Sigurd Our Golden Collie and Other Comrades of the Road Part 6

As Sigurd was duly shown _Canis Major_ in the ethereal heavens, so was he introduced to certain starry dogs that shine in the skies of English poetry,--the pampered "smale houndes" of Chaucer's Prioress, King Lear's elegant little "Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart," dear, clownish Crab, and all that pack of rich-voiced hunting hounds whose "gallant chiding" rings through Elizabethan literature. The boy Will Shakespeare must often have hearkened to the hounds, "match'd in mouth like bells,"

coursing the Cotswolds, Silver and Belman and Sweetlips and Echo, their heads hung "with ears that sweep away the morning dew," the "speed of the cry" outrunning his "sense of hearing."

Sigurd was but mildly interested when we told him that in George Eliot's novels there were over fifty dogs, ranging all the way from pug to mastiff, nor did he care greatly for d.i.c.kens' dogs, not even blundering, ill-favored, clumsy, "bullet-headed" Diogenes, Florence Dombey's comforter, nor the bandy leader of Jerry's dancing troupe, who, because of a lost half-penny, had to grind out Old Hundred on the barrel-organ while his companions devoured their supper--and his; but Scott's dogs, from fleet Lufra of _The Lady of the Lake_ to the Dandy Dinmonts of _Guy Mannering_,--"There's auld Pepper and auld Mustard, and young Pepper and young Mustard, and little Pepper and little Mustard"--made him blink and p.r.i.c.k up his ears. Thus encouraged, I would tell him of Sir Walter's love for all his home dogs and most of all for the tall stag-hound Maida; how Herrick wept for his spaniel Tracy; how Southey grieved when his "poor old friend" Phillis, another spaniel, was drowned; how Landor delighted in dogs from the boyhood when he boxed with Captain behind the coach house door to the extreme old age whose loneliness was solaced by two silky-coated Pomeranians, first, in Bath, by the golden Pomero, who would bark an ecstatic accompaniment to his master's tremendous explosions of laughter, and then, in Florence, by Giallo, whose opinions on politics and letters the snowy-bearded poet would quote with humorous respect; how Nero, a Maltese fringy-paws, brightened the somber home of the Carlyles; and how Pope's favorite dog was, as he bitterly suggests, not unlike himself in being "a little one, a lean one, and none of the finest shaped." If Sigurd seemed responsive, I might go on with accounts of Mrs. Browning's Flush; of Hogg's Hector, "auld, towzy, trusty friend"; of Arnold's dachshunds, Geist, Max and Kaiser; of Gilder's Leo,

"Leo the s.h.a.ggy, the l.u.s.trous, the giant, the gentle Newfoundland,"

of Lehman's "flop-eared" Rufus, and of Miss Letts' terrier Tim in his "wheaten-colored coat."

Lest Sigurd should get the impression that the globe was populated chiefly by poets, Joy-of-Life would strike in with anecdotes of the little dogs that frisked about Frederick the Great, and Charles II, the Merry Monarch, and tell how Edward VII's last pet, Caesar, a fox terrier, trotted mournfully in the funeral procession behind Kildare, the royal charger; or she would "unmuzzle her wisdom" to the point of declaring that the kings of Babylon and Nineveh had their favorite hunting hounds with tails curled up over the back and collars wrought in the form of leafy wreaths. She would inform Sigurd, who took it flippantly, that solemn burial honors had been paid to dogs in ancient times, that the Egyptians held them sacred and religiously embalmed their bodies, and that many a Celtic chief and Norland viking lies more quiet beneath his cairn because his n.o.blest deerhound slumbers at his feet. Or perhaps she would relate, for our collie's ethical guidance, celebrated deeds of hero dogs. Sigurd would grunt and grumble in sympathy with her deep tones as she chanted the famous ballad of Beth Gelert, that "peerless hound" whose fidelity cost him his life, or of the twice-sung terrier, haunter of Helvellyn, who for three months kept watch beside her master's body at the foot of the fatal precipice.

Sigurd did not care for Wordsworth as much as Wordsworth would have cared for him, but he loved Little Music, striving in vain to save her fellow Dart under whose speed the river-ice had broken.

