"unsuccessful painsWith fixed considerate face,And puzzling set his puppy brainsTo comprehend the case."
"unsuccessful painsWith fixed considerate face,And puzzling set his puppy brainsTo comprehend the case."
"unsuccessful pains
With fixed considerate face,
And puzzling set his puppy brains
To comprehend the case."
Suddenly he caught sight of Gyp trying with guilty haste to get a long object, balanced in his jaws, through a favorite hole in his backyard fence. It was never done, for Sigurd was upon him in a twinkling, had shaken him thoroughly and brought back the parasol essentially unharmed. Several times again he recovered our goods and chattels, invariably giving the culprit a vigorous shaking, but otherwise keeping on neighborly terms with the little scamp, till life ended for Gyp in a kick from his drunken master's boot.
With another neighbor, black Rod, a noble St. Bernard, the initial friendship was soon broken. The two dogs were of about the same age and had many a frisk together that first summer, but when Rod tried to join us on our walks, Joy-of-Life, who thought one big puppy enough for amateurs to handle, would sternly bid Rod, "Go home." Sigurd would promptly spring to enforce the command, and Rod would slowly and sulkily retreat. After a few of these experiences, Rod ceased to follow us, but he never forgave any one of the three. Thenceforth for the rest of their lives the two dogs, who knew themselves almost equally matched in size and strength, passed each other, often a dozen times a day, with bristling backs and low, cautious growls, while never could my friendliest greetings, even when I was alone, win the least wiggle of a wag from Rod's rigid, remembering tail. He was so fortunate as to live in a household of children, for whom he made the most faithful of protectors, and often, on a sparkling winter day, I have met him coasting with them, racing down the hill abreast of the sled, tail waving, eyes gleaming, but the instant he became aware of my obnoxious presence and observation, the tail would stiffen and the eyes would cloud. His hostility was a genuine hurt to me, so much did I like and respect the dog, but even in his old age, when pain and weakness lay heavy on him, and the children—did he understand?—were teasing their mother to have him chloroformed so that they might have in his place a stylish young Boston bull, he would accept from me no comfort of touch or tone. Another unhappy result of these early rebuffs was that Sigurd got it firmly fixed in his yellow noddle that the wordsGo homewere the profanest of curses, and whenever he was so addressed, especially by one of us, his aspect of grief and horror was ludicrous to behold. Besides, he did not go.
Through Sigurd our circle of fellowship was widened for all time. Here we had been living on, half stifled in biped society, well-nigh unaware of the jubilant dog world bounding about our feet, but in a few months our own collie had made us acquainted with a democratic variety of canine types. And still I would almost rather meet a new dog than a new poet. A certain Norwegian lake is twice as dear to memory for the courteous Great Dane that did the honors of the bank and shared our tea cakes there; the only duchess to whose boudoir, at the heart of a frowning Border castle, we were ever invited, impressed us less than the three pompous poodles, their snowy curls so absurdly like her own, that squatted on the edges of her flowing heliotrope morning-gown and were simultaneously upset whenever one of her Ladyship's energetic impulses brought her to her feet.
Sigurd's acquaintances were legion. To only a few may space be given here. There was Teddy, a black spaniel who aspired to the high standard of manners held by his master, a retired army officer, and, following example, would punctiliously rise as ladies entered or left the room. There were twin dachshunds, who daily drove abroad in a limousine and enraged Sigurd by looking down on him, short-legged that they were, from the window opened hardly wide enough to let them thrust their black noses through the crack. There was the lean, forlorn old hound whom all the dog-clubs blackballed and who, in consequence, had to satiate his yearning for fellowship by keeping company with the minister's cow. Every summer morning a silver-headed saint whose pulpit labors were done escorted his Mulley down our hill and tethered her in the broad green pasture below. At a respectful distance would follow the homeless hound, who had picked up during the night what sustenance he could from the neighborhood garbage pails. And hard of heart we deemed that neatest of our housewives who, to keep his meddling muzzle away, used to scatter a profusion of red pepper over her garbage. All day long the hound would stay in the meadow close to the cow, who, uneasy at first under his attentions, came to accept them with bovine placidity. Indeed, there was, we thought, a certain coquetry in her carriage as, a person of importance, she came sedately stepping up the hill at sunset, the old clergyman on one side and the old dog on the other. Her friendship with the happy hound grew to be as famous in our local annals as, in the realm of books, is that of the horse and hen related by White (in hisNatural History of Selbourne), or that of the swan and trout so poignantly told by Hudson (in hisAdventures Among Birds).
Certain dogs Sigurd would bully shamelessly, like amiable old Bounce, on whom he would hurl himself in Bounce's own yard and sit on top of him, growling most offensively, until we pulled him off. To the subsequent scolding Sigurd would listen as long as it interested him and then press up against us and offer his paw, as if to say, "All right; enough of that; let's be friends again."
On the other hand, he had such a liking for our Professor Far-Away that he stretched his regard to cover her successive dogs, Chum and Jack, though he was born too late to know her beautiful black collie, Wallace. He would even allow Chum, an adopted stray, a nondescript animal of preposterous awkwardness, to drink from his own Japanese bowl, spattering the water, in Chum's uncouth fashion, half across the hall, while Jack, an Irish terrier,
"With the soul in the shining eyes of him,"
ranked in Sigurd's esteem next after Laddie. Professor Far-Away, whose perilous joy it was to traverse, with Jack, unexplored tracts of China and Thibet, attended by a train of coolies, would, when dull destiny called her back to the class room, effect brief escapes by way of bicycle runs through the wood roads, attended by a train of dogs. When her cavalcade swept by our hill, Sigurd would leap up as if at the call of the Wild Huntsman and rush forth to fall in. Through her long absences in foreign lands he never ceased to listen for her gypsy whistle, and once, at least, he was literally her first caller on her return. He came tearing back to his own family, in high excitement, with a traveler's tag waving from his collar. The tag was penciled over with the Wanderer's greeting, adding "how dear it was of Sigurd" to be barking at her door within ten minutes after she and Jack had crossed their threshold. When Professor Far-Away writesThe Junketings of Jack, there will be a book worth reading.
