"Come, brother; away!"
--Shakespeare's _Much Ado About Nothing_.
Sigurd was not the only representative of his family in our favored
town. His sister Hildigunna, who might well be described in the words
applied to Hildigunna of the saga as "one of the fairest," was given
to a comparatively remote household in Wellesley Hills from
which--alas!--she soon was stolen and spirited away to fates unknown.
But his brother Hrut, a name speedily changed by his new owners to
Laddie, took up his happy abode at The Orchard, not half a mile from
us. These owners, returning from one of their many holidays abroad,
had found on shipboard the Lady of Cedar Hill, on her way back from
Norway. Of course she told them about the ten puppies and of course
she promised them one.
Reared in the best traditions of New England, these travelers had
already achieved an ideal success as founders and directors of a famous
school for girls and had retired from active labors to a tranquil home
whose broad Colonial porches were screened with "white foam flowers" of
the clematis. They were Neighbors _par excellence_, so beloved, so
leaned upon, so beset with callers and "old girls," with church
committees and town committees, with causes and confidences, that they
literally had to go to Europe to secure an occasional rest. And it was
charming to see how their modest dignity and winsome graciousness
received due meed of honor the Old World over, from titled personages
of London to the very cab-drivers of Florence, whom they believed to be
"honorable men" and were undoubtedly cheated less for so believing.
Hard, shrewd faces of Paris pensions and Swiss hotels softened in their
presence, and even the severe old Scotch dame who rated them roundly
for gadding about the globe instead of having married and reared a
freckled family, like hers, was moved to add: "But I mak nae doobt ye
are mooch respectet where ye cam fram." She would have been confirmed
in this amiable concession if she could have seen how their return was
a village jubilee and how all our accumulated joys and sorrows trooped
in at once through their open doors. They were Ladies of rare and
precious quality, with a touch of precise, old-fashioned elegance,
which made one frank admirer exclaim: "But they are like finest china,
like porcelain, like _Sevres_. There is nothing so exquisite left on
earth. They are classics." Most eminently of all, they were Sisters. A
childhood of strange peril and suffering, in which their hearts clung
so close together that they grew into one, had fitted naturally
dissimilar natures into an utter harmony of desire and deed. Nobody
ever thought of one without the other. Not Castor and Pollux shine with
a more closely related and serener light.
The Sisters hardly waited for our first tumult of greetings to subside
before, on a September afternoon as quietly radiant as their own faces,
they drove over to Cedar Hill to see what they described as "ten little
fluffy balls, only just large enough to wriggle." The choice of their
collie they left to the giver. It was not determined then, but early in
April they had a message setting the day on which they were to "come
for Hrut." I presume they kissed the telephone. At all events, they
went with glad alacrity. As the door opened to admit them, a beautiful
little collie, pure white save for touches of a rich golden brown on
the ears, on the fall of the tail and on the top of his nobly carried
head, ran to meet them and sprang into the outstretched arms of the
foremost, cuddling there as if he knew that he had found his Earthly
Paradise.
His mistress had followed directly after him, aglow with pride in the
grace of his welcome.
"But this one cannot be ours,--he is _too_ lovely," exclaimed the
Sister who was already clasping him tight.
"Yes," smiled the Lady of Cedar Hill, "this one is yours," and the
puppy acquiesced with wagging tail and lapping tongue and every collie
courtesy.
From the first a delicate little fellow, the long drive back made him
ill, but he never gave, then or later, the least sign of homesickness,
settling at once with aristocratic ease into the comforts and
privileges of his new environment and lavishly returning love for love.
