Such affection might have satisfied a reasonable dog. But Judy was distinctly unreasonable. She remembered—none better—how in former times she was with him all the day, and sometimes, when she willed to have it so, all the night as well. Now she was left to her own devices, and only caught a hurried glimpse of him in the evening when she was too sleepy to enjoy it. Besides, when he left her at the garden gate, she was strictly enjoined not to follow him—a prohibition which, while it whetted her curiosity, was also regarded as a direct insult, viewed in the light of former days, and the unrestricted licence that had been accorded to her then.
So Judy put on her considering cap. “He can’t go far,” she said, “else he could never leave me so late and get home in time for bed. And I’m sure he doesn’t drive or travel by train, else his boots would never be so muddy when he comes here at seven. So it’s clear that he walks. And, in that case, a dog of the feeblest intelligence can follow in his track.”
Accordingly, on a wet and windy evening, when bicyclists were not likely to be abroad, a little wistful-eyed face peered out into the road, growing bolder and bolder as her master receded from view, but ever and again hurriedly withdrawn whenever he turned upon her with a threatening hand. Then he vanished behind a hill, and Judy felt that her opportunity was come. But a mob of children ran by with sticks in their hands, and Judy slunk back in alarm. As soon as these had passed, she made another attempt. But horror of horrors! a bicyclist scorched by, and back she shrank again into the friendly shade. At last the road was empty and silent. The most careful inspection to the right hand and to the left could find no sign of life, and the keenest ears with which ever dog was gifted failed to detect a sound.
“Now or never,” said Judy, and with tail erect, and her tiny snub nose well to ground on the scent, she rushed out into the night.
* * * * *
An hour later a man was sitting down to his supper in the adjoining town, cursing the noise of the street in which he lived, with its wrangling women and screaming children, and cabs and drays coming home for the night, when a little dog whined and scraped at his door, and Judy rushed in, mud-stained and panting and panic-stricken with fear.
It was probably the fright that killed her; it may have been some injury. Her master never knew.
Only a brief friendship, measured by the standard of time. But perhaps what Southey says is true, and “love is indestructible”—even the love that bound these two.
Our Professor
No: he was no Professor in the recognised sense of the term; not a bit of it. Neither can I tell you how he acquired the title, unless it were in recognition of his original wit. He was simply my factotum or Man Friday, ready for shooting, fishing, game-keeping, or gardening, as the emergency of the moment required. He could neither read nor write. But what are trifling details like these in comparison with ’cuteness. Institute a Tripos for originality and native wit, and Matthew would even now, at the age of seventy, pass with high honours. But the examination must be strictly viva voce, and not allowed to wander into the region of conventional knowledge.