You see, no one knew much of him, for he seldom if ever spoke of
himself. I suppose I knew him better than anyone on his beat here, for I
fell in love with his dog, and with himself, too, for that matter, for,
in the first place, he was old, and whoever saw a white head and didn't
love it, and whoever looked upon a wrinkled face and didn't wish to kiss
it, if it was peaceful, and the old man's head was as white as snow is,
and the peacefulness of a sleeping child hovered over the sadness of his
face, albeit the shadow of a sorrowful past lay darkly resting upon it.
But though I saw much of him as he swung around on his annual visit, and
though he looked upon me as his friend--as, indeed, I was, and proved
myself to be such more than once, thank God!--still he never offered to
tell me his history, and I certainly never questioned him about it. For
life is a secret thing, and each man holds the key to his own; and only
once, if at all, may it be opened, and even then only the Father is
gentle and forgiving enough to look upon the wheat and the chaff which
we in our grief or joy keep closely locked from human eyes.
No, I knew little of him; but occasionally, sitting by the fire here
when a storm was heavy outside, for the coming of storms was always the
prelude of these moods in him, he would begin to mutter to himself, and
to talk to his dog of days long gone; of men and women he had once hated
or loved, or who loved or hated him--God knows which--and of deeds he
had once done, but which were now deeply buried under the years.
Perhaps he did not know that he was talking. Perhaps his soul, busy with
the past, forgot the motion of the lips and ceased to keep its watch
over the movements of that member which, unless ceaselessly guarded,
betrays us all so often. What did he mutter about? Well, the man is dead
and gone, and what little there is to tell cannot pain him now. Death
makes us indifferent to disclosure, and little do we care what the world
says about us when we lie sleeping in the grave, I ween. Yes, the man is
dead and gone this many a year; God rest his soul, and I heartily hope
he has found riches and rest and his dog ere now, as I feel certain he
has, and what little I know can do no harm, if told, to any.
Well, as I was saying, when storms were brewing in the air and the sea,
the uneasiness of the elements themselves seemed to take possession of
his soul and agitate it,--for his very body would rock to and fro and
sway in the chair when the fit was on him, and he would talk to his dog,
and to men and women, too, whom no one could see save himself, and if
what he said might be taken as the words of a sane man, he certainly had
been rich and powerful one day--and loved and hated, too, for that
matter. For from his speech one could but learn that all that makes life
worth the living was once his, and that he had lost it all--but
whatever may have been his other losses, one there must have been in
truth, for as to it his words were always the same: "_Gone, gone_," he
would say, "_gone_--and the winds I hear coming blow over her grave--but
winds cannot reach her, for she lies warm and well covered, deep down in
her grave." And so he would sit muttering and swaying his body in the
chair, as the winds blew stormily out of the east, and the boom of the
waves rolled up from the bluff, as they pounded heavily against the
rocks and the shore.
Why did I not make him settle down? Because he wouldn't. I tried time
and again to persuade him to it, but he never would consent. Perhaps he
was right in his impulse to roam, and loved the careless freedom of it,
and the solitude it gave him. For if a man would hide himself from man
he must keep on the move. If he stops he becomes known. But in travel he
loses his identity, and passes from place to place unknown and unnoted.
But it seemed pitiful to me that one so old and feeble should have no
home, and so I persuaded him to settle down for one winter, at least,
and hired him a little house in a pleasant street and started him in
his housekeeping experiment. But alas! evil came of it, and I never did
a deed I more profoundly regretted, for it led to the calamity I am
about to tell you of, and brought upon the poor man the greatest grief
that might befall him, even the death of his dog, and in a most cruel
and painful fashion at that. Ah, me! could we but see the end of things
from their beginning, how little of our doing would be done at times;
for the benevolent blundering of our lives is as often fruitful of harm
as the evil we do in our malice and passion.
It all happened in this way, and I will tell you as it was told me,
partly by the old man himself, and partly by those who had knowledge of
the dreadful event at the time, for I was out of the city the morning
the occurrence took place, or it never would have happened. I don't
think anything of the kind ever before made so much talk, or excited so
much indignation.
The legislature at its last session, not having wit or honesty enough to
exercise itself over one of a dozen crying evils that were then vexing
the people, got greatly excited over--_dogs_!