The Sisters, as well as the elder Cousin who dwelt with them, were
"lovers of all things alive," from bishops and other dignitaries, who
paid them appreciative homage, to the South Sea Islanders, of whose
costumes they disapproved but to whom, from babyhood up, they had
helped send missionaries. The grimiest urchin in town would grin
confidentially as he touched his cap to them, and their sympathy
overflowed all local limits to childhood everywhere. Little cripples
were the special objects of their care and tenderness. Of birds and
beasts they were spirited champions. No man dared whip his horse if
they were in sight. One of the Sisters had a magic pen, and many of her
stories, whimsical and wise, carried an appeal for human gratitude
toward the domestic animals who spend their patient strength in human
service, and for friendliness toward all these sensitive
fellow-creatures, our brief companions on a whirling star. The
quadrupeds must have passed on from one to another the glad tidings of
these Ladies of Lovingkindness, for many a hungry and thirsty cur
sought the hospitalities of their kitchen, and stray cats, forsaken by
selfish owners on vacation, used their piazza and even their parlor as
a summer hotel. Early one July morning I was starting out for the
college grounds on the search for a wretched mongrel that, having
appeared from nowhere in the spring term, as dogs will, had become a
cheerful hobo of the campus, living sumptuously through unlimited
attendance on the out-of-door luncheon parties of the village students.
A Commencement auto had broken one of his legs and frightened him into
hiding, and now the ebb of all that girl life which had fed and petted
him and the disappearance of chance bones from the closed back doors of
the dormitories had brought upon the college, I was informed by special
delivery letter from an indignant alumna, "the disgrace of leaving one
of God's creatures to suffer slow starvation." Old experience led me,
before setting forth to the rescue, to telephone the Sisters and ask if
they had any news of this divine vagabond.
"Yes, indeed," rang back a cheery voice. "He is breakfasting with us
now on the porch. He came limping up the walk just as the bell rang,
exactly as if he had been invited. Such a pleasant dog in his manners,
though dreadfully thin and--it's not his fault, poor dear--_so_ dirty!
I have just been calling Dr. Vet. to come and see what can be done for
that poor leg."
Of course Laddie was not their first dog. The checks of the school are
still stamped with the head of Don, their black Newfoundland, who had a
passion for attending the morning service in the school hall and
nipping the heels of the kneeling girls. In the repeating of the Lord's
Prayer he would join with a subdued rumble, doubtless acceptable to his
Creator, but when shut out from the sacred exercises, he would howl
under the windows an anthem of his own that offended both Heaven and
earth.
In the inexorable process of the years, Don grew old, becoming a very
Uncle Roly-Poly, but he was only loved the more. A cherished legend of
the school relates how he was sleeping on his rug by the bed of one of
his mistresses on a winter night, dreaming a saintly dream of chasing
cats out of Paradise, when some real or fancied noise awoke him and,
the faithful guardian of the school, he rushed through the low, open
window and out upon the piazza roof, barking his thunderous warning to
all trespassers. But he was still so bewildered with sleep that his
legs ran faster than his mind and, before he knew it, he had pitched
off the edge of that icy roof and was floundering in the snow beneath,
the most astonished dog that ever bayed the moon. What happened to him
then is supposed to have been related by Don himself:
"My howls dismayed the starry skies,
The Great and Little Dippers, _O!_
Till came an angel in disguise,
In dressing gown and slippers, _O!_
I staggered up the steepy stair;
She pushed me from behind, _Bow wow!_
She tended me with mickle care,
O winsome womankind! _Bow wow!_
She bathed my brow and bruised knee.
I only whined the louder, _O!_
She murmured: 'Homeopathy!
I'll give dear Don a powder,' _O!_
And may I be a pink-eyed rabbit
If she chose not from her stock, _Bow wow!_
FOR PERSONS OF A GOUTY HABIT
WHO'VE HAD A NERVOUS SHOCK. _Bow wow!_"
Other dogs had come after, notably Cardigan, a stately St. Bernard, who
made the fatal mistake of biting a pacifist, but Laddie, the only real
rival of Don in the Sisters' affections, was the crown of their delight
in doghood.
Sigurd had been with us only a few days when we took him over to see
his brother, already for nearly three months a resident at The Orchard.