On one of those fortunate evenings when we had the Dryad with us, Sigurd would listen with waxing incredulity to legends of King Arthur's hound Cavall, whose paw left its print on British rock; of Merlin's demon dog, black with red ears, akin to the little black dog that danced about Faustus, sending out flying flames from its feet; of Fingal's Bran and his last chase after the enchanted snow-white hart; and of Tristram's faithful Hodain, who licked the dregs from the cup of love which the knight and Queen Iseult had quaffed together. Sigurd was frankly skeptical about those

"Half a hundred good ban-dogs"

of Fountains Abbey, who, whistled to his help by the fighting friar, gave Robin Hood and his archers not a little trouble.

"Two dogs at once to Robin Hood did go, T'one behind, the other before; Robin Hood's mantle of Lincoln green Off from his back they tore.

"And whether his men shot east or west, Or they shot north or south, The curtal dogs, so taught they were, They caught the arrows in their mouth."

But Pet.i.t-Crin, the fairy dog from Avalon that Tristram gave to Iseult, was more than any honest collie could endure.

"No tongue could tell the marvel of it; 'twas of such wondrous fashion that no man might say of what color it was. If one looked on the breast, and saw naught else, one had said 'twas white as snow, yet its thighs were greener than clover, and its sides, one red as scarlet, the other more yellow than saffron. Its under parts were even as azure, while above 'twas mingled, so that no one color might be distinguished; 'twas neither green nor red, white nor black, yellow nor blue, and yet there was somewhat of all these therein; 'twas a fair purple brown. And if one saw this strange creation of Avalon against the lie of the hair there would be no man wise enough to tell its color, so manifold and changing were its hues.

"Around its neck was a golden chain, and therefrom hung a bell, which rang so sweet and clear when it began to chime Tristram forgot his sadness and his sorrow, and the longing for Iseult that lay heavy at his heart. So sweet was the tone of the bell that no man heard it but he straightway forgat all that aforetime had troubled him.

"Tristram hearkened, and gazed on this wondrous marvel; he took note of the dog and the bell, the changing colors of the hair, and the sweet sound of the chimes; and it seemed to him that the marvel of the dog was greater than that of the music which rang in his ears, and banished all thought of sorrow.

"He stretched forth his hand and stroked the dog, and it seemed to him that he handled the softest silk, so fine and so smooth was the hair to his touch. And the dog neither growled, nor barked, nor showed any sign of ill temper, however one might play with it; nor, as the tale goes, was it ever seen to eat or to drink."

At this point, Sigurd rose, shook himself and stalked out to the kitchen. He could bear a great deal from his pedantic mistresses, but there were limits. Satiated with history and literature, he proposed to relax his mind by a turn at psychology.

From Cecilia's successor, Ellen, Sigurd was taking a brief but vivid course in psychics. To be sure, a _bona fide_ professor in that field dwelt near us, her high-picketed fence enclosing a baker's dozen of spaniels. It was understood, to the awe of the community, that by their aid she investigated certain dark corners of her shadowy subject; but Sigurd, embarra.s.sed by the attentions thrust upon him by the grandmother of the spaniel family, rested content with his unacademic tutor.

"Poor Ellen," as she invariably called herself, was a small, wiry, nut-brown Irish woman, whose gray hair rose erect, as if just affrighted by pouke or pixy, from above a constantly wrinkling forehead and a pair of snapping jet eyes. She must have been on the borders of insanity, if not across, when she came to us. She was a furious worker, cycloning about the house with mop and broom at all hours and not hesitating to upbraid the college president herself, most benign and punctilious of ladies, if her boots brought one speck of mud into "Poor Ellen's clane hall." Her chief pride, however, was in her frugality, as we discovered to our dismay on her second afternoon, when, as it often happily chanced, the Dryad, then living on the campus, dropped in for a call and consented to remain for dinner.

It was a simple matter, in our informal way of life, to call back from the piazza through the hall to the figure setting the table in the dining room:

"Lay another plate, please, Ellen. Our friend stays to dine with us."

But the wail that succeeded nearly slew our friend by throwing her into an agony of suppressed laughter.

"Mother of G.o.d! Isn't that the burning shame! And me maning the three chops should do us all!"

Ellen had been with us but a few days, though the house was already so scoured and polished that we scarcely dared set foot on our own floors, when a prolonged season of sultry weather broke in a tremendous thunderstorm. These thunderstorms were always a challenge to Sigurd's valor. At the first crash he would pluckily make for the porch, where, flinging up his head, he would cast back one defiant bark to that Superdog in the skies; then, scared by his own audacity, he would usually bolt upstairs and take refuge under a bed. But this time he fled, with the second shattering peal, to Ellen, who was rocking herself, a crouching, huddled figure, to and fro on the cellar stairs, screaming in a weird, blood-curdling chant:

"Mercy of G.o.d! Poor Ellen belaves in G.o.d the Father and in the Holy Mother of G.o.d and in all the blissid saints of heaven. Oh, grace of Mary! Poor Ellen belaves in thim all. Good Lord, you never kilt Poor Ellen yet and you wouldn't be after doing it now whin her bones be old and her heart a nest of sorrows. The Lord look down in pity on the poor."

