seems to say, ‘Have done with your nonsense, youngsters; what will the Laird and that other gentleman think of me if I give way to such foolery?’”
At length the younger dogs fancied that they discovered something, which set them all into a furious barking. Old Maida for some time walked silently by his master, pretending not to notice the clamors of the inferior dogs. At last, however, he seemed to feel himself called on to attend to them, and giving a plunge forward he opened his mind to them with a deep “Bow-wow,” that drowned for the time all other noises. Then, as if he had settled matters, he returned to his master, wagging his tail, and looking in his face as if for approval.
“Ay, ay, old boy,” said Scott; “you have done wonders; you have shaken the Eildon Hills with your roaring, and now you may shut up your artillery for the rest of the day. Maida,” he said, “is like the big gun of Constantinople,—it takes so long to get it ready that the small ones can fire off a dozen times, but when it does go off it carries all before it.”
Scott’s four-footed friends made a respectful part of the company at family meals. Old Maida took his seat gravely at his master’s elbow, looking up wistfully into his eyes, while Finette, the pet spaniel, took her seat by Mrs. Scott. Besides the dogs in attendance, a large gray cat also tookher seat near her master, and was presented from time to time with bits from the table. Puss, it appears, was a great favorite both with master and mistress, and slept in their room at night; and Scott laughingly said that one of the least wise parts of the family arrangement was the leaving the window open at night for puss to go in and out. The cat assumed a sort of supremacy among the quadrupeds, sitting in state in Scott’s arm-chair, and occasionally stationing himself on a chair beside the door, as if to review his subjects as they passed, giving each dog a cuff on the ears as he went by. This clapper-clawing was always amiably taken. It appeared to be in fact a mere act of sovereignty on the part of Grimalkin, to remind the others of their vassalage, to which they cheerfully submitted. Perfect harmony prevailed between old puss and her subjects, and they would all sleep contentedly together in the sunshine.
Scott once said, the only trouble about having a dog was that he must die; but he said, it was better to have them die in eight or nine years, than to go on loving them for twenty or thirty, and then have them die.
Scott lived to lose many of his favorites, that were buried with funeral honors, and had monuments erected over them, which form some of the prettiest ornaments of Abbotsford. When we visited the place, one of the first objects we saw in the front yard near the door was thetomb of old Maida, over which is sculptured the image of a beautiful hound, with this inscription, which you may translate if you like:—
“Maidae marmorea dormis, sub imagineMaida,Ad januam domini; sit tibi terra levis.”
“Maidae marmorea dormis, sub imagineMaida,Ad januam domini; sit tibi terra levis.”
“Maidae marmorea dormis, sub imagineMaida,Ad januam domini; sit tibi terra levis.”
“Maidae marmorea dormis, sub imagine
Maida,
Ad januam domini; sit tibi terra levis.”
Or, if you don’t want the trouble of translating it, Master Freddy, I would do it thus:—
“At thy lord’s door, in slumbers light and blest,Maida, beneath this marble Maida rest.Light lie the turf upon thy gentle breast.”
“At thy lord’s door, in slumbers light and blest,Maida, beneath this marble Maida rest.Light lie the turf upon thy gentle breast.”
“At thy lord’s door, in slumbers light and blest,Maida, beneath this marble Maida rest.Light lie the turf upon thy gentle breast.”
“At thy lord’s door, in slumbers light and blest,
Maida, beneath this marble Maida rest.
Light lie the turf upon thy gentle breast.”
Washington Irving says that in one of his morning rambles he came upon a curious old Gothic monument, on which was inscribed in Gothic characters,
“Cy git le preux Percy,”(Here lies the brave Percy,)
and asking Scott what it was, he replied, “O, only one of my fooleries,”—and afterwards Irving found it was the grave of a favorite greyhound.
Now, certainly, Master Freddy, you must see in all this that you have one of the greatest geniuses of the world to bear you out in thinking a deal of dogs.
But I have still another instance. The great rival poet to Scott was Lord Byron; not so good or so wise a man by many degrees, but very celebrated in his day. He alsohad a four-footed friend, a Newfoundland, called Boatswain, which he loved tenderly, and whose elegant monument now forms one of the principal ornaments of the garden of Newstead Abbey, and upon it may be read this inscription:—
“Near this spotAre deposited the remains of oneWho 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 flatteryIf inscribed over human ashes,Is but a just tribute to the memory ofBoatswain, a dog,Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,And died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808.”
On the other side of the monument the poet inscribed these lines in praise of dogs in general, which I would recommend you to show to any of the despisers of dogs:—
“When some proud son of man returns to earthUnknown to glory, but upheld by birth,The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,And storied urns record who rests below.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 labors, fights, lives, breathes, for him alone,Unhonored 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!Ye who perchance behold this simple urn,Pass on, it honors none you wish to mourn.To mark afriend’sremains these stones arise;I never knew but one,—and here he lies.”
“When some proud son of man returns to earthUnknown to glory, but upheld by birth,The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,And storied urns record who rests below.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 labors, fights, lives, breathes, for him alone,Unhonored 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!Ye who perchance behold this simple urn,Pass on, it honors none you wish to mourn.To mark afriend’sremains these stones arise;I never knew but one,—and here he lies.”
“When some proud son of man returns to earthUnknown to glory, but upheld by birth,The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,And storied urns record who rests below.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 labors, fights, lives, breathes, for him alone,Unhonored 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!Ye who perchance behold this simple urn,Pass on, it honors none you wish to mourn.To mark afriend’sremains these stones arise;I never knew but one,—and here he lies.”
“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 rests below.
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 labors, fights, lives, breathes, for him alone,
Unhonored 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!
Ye who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on, it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark afriend’sremains these stones arise;
I never knew but one,—and here he lies.”
If you want more evidence of the high esteem in which dogs are held, I might recommend to you a very pretty dog story called “Rab and his Friends,” the reading of which will give you a pleasant hour. Also in a book called “Spare Hours,” the author of “Rab and his Friends” gives amusing accounts of all his different dogs, which I am sure you would be pleased to read, even though you find many long words in it which you cannot understand.
But enough has been given to show you that in the high esteem you have for your favorite, and in your determination to treat him as a dog should be treated, you are sustained by the very best authority.