TOBY
All I know of his breeding is that he had none. His mother, a
drawing-room pet and the only acknowledged parent, was a little
long-bodied, dainty bundle of silver-grey silk that swept the ground;
he, fully twice her size and height, with a compact, sinewy frame and
a close, wire-haired, rusty-black coat, was more in the style of the
useful out-door terrier that loves a scrimmage in the street and is
rough on rats--mere dog, in short, and a despicable animal from the
fancier's point of view. But when I saw him first--he was brought to
my bedside during illness, as a present more likely to cheer me than
anything else--I thought I had never seen a sweeter pup; and I do not
hope to meet again, still less to own, a brighter, smarter, dearer
creature than he afterwards became.
There was nothing of the trick dog about him, and with respect to
striking exploits he was less distinguished than several of his
predecessors in my regard. One of these, for instance, was
part-proprietor of a town and a country house, both of which were kept
open and habitable (caretakers in one while the family occupied the
other), and there was a considerable railway journey between the two.
My canine friend preferred, of course, to live with the family, but
if they happened to hurt his feelings he quietly trotted to the
station, picked out the right train, and thereby conveyed himself to
his alternate home, where he remained until the trouble had blown
over. The railway officials at both ends knew him well, and he them,
but they declared that, even at the crowded station of the large town,
he was capable of finding his own train without their assistance. This
same dog knew when it was Sunday simply by count of days--at least, he
would seem to know before anything in the house could have told
him--and took his measures accordingly. He was always missing between
breakfast and church time, and always known to be in hiding under a
seat of the family pew during divine service, although an order
prohibiting his attendance had never been repealed. Another dog friend
used to wait for his mistress on doorsteps when she did errands or
paid calls, and one day she left a house by a different door from that
by which she had gone in, forgetting that he was there. Missing him
during the day, finding that he was not at home all night nor all next
day, she became frantic with fears that something dreadful had
happened to him, sending messages of inquiry in all directions. After
a hunt in more likely places, he was discovered on the doorstep where
she had left him. It had been snowing and blowing, and he was starved
with cold and hunger, but he had not budged. I knew a dog that nearly
died at his post in the same way, and quite lately the current dog of
this establishment spent a cold night at the local cemetery gates,
waiting for a master who had gone home unbeknown in a mourning coach
the day before. Dozens of incidents equally remarkable occur to me,
but not in connection with Toby; who, however, if he did not do any
very wonderful things, was capable of doing them. As with inglorious
Miltons amongst ourselves, he simply lacked opportunity.
What entitled him to be remembered as I remember him was his splendid
force of character and his absolutely faithful heart. He was, indeed,
energetic to a fault in nearly all directions. No dog walked that he
was not game to tackle, and no cat, except his own cat, whose
successive kittens he nursed as if engaged for the purpose, was safe
for a moment within range of his alert eye; while to see him careering
round the paddock after frenzied poultry, or throwing the garden
bodily over his back when burying his bones and digging them up again,
was to understand in some degree why he was not exactly popular with
the powers of his world. But the ardour of his affection for, and
devotion to, his particular owner was a thing to shame human
friendship at its best. I can never think of it without thinking what
life would be if men and women loved each other like that.
Full of business as he always was, I think he never lost the run of
his mistress for an hour when she was at home, unless he were tied up
for misdemeanours or otherwise forcibly restrained. A thing of
whalebone and quicksilver, of tireless energy and vivacity, he
schooled himself to the conditions of indoor companionship, and would
lie all day at my side, eyes watching for the merest glance from mine,
tail poised for a joyous thump the moment he received it. When I sat
out of doors, and he thought I was quite safe not to go away, he would
amuse himself in the vicinity in all sorts of cheerful ways. He always
took a deep interest in fowls, and a favourite game of his was to draw
an imaginary circle round a selected hen, and by working along that
line to keep her from breaking out of it. He did it so neatly and at
such a distance from her that she was not seriously alarmed; but when,
every time she started for a new point, she found him there ahead of
her, her disconcerted cluck and bewildered aspect were extremely
funny. The current kittens were also toys that he delighted in; he and
the mother cat would spend endless time and ingenuity in carrying them
away from one another and fetching them back again, all in the most
friendly fashion. Of course, he accompanied me everywhere in my walks
abroad. Some readers of these pages will recall his wit and his
persistence in following me into houses where I was paying calls after
doors and gates had been closed against him. How he did it we
sometimes could not tell, since he was neither a professional burglar
nor a kangaroo; and, of course, I ought to have brought him up not to
do it, as not to do a few other things that I weakly allowed for the
sake of the love that prompted them.
