'Murphy': A Message to Dog Lovers

by Ernest Gambier-Parry

“Do you mean to say you could train this one to fold sheep?”

Job Nutt took a deep draw at his pipe, and turned and looked down at Murphy, now just over three years old.

“I likes that dog; well, I’ve allus liked un. Train un to sheep? I believe as I could, were I to be so minded: I do believe as I could.”

The two had to part then. It was dusk, and looked like wet; moreover, some wether sheep in the fold, far down in the valley, were “howling” for rain: they were true weather-prophets always.

So he might be trained to sheep. Job Nutt’s words kept repeating themselves in the mind—“I believe as I could; I do believe as I could.” What the shepherd had said was a testimony to this dog’s marvellous intelligence; but then every one had come to testify to that and to remark upon it. He was of course nervous and shy, and no doubt would always be so. Perhaps it was these characteristics that gave him the further one of extraordinary gentleness, that won all hearts. Many had already said, with a laugh, that he was “born good”; but latterly some had come to add that he was incapable of harm or ill.

And yet with these characteristics, amounting as they did to a certain softness, there was never any question of his pluck and spirit. Nor was there any limit to it. He had the spirit and “go” of any dozen of his countrymen: what more could possibly be said? At the same time he had the gentleness of a child. He recalled to mind one of those characters that some of us have met, and in strange situations—situations and hours when men’s spirits were on fire, and when the air was filled with sounds that once to hear is never to forget. One such is recalled by memory now—a vision of a lithe and active figure that had come its longest marches, and borne the many hardships of the many nights and days, though looking frail as a girl in her teens, and with manner always gentle as a child. For one like that to be amidst such doings as these seemed incongruous. Yet had the estimate proved in the end quite false. Breeding and pluck—nervous energy—had carried through, when others had gone down. And the pluck and the breeding showed itself still, when the blood dripped, and ebbed away, and the face was white as a stone.

Nor is such a parallel as far fetched as might at first appear. Given the two, the dog and the man, this dog was to show before the end characteristics equally striking and of scarcely less charm. To bear pain is not easy. There is no longer doubt that men feel pain in varying degrees, and that sufferings that might be considered identical are multiplied tenfold in the case of a highly developed organisation. With the high intelligence and nervous development of this dog, it might have been thought that pain would terrify. If so, he never showed it.

It is unnecessary here to refer to the many instances when his dash and high spirit brought about an accident, for all our dogs get into trouble and meet with accidents at times—at least, those of any worth. But it was this dog’s further habit to avoid, when in pain, the company of the one he loved best, and to go invariably to a woman for aid. It was as much as to say that he knew that many men were in such cases worse than useless: a thrust in this instance not without its truth. Thus he came home two miles one night in snow, with both fore-feet cut right across with glass—due to a dash at a rat in some rushes on the frozen riverbank. To his master’s eternal shame he never found it out. But, on arriving home, this dog went straight off for attention, of his own accord, and bore what he had to bear, not only without a flinch, but showing his gratitude by licking the hand that was tending him. So again, when he was once badly stubbed, he went to the same quarter, showed his foot, and then lay down, staying perfectly quiet while a spike was looked for, at last found, and then pulled out with a pair of iron pincers.

These are trivialities, no doubt; but they would not be trivialities to some of Us. It is by such that character shows itself—is moulded and made up—for others to estimate and take due note of. And thus it is that whether they are exhibited by man or animal, we admit their charm and pay our tribute to them, just as Theron’s faithfulness to Roderick drew these words from the lips of the aged Severian:

“Hast thou some charm, which draws about thee thus The hearts of all our house—even to the beast That lacks discourse of reason, but too oft, With uncorrupted feeling and dumb faith, Puts lordly man to shame?”