With Sigurd hugged tight, Ellen's shrieks gradually sank into sob and moan, and from that hour he was her one confidante and comrade. Not even in him would she allow the least untidiness, but would fly to meet him at the threshold, picking up each paw in turn and manicuring it in her ap.r.o.n, and would insist, despite our remonstrances, in squatting down outside the back door and feeding his dinner to him, bit by bit, lest "Gobble-mouth" drop crumbs and gravy on "Poor Ellen's clane gravel."

Sigurd found this fellowship at his meals so entrancing that he would eat even baked beans from Ellen's lean brown fingers and would take advantage of her society to get twice as much dinner as was good for him. When his dish was empty and polished bright, under Ellen's approving eye, by his circling tongue, he would promenade dolefully about the kitchen, peering with an air of deep dejection into coal hod and wood basket, as if he were starved to a diet of cinders and kindlings, well aware that behind his back Ellen was heaping his dish anew. Her excess of thrift, from which our own table suffered, was never brought to bear on Sigurd.

As he ate, she would tell him long stories of her childhood in hungry Ireland and of her hard, bewildered, wandering life in the Land of Promise. Only once was I guilty of pausing by the kitchen door to listen.

"It was the place afore this, Darlint, or maybe the place afore that, or maybe another, that Old Goldtooth wedded my widow woman and took her to New York for the shows. He'd been drinking more than a drop the day and he says, 'Let's bring Poor Ellen along, for the fun of it. You can lend her your second-best bonnet, for there's money to buy more in New York.' But it wasn't her second-best, nor yet her third, the comical thing she set on me. To a hotel in New York he took us and a grand feed he gave us. Thin off to the show they wint, and he put a newspaper in my hand, and opened up at a page with niver a picture on it, and he told me to sit there like a lady and read about Boarding Houses. So there was Poor Ellen all that avening, and long it was as a rosary of nights, holding up that paper, with the quare letters, all sizes, dancing over it, and reading about Boarding Houses. But whin they came back--O Darlint, the saints defind us!--he told me it was about the Borden Murder I'd been reading, not Boarding Houses at all, and Poor Ellen not sensing a scratch of it, or sure she'd been scared into a fit. Don't let thim tache you to read their books, Darlint, for sure there's no knowing what the black words might be saying."

But although this is the only outpouring of Ellen's confidence to Sigurd at which I played eavesdropper, too often her mad screeches would bring us pell-mell into the kitchen where we would find the two of them wrought to a state of highest excitement. Once Sigurd, lying at full length, was squeezing a hollow rubber ball between his lips, making it emit harrowing squeaks that Ellen, hopping grotesquely up and down, identified as the cries of an imprisoned banshee. Another time she had one arm clasped about Sigurd's neck and with the other hand was pounding her little alarm clock on the floor, entreating him, "Bite the feaver whin it jumps out, Darlint. A year ago by this clock it was that Poor Ellen had the feaver and died and she has been in the Fire ever since."

Again we heard sounds of scuffling and struggle, punctuated by desperate screams from Ellen and furious barks from Sigurd. The kitchen was in a whirlwind, but Ellen was presently calmed enough to explain to us in terrified gasps that the demons were trying to drag her away from the throne of G.o.d and that she had set Sigurd on her tormentors. Our gallant collie evidently drove off the fiends, for Ellen's pa.s.sion of resistance suddenly ceased and, sinking to the floor, she hid her convulsed face in Sigurd's ruff, wailing, "But next time they'll get me. Poor Ellen! Poor Ellen! It's a sore and sorry life she's had, and to come to the Pain in the end!"

On the last night of Ellen's stay with us,--for we had arranged, without telling her, to have the crazy old creature transferred to the office of a friendly physician, where her prowess with the scrubbing-brush would be appreciated and her mental peculiarities be under wise and humane observation--an ear-splitting yell once more summoned us post-haste to the kitchen. Sigurd, erect on rigid legs, was staring with an uncanny fixity of gaze on vacancy, while Ellen, on her knees, wringing her hands above her head, was alternately abjuring him and Heaven.

