Murphy Part 3

"Murphy?" It was his new master that called him now.

Perhaps the presence of the Over-Lord had given the young dog confidence: _he_, at least, had been linked with happy times. Murphy got up hesitatingly and came to his new master's chair, with his ears drooping.

He even suffered himself to be taken into this new master's lap, though not without great nervousness.

And after that the Over-Lord rose and said good-bye.

"No, Murphy, we won't part," were the last words he heard as he left the door; and this was the last time the generous Over-Lord was destined ever to set eyes on Murphy.

VI

Others laughed when they heard the final verdict, and called the undertaking hopeless and sentimental. The hopelessness remained to be proved; and, as to the sentimental part of the business, some one averred that sentiment lay at the bottom of most things. It might be unpractical from a philosophic point of view, as well as often fitting matter for a jibe; but sentiment, all the same, was generally a source of strength!

Without it neither nation nor man would be likely to get far; it reflected the n.o.blest part of man's nature, and touched a nation at its quick, if flags meant anything, and were to be followed and set store by.

There was quite a bandying of words over the matter. This dog was so different to Dan. It was not a matter of argument, certainly not on abstruse points. The dog had been broken in nerve, and admittedly by ill-usage. Probably he had been nervous from the first, and there was therefore all the less chance of his recovery.

To this was interposed the fact that many well-bred dogs are const.i.tutionally nervous, and continue to be so all their lives, their condition in this respect being probably largely due to their brain development and increased powers of imagination.

That might be the case, came the answer; but all the same--how about the tail? The nervous organisation of this dog and his imagination had to do with his brain, which his eyes showed to be capable of development. These points had to do with the head. What about the other end? The index to a dog's character, as well as to his immediate proceedings, lies, as we all know, in his tail--the angle at which it is held, the way it moves or remains stiff and immovable; its position before a fight, its twist to one side when stalking, its confident carriage when the owner has "got his tail up." All these are so many signals, generally recognised by man and other dogs alike. Granting all this, what was to be said here? This dog had now been several days in the house, and no one had apparently seen his tail: it had been kept firmly down, and in such a way as to suggest that had it been long enough it would have been well between his legs.

At this, some one said that he had seen it once, and it was bushy; the only effect of this remark being to elicit the rejoinder that "_then_ it wanted pulling." Another averred that, of course, nothing could be hoped for till he got his tail up: the job was how to set about securing so essential a condition in the case of the tail of this particular dog. No doubt the first thing to be done was to win him to the habit of standing on his feet: it was obviously impossible to attempt anything with the tail till this was achieved. So far, his att.i.tude had been best describable as that of the p.r.o.ne position. If anybody moved, he crouched still lower; if he was persuaded to enter another room than the one he had particularly taken to, he grovelled; if there was any sudden movement or noise, he was terror-stricken; and, added to all this, it was obvious that he could never be a watch-dog, for he refused to sleep alone.

Of course he ought to have gone back; and all these notions about "bringing him round," giving him another chance and a happy life, were so much high faluting rubbish.

In the face of such arguments, based, as they obviously were, on universal testimony, even the faith of the person most nearly concerned and wholly responsible must, it was judged, eventually give way.

But if counsels and opinions alike failed to alter the decision that had been come to, they equally also supplied no answer to the momentous question--how, seeing he was to be kept, was the confidence of this dog to be won? There was hope in Dan, of course. He would teach him plenty of things, and tell him much besides. A good deal of faith was placed in this direction. But, even then, what about the general training? This dog would run riot, be disobedient and unruly, hunt when and where he should not, like other dogs before him, or even run sheep. If these things happened, what was to be done? To thrash him would be almost an act of cruelty by a dog of such a temperament: it might make him more nervous than ever, even if he could be caught for the purpose and made to understand the rudiments of cause and effect. Dan had learnt to "come and be thrashed," when such was necessary and he was summoned in those most ominous of words. It might be possible to teach Murphy in the same way: dogs, somehow or other, were almost universally capable of differentiating between justice and injustice, and bore no resentment. The reflection gave relief. Yet what would be the effect upon this dog if Dan was in trouble and took to shouting "Murder," as he usually did long before he felt the stick?

The problems were many, and grew in number the more the whole matter was considered. Two things shaped themselves from the first: there must be absolute fairness and justice; and, what was of no less importance, there must never be any trace of loss of temper in what had to be done, however trying the case might be. To show anger, to give an extra stroke when the stick was up, to be hasty for an instant, would be to fail ignominiously, to the mutual unhappiness of both.

The whole enterprise was thus obviously full of pitfalls. Yet faith declared this way: by kindness, sympathy, and self-control the end might be attained, confidence won back, the young life put into touch with happiness again.

