XIII
“A dog is the only thing on this earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”
AMONG the higher gifts of the dog that culminate in the devotion to his owner that is an adumbration of the religious sense in ourselves, the discrimination between right and wrong takes an important place. If the dog succumbs to sudden temptation it does not need an expression of anger or even the presence of his owner to make him feel shame at his lapse from virtue. Those who can have no fear of harsh or hasty correction will show it to the full as much as others to whom the unconsidered blow is one of the daily experiences of their life. While the effects of past training must of course account for much in the dog’s attitude, it is not possible that in the unusual circumstance or unforeseen emergency that has put the dog in the way of temptation, such training can be the only cause of the moral sense he shows. It is because he has failed in the performance of one of the simple virtues that bound his knowledge of ethics that he feels shame for his failure.
I was much struck with a sense of right and wrong as such that a wire-haired fox-terrier, named Bosky, showed. This little dog is a charming pet, gentle, affectionate, and dainty in her ways, but not even by her best friends can she be said to shine in intelligence. Her beautiful form and her show points have indeed been secured by much inbreeding, and it is to this that Bosky owes a nervous temperament that entirely unfits her for any of the rougher give and take of life. If a cat even looks at her round a corner she is paralyzed with fright, and if she comes across one at closer quarters she will scream herself almost into a fit with terror. Even in her home, where she is a favourite with all the household, Bosky will never leave the safe shelter of her mistress’s room, whenever the latter is absent. If any one comes in at the front door while her owner is out, a little white head will be seen peeping through the railing halfway down the stairs, but unless Bosky is sure her mistress is there she will go no further, and will fly back to her usual shelter if any one comes up to speak to her.
BOSKY
Yet this little dog, whose brain power is of the smallest, has a clear idea of right and wrong. It is the custom of the maid to take a cup of Benger’s food to her mistress’s bedroom after the latter has gone up to bed. Bosky, who by that time is already in the place where she passes the night, always has a few spoonfuls given her in the saucer as soon as her mistress has finished. One day when I was staying in the house, my hostess came with me to my room and stayed talking for some time. In the meantime the maid had put the cup in her room as usual, and then gone away. When my friend was leaving me, a startled scream from Bosky echoed through the silent house as soon as my bedroom door was opened. The little thing had been lying on the mat outside, and directly her mistress appeared she opened her lips with a cry of terror, and fled downstairs into the darkness of the front hall.
When her mistress entered her room she saw what had happened. The tempting cup had been standing on a table beside the bed. Its contents had long since grown cold, and Bosky had taken her share from the top of the cup instead of waiting for her usual portion. But repentance had followed swiftly on the crime, and she fled from the room and took up her station at my door, to put herself out of reach of further temptation. The most striking point about her conduct was that, though nothing but a few words of reproach came as a punishment for her theft, Bosky would never again be left alone in the room with the cup of Benger. She generally came with her mistress into my room; but if she had gone straight to bed when we came upstairs, she would always jump up when the maid came in with the cup, and take refuge by my door.
Such conduct seems to show, as I have said, an appreciation of wrong-doing as being contrary to the line of conduct that ought to be followed. For, though in this particular case the dog could not have feared punishment at the hands of her mistress, she yet showed undoubted terror at her theft being found out. It is hard to know what thought could have been present in her mind. When we see a little street Arab instinctively lift his arm across his face to ward off a possible blow at any unexpected or sudden word from a stranger, the action tells us a pitiful tale of the child’s experience. But if in the dog there is no such individual experience to cause his fright, may not the sense of impending misfortune following a lapse from virtue be an instance of tribal memory? In the history of his forbears, punishment has followed swiftly on wrong-doing. Has it become an instinct of the race that this should be so?
Even this, however, does not explain the sense of wrong-doing that is at the root of his conduct. In the case of the terrier, she might well have looked on a portion of her mistress’s food as being her right; for she knew she had it given to her unfailingly. Yet she recognised that she might not take it herself, and the enjoyment of the coveted dainty was soon clouded by a sense of guilt.
From my own point of view, and with a full recognition of the part that training and tribal memory may play in the ordering of the dog’s conduct, I think that such an instance shows the dawning of a moral sense that gives the dog the very highest claims to humane and considerate treatment at our hands. Although to some this will appear too high a line to take, we can but feel that whatever the solution may be, it brings us face to face with something in the dog’s mind that causes him to act in a manner altogether worthy of a human.