"O Darlint, is it my death ye're after seeing now? Is it Poor Ellen with the candles at head and feet? Och, let me go! I lave this house to-night. It's not Poor Ellen will bide with a dog does be looking at her own ghost."

"Nonsense, Ellen!" protested Joy-of-Life, interposing her strong, wholesome presence between the distracted old woman and the outside door. "There are no ghosts here. Sigurd is only looking at the wall.

Perhaps he heard a rat or a mouse in there."

"_Ouch!_" shrilled Ellen, dodging out of the door in a fresh paroxysm of fright. "Rats and mice is it! Rats and mice do be the black spirits come to gnaw out our brains. And here they've come for Poor Ellen's wits. They chase Poor Ellen wherever she goes. But she'll give thim the slip on the morrow."

While Joy-of-Life brought Ellen in, quieted her with malted milk and sent her to bed, I puzzled over Sigurd, whose staring eyes and bristling hair still gave evidence of something we could not discern.

Other observers of dog conduct have testified to occurrences of this kind, as, very recently, the master of a red c.o.c.ker spaniel (Walter E.

Carr in _The Story of Five Dogs_) and from far antiquity the Arabs, who hold that a dog can see the wings of the Angel of Death hovering over the one for whom Azrael has been sent.

Ellen came down in the morning, still determined on departure and entirely content with the place we had secured for her. All that day through she was her most cleanly, thrifty and cheerful self. Nothing would do but she must sweep the whole house from attic to cellar, especially scouring her own room until it was pure enough for Diana.

Pleased with the bustle of packing and getting off, evidently an habitual state of things with Poor Ellen, she graced her farewell with a flourish of economical courtesies. She presented Joy-of-Life with a banana which she had blarneyed from our Italian fruit-vender, and gave me a little jar of cream, begged or bullied from the milkman in the early dawn. As for Sigurd, she made him a square foot of his favorite corn bread and hung a Catholic medal to his collar. She went off in the best of humor, greatly set up by her own cleverness in having been able to make, so cheaply, such suitable good-by gifts. When the expressman came for her shabby, bulging bag, she treated him to such a nice little luncheon of cookies and lemonade that he offered her a ride to the station. From the driver's lofty seat she waved us a queenly adieu, calling back: "The Lord loves Poor Ellen, after all." Sigurd ran with the wagon as far as the corner. The last we saw of his psychic instructor, she was kissing her workworn hands to him and shrilling back endearments.

THE PLEADERS

Before the Majesty of Most High G.o.d The gentlest of the glad Archangels came; Swift down the emerald avenue he trod, His eager sandals quivering to flame.

Close at his heels there frisked a dog, his mate In bygone journeyings with young Tobias, A dog "without," whose love had dared the gate, Scenting the steps of Brother Azarias, So-called in those blithe morns when, laughing-eyed, By thorn and myrrh, the dew on every stem, He led the son of Tobit to his bride, And the lad's dog went leaping after them.

The little winds that in those sunrise-flushed, Fleet plumes had nestled, to the harpstrings flew To learn gold melodies for May, but hushed Was all that glory till a Voice pealed through: "Mine Angel Raphael, of the Holy Seven Who lift the prayers of saints before the Throne, What wild, unworded anguish troubles Heaven, To man's appeal the wailing undertone?

Men's orisons for Peace, for Peace, for Peace, Smothered the psalms of Paradise, until I bade that vain and bitter crying cease.

My will is Peace. Let mortals do my will."

Before the shining of the Mercy Seat The Angel raised a censer. "Lord, I bring The screams of sh.e.l.l-torn horses, thrashing feet Of mangled mules, the pigeon's broken wing, Gasping of dogs gas-tortured, wounds and woe Of myriad creatures by Thy breath endowed With being. Theirs the prayers that overflow This vessel by whose weight my heart is bowed."

Ah, strange to see that poor, vague incense rise, Dim supplication crossed by fragrances Of courage, faithfulness, self-sacrifice Even of these brute martyrs, even of these.

"Brother of Sorrows, bear to man those groans Of a creation that I fashioned well And gave to his dominion,--man, who owns One morning star to make it heaven or h.e.l.l.

I am but G.o.d, a Pity throned above To watch the sparrow's fall, to feel its throes And wait the slow, sweet blossoming of love, Small, kindly loves from which the Great Love grows."

Then Raphael, Healer of the Earth, bowed thrice, Withdrawing through the ranks of seraphim Who smiled to see how, scorning Paradise, On frolic feet the dog sped after him.