We found Laddie, slender, white and dainty, quite at home on the
luxurious drawing-room sofa.
"I'm stronger than you," growled Sigurd, but Laddie, always the
gentlest and sweetest tempered of collies, acquiesced so pleasantly
that it was an amicable meeting. At the first hint of a second growl,
Laddie gave up the place of honor to his guest.
Of course we remonstrated, admonished Sigurd and urged the
accommodating host, whose good manners delighted the Sisters, to jump
back, which he did, tucking himself unobtrusively into the further
corner of the sofa. Sigurd immediately claimed that corner, which
Laddie yielded to him with unruffled magnanimity, crossing over to the
other. Sigurd promptly changed his mind again, pushing Laddie, this
time a little inclined to demur, down to the floor. Unable to devise a
plan by which he could curl into both corners at once, Sigurd stretched
himself out at full length, doing his best to reach from end to end of
the sofa, while Laddie, closely copying the attitude of this arrogant
big brother, lay along the rug below. Scandalized by Sigurd's conduct,
we would have removed him from his usurped throne in short order, but
the Sisters, rejoicing in the perfection of Laddie's social graces and
secretly convinced of their collie's moral superiority to ours, would
not allow any interference with the visiting puppy's comfort.
That freedom of the sofa was precious to Sigurd's pride and by repeated
efforts he tried to convince his obtuse mistresses that he was entitled
to the same privilege at home. But Joy-of-Life, who did not believe in
"pampering pets," stood firm. There was one evening, in particular,
when Sigurd jumped up on our living-room lounge some score of times,
keeping all the while a challenging eye on her, and just as many times
was ignominiously tumbled off. When she finally took possession
herself, laughing at his discomfiture, he banged his way out into the
kitchen and went down with a thump on the bare floor, hoping that we
would hear how hard it was and realize how sorely poor Sigurd was
abused. Finding that no apologies were forthcoming, he bounded to the
front door, barked his orders to have it opened and shot out into the
dark. Within five minutes the familiar tinkle called us to the
telephone and over the wire flowed the blithe voice of one of the
Sisters.
"I _must_ tell you what a lovely call we are having from dear Sigurd.
He barked to come in only a minute ago and went right up to the sofa
and took it all for himself--oh, yes, our Cousin had been sitting there
with Laddie, but they didn't mind at all--and there he is now, making
himself so charmingly at home, the beautiful boy. I _do_ wish you
could see him."
"_We will_," responded Joy-of-Life, and off we started to chastise
Young Impudence, whom we had begun to suspect of being a trifle
self-willed; but when we arrived the Sisters would by no means consent
to his overthrow. So there, while the chat went on, Sigurd lolled and
sprawled, yawning, stretching himself to an incredible length, rolling
over on his back with paws held high as if to applaud his victory and
continually turning up to Joy-of-Life eyes of such sparkling glee that
her purposes of discipline melted in mirth.
None the less, she was a match for him, resorting to strategy when she
was forbidden the exercise of force. Calling Laddie to her, she began
to stroke his nestling head. Instantly Sigurd, with a multitudinous
flourish of legs that might have moved a centipede to envy, flung
himself off the sofa and roared imperiously at the front door:
"Open this, Somebody, and be quick about it, too. Time to be off. Oh,
come along, Folks. You've no need to pat any dog but me. Good-night,
Lovely Ladies. S'long, Lad. See you tomorrow in the gloaming."
And unless we kept a strict watch, so he would. How often, while
surveying from our west porch, with Sigurd demurely sitting up between
us, the last faint flushes of the sunset sky, from across the road
there would be suddenly visible against the dusk a presence like a
celestial apparition, so white and hushed it was, the shining figure,
the lifted, listening head! And in the fraction of a second, even while
we were catching at his collar, off would go Sigurd with a great leap,
and away the brother collies would tear on a mighty run that kept two
households anxious far into the night. There was nothing celestial
about their behavior.