Although our puppy had several times returned with a scratched face, after encounters with veteran cats, his first fight was with Major, a rugged brindle bull, who lorded it over all the dogs in town. We had been warned of Major and when, one September morning, I went to the door in answer to the now familiarwoof, I knew, even without the uplift of Sigurd's eloquent look, what had happened. He was dripping with blood, his own and Major's, and dragged one hind leg painfully, yet he had an air of expecting congratulations. We bathed and disinfected his wounds as well as our inexperience could—in the course of the next few years we became experts at canine first aid—but the injury to the leg looked so serious that we called in Dr. Vet, who found that one of Major's tusks had penetrated the joint. The leg was packed in an antiphlogistic clay until it looked more like an elephant's leg than Sigurd's and was secured from the investigation of his own inquisitive teeth by broad bands of plaster and innumerable yards of bandages. The proud sufferer, who, claiming that he was now entitled to all sick privileges, had insisted on taking to my bed, lay there on a fresh rug, anxiously watching every movement of the doctor's hands but enduring even the probing without protest.
After Æsculapius had gone and the rest of the family were gathered about the invalid, who, despite all smarts and aches, keenly relished being the center of attention, Joy-of-Life and I sallied forth to inquire for Major. That redoubtable little ruffian, cuddled into his basket, rolled up doleful eyes from a gory lump that bore but small resemblance to his massive, wrinkled, pugnacious head. A beholder of the battle reported that as Sigurd was trotting innocently across a vacant lot, a brighter spot of yellow weaving its path through the goldenrod, Major, after his wonted manner of attack, came sneaking up behind and gripped him by the joint of a hind leg. Sigurd wheeled, catching and crushing Major's head between his own powerful jaws, and then the two dogs, locked in furious combat, spun round and round, a snarling whirligig, gathering a vociferous group of ineffective dissuaders, until a grocer's boy, jumping down from his delivery wagon, came rushing up with a packet of pepper, hurling its contents into Sigurd's nostrils and, through his literally open countenance, into Major's. In a spasm of sneezing, the circle of dog broke apart, and each dilapidated fragment made for home. Sigurd was a week or more in getting well and he limped for a month after, but the scars on Major's head were in evidence longer yet. They never matched prowess again, though the language that they would use to each other, especially with a wide road between them, is not fit for print.
Every evening of that first week our hero was carried or helped downstairs and put to bed on the piazza, but every morning he crawled and scrambled up again, crying out like a child as his injured leg, trailing behind him, suffered jar or bump. Nobody could resist his pleading to be lifted back to the bed and allowed to play hospital a little longer, and Cecilia, more than ever his devoted slave, delighted in bringing him, to his enormous pride, his dinner on a tray. He always barked for the family to come in and behold that glorious spectacle, and he barked, too, whenever the door bell rang, requesting the caller to come up at once and pay respects to the Happy Warrior. Apart from these red-letter events, his great diversion was trying to rid his muffled leg of the bandages and plaster,—an exercise in which he soon became only too proficient.
In Sigurd's last fight—with a gallant old mastiff, Rex—one of his forelegs, bitten in three places, was put out of action for two months, but no fuss was made about it. We had grown hardened to Sigurd's battle-wounds. Sulpho-naphthol and his own tongue worked the cure, though it took no little ingenuity to extract from between Sigurd's teeth the stray tufts of grizzled hair that he wanted to keep as souvenirs of Rex, who, still feebly growling, had to be fetched off the field in a wheelbarrow.
From first to last, Sigurd's adventures were too often misadventures. As a youngster, he was continually getting into trouble. It seemed unfortunate that he should have so many feet, for what with thorns, tacks, broken glass, jagged ice and the like, one or another of them was usually in piteous condition.
His name brought more than one fight upon him, as our call ofSigurd!Sigurd!when he started out to investigate a dog-stranger, was often mistaken forSick 'em!Sick 'em!and the dog's owner would reciprocate in kind. Once an indignant father, a summer visitor in the town, passionately charged us with setting our dog on his two "motherless boys," whereas we had been doing our best to call Sigurd off from a chase after those provoking little rascals, who had attacked him with a shower of pebbles.
Restless with his waxing strength he took to roving in the woods, where once he was caught in a trap and painfully dragged himself home with a lacerated leg that he had torn free from the cruel grip of the steel. In the West Woods he once had a narrow escape. He was seen by a wandering botanist to plunge into a swampy hole for water, a beverage that, in spite of our hygienic warnings, Sigurd seemed to prefer with a flavor of dirt. The mire there has a quicksand quality, and Sigurd sank, splashing in frantic struggle, until only his nose was barely visible above the black ooze, but in that extremity he seemed to get a momentary hold for his hind feet, perhaps on root or snag, and by a desperate effort lurched himself up and out. He lay on the bank, panting and trembling, a sorely spent collie, for thirty-five minutes by the botanist's watch, before he revived sufficiently to roll over and over in the ferns and rub off some of the mud. Even so, when he reached home he was so smeared and malodorous with mire that, all unwitting of the mortal peril from which he had emerged, we met him with a scolding, scoured him off with newspapers and shut him out of doors for the rest of the day.
We grew to dislike the progress of civilization, so much did trains, trolleys, golf-balls and motors add to our anxiety, but his own supreme aversion was, in his early years, the bicycle. On a certain summer day, when a deeper trouble than Sigurd could understand brooded over the house, he trotted down to the forbidden center of the town, The Square, in quest of entertainment. As he was crossing, there came upon him from one side a carriage and from the other a bicycle, whose rider, a Canadian, turned in his flurry the wrong way. Out of the resultant crash Sigurd sprang to the sidewalk, but the bicycle reeled after him and, in falling, struck him so sharply as to leave a long black bruise under one eye. An observer of the collision told us that Sigurd "flashed off toward home like a streak of sulphur." As soon as the door was opened in response to his frantic barking, he bolted upstairs and took refuge under my bed. The household in its grieved pre-occupation forgot all about him, and it was not until evening that he stole down into the family circle. With a careless glance at the black mark, we rebuked him for having a smutty face. The wistful look of the misunderstood came into those amber eyes, but he comforted himself with a belated dinner and waited for Time to tell his story. The bruise lasted long and the fright still longer. More than a year later Joy-of-Life and I were driving through the tranquillities of an Indian summer afternoon, with Sigurd, by this time a strong and rapid runner, far ahead. Suddenly we saw him tearing back in terror. Without waiting for us to pull up, he bounded over the wheel into the phaeton and pressed his shaking body close against our knees. As we drove on, we looked to right and left for the hippogrif that had so appalled him, and presently beheld it,—a riderless bicycle leaning against a garden wall.