As the further aspect of the question was considered, it looked rather as if, while the man was trying to train the dog, the dog might equally be all the time training the man. Here was one none too strong, whose nervous organisation had been shattered, and whose confidence had been wholly undermined. To win back what had been lost would be difficult enough in the case of a man; how would it be in the case of a dog? Oddly enough, too, the conditions of life of neither party here were of the normal kind--in one case never could be so. Yet here were these two, and by the merest chance, placed in juxtaposition. A strange link was forging itself apparently, quite unknown to both, and coupling the one firmly to the other, though neither was aware of it.

It was not until some time had pa.s.sed that the position took a more definite form, and the question repeated itself--what if sympathy grew up and blossomed into something fair, with love and mutual confidence as its accompaniments? Such might result, perhaps. The thought added interest to the problem as it floated through the mind and was lost again.

There was nothing uncommon in the possible situation; it had occurred again and again. History furnished innumerable instances. Folklore, with its roots in truth, told endless stories of similar complexion. The Dog and the Man; the interdependence of both: living things of like pa.s.sions--sharers of like pa.s.sions; fellow-helpers, the advancement of the one having kept pace with that of the other, right up from the days when, in prehistoric times and the Neolithic age, as is shown by the bones that are found, the dog shared the home of the man and partook of his food--right up from the days when the Egyptians, though they dubbed him unclean, worshipped this animal, and, because of his fidelity and courage, gave him a place as one among three who were to share with them the joys of Paradise.

The same story is to be traced through all the ages. Even Ulysses could shed a tear for Argus, hiding the fact as well as he might from Eumaeus; and Tristrem and Ysolde, in the legend, took Hodain to be their intimate companion, because he had once shared with them "the drink of might." So, too, the great Theron walked as the close companion of the Gothic king; and Cavall became the trusty servant and liegeman of King Arthur. The huge white hound Gorban sat ever at the side of the Welsh bard Ummad as he sang his songs; and the beautiful Bran was the friend for life of Fingal. Most men have heard of William the Silent's spaniel, who saved his master's life; and many may have seen the form of the dog, fashioned in white marble, lying at his master's feet on the well-known tomb at Delft. We have each read of Scott's Maida. And if some, perhaps, have made a pilgrimage to that long and narrow mound in the vale of Gwyant which, according to tradition, marks the resting-place of the immortal Gelert, others have read of the faithful Vigr who never again tasted food when he learnt that Olaf, his master, lay dead.

The stories are without end; and romance knows no limits when dealing with the subject. The lives of the Man and the Dog are found to be ever intertwined. Yet is there always this besides--the rift in the lute and the familiar refrain, that the life of the dog shall be short, and that Man shall go on his way with his head bent, till such time as he shall become rich once more in the love of a new-found friend--if that be always possible.

No man, it has been well said, can be deemed unhappy who possesses the love of a dog; and none are too poor to win it, as none are too high to rejoice and grow glad in it. The dog, at least, knows no difference of cla.s.s or place in his attachments. To him his home is his home; his master, his master and friend, whether his lot be to follow the tramp on the road, or to walk behind a king to the tomb. And perhaps it may be due to the mystery lying at the back of this wonderful intimacy and connection, stretching far back into an altogether hidden past, that to strike another man's dog unjustly is equivalent to striking him; that to hurt a dog with intent is to earn the worst of characters and to stain one's kind; and that for a dog to be in trouble and claim aid is for him to claim also the man's heart--even, as has many a time occurred, the man's life--to the infinite glory of both.

Nor has it been only on man's side that such deeds of heroism have been exhibited. The man, the woman, and the child have undoubtedly gone to the dog's help at the risk of their own lives on many an occasion; but so also has the dog risked his for the sake of the man--not from any moral claim, not because life is a precious thing and must be saved, not because of that power which impels, and whose chief gift is the sense of after-satisfaction that comes even to the most disinterested; such things lie necessarily beyond the reach of the dog mind. What the dog does is done for love, because of his faith, and because, unlike any other living animal, he thinks, in his unselfishness, more of his friend than he ever does about himself.

On the sh.o.r.es of a lake in Travancore, not far from the remote cantonment of Quillon, stands a monument to the memory of a dog. He was left to watch his master's clothes while bathing. Presently he was seen to be doing everything in his power to attract attention, by barking and running excitedly backwards and forwards on the sh.o.r.e. An advancing ripple was then discerned on the smooth surface of the lake, and the next instant the meaning of this flashed home. A crocodile had got between the swimmer and the landing-place, and was coming out to seize his prey. Hope might well have been stricken dead in the face of such a situation. But the dog did not hesitate. Plunging into the water, he swam out to get between the horrid reptile and his master, and thus to head him off. It meant his own certain death; but the saving of his master's life. A moment later there was a violent agitation of the water, and the dog had disappeared for ever. Thus there stands to record his splendid action this well-known monument, erected by his master in deepest grat.i.tude, and that pa.s.sers-by might learn of what a dog is capable.