Some miserable curs--many affirmed they were wolves, and no dogs at
all--in a remote corner of the state, had killed a few sheep, and the
farmers of that region got up a great scare, and raised a hue and cry
against the whole canine family. It is incredible how much noise was
made over the killing of a few half-starved sheep that were browsing on
those northern mountains! You would have thought, judging by the clamor,
that the fundamental interests of the commonwealth were attacked, and
that the stately structure of government itself was on the point of
falling to the ground.
Well, when the legislature met the excitement was at its height and the
gust of popular foolishness converged all its forces at the capitol. In
due time a bill was reported, and an outrageous bill it was, too, for it
not only put a heavy tax upon dogs in every section of the state, city
as well as country, but provided that certain officers should be
appointed to enforce the law, whose duty it should be to kill every dog
not duly registered on a certain date. Even this was not all; for it
stimulated the enforcement of the law by enlisting the cupidity of men
and boys alike, especially of the lower and hardened classes, by
providing that whoever killed an unregistered dog should be paid three
dollars from the state treasury.
It was a bad law, in truth, for it was the outgrowth of senseless
excitement, and an attempt to tax the affections. Property, of course,
can be taxed, but we all know that a dog is not property, any more than
is a boy's pet rabbit, or a child, for that matter. A dog is a member of
his master's family. He has connection with his heart, not with his
pocket. He is a creature to love and be loved by, and not to be bought
and sold like a bit of land or a yoke of oxen, and any law aimed at the
affections is an offence to the holiest impulses of the bosom, and as
such should be resented.
Yes, the law was a bad one. I did what I could to defeat it in its
passage, and I broke it all I could after its passage, and that was some
satisfaction to my feelings, which were in fact outraged by it; for I
saw not only the injustice of it, as viewed in the light of correct
principle, but that it would bear heavily upon the poor, and bring
sorrow like the sorrow of death itself into families. I saw, moreover,
that it was a cruel law in its relation to children, whose pretty and
harmless pets and playmates could be murdered before their very eyes.
Many a sad case did I hear of, the winter after the law was passed, but
the saddest of all was that of my old friend, who was living peacefully
and happily with his dog in the little house I had hired for him.
[Illustration: _He was teaching the dog a new trick._]
He was sitting one evening in the comfortable quarters I had provided
for him, playing with his companion and teaching him some new tricks to
practise against my return, happy as he might be, when a loud rap was
delivered upon his door, and at the same instant it was pushed rudely
open, and a man walked into the room and, without pausing to give or
receive a greeting, pointed to the dog, and said:
"Is that your property, sir?"
"I never think of him in that way," answered the old man, mildly. "He
has been my companion--I may say my only companion--these many years,
and I love him as property is not loved. No, sir, _Trusty_ is not
property--he is my companion and my friend."
"I didn't come here to listen to any of your crazy nonsense, but as an
officer of the law, to see if you have registered your dog, and paid
your tax as it commands, and, if you hadn't, to see that the penalty was
put upon you as you deserve, you old begging loafer, you."
"I've broken no law that I know of," replied the beggar, "I love my dog,
that is all. I hope it breaks no law for a man to love his dog in this
city, does it, friend?"
"If you don't know what the law is, you'd better find out," answered the
fellow, roughly. "What right have you to own a dog, anyway? It strikes
me that it is about enough for you to sponge your own living out of the
community, without sponging another for a miserable whelp of a dog like
that."
"Trusty eats very little," replied the old man, respectfully, "and he
amuses people a great deal, especially the children; and, besides, he is
a great comfort to me, and God knows that I have nothing else to
comfort me in all the world--wealth, home, friends, and one dearer than
all,--all lost, and thou'rt all I have left, Trusty, to comfort me," and
he looked affectionately at his companion, whose head was resting
lovingly on his knee.
"Oh, I've heard the whining of your class before to-night," replied the
fellow, "and am not to be taken in by any of your sniffling, so you
needn't try that trick on me. Law is law, and I shall see it enforced,
and on you, too, in spite of your shuffling, you miserable old sneak of
a beggar, you."