THE HEART OF A DOG
Where did they learnThe miracle of love,These dogs that turnFrom food and sleep at our light-whistled call,Eager to flingTheir allOf speed and grace into glad following?Not the wolf packTaught savage instinct love,For there to lackThe power to slay was to be hunger-slain;Once down, a prey,A stainOf crimson on the snow, a tuft of gray.Was it from usThey learned such loyal loveMagnanimous,Meeting our injuries with trustful eyes?Are we so true,So wise,So broken-hearted when love's day is through?Where did they learnThe miracle of love?Though beauty burnIn rainbow, foam and flame, these have not heard,Nor trees and flowers,That word.Only our dogs would give their lives for ours.
Where did they learnThe miracle of love,These dogs that turnFrom food and sleep at our light-whistled call,Eager to flingTheir allOf speed and grace into glad following?
Where did they learn
The miracle of love,
These dogs that turn
From food and sleep at our light-whistled call,
Eager to fling
Their all
Of speed and grace into glad following?
Not the wolf packTaught savage instinct love,For there to lackThe power to slay was to be hunger-slain;Once down, a prey,A stainOf crimson on the snow, a tuft of gray.
Not the wolf pack
Taught savage instinct love,
For there to lack
The power to slay was to be hunger-slain;
Once down, a prey,
A stain
Of crimson on the snow, a tuft of gray.
Was it from usThey learned such loyal loveMagnanimous,Meeting our injuries with trustful eyes?Are we so true,So wise,So broken-hearted when love's day is through?
Was it from us
They learned such loyal love
Magnanimous,
Meeting our injuries with trustful eyes?
Are we so true,
So wise,
So broken-hearted when love's day is through?
Where did they learnThe miracle of love?Though beauty burnIn rainbow, foam and flame, these have not heard,Nor trees and flowers,That word.Only our dogs would give their lives for ours.
Where did they learn
The miracle of love?
Though beauty burn
In rainbow, foam and flame, these have not heard,
Nor trees and flowers,
That word.
Only our dogs would give their lives for ours.
HOME STUDIES
"Thou know'st whate'er I see, read, learn,Related to thy species, friend,I tell thee, hoping it may turnTo thine advantage—so attend."
"Thou know'st whate'er I see, read, learn,Related to thy species, friend,I tell thee, hoping it may turnTo thine advantage—so attend."
"Thou know'st whate'er I see, read, learn,Related to thy species, friend,I tell thee, hoping it may turnTo thine advantage—so attend."
"Thou know'st whate'er I see, read, learn,
Related to thy species, friend,
I tell thee, hoping it may turn
To thine advantage—so attend."
—Caroline Bowles Southey'sConte à Mon Chien.
In pursuance of this curriculum, while Joy-of-Life sat on the floor beside Sigurd for a good-night brush of his gleaming coat, I would read to them from any canine classic that chanced to be at hand,—Rab and His Friends,Bobby of Greyfriars,My Dogs of the Northland,The Call of the Wild,Bob,Son of Battle, John Muir's vivid story of his Stickeen, Maeterlinck's brooding biography of his Pelleas with the bulging forehead of Socrates, or De Amicis' touching account of his blessed mongrel, Dick. When Sigurd grew restless under his toilet and wanted to jump up and play, we would tell him how the great dog Kitmer, the only animal besides Balaam's ass and the camel that carried Mahomet on his flight from Mecca to be admitted into the Moslem paradise, had "stretched forth his forelegs" for three hundred years in the mouth of a cave, mounting guard over the Seven Sleepers.
Joy-of-Life, who was an historian as well as an economist and had written, despite the annoyance of being confined to the same set of dates and dynasties, three histories of England, would reach down from her book shelves some high authority and read us, perhaps, Plutarch's report of the watchdog, Cipparus, who guarded the temple of Æsculapius at Athens so well that when a thief slipped off with some of the precious offerings, he went after in unrelenting pursuit. "First, the man pelted him with stones, but Cipparus would not give up. When day came, he kept at a little distance, but followed with his eye on the man and, when the fellow threw him food, would not touch it. When the man lay down, he spent the night by him; when he walked again, the dog got up and kept following. Cipparus fawned on any wayfarers he met, but kept barking at the thief. When the authorities, who were in chase, heard of this from people who had met the pair and who described the color and size of the dog, they pursued with yet more zeal, seized the man and brought him back from Crommyon. The dog turned round and led the way, proud and delighted, evidently claiming thathehad caught the temple thief."
Another evening it would be Motley's account of the escape of the Prince of Orange from a night raid sent out by the Duke of Alva, when the Prince was encamped near Mons. "The sentinels were cut down, the whole army surprised, and for a moment powerless, while, for two hours long, from one o'clock in the morning until three, the Spaniards butchered their foes, hardly aroused from their sleep, ignorant by how small a force they had been thus suddenly surprised, and unable in the confusion to distinguish between friend and foe. The boldest, led by Julian in person, made at once for the Prince's tent. His guards and himself were in profound sleep, but a small spaniel, who always passed the night upon his bed, was a more faithful sentinel. The creature sprang forward, barking furiously at the sound of hostile footsteps, and scratching his master's face with his paws. There was but just time for the Prince to mount a horse which was ready saddled, and to effect his escape through the darkness, before his enemies sprang into the tent. His servants were cut down, his master of the horse and two of his secretaries, who gained their saddles a moment later, all lost their lives, and but for the little dog's watchfulness, 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."
