By mandate of law, Rick wore a muzzle, not often on his nose, but
generally hanging under his chin. It was not because his present
character was a vicious one that Rick was thus distinguished, but
owing to an awkward circumstance in early life. For Rick had been
tried in a court of law for the crime of murder, convicted, and
sentenced to death. I believe Canton Grison is the only province in
Switzerland where the law enforcing capital punishment has not been
repealed; and in Canton Grison it applies to beasts as well as men.
Rick first appeared, a starveling puppy with a large frame and weak,
shambling legs, before the windows of a charitable Scotswoman, who was
a lover of dogs and a person of sensibility. Rick, whatever his
intellectual shortcomings, was a shrewd judge of human nature, and
knew where to find a sure welcome. Naturally he soon discovered the
hour for meals, and seldom failed to be on hand in good season. Once
he found the glass door shut through which he was accustomed to enter.
Spectators on the other side saw his discomfiture, but, before they
could reach the door, Master Rick had lifted the latch and was walking
triumphantly in. A later friend of his declared that, when he asked,
"What has become of that enormous dish of meat?" Rick tipped him an
arch wink and touched his corpulent stomach with a hind paw. Another
instance of his supposed intelligence was his habit of accompanying
intending customers to the confectioner's shop, where he gorged
himself at their expense. This indulgence in sweets, and his visits to
adjacent villages, where he dined at the hotels _a la carte_, his
bills to be sent to the Belvedere, induced early obesity, which was
particularly observable in his great tail. I always thought the
general belief in Rick's mental capacity rested on insufficient
grounds. I have lived too much with dogs not to know a dull fellow,
though kindly, when I see him; but, as an individual, I loved Rick,
and could not deny him a certain charm. The fact that one day Rick
(who at that time belonged to a butcher) did not put in an appearance
simultaneously with the ringing of the luncheon-bell caused the
charitable Scotswoman misgivings. She should have known him better.
Fortunately she happened to glance out of the window in the nick of
time, for there was poor Rick, flat on his side, his head turned
piteously towards the door of his friend, being dragged along the road
at the tail of a terrible cart--the cart of a man who bought dead and
living cats and dogs for the sake of their skins. A maid was hastily
despatched to the rescue, and Rick was bought for the price of his
hide. His trials were over (it was little he cared for the trial and
sentence), for he was now adopted by the Hotel Belvedere.
Here he passed several uneventful, greedy years, until the day when
the Belvedere was startled by the appearance of the officers of the
law with an official document--a summons for Rick. How it was served I
cannot imagine, but Rick was cited to appear, on a given date, at the
Rathhaus, under the appellation of Tiger Hund. Tiger Hund was a fine,
dashing name, but hardly applicable to Rick, who had more of the
characteristics of the sheep than of the tiger. The two leading
hotels, the Belvedere and the Bual, were shaken to their base by the
threatened danger to Rick. Foreign counsel was appointed to plead his
cause; I cannot now remember whether the chosen advocate was Herr
Coester of the Belvedere, or Mr. J. Addington Symonds of the Bual.
One, I know, appeared for Rick at the trial; while the other, after
conviction, got up a petition for his pardon.
The eventful day arrived; the learned gentleman, honest Rick at his
heels, took his way to the ancient Rathhaus, the gloomy aspect of
whose exterior, with its narrow, barred, windowy and high-pitched roof
under the eaves of which were many a row of wolves' heads now dried
into mummies, should have thrilled with apprehension the heart of the
least imaginative dog. But Rick, poor innocent, trotted through the
portals as he would have trotted into the confectioner's, and curled
himself up for a nap at the feet of his counsel.
His affection for the accused, and the sympathy of the large audience
assembled to hear his pleading, inspired the learned gentleman with
unwonted eloquence. The only creature unconcerned was Rick, who,
having finished his nap, thought it a fitting occasion to make a
little excursion into the next canton.
After a brilliant peroration in which he dilated on the fidelity of
the accused, who, he asserted, never left the Hotel Belvedere except
in company with some of the guests, Rick's advocate wound up with
these words: "Behold at my feet the Tiger Hund!" But, alas! Rick was
not at his feet, nor could he be found in any of his usual haunts,
though eager searchers beat the precincts for him. And so, through
Rick's own fault, his case was lost and his friends put to open shame.
Sentence of death was passed in the absence of the culprit, and things
for a time looked black for Rick. Strenuous efforts, however, were
made to secure a pardon; and finally, after the presentation of a
petition pleading for mercy, numerously signed by the foreign and
native residents, the magistrate was induced to commute the sentence
to muzzlement for life. I cannot myself believe that Rick had the
courage to attack a sheep, even in company. I know that his first
meeting with a donkey threw him into such fits of terror that his
reason was despaired of for days.