These lawless excursions often culminated in garbage-pail raids,
debauches from which the young prodigals would sneak home, abashed with
nausea. Once in a Commencement season we returned late in the evening,
with a guest, from the high solemnity of the President's Reception, to
find our hall strewn with Jonah strips of ham-rind and junks of
pumpkin. Our guest was a brilliant, worldly being, a very dragon-fly of
swiftness and gleam, and there she stood, exquisitely gowned in
rose-red under lace whose color was that of moonlight seen through thin
clouds, beholding our culprit, who an hour before had been exultantly
ranging a world of mysterious and infinite adventure, flattened
contritely in the midst of his enormities.
"How human!" was her only comment.
Often they came back injured, with bitten ears, scratched faces,
bleeding feet, and pretended to be worse off than they were, so as to
divert our reproaches into pity. Sigurd limped home one dawn with a
cruelly torn claw and lay all day in a round clothes-basket, to which
he had taken a fancy, curled up like a yellow caterpillar and sleeping
like a dormouse. But when I was sitting on the piazza steps that
evening, putting a fresh bandage on the claw, while Sigurd, almost too
feeble to stir, watched the process with pathetic eyes, a blanched
sprite glistened by, only a white motion through the dark, and in an
instant the invalid had sped away, bandage trailing, to be wicked all
over again.
No matter how often the four mistresses agreed that discipline required
doors to be shut against the truants till daybreak, on these nights of
their escapes ours were light slumbers that a pleading whine too easily
broke and many were the tiptoe journeys down derisively creaking stairs
to let the wanderers in. The next day such lame, dirty, subdued,
meek-minded stay-at-homes as our collies were! It was hard to scold
them properly when they rolled over on their backs and presented aching
stomachs to be comforted. But sometimes these stampedes took place by
day, for whenever they met out-of-doors these brothers, otherwise
fairly obedient, would disregard all human commands for the
authoritative call of the blood and dart away side by side like arrows
shot from a single bow. The sins that neither would commit alone they
reveled in without scruple when they were together. From all over town
we heard of our paragons as chasing cats, jumping at horses' heads,
over-running gardens and upsetting children. One sedate young woman on
whom they leaped, entreating her to play with them, sent in a
substantial bill to "the owner of the dog that tore my dress." When we
inquired whether it was the golden collie or the white that did the
damage she coldly replied that "the animals were so mixed up" she
couldn't tell whether it was "the brown one or the drab,"--to such a
condition had a bath of mud brought our dandies. One mother sternly
confronted us with a weepy little boy who complained that "zem two dogs
made me frow sticks for 'em all the way home from school an' my arm's
most bwoke with tiredness."
I remember clearly one typical escapade. It had snowed for three
successive days and nights. Joy-of-Life was away in Washington, reading
a learned paper before some convention of economists. Her mother passed
the shut-in hours patiently by the fireside, meditating with
disapproval on Dante's _Inferno_ which I was reading to her, at
intervals, for cheer during her daughter's absence. Sigurd was spoiling
for a romp. At last, in desperation, he amused himself by eating
everything he came across,--a tube of paste, a roll of tissue paper,
one of his own ribbons. I saw the latter end of the ribbon disappearing
into his mouth and sprang to seize it, meaning to drag the rest out of
his inner recesses, but Sigurd secured it by a furious gulp and capered
away in triumph. At last the flakes had ceased falling, the snow plow
had struggled through and, yielding to the big puppy's desperate
urgency, I took him out to walk, following after the plow between
glittering walls as high as my shoulder. At a turn in the road, I
caught sight, across the level expanse, of the Younger Sister
exercising an invisible Laddie. Suddenly there appeared above the
parapet the tips of two golden-brown ears, pricked up in eager inquiry.
Sigurd, overtopped by our own wall, could not have seen them, but with
one tremendous lurch he was up and out, wallowing madly through the
drifts to meet Laddie, who, like a miniature snow plow, was already
breaking a way toward him. The collies touched noses and, ranging
themselves side by side, plunged off into that blank of white, utterly
deaf to the human calls that would check the onward impulse of their
sacred brotherhood.