And well he might, and well, too, did the sculptors place a little dog of marble or bronze at the feet of his royal statues hardly more silent than himself, but what Sigurd and I clamored to know was whether, on that wild night of September eleventh, 1572, the spaniel escaped with his master or died with the servants and secretaries on Spanish steel, and no historian, not even our own, could tell us. With the ancient guile of teachers she would divert our attention from the question she could not answer by relating something else,—how Denmark commemorates a dog true to a deposed king in a high order of nobility whose motto runs,Wild-brat was faithful. Or she would take down the first volume of her well-wornHeimskringlaand excite Sigurd's young ambition by the record of King Saur. For when Eyestein, King of the Uplands, had harried Thrandheim and set his son over them, and they had slain the son, then "King Eyestein fared a-warring the second time into Thrandheim, and harried wide there, and laid folk under him. Then he bade the Thrandheimers choose whether they would have for king his thrall, who was called Thorir Faxi, or his hound, who was called Saur; and they chose the second, deeming they would then the rather do their own will. Then let they bewitch into the hound the wisdom of three men, and he barked two words and spake the third. A collar was wrought for him, and chains of gold and silver; and whenso the ways were miry, his courtmen bare him on their shoulders. A high-seat was dight for him, and he sat on howe as kings do; he dwelt at the Inner Isle, and had his abode at the stead called Saur's Howe. And so say folk that he came to his death in this wise, that the wolves fell on his flocks and herds, and his courtmen egged him on to defend his sheep; so he leaped down from his howe, and went to meet the wolves, but they straightway tore him asunder."
On the whole, Sigurd preferred poetry, whose rhythm promptly put him to sleep. It was all one to him whether Homer sang the joy-broken heart of old Argus, over whom
"the black night of deathCame suddenly, as soon as he had seenUlysses, absent now for twenty years,"
"the black night of deathCame suddenly, as soon as he had seenUlysses, absent now for twenty years,"
"the black night of death
Came suddenly, as soon as he had seen
Ulysses, absent now for twenty years,"
or Virgil chanted the device whereby Æneas and the Sibyl baffled the giant watch-dog of Hades.
"The three-mouthed bark of Cerberus here filleth all the place,As huge he lieth in a den that hath them full in face;But when the adders she beheld upon his crest up-borne,A sleepy morsel honey-steeped and blent of wizard's corn,She cast him: then his three-fold throat, all wild with hunger's lack,He opened wide, and caught at it, and sank his monstrous back,And there he lay upon the earth enormous through the cave."
"The three-mouthed bark of Cerberus here filleth all the place,As huge he lieth in a den that hath them full in face;But when the adders she beheld upon his crest up-borne,A sleepy morsel honey-steeped and blent of wizard's corn,She cast him: then his three-fold throat, all wild with hunger's lack,He opened wide, and caught at it, and sank his monstrous back,And there he lay upon the earth enormous through the cave."
"The three-mouthed bark of Cerberus here filleth all the place,
As huge he lieth in a den that hath them full in face;
But when the adders she beheld upon his crest up-borne,
A sleepy morsel honey-steeped and blent of wizard's corn,
She cast him: then his three-fold throat, all wild with hunger's lack,
He opened wide, and caught at it, and sank his monstrous back,
And there he lay upon the earth enormous through the cave."
Sigurd would softly thump his tail in cadence with the melancholy beat of a dog elegy, whether Prior's tribute to the virtues of Queen Mary's True, or Gay's ironic consolation to Celia on the death of her lap-dog Shock, Cowper's impartial epitaphs for My Lord's pointer Neptune and My Lady's spaniel Fop, Lehmann's memorial of his retriever, who
"Chose, since official dogs at times unbend,The household cat for confidante and friend,"
"Chose, since official dogs at times unbend,The household cat for confidante and friend,"
"Chose, since official dogs at times unbend,
The household cat for confidante and friend,"
Louise Imogen Guiney's lament for
"All the sweet wavyBeauty of Davy,"
"All the sweet wavyBeauty of Davy,"
"All the sweet wavy
Beauty of Davy,"
or Winifred Letts' apostrophe to the debonair collie Scott, or Hilton Brown's tenderest of farewells to his Scotch terrier, Hamish.
"In the nether spacesWill 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."
"In the nether spacesWill 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."
"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."
Sigurd lived too early to take part in the Free Verse controversy, but he evinced an open mind on matters metrical in that he liked Lord Byron's inscription for his Newfoundland Boatswain no better than Lord Eldon's for his Newfoundland Cæsar. It was Sir William Watson's famous quatrain,An Epitaph, that affected him most keenly, because it invited emphasis on the one word that always brought him springing to his feet.
"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."
"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."
"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."
As Sigurd was duly shownCanis Majorin the ethereal heavens, so was he introduced to certain starry dogs that shine in the skies of English poetry,—the pampered "smale houndes" of Chaucer's Prioress, King Lear's elegant little "Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart," dear, clownish Crab, and all that pack of rich-voiced hunting hounds whose "gallant chiding" rings through Elizabethan literature. The boy Will Shakespeare must often have hearkened to the hounds, "match'd in mouth like bells," coursing the Cotswolds, Silver and Belman and Sweetlips and Echo, their heads hung "with ears that sweep away the morning dew," the "speed of the cry" outrunning his "sense of hearing."
Sigurd was but mildly interested when we told him that in George Eliot's novels there were over fifty dogs, ranging all the way from pug to mastiff, nor did he care greatly for Dickens' dogs, not even blundering, ill-favored, clumsy, "bullet-headed" Diogenes, Florence Dombey's comforter, nor the bandy leader of Jerry's dancing troupe, who, because of a lost half-penny, had to grind out Old Hundred on the barrel-organ while his companions devoured their supper—and his; but Scott's dogs, from fleet Lufra ofThe Lady of the Laketo the Dandy Dinmonts ofGuy Mannering,—"There's auld Pepper and auld Mustard, and young Pepper and young Mustard, and little Pepper and little Mustard"—made him blink and prick up his ears. Thus encouraged, I would tell him of Sir Walter's love for all his home dogs and most of all for the tall stag-hound Maida; how Herrick wept for his spaniel Tracy; how Southey grieved when his "poor old friend" Phillis, another spaniel, was drowned; how Landor delighted in dogs from the boyhood when he boxed with Captain behind the coach house door to the extreme old age whose loneliness was solaced by two silky-coated Pomeranians, first, in Bath, by the golden Pomero, who would bark an ecstatic accompaniment to his master's tremendous explosions of laughter, and then, in Florence, by Giallo, whose opinions on politics and letters the snowy-bearded poet would quote with humorous respect; how Nero, a Maltese fringy-paws, brightened the somber home of the Carlyles; and how Pope's favorite dog was, as he bitterly suggests, not unlike himself in being "a little one, a lean one, and none of the finest shaped." If Sigurd seemed responsive, I might go on with accounts of Mrs. Browning's Flush; of Hogg's Hector, "auld, towzy, trusty friend"; of Arnold's dachshunds, Geist, Max and Kaiser; of Gilder's Leo,
"Leo the shaggy, the lustrous, the giant, the gentle Newfoundland,"
of Lehman's "flop-eared" Rufus, and of Miss Letts' terrier Tim in his "wheaten-colored coat."