"Friend," answered the old man with dignity, as he rose from the chair
and looked the fellow calmly in the face, "better men than you or I have
begged their daily bread before now, and eaten it, too, with an honest
conscience and a grateful heart, and more than once when night has
overtaken me, weary of journeying along inhospitable roads, and I have
been compelled to make my bed on the leaves under some hedge, I've
remembered that the Son of God when on the earth to teach us the sweet
lesson of charity, 'had not where to lay his head.' The lesson he came
to teach, you certainly have not learned, or you would never have made
my poverty and my misfortunes the butt of your scoffings."
The old man spoke with dignity, but the coarseness of the fellow's
nature and the hardening influence of the business he was engaged in
prevented him from feeling either shame or sympathy, for he turned
toward the door with an oath, saying: "You'll hear from me in the
morning, old chap, but I'll tell you this to chew on over night; that if
your tax money isn't ready when I come again, I'll teach you what it is
to break the laws in this city, and insult the officers whose duty it is
to see them enforced against just such white-headed old dead-beats as
you!" and with another oath, he passed out of the door and shut it with
a slam.
I don't know how the old man passed the night. But little sleep, I
warrant, came to his old eyes, for he was as timid as a child, and
easily frightened, and a threat against his own life would have
disturbed him less than one against the life of his dog. But whether he
slept or not, the hours of the night wheeled along their dark courses
without stopping, and speedily brought the dreaded morning. I know not
when he died, or where, but well I know that the memory of that
dreadful morning and the woe that came to him on it haunted him to the
close of his life, and embittered the last hours of it.
The morning came as all mornings, whether they bring joy or grief to us,
do come. The threat the fellow had uttered against his dog the evening
before had naturally disturbed him and the old man was nervous and
excited, but he managed to cook his frugal breakfast and eat it with his
companion. I can well imagine his thoughts and his worriment. "Law! what
law?" I can hear him say. "I've broken no law. I've only loved and been
loved by my dog. That's not wicked, surely. He said he'd come again, and
if I didn't have the money ready. Money! what money? He knows I've no
money. Tax! what tax? Do they tax a man's heart in this city? Can't a
man love anything here unless he's rich? Kill my dog! I don't believe
it. There isn't a man on the earth wicked enough to kill an old man's
dog, an old man's harmless dog; no, he didn't, he couldn't mean that! he
just said it to scare me. Yes, yes, I see now; he'd been drinking and he
said it just to scare me." Thus, as I fancy, the poor old man sat
muttering to himself, listening with dread to every passing step,
listening and muttering to himself, while his old heart, quaked in his
bosom, and his soul, which had so little to cheer it, as it journeyed
along its lonely path, was sorely tried and disquieted within him.
The clock in a neighboring steeple was striking the ninth hour, and the
old man paused in his muttering and sat counting the strokes as the iron
tongue pealed them forth; counting them in his fear as if each stroke
was a knell, and so indeed to him it was, and many of the chimes we
listen carelessly to, would be knells to us, if we knew what would
happen twixt them and their next chiming.
The vibration of the last stroke was swelling and sinking in the air,
when a heavy step sounded on the stair, and without even the ceremony of
knocking, the door was pushed suddenly open, and the fellow, who had
intruded upon him the evening before, entered the room. In one hand he
held a rope and in the other a club.
"Well, old chap," he said, "you see I am here as I told you I would be.
I've given you a whole night to study up the law."
"Law! what law?" exclaimed the old man, interrupting him, "I don't know
that I broken"--
"Come, come, old shuffler, none of your blarney, if you please," broke
in the fellow; "you know well enough what law I mean. I mean the
dog-law."
"Dog-law! dog-law!" answered the old man, "what law is that?"
"Oh, you don't pull the wool over my eyes," sneered the other; "you know
what law I mean well enough, but, to jog your memory, I'll say that the
law I mean makes the owner of a dog pay a tax of three dollars, and if
the tax isn't paid"--
"Three dollars!" ejaculated the poor man. "Three dollars! when have I
had so much money as that? Three dollars! you might as well have asked
me to pay three thousand as three."
"Very well, very well," exclaimed the other; "the law covers just such
cases as yours--covers them perfectly," and he laughed a coarse, cruel
laugh. "Out with the money, or I take the dog."
"Take my dog!" screamed the old man, "take Trusty! What should you take
him for? You can't want him."