They had another glorious run two days later, when the snow was frosted
and could bear their weight. Mad with mischief, they raced miles on
miles,--to Oldtown and beyond, barking at every man they met and
leaping at every horse; they dashed into Waban Way and out over the
spacious Honeymoon estates; they scampered hither and thither across
the three hundred acres of the campus; they careered back and forth
over the frozen lake and challenged the college girls to a
rough-and-tumble in the snow. Meanwhile the Younger Sister and I,
seriously alarmed lest some nervous horse, startled by their antics,
should bring about disaster, had taken a sleigh and gone forth in
pursuit. Disquieting news of them kept coming to us as we drove.
"Two young collies? I should say so. I met them an hour ago, way over
in Dover. They both jumped at my old Dobbin's head, barking all
Hallelujah."
"O yes, I've seen two runaway dogs. Shepherds, white and fawn. They
were chasing an express team down by Eliot Oak. The driver was standing
up and whipping out at them for all he was worth."
Presently we came on their fresh tracks in the snow, tracks of running
feet always side by side, until at last we overtook the truants. There
they were, barking in duet, hoarse but happy, trying to scramble up an
icy telephone pole after a spitting cat. They bounded to greet us and
followed the sleigh home like lambs. The Sister, secretly condemning
Sigurd as the dangerous misleader of her angel Laddie, assured them
firmly that they were _never_ to play together again.
Sigurd still had so much frolic in him that, when we had arrived at our
own door, he coaxed me to stay outside and throw sticks for him from
the piazza into the drifts. But soon I noticed red touches on the snow
and, bringing him in, found that his feet were ice-cut and bleeding. I
told him sternly that such were his just deserts and he rolled over on
his back, holding up his paws to be healed. While I was anointing them
with vaseline, a vain remedy because of the avidity with which Sigurd
licked it off, I discovered that he had lost, in his wild whirl, the
ornamental blue-bead collar, wrought for him by a student devotee at
the cost of many patient hours. When I had done what he would let me
for his feet and he had curled up cosily in his basket, I solemnly set
about my duty of rebuking him, but the youngster was too tired for
rhetoric. With an apologetic grunt, he instantly fell fast asleep.
Being inwardly persuaded that Laddie was chiefly to blame, I left my
misguided innocent to his repose.
The next afternoon he limped demurely down the hill and, in about two
minutes, was on The Orchard porch, exchanging vociferous greetings with
Laddie, but for once his effrontery failed of its effect. Steeling
their hearts, the Sisters refused to let the outside collie in or the
inside collie out. Sigurd, always most dignified when his feelings were
hurt, rose against one of the drawing-room windows, took a long look at
the sofa and vanished into the early winter twilight, not to be seen
again by our anxious eyes for thirty-six hours. It was just on the
silver edge of the third day that a wistful _woof_ on our porch sent
four hastily slippered feet skurrying to the door. Such a famished,
unkempt, exhausted collie as stood wagging there! His coat was grimy,
his ruff gray and tangled, and from his collar, drawn cruelly tight,
dragged a cumbrous length of iron chain. The Sisters, who, suffering
all the pangs of contrition, had been no less eager than we in
prosecuting the search, hurried over (without Laddie) straight from
their breakfast table, and one of them, flinging her arms about Sigurd
as he nestled in the forbidden easy-chair--for he never missed the
opportunity to wrest some special privilege out of any emotional
crisis--sobbed with relief. Spent as he was, the collie licked her
cheek, forgiving and consoling, even while his happy, love-beaming eyes
could hardly hold themselves open. If an attempt had been made to
kidnap him, Sigurd's strength and often proved cleverness in
extricating himself from bonds had stood him in good stead. More
fortunate than his sister Hildigunna and than another high-spirited
sister, Unna, likewise supposed to have been stolen--though in the saga
Unna ran away from her home (and husband),--Sigurd, if he could not
break the chain of captivity, had managed to pull it out of its staple
and lug it along with him back to freedom.