Lest Sigurd should get the impression that the globe was populated chiefly by poets, Joy-of-Life would strike in with anecdotes of the little dogs that frisked about Frederick the Great, and Charles II, the Merry Monarch, and tell how Edward VII's last pet, Cæsar, a fox terrier, trotted mournfully in the funeral procession behind Kildare, the royal charger; or she would "unmuzzle her wisdom" to the point of declaring that the kings of Babylon and Nineveh had their favorite hunting hounds with tails curled up over the back and collars wrought in the form of leafy wreaths. She would inform Sigurd, who took it flippantly, that solemn burial honors had been paid to dogs in ancient times, that the Egyptians held them sacred and religiously embalmed their bodies, and that many a Celtic chief and Norland viking lies more quiet beneath his cairn because his noblest deerhound slumbers at his feet. Or perhaps she would relate, for our collie's ethical guidance, celebrated deeds of hero dogs. Sigurd would grunt and grumble in sympathy with her deep tones as she chanted the famous ballad of Beth Gêlert, that "peerless hound" whose fidelity cost him his life, or of the twice-sung terrier, haunter of Helvellyn, who for three months kept watch beside her master's body at the foot of the fatal precipice. Sigurd did not care for Wordsworth as much as Wordsworth would have cared for him, but he loved Little Music, striving in vain to save her fellow Dart under whose speed the river-ice had broken.
On one of those fortunate evenings when we had the Dryad with us, Sigurd would listen with waxing incredulity to legends of King Arthur's hound Cavall, whose paw left its print on British rock; of Merlin's demon dog, black with red ears, akin to the little black dog that danced about Faustus, sending out flying flames from its feet; of Fingal's Bran and his last chase after the enchanted snow-white hart; and of Tristram's faithful Hodain, who licked the dregs from the cup of love which the knight and Queen Iseult had quaffed together. Sigurd was frankly skeptical about those
"Half a hundred good ban-dogs"
"Half a hundred good ban-dogs"
"Half a hundred good ban-dogs"
of Fountains Abbey, who, whistled to his help by the fighting friar, gave Robin Hood and his archers not a little trouble.
"Two dogs at once to Robin Hood did go,T'one behind, the other before;Robin Hood's mantle of Lincoln greenOff from his back they tore."And whether his men shot east or west,Or they shot north or south,The curtal dogs, so taught they were,They caught the arrows in their mouth."
"Two dogs at once to Robin Hood did go,T'one behind, the other before;Robin Hood's mantle of Lincoln greenOff from his back they tore.
"Two dogs at once to Robin Hood did go,
T'one behind, the other before;
Robin Hood's mantle of Lincoln green
Off from his back they tore.
"And whether his men shot east or west,Or they shot north or south,The curtal dogs, so taught they were,They caught the arrows in their mouth."
"And whether his men shot east or west,
Or they shot north or south,
The curtal dogs, so taught they were,
They caught the arrows in their mouth."
But Petit-Crin, the fairy dog from Avalon that Tristram gave to Iseult, was more than any honest collie could endure.
"No tongue could tell the marvel of it; 'twas of such wondrous fashion that no man might say of what color it was. If one looked on the breast, and saw naught else, one had said 'twas white as snow, yet its thighs were greener than clover, and its sides, one red as scarlet, the other more yellow than saffron. Its under parts were even as azure, while above 'twas mingled, so that no one color might be distinguished; 'twas neither green nor red, white nor black, yellow nor blue, and yet there was somewhat of all these therein; 'twas a fair purple brown. And if one saw this strange creation of Avalon against the lie of the hair there would be no man wise enough to tell its color, so manifold and changing were its hues.
"Around its neck was a golden chain, and therefrom hung a bell, which rang so sweet and clear when it began to chime Tristram forgot his sadness and his sorrow, and the longing for Iseult that lay heavy at his heart. So sweet was the tone of the bell that no man heard it but he straightway forgat all that aforetime had troubled him.
"Tristram hearkened, and gazed on this wondrous marvel; he took note of the dog and the bell, the changing colors of the hair, and the sweet sound of the chimes; and it seemed to him that the marvel of the dog was greater than that of the music which rang in his ears, and banished all thought of sorrow.
"He stretched forth his hand and stroked the dog, and it seemed to him that he handled the softest silk, so fine and so smooth was the hair to his touch. And the dog neither growled, nor barked, nor showed any sign of ill temper, however one might play with it; nor, as the tale goes, was it ever seen to eat or to drink."
At this point, Sigurd rose, shook himself and stalked out to the kitchen. He could bear a great deal from his pedantic mistresses, but there were limits. Satiated with history and literature, he proposed to relax his mind by a turn at psychology.
From Cecilia's successor, Ellen, Sigurd was taking a brief but vivid course in psychics. To be sure, abona fideprofessor in that field dwelt near us, her high-picketed fence enclosing a baker's dozen of spaniels. It was understood, to the awe of the community, that by their aid she investigated certain dark corners of her shadowy subject; but Sigurd, embarrassed by the attentions thrust upon him by the grandmother of the spaniel family, rested content with his unacademic tutor.
"Poor Ellen," as she invariably called herself, was a small, wiry, nut-brown Irish woman, whose gray hair rose erect, as if just affrighted by pouke or pixy, from above a constantly wrinkling forehead and a pair of snapping jet eyes. She must have been on the borders of insanity, if not across, when she came to us. She was a furious worker, cycloning about the house with mop and broom at all hours and not hesitating to upbraid the college president herself, most benign and punctilious of ladies, if her boots brought one speck of mud into "Poor Ellen's clane hall." Her chief pride, however, was in her frugality, as we discovered to our dismay on her second afternoon, when, as it often happily chanced, the Dryad, then living on the campus, dropped in for a call and consented to remain for dinner.
It was a simple matter, in our informal way of life, to call back from the piazza through the hall to the figure setting the table in the dining room:
"Lay another plate, please, Ellen. Our friend stays to dine with us."