"Oh, yes, I do, old fellow," retorted the other; "I want him very much
indeed, I know just what to do with him, I'll see to that."
"Do with him?" cried the other, whose mind, perhaps because paralyzed by
fear, perhaps because of the enormity of the deed, would not receive the
horrible suggestion, "what would you do with Trusty?"
"Kill him, damn you!" shouted the other; "kill him as I have a hundred
other curs this fall and pocket the money the law gives me for doing it.
Do you understand that, you old dead-beat?"
For a moment the wretched man never spoke, his lips paled to the color
of ashes, and shrivelled as if suddenly parched against the teeth, and
he clutched the back of a chair for support. Twice he essayed to speak,
his lips moved, but his tongue in its dryness clove to the roof of his
mouth. At last he gasped forth in the hoarse whisper of mortal terror:
"Kill my dog! kill Trusty!"
It was a sorry sight, truly, and might well touch the hardest heart. But
the officer of the law--God save the mark!--remained unmoved. What was
one dog more or less to him? had he not already killed hundreds, as he
said? The sportsman's favorite hunter, astray without his collar, the
lady's pet, crying pitifully in the street, unable to find its
mistress's door, the children's playmate, waiting in front of the school
house for school to close, the poor man's help and comfort, his
household's joy, guardian and friend, caught in the street on his return
from his humble master, to whom he carried his homely dinner. What was
one dog more or less to him, hardened by the murderous habit of his
office and eager to earn his wretched fee,--what was one dog more or
less to _him_?
"Come, come," he cried, as he uncoiled the rope he held in his hand,
"out with the money or I take the dog."
"How much is it? how much is it?" cried the old man, fumbling in his
pockets and bringing forth a few small pieces of silver and some
pennies. "Here take it, take it, it's all I have--there's a ten-cent
piece, isn't it? and there's two fives, and here, yes, God be praised,
here's a quarter of a dollar; Trusty earned that yesterday. Let's see,
twenty-five, that's the quarter, and ten is thirty-five, and two fives,
that makes forty-five, and eight pennies, that makes fifty-three cents;
won't that do? It's every cent I have, as God is my witness--it will do,
won't it?" And the old man seized one of the hands of the fellow, and
strove to put his little hoarding into it.
But the hard-hearted wretch drew his hand back with a jerk, and, seizing
the dog by the neck, slipped the rope over his head and saying, "The law
allows me four times that for killing him," opened the door and pulled
the poor dog out after him into the street.
"God of heaven!" screamed the poor old man, as he rushed, bareheaded as
he was, out of the door, and hurried in pursuit of the man, who was
pulling the dog along and walking as fast as he could, while Trusty
struggled and cried and did all he could to get rid of the rope. "Where
is thy justice or thy mercy? Oh, sir; oh, sir;" he shouted, running
after the man, "give me back my dog; oh, give him back to me, good
people;" he cried, for his own cries and those of the dog, too, had
already drawn a crowd to the scene, "good people, tell him not to kill
my dog."
[Illustration: "_It was to the honor of the crowd that they hooted the
officer roundly._"]
It was to the honor of the crowd that they hooted the officer roundly,
and called on him and shouted, "Give the old man back his dog," and
greater honor yet to them that some of the boys pelted him with
snowballs and junks of ice as he hurried on, and one brawny chap,
sitting on the seat of his cart, struck him a stinging blow with his
black whip as he scuttled past, with, "Damn you, take that, for killing
_my_ dog." The officer shook his club at the honest fellow and said,
"I'll pay you for that, see if I don't," but he dared not stop to make
the arrest, for the crowd was thickening and the air getting fuller of
missiles, and every door and window was hooting him as he passed them,
with the poor dog crying and moaning pitifully at his heels. Even the
women, God bless them (for the feeling against the law ran high in the
city), opened the doors and lifted the windows of their houses, the
ladies crying, "Shame on you, shame on you!" and the cooks and chamber
maids from the nadir and zenith of their household worlds, with homelier
and more piquant phrase and saucier tongues, scoffed him for the
miserable work he was doing; but in spite of the popular uprising, now
almost swelled to the dimensions of a mob, and the verbal uproar,
through the hoarse murmur of which the boy's gibe, the woman's taunt and
the strong man's curse, came and smote upon him in volleys, still he
clutched the rope and rushed along, threatening the crowd that was
closing in ahead of him with his club, and so making headway on his
dreadful errand, while the poor old man, unable to keep up with him, was
filling the air with his cries, and, without knowing what he was saying,
perhaps, kept calling on the people, saying, "Oh, good people, good
people, don't let him kill my dog."