By an assiduous use of the telephone to the effect, "We are taking
Laddie for a walk. Will you please keep Sigurd in?" or "Sigurd has just
started off in your direction. Where's Laddie?" we kept a certain check
on their escapades for the rest of that winter, but they contrived to
meet at some secret rendezvous in apple-blossom time and came home
panting and jubilant, with pink and white blossoms all over their
coats. Sigurd apparently liked the effect, considering himself a King
of the May, for no sooner were those petals brushed off than he frisked
out and rolled over in the tulip-bed to accumulate some more. On the
few occasions when our runaways, oozing through the merest cracks of
doors, gave us the slip, we dropped all minor occupations and hunted
them down, calling in the aid of an amused liveryman, an Irish neighbor
whose white hairs thatched a pate where wit and kindliness kept house
together.
"It's the goolden dog y'are to me," he would say to Sigurd. "Many's the
good dollar I've made out o' yez thraipsin's and throublin's."
The Lady of Cedar Hill had given away to appreciative friends all the
puppies save Gunnar, but several of them had homes nearby and she
thought it would be pleasant to have a family reunion once a year, on
their common birthday. One such gathering proved enough for all time.
On a delectable autumn afternoon we set forth, just after luncheon, in
a roomy surrey, The Sisters, Joy-of-Life, my nephew--then a wide-eyed
small boy, now a surgeon working for the wounded in France,--and I,
with Sigurd and Laddie racing alongside, to attend Gunnar's birthday
party. Six or seven of his brothers and sisters were assembled, but at
this distance of time I cannot call the roll. Among them were probably
Helga, who, becoming Lady Gwendolyn, lived to a reverend age; certainly
Flosi, who returned from the new owner to Cedar Hill, where his
frolicsome years were nine; perhaps Hauskuld, dearly beloved, who, like
Sigurd, was tormented in hot weather by the aristocratic ailment of
eczema, and perhaps Helgi, who, as far as the family record is known,
outlived all his generation, dying at the ripe age, for a high-bred
collie, of thirteen. There was no receiving line and never a moment
that afternoon when it was easy to distinguish them, for it was all one
glorious scrimmage from arrival to departure.
Ralph, growing more and more inhospitable with the years, had been
locked up as a precaution against tragedy, and resplendent young
Gunnar, the host of the day, assailed his guests so violently that he,
too, had to be put on his chain, where he alternately strained and
sulked all the afternoon. No wonder he never gave another party. But
Dora, always bewitching in her ways, found the occasion entertaining
and tolerated her children, if she could not be said to welcome them.
Meanwhile, by unremitting vigilance on the part of masters and
mistresses, the guests were restrained from too furious attacks on one
another, until the banquet, consisting of a row of extraordinarily big
and marrowy bones, was served. Each dog was instantly prompted by the
Evil One to covet his neighbor's bone, but after a really magnificent
display of authority on the part of their respective guardians, the
raging bunch of white and sable was disentangled. Separated by wide
distances, the collies, graceful figures lying on green lawn and bank,
fell to their crunching in comparative peace, while Gunnar, spurning
his own birthday dinner, roared grace from the end of his chain, with
Ralph's gruff _amen_ coming down from the open windows of his prison
chamber. I blush to record that Sigurd, having polished off his bone at
top speed, proceeded without ceremony to appropriate Laddie's. This was
rescued and returned to its gentle owner, already so bewildered by
these social excitements that, when a game of toss-and-catch followed
the feast, Laddie bit the leg of the short-trousered small boy, my
nephew, not unnaturally mistaking that long, thin, flourishing object
for a stick. This regrettable incident, as the Dog Gazette would put
it, broke up the party, but the distressed Sisters made such ample
amends to the victim that he came to consider, as birthdays and
Christmases rolled around, that scar on his calf one of his best
assets.