But the wail that succeeded nearly slew our friend by throwing her into an agony of suppressed laughter.
"Mother of God! Isn't that the burning shame! And me maning the three chops should do us all!"
Ellen had been with us but a few days, though the house was already so scoured and polished that we scarcely dared set foot on our own floors, when a prolonged season of sultry weather broke in a tremendous thunderstorm. These thunderstorms were always a challenge to Sigurd's valor. At the first crash he would pluckily make for the porch, where, flinging up his head, he would cast back one defiant bark to that Superdog in the skies; then, scared by his own audacity, he would usually bolt upstairs and take refuge under a bed. But this time he fled, with the second shattering peal, to Ellen, who was rocking herself, a crouching, huddled figure, to and fro on the cellar stairs, screaming in a weird, blood-curdling chant:
"Mercy of God! Poor Ellen belaves in God the Father and in the Holy Mother of God and in all the blissid saints of heaven. Oh, grace of Mary! Poor Ellen belaves in thim all. Good Lord, you never kilt Poor Ellen yet and you wouldn't be after doing it now whin her bones be old and her heart a nest of sorrows. The Lord look down in pity on the poor."
With Sigurd hugged tight, Ellen's shrieks gradually sank into sob and moan, and from that hour he was her one confidante and comrade. Not even in him would she allow the least untidiness, but would fly to meet him at the threshold, picking up each paw in turn and manicuring it in her apron, and would insist, despite our remonstrances, in squatting down outside the back door and feeding his dinner to him, bit by bit, lest "Gobble-mouth" drop crumbs and gravy on "Poor Ellen's clane gravel."
Sigurd found this fellowship at his meals so entrancing that he would eat even baked beans from Ellen's lean brown fingers and would take advantage of her society to get twice as much dinner as was good for him. When his dish was empty and polished bright, under Ellen's approving eye, by his circling tongue, he would promenade dolefully about the kitchen, peering with an air of deep dejection into coal hod and wood basket, as if he were starved to a diet of cinders and kindlings, well aware that behind his back Ellen was heaping his dish anew. Her excess of thrift, from which our own table suffered, was never brought to bear on Sigurd.
As he ate, she would tell him long stories of her childhood in hungry Ireland and of her hard, bewildered, wandering life in the Land of Promise. Only once was I guilty of pausing by the kitchen door to listen.
"It was the place afore this, Darlint, or maybe the place afore that, or maybe another, that Old Goldtooth wedded my widow woman and took her to New York for the shows. He'd been drinking more than a drop the day and he says, 'Let's bring Poor Ellen along, for the fun of it. You can lend her your second-best bonnet, for there's money to buy more in New York.' But it wasn't her second-best, nor yet her third, the comical thing she set on me. To a hotel in New York he took us and a grand feed he gave us. Thin off to the show they wint, and he put a newspaper in my hand, and opened up at a page with niver a picture on it, and he told me to sit there like a lady and read about Boarding Houses. So there was Poor Ellen all that avening, and long it was as a rosary of nights, holding up that paper, with the quare letters, all sizes, dancing over it, and reading about Boarding Houses. But whin they came back—O Darlint, the saints defind us!—he told me it was about the Borden Murder I'd been reading, not Boarding Houses at all, and Poor Ellen not sensing a scratch of it, or sure she'd been scared into a fit. Don't let thim tache you to read their books, Darlint, for sure there's no knowing what the black words might be saying."
But although this is the only outpouring of Ellen's confidence to Sigurd at which I played eavesdropper, too often her mad screeches would bring us pell-mell into the kitchen where we would find the two of them wrought to a state of highest excitement. Once Sigurd, lying at full length, was squeezing a hollow rubber ball between his lips, making it emit harrowing squeaks that Ellen, hopping grotesquely up and down, identified as the cries of an imprisoned banshee. Another time she had one arm clasped about Sigurd's neck and with the other hand was pounding her little alarm clock on the floor, entreating him, "Bite the feaver whin it jumps out, Darlint. A year ago by this clock it was that Poor Ellen had the feaver and died and she has been in the Fire ever since."
Again we heard sounds of scuffling and struggle, punctuated by desperate screams from Ellen and furious barks from Sigurd. The kitchen was in a whirlwind, but Ellen was presently calmed enough to explain to us in terrified gasps that the demons were trying to drag her away from the throne of God and that she had set Sigurd on her tormentors. Our gallant collie evidently drove off the fiends, for Ellen's passion of resistance suddenly ceased and, sinking to the floor, she hid her convulsed face in Sigurd's ruff, wailing, "But next time they'll get me. Poor Ellen! Poor Ellen! It's a sore and sorry life she's had, and to come to the Pain in the end!"
On the last night of Ellen's stay with us,—for we had arranged, without telling her, to have the crazy old creature transferred to the office of a friendly physician, where her prowess with the scrubbing-brush would be appreciated and her mental peculiarities be under wise and humane observation—an ear-splitting yell once more summoned us post-haste to the kitchen. Sigurd, erect on rigid legs, was staring with an uncanny fixity of gaze on vacancy, while Ellen, on her knees, wringing her hands above her head, was alternately abjuring him and Heaven.
"O Darlint, is it my death ye're after seeing now? Is it Poor Ellen with the candles at head and feet? Och, let me go! I lave this house to-night. It's not Poor Ellen will bide with a dog does be looking at her own ghost."
"Nonsense, Ellen!" protested Joy-of-Life, interposing her strong, wholesome presence between the distracted old woman and the outside door. "There are no ghosts here. Sigurd is only looking at the wall. Perhaps he heard a rat or a mouse in there."
"Ouch!" shrilled Ellen, dodging out of the door in a fresh paroxysm of fright. "Rats and mice is it! Rats and mice do be the black spirits come to gnaw out our brains. And here they've come for Poor Ellen's wits. They chase Poor Ellen wherever she goes. But she'll give thim the slip on the morrow."
While Joy-of-Life brought Ellen in, quieted her with malted milk and sent her to bed, I puzzled over Sigurd, whose staring eyes and bristling hair still gave evidence of something we could not discern. Other observers of dog conduct have testified to occurrences of this kind, as, very recently, the master of a red cocker spaniel (Walter E. Carr inThe Story of Five Dogs) and from far antiquity the Arabs, who hold that a dog can see the wings of the Angel of Death hovering over the one for whom Azrael has been sent.