At night, when not on that chain which we both disliked so much, he
preferred to sleep on my doorstep--I had an outside doorstep, where a
French window opened upon the raised verandah--deserting the kennel in
which he could have been dry and warm. When I was alone--he always
knew when that was--the worst weather would not keep him away; but
when the rain, which occasionally was sleet and snow, beat on him, he
would scratch and whine to be let in; and then I would be inclined to
wish that one or other of us had never been born. It was a torment to
hear him and refuse his plea, but the most doggy person must draw the
line somewhere; besides, if I had admitted him once, he would have
suffered for my indiscretion many times, as also should I. So I used
to shout, "Go to bed, sir!" with a make-believe severity that had no
more effect than to send him dejectedly flopping down the verandah
steps, to creep up again before he had reached the bottom. But
generally he was good and quiet. I used to wake sometimes to hear a
subdued sniff under the door, or the thud of a soft body flinging
itself ostentatiously upon hard boards. These were his ways of
reminding me, in case I doubted it, that he was there.
Unfortunately, as before remarked, he was not popular with the
household. I daresay it was my fault. There are such differences of
opinion about dogs in our family that we never do have one without
quarrelling over it, more or less. Poor Toby was the domestic
scapegoat. If a chicken got roup or a stray cow walked over the
flower-beds, he was the suspected culprit; every muddy boot-print,
every unmentionable insect that came into the house, was laid at his
door; and to smell an unpleasant odour was at once to connect it with
his coat, and not with cabbage water in the kitchen or a neglected
drain.
I went out a-visiting for a week or two, and when I returned found
that he had been given away. He was still on the premises to welcome
me in his vociferous manner, and the news was not broken too abruptly:
but I had to hear it before the following afternoon, which was the
time fixed for his departure. It appeared that in my absence he had
taken up with some friends of ours whom he had often called upon with
me, particularly attaching himself to the eldest schoolboy son, and
had virtually been living with them nearly all the time. They were but
temporary dwellers in the town, and about to leave it; and as he had
greatly endeared himself to the numerous children, and was rightly
supposed to be unappreciated in his own house, they had asked to keep
him and take him with them. Evidently the request had been hailed as
delightfully opportune, and unhesitatingly granted by those who had no
authority to dispose of him.
"Now, you know," it was said to me, when, after something of a scene,
I was considered in a fit state to be reasoned with, "that Toby only
makes discord and dissension in an otherwise united family. He will
interfere with the fowls, and dig holes in the garden, and bring dirt
and fleas into the house; and then, when he is put on the chain, you
don't like it and make a fuss. Here's a splendid home for him, where
he'll be as happy as the day is long. The T.'s, who have just as much
as they can do to feed their own children and pay their own travelling
expenses, would not add him to the party if they were not really fond
of him; and you can see, by the way he has been haunting their place,
how fond he is of them. It is for the dog's own benefit as well as
ours, and we shall never get such another chance."
Well, I saw that. When you love a creature, dumb or otherwise, its own
happiness is what you consider first, and every proof had been given
that his new proprietors would be good to him. In this case, as in so
many cases, the benevolent heart went with the slender purse; Toby
himself was well aware of it. And so I consented to let the bargain
stand. I had promised to see my friends off at the railway station,
but now cancelled that engagement, sending them a message to say that,
though they might take Toby, I could not see him go. They told me
afterwards that he went quietly; I daresay he did, not knowing what
was happening and how we should feel about it at our next meeting.
I had no expectation, at the time, of any next meeting. But a year or
two later, while having a little travel for my health, I found myself
in the large town whither he had been taken when torn from me: and, of
course, I made it my business to find him there, if possible. I did
not know where his people lived, the streets were strange to me, and I
have no bump of locality whatever, so I started soon after breakfast
and gave the morning to it. By about lunch-time, after many inquiries
and misdirections, and much fatigue and exasperation, I discovered the
house in a very far-out suburb. But, before I discovered the house,
Toby discovered me. He had not seen me, I am convinced--had either
scented me in the distance or recognised my (to human ears inaudible)
step--when he uttered his first ecstatic yell and hurled himself over
the gate; I was still half a street's length off when I beheld him
tearing towards me as if discharged from a giant catapult. Literally,
I could hardly see him for dust. We fell into each other's arms
forthwith, and I must have looked, to the casual spectator, as if
engaged in a death grapple with a wild beast.
His young master appeared, and I managed to shake his hand and ask if
he lived there, and how his mother was. He took me in to her, and she
was delighted to see me; his father and the family joined us, and said
how good it was of me to look them up, and of course I must stay to
dinner, and how were all at home, and so on; but it was dumb show--we
could not hear ourselves speak. Toby nearly lifted the roof with his
uproar of welcome, and seemed to have lost the power to stop himself;
every breath was a shriek, so full of the fury and passion of joy that
it seemed like to choke him. This sounds like exaggeration, but really
is not, as those present with me will testify, supposing they read
this tale. Since they never can have seen a dog so conduct himself
before or since, I am sure they will remember the circumstance. He
clawed me frantically, hugged my knees with his strong forelegs,
grovelled at my feet, licked them, rolled over them, rubbed his dear
snout, his ears, his shoulders, upon every part of me that he could
get at, contorting his body in the most grotesque and violent fashion,
as if in the throes of some mysterious convulsive fit. In short, no
hatter or March hare was ever so entirely mad and off his head and
beside himself.