Indeed, his grief was piteous to see, for he was half distraught with
fear, and like as a mother whose child had been snatched from her and
was being hurried to death, so he, with tears, sobs and screams, kept
entreating one moment the crowd and the next beseeching heaven, saying,
"Don't let him kill my dog," and being an old man and white-headed, and
as his countenance and gestures were eloquent with the eloquence of true
grief, the people were filled with pity for him and their hearts melted
with sympathy at the piteous spectacle they beheld.
Then up spake the honest carter, saying, "Friends, let's give the old
man a lift, for it's a shame that one so old should lose his dog. How
much is it you lack of the tax?" he asked of the poor old gentleman as
he came panting up. But he was so confused and tremulous with terror
that he could not answer, and so being unable to do more he stretched
his old shaken hands in which the money was still, tightly clutched, up
to him, but the old hands shook so that the carter could not count it,
until he had taken it into his own steady palm.
"Here's fifty cents and a few odd pennies," he shouted, "and the law
demands three dollars; two dollars and a half is wanted; who'll help
make up the three dollars and save the old man's dog? Here's fifty
cents," he added as he took a silver half-dollar from his pocket and
dropped it into the hat, "it's half I earnt yesterday, and more than
I'll earn to-day, perhaps, for times be dull, but the old man shall have
it, if Mary and I go without sugar and tea for a week."
'Twas a good speech and bravely said, and the crowd responded to it as
bravely, for it fairly rained dimes and quarters and pennies, not only
into the carter's hat until it sagged, but into his cart, too, until the
bottom of it was speckled all over with copper and silver coin, and the
honest fellow held up his hands for the crowd to give no more, crying:
"Hold, hold! Here's enough, and more than enough."
But he could scarcely make himself heard, because of the cheering and
the laughing and the rattling of the pieces as the crowd continued to
rain them all the faster into his cart. Ah, me, what is that sweet
something in human hearts, which, in its response to human want,
translates us like a flash from low to highest mood; aye, which breaketh
through all barriers of selfish habit, and even the adamantine of
foreign tongues and poureth out its rich largess in a common tide to
meet a brother's need, where'er that brother is or whatever he may be?
But the old man did not wait to gather up the offerings of the generous
and sympathetic crowd, but snatching a handful of silver from the
carter's hat pushed his way out of the jam, and, holding the hand in
which he clutched the silver high above his head, hurried on after the
officer, crying at the top of his voice: "Here's the money, here's the
money; oh, good people," for the street was nearly blocked with those
that swarmed thickly in the wake of the officer and he could make but
slow progress through it, "tell him I have the money and am coming;
don't let him go any farther; I shall never catch him; stop him, stop
him, for the love of heaven, stop him; here's the money." And thus
crying aloud and calling, with his thin, tremulous voice, upon the
officer to stop, he ran frantically along the street, as fast as he
could, in pursuit.
But it is certain that the old man would not have caught up with the
officer had the latter been uninterrupted in his progress, for the
street was filled with people and he could not push his way with much
speed because of his feebleness, but fortune, or perhaps I should say
misfortune, favored him, so that he shortly overtook the object of his
pursuit and came up with the officer and the dog. But, alas! his old
heart got little gain thereby, but a grievous loss, rather, for when he
came to the spot both lay stretched senseless on the ground, the man
knocked flat to the earth by the fist of an indignant citizen, and the
dog lying with his skull broken in by a brutal blow from the fellow's
club.
When the old man came to the spot where the dog and the officer lay, he
stopped, and when he saw what had happened, the money he had brought
with which to deliver his dog, fell rattling, unheeded to the ground,
and then he raised his palms toward heaven, as if entreating the
vengeance or the benignity of the skies, and with tears streaming down
his cheeks, he lifted up his voice and wept, saying: "Oh, God, he's
killed my dog!" And then he sank down all in a heap, as if he would die
beside his dying dog, for the dog was not yet dead, but dying.