During the period of Sigurd's distemper and convalescence we took the
utmost care, of course, to shut him away from Laddie, whose bonny brown
head often appeared on the outside of one window or another, the
shining eyes wistful for his playmate.
On one occasion the contagious element in the disease stood us in good
stead. Sigurd was better, but still so weak that the least of walks
tired him out. We kept him off the highways, lest any germs yet
lingering about him might bring disaster on other puppies, but thought
we were safe in the woods behind the house. On a certain Sunday
afternoon I had coaxed Sigurd, by short stages, further than before. He
had spent his little stock of strength and, with his usual eye for
becoming effects, had disposed himself to sleep under a
white-blossoming wild cherry,--that exquisite springtide delight which
the campaign against browntail and gypsy moth is fast banishing from
eastern Massachusetts. Suddenly a group of young roughs from a
neighboring factory town burst through the brush, attended by a gaunt
mastiff, and for the fun of the thing, jovially deaf to my
remonstrances, proceeded to get up a dog fight, though the betting was
monotonously one-sided. "Buster," obedient to command, approached
growling and bristling, and Sigurd, who was never one to turn the other
ear, trotted out with gallant readiness to meet an opponent who would
have made an end of him with the first clinch.
"Very well!" I said, blazing at those boyish rowdies, who may, by this
time, have bloomed out into heroes and won the _croix de guerre_. "If
you want your dog to sicken and probably die of distemper, set him on.
This collie is full of it and will infect him at the first touch."
Without staying to question my scientific accuracy, the hoodlums
hastily called off their champion, threatened me in uncivil terms with
the police and the jail for bringing a distempered dog abroad and took
themselves off to look for safer holiday sport. Sigurd thought he had
frightened them away and swaggered home with a marked revival of
spirits.
When Dr. Vet at last pronounced all danger of contagion over, the
Sisters, leaving Laddie behind, made a congratulatory call on our
invalid, whose lyric cry, albeit hoarse and squeaky, shrilled to the
Dogstar as he welcomed them, now climbing up to their shoulders in
fervent embrace, now modulating his roundelay to the plaintive note as
he tried his best to tell them what "Poor Sigurd" had suffered. _They_
were sympathetic; _they_ were intelligent; and tumbling into the
forbidden easy chair, Sigurd made it clear to them, and they in turn
made it clear to his dull mistresses, that his swollen throat could
nowhere be so comfortable as here, where the chair-arm supported the
chin. It was then that our last shred of arbitrary discipline gave way.
Sigurd had won the throne of his ambition. In course of time, this
became Sigurd's Chair, given over to his exclusive occupancy, scratched
and rubbed and shabby, the most disreputable and, to his mind, the most
enjoyable of our furnishings.
Laddie escaped the distemper, but of other mischances he had more than
his share. He was scalded by his own dear Annie, against whom he had
unluckily run when she was carrying a pitcher of boiling water; he was
shot through the leg, as he was assisting in a midnight serenade given
by the dogs of the neighborhood to a belle shut up in the house of her
bad-tempered master; but the sorest pang of all was the departure of
his mistresses for another year abroad. The Elder Cousin had gone on a
longer journey; the corner by the hearth was lonely for the lack of
that small gray figure, the hands so busy with their knitting, the face
so shrewd and kindly; and all we village-folk called to express our
sympathy and remained to burden theirs with long recitals of our
various tribulations until the Sisters, utterly worn out, had again to
seek solitude overseas.
What to do with Laddie? Gunnar, disgusted enough at having Flosi back
again, flatly avowed that he would not put up with another brother on
the premises. Ralph, in the fullness of years, and little Dora,
prematurely, had slipped away to Shadowland, bequeathing the care of
Cedar Hill to Gunnar, who was keenly alive to his responsibilities.