The incident is not the only one of its kind, and may be left to speak for itself. But the influence of that one act has probably been world-wide; and it is because of the exhibition of such qualities that the moral power of the dog reaches to greater lengths than is generally supposed. There is indeed ample evidence for believing that the beauties often traceable in the character of the dog re-act unconsciously, and for infinite good, upon the roughest of our own kind--by claiming unselfishness from those who otherwise may lay claim to possessing little; by showing what love may be under stress and strain, hardship and rough fare; by the exhibition of patience and faithfulness; by those instincts that make the most depraved of lookers-on pause and think, and ask the question sharply--"Whence that?"

In Kingsley's _Hypatia_, Raphael Ben Azra, his head filled with a false philosophy, is made again and again to act otherwise than he would by the mastiff Bran.

The "dog looks up in his face as only a dog can," and causes him to follow her and to retrace his steps against his will. There are her puppies. Is she to leave them to their fate? He tells her to choose between the ties of family and duty: it is a specious form of appeal. To her, duties begin with the family; the puppies cannot be left behind. Nor can she carry them herself. She takes Raphael by the skirt, after bringing the puppies to him one by one. He must carry them, she tells him; and once again he finds himself doing the opposite of what he would: the puppies are transferred to his blanket, and he and his dog go forward together.

"After all," he says to himself, "these have as good a right to live as I have.... Forward! whither you will, old lady. The world is wide. You shall be my guide, tutor, queen of philosophy, for the sake of this mere common-sense of yours."

He tramps on after that, "trying to get the dog's lessons by heart." He catches himself asking the dog's advice, till he exclaims irritably, "Hang these brute instincts! They make one very hot."

At last, by the dog's means and the example of energy that she sets, he is instrumental in effecting the rescue of Victoria's father. Then, as the distracted girl throws herself at his feet, and calls him "her saviour and deliverer sent by G.o.d," even Ben Azra has to admit that the credit is not in reality his. "Not in the least, my child," he exclaims.

"You must thank my teacher, the dog, not me."

The experiences of the philosopher in the novel are only those of many in real life. Man is not the only civilising agent in this world of many mysteries. And if we often exclaim, "Bother the dog!" we have still very frequently to follow where he leads, and often to our most definite enrichment in the end.

VII

It was four months before any improvement was discernible: it was a year before confidence could really be said to have grown at all. In some directions it never grew. For instance, of labouring men, gardeners, and the like, Murphy always remained shy. It was in no spirit of unforgivingness, for he was perfectly civil; neither did he owe them any grudge, grudges being forbidden usually by dog law and only entertained by the poorest characters of all. Thus he never became familiar, even with those he met daily: his memory was phenomenal, and by pa.s.sing by on the other side he showed that his a.s.sociations in this direction were unhappy.

It fell to this dog's lot to live a very quiet life and to be thrown with few--either dogs or men. His days were regulated by his master's doings, and these again were regulated, of necessity, by method. The weeks came, and ran their course, and did not vary very greatly one from the other.

There was the daily round of work--almost incessant work, life being supportable that way and in no other. There was the break, half-way through the morning, of a run of a quarter of an hour, wet or shine.

There was the walk across country in the afternoon, also totally irrespective of the weather. There was the turn at night under similar conditions. That was the dog's day in winter-time; perhaps also the man's. In spring and summer both lived under the sky, and regarded a house only as a place to sleep in. Habit is second nature. Interests were many, and in some directions ran parallel--sporting instincts, especially, being quite ineradicable. Life for both was thus exceeding happy; and life grew always happier with friendship: that is as it should be.

With those he met Murphy was genial, if shy. He grew to love the members of his little home circle; though three of the quartet ever averred that, in reality, he only loved one wholly and altogether, and clung to him in a way that others noticed--folk on the land always referring to them, the country over, as "Him and his dog."

Were they not always together? The shepherds on the downs recognised them at great distances, for shepherds see far. The shepherds' dogs knew them equally well, and they see furthest. The ploughmen in the hollows caught sight of them against the skyline in the waning winter day, when the team grew weary as they themselves--which last fact, too, made these best of men shout with full lungs, "Please, will you tell us the time!" The man with the hand-drill sowing the spring seeds; the poorer folk, men and women with their buckets, stone-picking in the chill, autumnal weather; the stockmen as they drove the cattle home, or called them from the lush fields with the crack of a whip--spring-time and harvest, all the seasons through; in wind and rain, in the great heat, in the snow and the blizzard, it was always the same. And thus, in this unenclosed country, where there were great woods, but where hedges were almost non-existent, the men of the land would look up and pa.s.s the remark to their mates, with a jerk of the head, "Ther's 'im an' 'is dog; see?"