Ellen came down in the morning, still determined on departure and entirely content with the place we had secured for her. All that day through she was her most cleanly, thrifty and cheerful self. Nothing would do but she must sweep the whole house from attic to cellar, especially scouring her own room until it was pure enough for Diana. Pleased with the bustle of packing and getting off, evidently an habitual state of things with Poor Ellen, she graced her farewell with a flourish of economical courtesies. She presented Joy-of-Life with a banana which she had blarneyed from our Italian fruit-vender, and gave me a little jar of cream, begged or bullied from the milkman in the early dawn. As for Sigurd, she made him a square foot of his favorite corn bread and hung a Catholic medal to his collar. She went off in the best of humor, greatly set up by her own cleverness in having been able to make, so cheaply, such suitable good-by gifts. When the expressman came for her shabby, bulging bag, she treated him to such a nice little luncheon of cookies and lemonade that he offered her a ride to the station. From the driver's lofty seat she waved us a queenly adieu, calling back: "The Lord loves Poor Ellen, after all." Sigurd ran with the wagon as far as the corner. The last we saw of his psychic instructor, she was kissing her workworn hands to him and shrilling back endearments.
THE PLEADERS
Before the Majesty of Most High GodThe gentlest of the glad Archangels came;Swift down the emerald avenue he trod,His eager sandals quivering to flame.Close at his heels there frisked a dog, his mateIn bygone journeyings with young Tobias,A dog "without," whose love had dared the gate,Scenting the steps of Brother Azarias,So-called in those blithe morns when, laughing-eyed,By thorn and myrrh, the dew on every stem,He led the son of Tobit to his bride,And the lad's dog went leaping after them.The little winds that in those sunrise-flushed,Fleet plumes had nestled, to the harpstrings flewTo learn gold melodies for May, but hushedWas all that glory till a Voice pealed through:"Mine Angel Raphael, of the Holy SevenWho lift the prayers of saints before the Throne,What wild, unworded anguish troubles Heaven,To man's appeal the wailing undertone?Men's orisons for Peace, for Peace, for Peace,Smothered the psalms of Paradise, untilI bade that vain and bitter crying cease.My will is Peace. Let mortals do my will."Before the shining of the Mercy SeatThe Angel raised a censer. "Lord, I bringThe screams of shell-torn horses, thrashing feetOf mangled mules, the pigeon's broken wing,Gasping of dogs gas-tortured, wounds and woeOf myriad creatures by Thy breath endowedWith being. Theirs the prayers that overflowThis vessel by whose weight my heart is bowed."Ah, strange to see that poor, vague incense rise,Dim supplication crossed by fragrancesOf courage, faithfulness, self-sacrificeEven of these brute martyrs, even of these."Brother of Sorrows, bear to man those groansOf a creation that I fashioned wellAnd gave to his dominion,—man, who ownsOne morning star to make it heaven or hell.I am but God, a Pity throned aboveTo watch the sparrow's fall, to feel its throesAnd wait the slow, sweet blossoming of love,Small, kindly loves from which the Great Love grows."Then Raphael, Healer of the Earth, bowed thrice,Withdrawing through the ranks of seraphimWho smiled to see how, scorning Paradise,On frolic feet the dog sped after him.
Before the Majesty of Most High GodThe gentlest of the glad Archangels came;Swift down the emerald avenue he trod,His eager sandals quivering to flame.Close at his heels there frisked a dog, his mateIn bygone journeyings with young Tobias,A dog "without," whose love had dared the gate,Scenting the steps of Brother Azarias,So-called in those blithe morns when, laughing-eyed,By thorn and myrrh, the dew on every stem,He led the son of Tobit to his bride,And the lad's dog went leaping after them.
Before the Majesty of Most High God
The gentlest of the glad Archangels came;
Swift down the emerald avenue he trod,
His eager sandals quivering to flame.
Close at his heels there frisked a dog, his mate
In bygone journeyings with young Tobias,
A dog "without," whose love had dared the gate,
Scenting the steps of Brother Azarias,
So-called in those blithe morns when, laughing-eyed,
By thorn and myrrh, the dew on every stem,
He led the son of Tobit to his bride,
And the lad's dog went leaping after them.
The little winds that in those sunrise-flushed,Fleet plumes had nestled, to the harpstrings flewTo learn gold melodies for May, but hushedWas all that glory till a Voice pealed through:"Mine Angel Raphael, of the Holy SevenWho lift the prayers of saints before the Throne,What wild, unworded anguish troubles Heaven,To man's appeal the wailing undertone?Men's orisons for Peace, for Peace, for Peace,Smothered the psalms of Paradise, untilI bade that vain and bitter crying cease.My will is Peace. Let mortals do my will."
The little winds that in those sunrise-flushed,
Fleet plumes had nestled, to the harpstrings flew
To learn gold melodies for May, but hushed
Was all that glory till a Voice pealed through:
"Mine Angel Raphael, of the Holy Seven
Who lift the prayers of saints before the Throne,
What wild, unworded anguish troubles Heaven,
To man's appeal the wailing undertone?
Men's orisons for Peace, for Peace, for Peace,
Smothered the psalms of Paradise, until
I bade that vain and bitter crying cease.
My will is Peace. Let mortals do my will."
Before the shining of the Mercy SeatThe Angel raised a censer. "Lord, I bringThe screams of shell-torn horses, thrashing feetOf mangled mules, the pigeon's broken wing,Gasping of dogs gas-tortured, wounds and woeOf myriad creatures by Thy breath endowedWith being. Theirs the prayers that overflowThis vessel by whose weight my heart is bowed."Ah, strange to see that poor, vague incense rise,Dim supplication crossed by fragrancesOf courage, faithfulness, self-sacrificeEven of these brute martyrs, even of these.
Before the shining of the Mercy Seat
The Angel raised a censer. "Lord, I bring
The screams of shell-torn horses, thrashing feet
Of mangled mules, the pigeon's broken wing,
Gasping of dogs gas-tortured, wounds and woe
Of myriad creatures by Thy breath endowed
With being. Theirs the prayers that overflow
This vessel by whose weight my heart is bowed."
