This was in the dining-room. Opposite its glass doors, across the verandah and a path, there was an arrangement of granite blocks to shore up the ground where the hill had been cut away to make a level for the house, and in the interstices of this rough wall more mice lived. We were quite unaware of the fact until I had begun petting the hearth-dweller, when they suddenly popped out from their burrows as bold as brass. I could not resist giving them a crumb or two, and their subsequent behaviour convinced me that their indoor neighbour had communicated to them the fact that there was a friend at court. As I sat at meals, in broad daylight and sunshine, the French window open between us, I could see them sitting on their thresholds, staring across the gap with all their eyes. "You will rue this," said the person in authority, and I soon did. We became all at once inundated with mice. Alas for the eternal tragedy of life! A cat was introduced. One morning I was writing at the dining-table, with my back to the hearth, when a tremendous clatter of fire-irons made me jump out of my chair. I flew after that young tigress, and I got her prey from her, but too late. My pet died in my hand—and I am never going to take any notice of a mouse again.
Of all my dumb companions here—those humble fellow-creatures of ours, the possibilities in the way of social intercourse with whom (I will not say "which") are amongst the happy surprises reserved for an enlightened future—Toby was the bosom friend.
Toby, although he was only a dog, shall have a chapter to himself. The reader who is not a dog-lover, being hereby forewarned, can skip it.
CHAPTER XV[ToC]
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.