And when we turn to the passionate devotion a dog is capable of, we again find things that are hard to fathom. The most striking case, in some ways, that I have met with is that of a clever little cross-bred terrier. This little dog, Jimmy by name, belonged to one of the daughters of the house, where the father was a confirmed invalid and the mother in delicate health. The latter took little notice of the dog, though she was kind and gentle to him, as she was to all animals. When the master of the house died suddenly his widow was quite broken down with grief, and nothing that her daughters or her medical attendant could do would rouse her from the state of collapse into which she fell. In her fragile state it seemed that the shock would kill her. But Jimmy was struck by her suffering, and he showed such passionate distress at her misery that the gentle sufferer gained self-control as she strove to comfort him.
From that time, during the remaining years of her life, Jimmy never left her. He would even turn on his mistress if she offered to remove him from her mother’s side. When his chosen friend was confined to her bed, as she often was for weeks at a time, Jimmy would not be separated from her, and if he found the bedroom door shut against him, he would fling himself against it and beat it with his paws in a fury, till it was opened. Then, after only one day when the invalid was not able to take her usual place in her family circle, she died, and Jimmy seemed instantly to recognise what had happened. He was still faithful to his visits to her room in the days that followed, but instead of demanding admittance he would lie down and quietly wait to be let in. When he was admitted there was no mad rush to the bed, but he crept in and took his place with the watchers beside the coffin. What happened during those silent watches, I must give in the simple words of Jimmy’s mistress. “As I used to sit with Jimmy on my knee in the darkened room, he seemed to be following something I could not see with wistful eyes. Naturally you will think it was a fly on the wall, or some such thing that Jimmy’s gaze was following. But I assure you, I tried every test I could think of, and there was nothing. Yet the awe-stricken look in Jimmy’s eyes as they gazed out over the room, I can never forget. How much I would have given to see what he saw!”
What made Jimmy’s conduct the more remarkable was that he had never before been known to keep quiet for any length of time together. He was an active, excitable little dog, full of strength and movement, and giving play to his enjoyment of life with noisy exuberance of spirits. But after the death of his chosen friend he fretted silently and with such faithful memory that his mistress at one time feared she would lose him. In time, however, he turned to her for consolation, and the loving care that had always been his was now intensified by the memory of his love for one whom his owner mourned deeply.[9]
JIMMY
The following instance of a dog’s devotion I take from the charming appreciation of the late Lord Lytton that has recently been brought out by his daughter, Lady Betty Balfour.[10] The charm of the story, as told by the dog’s master, is the cause of my breaking through the rule I have followed in this book, of only giving anecdotes that I have collected at first hand.
The hero of the story was a Pyrenean dog named Goblin, who was Lord Lytton’s constant companion during the last years of his life. Only a few months before our ambassador died at his post in Paris, he took a short holiday on the seacoast of the North of France. With him, of course, went Goblin, and his master, in a letter to a friend, gives the following account of an incident that touched him deeply.
“I must tell you that Goblin has an invincible dread and horror of water. Never yet have I been able, by any persuasion or threat, to induce him to dip his paw into lake or river, sea or pond. Well yesterday, as soon as I got here, I went to take a bath in the sea, and I took Goblin with me. As the bathing place is just in front of the hotel, I made sure when I got into the sea he would either find his way home or else wait for me on the beach, and I did not concern myself about him. The tide was flowing in, and I was therefore able to swim out some distance from shore without risk of being drifted too far by the tide. When I was already a good way out and had just turned my face landwards to swim back, imagine my surprise to perceive that the faithful beast was swimming out to me in a very fussy, floppy style. He, too, was already some way from shore, but he made slow progress against the waves, though his poor little paws beat them with desperate rapidity. He was panting and snorting loudly, and there was a look of unutterable anguish in his yellow eyes, which were all the while fixed steadily on me. He had evidently fancied I was going to be drowned, and that it was his duty to save me or perish with me, or else that I was meanly and cruelly abandoning him and at any risk he would not be left behind. This moral agony had conquered his physical horror of the water, as Aaron’s rod swallowed up those of Pharaoh’s magicians, and affection had cast out fear.