Outside the home circle--though, to be sure, a dog is, or should always be considered, a part of the family--Murphy's pa.s.sion was for Dan. He invariably got up when Dan entered the room, and often licked him many times upon the lips: he paid him every kind of attention; bullied him to play when out of doors; woke him when he judged it was not fitting he should be asleep; and, in fact, made a young dog of him again for a time, though Dan was really old. He already owed Dan a good deal, for Dan had initiated him into many things concerning rabbits, rats, and the rest, that all self-respecting dogs should know. Thus the old dog being an inveterate sportsman, Murphy followed suit--and both were, at all risks, encouraged so to be.

As Murphy furnished and grew stronger he naturally became more handsome, till pa.s.sers-by would turn and remark upon the pair--the old dog and the young, lying on the bank of the river, patiently, while some one did mysterious things with paints; or they were seen returning together in the evening, sitting side by side in the stern of a boat. They were certainly a very uncommon pair.

Dan's character had been, of course, fully formed long ago, and a truly wonderful character it was, as has already been related. Murphy's was still in the making. If the whole of the first year was a period of difficulty, the first four months might well have staggered any one undertaking a self-imposed task of such a nature. The ideal aimed at was never suffered to be out of sight, but, like most ideals, it had a trick at times of receding almost beyond the range of hope. It was not that the dog was continually doing wrong. Perhaps it would have been better if he had been, for then there would have been something tangible. The difficulty consisted in conveying to the dog what he should not do, without frightening him, and without getting cross and losing temper. To train a dog that takes his thrashing, shakes himself, lays his ears back, and prepares for the next, oblivious of consequences, is not beyond the wit of man, though possibly a gift. But what is to be done in the case of a dog that is terror-stricken, even if the voice is raised? The position forms as fine a period of probation in its way as any that wilful man could desire; and at that the matter may be left.

The philosopher tells us that we advance more surely by making mistakes than we do by lines more usually held to be right. Murphy took the former and apparently correct course, like others before him. The first real stride he made was thus in connection with an error, and it did him a world of good. It came about like this.

By way of preface--what can possibly be more irritating to a dog than sheep? Master and dog were coming home together, and were persistently mobbed by a party of a dozen. Both agreed that if any real pluck lay at the back of the attentions so freely bestowed, the view entertained of the proceedings might be somewhat modified. But both were well aware that there was nothing of the kind; that the bold front was a sham, that inquisitiveness was the origin of it all, and that funk in reality filled every one of those dozen hearts, however much their owners hustled forward or lifted up their heads and stamped.

How long would Murphy stand such gross effrontery? That was the question of the moment. So far, he had followed close to heel, with his tail down--though it is fair to him to say that latterly he had come to carry it erect. Possibly the sheep approached closer than any dog of spirit could endure, or one frightened the others and they began to run away. In a moment it was all over; the sheep had turned tail, and Murphy was after them, and had even found his voice.

The field was one of five-and-thirty acres, so there was plenty of room for him to turn them this way and that. To continue calling was, of course, useless. Time was better employed in taking a grip of the feelings and deciding on what was to be done. To make matters worse, the farmer himself was seen to be viewing the proceedings from a distant gateway. He would undoubtedly expect the law to be carried out, and dogs that ran sheep to be either broken to better ways or shot. It made no difference that the sheep were not his but "on tack" in his fields. What was the lot of these might be the lot of his another day. A thrashing was, therefore, now imperative. But how was this to be administered, when the only weapon was a shooting-stick, and the site was the middle of a large gra.s.s field? The best thing to do was to sit down, and be patient.

A part of the dog's education had already been that he was to stop when his master stopped, and when the latter sat or lay down he was to come in. He had already responded in a small way to this training, and now he dropped his games with the sheep, left them, and came slowly back. He guessed that something was about to happen by his master's solemn silence, and therefore approached with caution. It is never necessary in the case of ordinary offences and with ordinary dogs to be over severe with the stick--if a suitable one is handy, which it generally is not. A lecture and a shaking does as well, with a tap or two with a stick to show it is there. Provoking as the incident had been, this last is what Murphy duly received. The shooting-stick was much brandished in the air, and the dog called "Murder," long and loudly. The delinquent was evidently catching it, judged the farmer; and he waved his arm and disappeared.