I confess I was almost as great a fool; seeing which, the kind
household bore with the deafening racket as long as we chose to make
it--ten minutes, perhaps, which must have had the wearing power of ten
hours in that small room. Then, out of pity for my hostess, who was
invalided at the time, and to give human friendship a chance, and
because really a continuation of that Bedlam hubbub would have been
too much for anybody's nerves, I consented to a suggestion that Toby
should be removed for an interval. His young master took him as far
away as the limits of the premises allowed, and shut as many doors
upon him as there were to shut. "Now we can talk," said my hostess,
with a sigh and smile of utter relief.
So we talked; and as friends who had not met for a long time, as
mothers whose respective children were the most important objects in
the universe, we had a great deal to talk about. We could have
gossiped about our families and affairs for a whole day quite
contentedly, and should have made excellent use of the two or three
hours actually available--had Toby permitted. But he wailed and howled
in his shed in the backyard, and no doors could smother the
distracting sound. We pretended for some time that we did not hear it,
while I answered questions at random, incapable of fixing my thoughts
on anything but him. Finally the strain became unbearable, and the
prisoner was released upon my giving an undertaking that he should
reasonably behave himself.
He returned like a whirlwind, but, after a brief struggle with
himself, submitted to what he perceived was necessary, and stood under
my hand, trembling, whimpering, thrilling in every fibre, his nose on
my knee, his liquid eyes fixed on my face with such an intensity of
adoring love as I never saw in any other pair. If the pressure was
relaxed for a moment, he leaped like a steel spring in an india-rubber
ball, because he could not help himself, and if I ventured to look at
him he yelped with delight; but he quieted down by degrees, lay on my
skirt, leaning against it in a way to drag the gathers out, licked my
fingers, and was quite happy.
To please us both he was allowed to stay to dinner, and by this time
he was so far restored to his sober senses that he went to others
beside me to ask for food; and the confidence with which he begged
from each in turn showed that parents and children were all his
trusted friends--that this home, unlike the last, was an ideal home
for a being of his persuasion, the unattainable paradise of the
average dog. This is my one comfort when I think of Toby now.
Having other engagements, I was obliged to say good-bye to my
entertainers immediately after the mid-day meal. But it was generally
felt that, in spite of his calmer demeanour, there must be no
good-byes to him. Stratagem was resorted to, together with tit-bits of
roast beef to lure him to a part of the house whence he could not see
me go; and as soon as the coast was clear I made off with all speed,
taking care that no door should creak, no gate click, no tip-toe
footstep leave an echo behind me.
Alas! he heard. No, he did not hear--he _knew_. I was not fairly into
the roadway before he began to shriek with all his might, and now the
shrieks were as full of anguish as they had previously been full of
joy. I never heard anything so heart-thrilling, so heart-breaking in
my life. He was again shut up, and even his strength was not equal to
tearing down the walls that held him, though I am sure he did his
best. I wonder sometimes whether he hurt himself in that paroxysm of
despairing fury, how long it lasted, and what he thought when he was
let out and found that I had not answered his cry, but left him
without a word.
All the way down the street, and down the next street, and into the
third, as far as the air-waves carried, I heard his voice at the same
pitch. I stood still again and again, agonised by the sound, and _now_
I cannot imagine how I resisted it. I was hundreds of miles from home;
I was staying in the sort of house that one cannot easily take
liberties with; and, at the end of a holiday, my purse was almost
empty; besides, Toby was no longer my dog, whatever might have been
his views to the contrary, and I knew that his reappearance with me on
my return to my family would be objected to in the strongest manner.
These trivial circumstances overcame the impulse of my heart, and I
passed on.
It is years and years ago, but I have never forgiven myself, and never
shall. Whenever I think of it--only I cannot bear to think of it--I
suffer pangs of regret and remorse acute enough to bring tears to my
eyes and make me miserable for a whole day. It sounds silly, I know,
but the fact remains. Oh, what things we would do--and not do--if we
could have our time over again! I am not so rich that I can afford to
throw money away, but I would give many hard-earned pounds to reverse
that deed. How readily he would have been given back to me, and
suffered to re-establish himself in his old home, had I properly
represented, and myself properly realised at the right moment, that
our two hearts were set on it; but I let the chance slip, and--his
people leaving soon afterwards for parts unknown--never had another.