Ah, strange to see that poor, vague incense rise,
Dim supplication crossed by fragrances
Of courage, faithfulness, self-sacrifice
Even of these brute martyrs, even of these.
"Brother of Sorrows, bear to man those groansOf a creation that I fashioned wellAnd gave to his dominion,—man, who ownsOne morning star to make it heaven or hell.I am but God, a Pity throned aboveTo watch the sparrow's fall, to feel its throesAnd wait the slow, sweet blossoming of love,Small, kindly loves from which the Great Love grows."Then Raphael, Healer of the Earth, bowed thrice,Withdrawing through the ranks of seraphimWho smiled to see how, scorning Paradise,On frolic feet the dog sped after him.
"Brother of Sorrows, bear to man those groans
Of a creation that I fashioned well
And gave to his dominion,—man, who owns
One morning star to make it heaven or hell.
I am but God, a Pity throned above
To watch the sparrow's fall, to feel its throes
And wait the slow, sweet blossoming of love,
Small, kindly loves from which the Great Love grows."
Then Raphael, Healer of the Earth, bowed thrice,
Withdrawing through the ranks of seraphim
Who smiled to see how, scorning Paradise,
On frolic feet the dog sped after him.
COLLEGE CAREER
"Thy faith is all the knowledge that thou hast."
—Jonson'sEpigrams, XVIII.
Whatever may be thought of Sigurd's college career, there can be no doubt that he careered through college. He was at the top of bliss in a mad run over the campus. With streaming ruff and tail he would rush on like Lelaps, the wild hound of Cephalus on the trail of the monstrous fox sent by a slighted goddess to harass the Thebans and, like Lelaps when the Olympians chose to make the chase eternal by turning both dog and fox to stone, Sigurd would come to a sudden stop on the brow of a hill, standing out against the sky like a collie statue poised for running.
Joy-of-Life could cross the broad meadow almost as lightly and swiftly as he and their morning pilgrimages to chapel were expeditions of high glory. There were hundreds of girls abroad at that hour and often Sigurd would wheel from the path and dash jubilantly toward any figure that took his fancy, confident of welcome. But if the individual chanced to be a new freshman, not yet acquainted with the college dignitaries, she might meet his advances with fear or annoyance or a still more cutting indifference. Then Sigurd would droop those expectant ears of his and return with dignity to his forsaken comrade. If his greeting were properly reciprocated, he would ramp joyously upon his fellow student and prance about her, leaping to the height of her shoulders in his ecstasy of good-will.
His favorite laboratory was Lake Waban. In the summer afternoons he would tease to have us both escort him up for his swim and if on the way we tried to part company, one or the other turning aside for a more pressing errand, Sigurd would herd us with ancestral art, jumping upon the deserter and gently pushing her back, or standing in the path to block her progress, protesting all the while with coaxing whines, with expostulary barks and with all manner of collie eloquence. If we walked, on the other hand, close together, absorbed in talk, he would jealously push in between us, as he often did when we were having a fireside tête-à-tête or bidding each other good night. He wished us to understand that Sigurd was the one to be loved and that all affections not directed toward Sigurd were superfluous. But when we both accepted his invitation to the lake, the three hundred acres of the college park hardly sufficed for his antics. Curveting about us till he seemed to be ten collies at once, flashing in ever widening circles over the level and over the slopes, bounding upon us with a storm of gleeful sneezes, he would lead the way to Sigurd's Tub, as he considered it. If some one fell in with us and joined us on the walk, Sigurd, always of courteous instinct, would drop back and follow demurely, or amuse himself at a decorous distance by investigating holes, chasing squirrels and striving with wild springs, scrambles, clawings, to climb the trees from whose boughs they mocked his clumsy efforts. But how rejoiced he would be when the interloper turned off! "There! Gone at last! Now wewillhave fun, all by ourselves!" Then he would cast about for some doughty deed to do, longing to dazzle us by a prodigious feat of strength and skill. If he could find a young tree that our too efficient forestry had cut down he would drag it along, bite and break away its branches, seize it by the middle and balance it in his mouth as a long pole, constantly lifting his bright eyes to us for admiration.
Once arrived at the lake, it was our duty to find sticks and fling them out over the water to the extent of our strength, while Sigurd swam for them, the farther the better. As he would gallantly splash up from the shallows and, stick in mouth, climb the bushy bank, we had to run from the mighty shaking with which, delivering the prize, he loved to give us a shower-bath. After a few such plunges, Sigurd, while we rested on the bank, would appropriate the green apron of Mother Earth for a towel, rolling over and over on the turf to dry himself and completing the process by scampers in the sun. He disliked being wet, for although these swims in the lake ranked among his prime delights, at home he always resented and resisted a bath and, on a showery day, would often run in to the towel rack, pleading to be wiped dry, and would then forthwith run out into the rain again. In our hottest weather he would slip off alone in the early morning to that still lake all sweet with water-lilies and would be gone for hours. A few times, in his younger years, our anxiety took us by mid-day to the shore, whence we would see a yellow head well out in the water. At our whistle, Sigurd would turn and swim back to us with an air of surprise and pleasure as if he had quite forgotten that such dear friends were to be found on land. The outcome was not so happy when, tormented in his fur coat by the heat, he had stolen off to one of his secret mire-pits and indulged in a cool wallow. When he came home plastered and perfumed from head to tail, we would greet him with exclamations of disgust, which brought the Byronic melancholy into his eyes, hustle him off to the rocks behind the house, fling pailfuls of warm water over him and do our best to scrape off his pollutions. On one of these occasions, a college-girl lover and Wallace raced him up to Waban and scrubbed and rinsed him until, so they said, the entire lake had changed color.
In the autumn term Sigurd would take a special course in harvesting, frisking through a neighboring orchard and playing ball with the falling apples. The winter term he gave mainly to athletics and dramatics. How bewildered he was that first snowy morning when he ran out into a strange white ravine bounded by slippery walls and when, desperately lunging over one of these, he felt himself floundering in a drift! His first dubious venture on a crackling sheet of ice taxed his puppy courage, too, but he persisted in his quivering progress across our little Longfellow Pond and swaggered up the further side with his jauntiest sporting air. In later years he enjoyed nothing better than going skating with Lady Blanche, another member of our changeful household, and on a stinging January morning he would outdo the frolics, that Cowper smiled to watch, of the dog who