“Now, three weeks before leaving Paris, I had dreamt a bad dream which made a great impression on me, and in my dream I had seen Goblin drowned. Suddenly the thought rushed upon me that this bad dream was about to be fulfilled, and I think that in that moment my own fears became greater than Goblin’s. I made for him as fast as I could, took him in my arms, and holding him before me like a baby, swam back with him till we were in shallow water again.
“Ever since he has been in tearing spirits, cocks his tail higher than before, and is evidently proud of his exploit, which appears to have greatly raised him in his own opinion, as it has certainly done in mine; I believe he is persuaded that he saved my life. However, when I went to bathe again this morning, I took Todd, my valet, with me, and whether it was Todd’s reassuring presence, or the certainty he had acquired from yesterday’s experience, that I should presently return, I can’t say. But this time nothing would induce Goblin to go after me again into the water. Every time I called to him, or Todd urged or coaxed him forward, he shook his head knowingly, as if to say ‘No, no; I am not to be taken in a second time. I see through your tricks now!’”
The faithful dog, we read, “long survived his master and was a beloved friend to the family.”
Noble Goblin. He loved and enjoyed his life, but was ready to sacrifice it in his master’s service, or to save himself from the deeper horror of long years to be spent without him.
Once again I break through my rule to give an old, old version of the story that in modern form tells of the dying service of Gelert to his master. Who has not been touched by the simple recital of the dog’s devotion, that was so misjudged by man?
It is in the Folk Tales of the Himalayas[11] that we find the far-off echo of Gelert’s story, which still lives among the fireside legends of the hill tribes of Northern India. These stories were, as Mrs. Dracott tells us, taken down as they were told to her by the Paharee women, and she gives them as nearly as possible in the words of the narrators. The temple built on the slopes of those far-off, snow-capped mountains, keeps alive in the hearts of the simple village folk the history of a dog’s fidelity that met with bitter injustice at the hands of his owner.
“About eleven miles from Raipur, near the village of Jagasar, is a temple built to the memory of a faithful dog of the Bunjara species, and this is the story of how it came to be built.
“Many years ago a Bunjara Naik, or headman of the class of Bunjaras, or wandering traders, owed money to a ‘Marwari,’ or money-lender at Raipur.
“When pressed for payment, the Bunjara, who was then standing near the Marwari’s shop, said, ‘Here is my gold necklace, and here is my faithful dog; keep both till I return to my camping ground near Jagasar, and fetch you the money.’
“The necklace and the dog were then left as security, and the man went his way.
“That night the Marwari’s shop was broken into by thieves, and many valuables stolen, among them the golden necklace; but before the thieves could get clear away with their stolen property, the dog got up and barked and leaped about, and made so much noise that the Marwari and his men got up, caught the thieves, and recovered the property, which was of considerable worth.
“The Marwari was very pleased, and out of gratitude for what the dog had done determined to cancel and forgive the debt of his master, the Bunjara. So he wrote a paper to cancel it, tied it to the dog’s neck, and let it go, saying, ‘Carry the tidings to your owner.’
“Early next morning the dog trotted off, and was nearing the camping ground which was his home, when the Bunjara saw him, and, very displeased, he took a stick and struck the poor dog across the head, saying, ‘You brute, you could not remain even twenty-four hours with the Marwari, though my honour was at stake.’
“The blow killed the dog on the spot, and as he fell the Bunjara noticed the slip of paper round his neck, and on reading it found what joyful news his dog had brought to him. Not only was the debt forgiven, but the reason for it was also stated on the paper.
“The grief of the Bunjara was great, for in spite of his hasty temper he loved his dog, as all Bunjaras do. He repented his hasty act, and wept most bitterly over his favourite, vowing that he would try and expiate his deed by building a temple to the faithful dog’s memory with the money he had recovered.
“The small temple now standing on the spot where this took place testifies to the fulfilment of that vow, and a small dog carved in stone indicates why the Dog Temple was built.
“To this day it is deeply revered by all the villagers around, and the story of that faithful dog is often repeated to show how intelligent and true a dog can be.”
Yes; faithful, true, loving to the death, understanding our moods and sorrows, and sympathetic in all the troubles as well as the joys of life, the dog has proved himself to be. Shall not our recognition of his many virtues be at least on a plane with the simple faith in his powers of heart and mind that the little hill temple is a witness to, among the untutored natives of the wild tribes of Northern India?