From one of our recent visits Sigurd had come back with a bleeding ear
and a red blotch on the top of his head. So the farmhouse of the estate
opened its doors to Laddie, but he had other views and, running away
the first afternoon, made a valiant effort to get back to the Sisters.
He took one wrong turn and was lost for a night and a day, but his rare
beauty and appealing charm won him a friend who allowed him to follow
her home, fed him, read his collar and soon made telephone connection
with his distressed mistresses, already resolved to let their steamer
go without them rather than sail in ignorance of Laddie's fate. They
were stout-hearted enough, however, when they knew that he was found,
to ask the Cedar Hill farmer to go and reclaim the stray, denying
themselves and Laddie another farewell.
We hoped that in the year's separation the two brothers would forget
each other or, at least, outgrow their propensity to revert to the wild
together. It seemed the more likely because Laddie, always fragile, had
suffered a severe attack of pneumonia at the farmhouse, and came back
to the Sisters looking more like a white spirit than ever. But he took
time, on arrival, only to greet his household saints and indulge in a
brief nap on the sofa before dashing off to find Sigurd. Away they went
on an impassioned run, from which, seven hours later, Laddie came
drooping home, and even Sigurd spent the next day curled up in his
green easy chair, subdued and quiescent, looking like an illustration
for "After the Ball."
Although we kept what guard we could upon them, they managed to elude
us several times that autumn, but after the first wild spurt they would
run more slowly, Sigurd slackening his natural speed in order to keep
side by side with Laddie, whose hard panting could be heard above the
rustling of the autumn leaves through which they raced. The worry cow
hooked us badly on Christmas day. Laddie, who had coughed all night,
had to be coaxed to come out for a little walk after breakfast and was
dragging behind the Younger Sister when, turning the corner of a bright
barberry hedge, they came upon Sigurd, gorgeous in his new, upstanding
bow of holly ribbon. Hey, presto! Off they shot like young wolves on
the trail. Under the starlight our truant returned, a damp wisp hanging
from his collar. That white, wavy front of his, so carefully groomed
for the festal day, was all red and green from the holly ribbon that he
had been chewing up for his Christmas dinner. As for poor Laddie, he
was ill for a week, but rallied again, and, despite our doubled and
redoubled vigilance, the brothers had still two or three runs together
before the end of February brought with it the end of Laddie's life.
Beautiful being that he was, he had gladdened earth for five and a half
years. If it is hard to believe in immortality, it is harder to
understand how his Maker could cast away a spirit of such pure
sweetness as Laddie's. Perhaps he ranges the celestial meadows now and
has found out what King Lear wanted to know,--"the cause of thunder."
For thunder was Laddie's terror. He could be quieted only by the
Younger Sister, who, going to the piano, would play her loudest, while
the trembling collie crouched against her feet.
This second attack of pneumonia was relentless. Laddie was not allowed
to suffer it to the end, but was tenderly put to sleep. Shortly after,
Sigurd trotted over to The Orchard of his own impulse and, without any
of the customary lurking and looking for Laddie, went straight in to
the Sisters, licking their hands and pressing close against their
knees.
That afternoon a few of Laddie's closest friends--though all the town
loved Laddie--gathered about a little grave on The Orchard lawn, while
the delicate Elder Sister, wrapped in a white shawl, with Sigurd,
wearing a white ribbon, close beside her for comfort, looked down on
the scene from an open chamber window. In the group below, one of us
after another quietly spoke of Laddie's gentleness and gladness and
affection, of the happiness he had given and received. The Younger
Sister read a lyric good-bye that the Elder Sister had written and
thanked God, as simply as if He were standing in our midst, for all the
joy of Laddie. Then we lowered the box, dropping upon it the white
rosebuds that the Dryad had sent and the white carnations that Jack's
mistress had brought. When the earth went in, one voice said softly,
"Dust to dust," but another responded clearly, "Love to love." All the
while Sigurd's intent eyes and golden head peered from the window above
and once he gave a short, troubled bark.