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 time yet 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.
[Illustration]
In the morning, when they started for a ramble, the dogs 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 setter named
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 ashamed to 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 took her 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 the tomb 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 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.”
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 also had 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 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. 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 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 a _friend’s_ remains 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.