KINGS OF THE KENNEL.
I said, when I lost Carlo, that I would never own another dog. We all sat
around, like big children, crying about it; and what made the grief worse,
we had no sympathizers. Our neighbors were glad of it, for he had not
always done the fair thing with them. One of them had lost a chicken when
it was stuffed and all ready for the pan, and suspicions were upon Carlo.
I was the only counsel for the defendant; and while I had to acknowledge
that the circumstantial evidence was against him, I proved his general
character for integrity, and showed that the common and criminal law were
on our side, Coke and Blackstone in our favor, and a long list of
authorities and decisions: II. Revised Statutes, New York, 132, § 27; also,
Watch vs. Towser, Crompton and Meeson, p. 375; also, State of New Jersey
vs. Sicem Blanchard.
When I made these citations, my neighbor and his wife, who were judges and
jurors in the case, looked confounded; and so I followed up the advantage I
had gained with the law maxim, "Non minus ex dolo quam ex culpa quisque hac
lege tenetur," which I found afterward was the wrong Latin, but it had its
desired effect, so that the jury did not agree, and Carlo escaped with his
life; and on the way home he went spinning round like a top, and
punctuating his glee with a semicolon made by both paws on my new clothes.
Yet, notwithstanding all his predicaments and frailties, at his decease we
resolved, in our trouble, that we would never own another dog. But this,
like many another resolution of our life, has been broken; and here is
Nick, the Newfoundland, lying sprawled on the mat. He has a jaw set with
strength; an eye mild, but indicative of the fact that he does not want too
many familiarities from strangers; a nostril large enough to snuff a wild
duck across the meadows; knows how to shake hands, and can talk with head,
and ear, and tail; and, save an unreasonable antipathy to cats, is perfect,
and always goes with me on my walk out of town.
He knows more than a great many people. Never do we take a walk but the
poodles, and the rat-terriers, and the grizzly curs with stringy hair and
damp nose, get after him. They tumble off the front door step and out of
the kennels, and assault him front and rear. I have several times said to
him (not loud enough for Presbytery to hear), "Nick, why do you stand all
this? Go at them!" He never takes my advice. He lets them bark and snap,
and passes on unprovokedly without sniff or growl. He seems to say, "They
are not worth minding. Let them bark. It pleases them and don't hurt me. I
started out for a six-mile tramp, and I cannot be diverted. Newfoundlanders
like me have a mission. My father pulled three drowning men to the beach,
and my uncle on my mother's side saved a child from the snow. If you have
anything brave, or good, or great for me to do, just clap your hand and
point out the work, and I will do it, but I cannot waste my time on
rat-terriers."
If Nick had put that in doggerel, I think it would have read well. It was
wise enough to become the dogma of a school. Men and women are more easily
diverted from the straight course than is Nick. No useful people escape
being barked at. Mythology represents Cerberus a monster dog at the mouth
of hell, but he has had a long line of puppies. They start out at editors,
teachers, philanthropists and Christians. If these men go right on their
way, they perform their mission and get their reward, but one-half of them
stop and make attempt to silence the literary, political and ecclesiastical
curs that snap at them.
Many an author has got a drop of printers' ink spattered in his eye, and
collapsed. The critic who had lobsters for supper the night before, and
whose wife in the morning had parted his hair on the wrong side, snarled at
the new book, and the time that the author might have spent in new work he
squanders in gunning for critics. You might better have gone straight
ahead, Nick! You will come to be estimated for exactly what you are worth.
If a fool, no amount of newspaper or magazine puffery can set you up; and
if you are useful, no amount of newspaper or magazine detraction can keep
you down. For every position there are twenty aspirants; only one man can
get it; forthwith the other nineteen are on the offensive. People are silly
enough to think that they can build themselves up with the bricks they pull
out of your wall. Pass on and leave them. What a waste of powder for a
hunter to go into the woods to shoot black flies, or for a man of great
work to notice infinitesimal assault! My Newfoundland would scorn to be
seen making a drive at a black-and-tan terrier.
But one day, on my walk with Nick, we had an awful time. We were coming in
at great speed, much of the time on a brisk run, my mind full of white
clover tops and the balm that exudes from the woods in full leafage, when,
passing the commons, we saw a dog fight in which there mingled a
Newfoundland as large as Nick, a blood-hound and a pointer. They had been
interlocked for some time in terrific combat. They had gnashed upon and
torn each other until there was getting to be a great scarcity of ears, and
eyes and tails.
Nick's head was up, but I advised him that he had better keep out of that
canine misunderstanding. But he gave one look, as much as to say, "Here at
last is an occasion worthy of me," and at that dashed into the fray. There
had been no order in the fight before, but as Nick entered they all pitched
at him. They took him fore, and aft, and midships. It was a greater
undertaking than he had anticipated. He shook, and bit, and hauled, and
howled. He wanted to get out of the fight, but found that more difficult
than to get in.
Now, if there is anything I like, it is fair play. I said, "Count me in!"
and with stick and other missiles I came in like Blucher at nightfall. Nick
saw me and plucked up courage, and we gave it to them right and left, till
our opponents went scampering down the hill, and I laid down the weapons of
conflict and resumed my profession as a minister, and gave the mortified
dog some good advice on keeping out of scrapes, which homily had its proper
effect, for with head down and penitent look, he jogged back with me to the
city.
Lesson for dogs and men: Keep out of fights. If you see a church contest,
or a company of unsanctified females overhauling each other's good name
until there is nothing left of them but a broken hoop skirt and one curl of
back hair, you had better stand clear. Once go in, and your own character
will be an invitation to their muzzles. Nick's long, clean ear was a
temptation to all the teeth. You will have enough battles of your own,
without getting a loan of conflicts at twenty per cent a month.
Every time since the unfortunate struggle I have described, when Nick and
I take a country walk and pass a dog fight, he comes close up by my side,
and looks me in the eye with one long wipe of the tongue over his chops, as
much as to say, "Easier to get into a fight than to get out of it. Better
jog along our own way;" and then I preach him a short sermon from Proverbs
xxvi. 17: "He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to
him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears."