“Are they Coming?”
TYKE
The troubles of the postman however did not end here. His was a slow working and a conscientious mind. He was in possession of a dog collar, on which was inscribed the name of the lost dog’s owner. This he understood was felony, and in much perturbation of mind he made his way to the house of one of the church-wardens and told his fears. He gave the collar into the custody of this respectable guardian, and begged him to assure Tyke’s mistress of his innocence in the matter.
It needed very little to make Tyke understand any proposed arrangements for the day, and to take his measures accordingly. At last his friends had to be very careful what they said before him. He was lying one morning asleep before the fire, in the room in which his mistress was sitting, when the latter’s brother came in with a letter in his hand. “I have been asked to shoot at S. to-day,” he observed to his sister. “Will you drive me over?” “Yes,” was the answer, “but Tyke must not go.”
Tyke, who had started up all attention when the visitor entered the room, slipped out instead of resuming his old place, as soon as he found what was going to happen. When the dog-cart came round and his two friends got in there was no sign of him. But when they reached the end of the long drive, across which a public road runs, they caught sight of Tyke’s head peeping out from the bushes on the top of the bank facing them. Directly he saw that he was noticed, and having satisfied himself that his friends were really coming, Tyke scampered off across the fields, paying no heed to the calls that followed him. When his mistress arrived at S., there was a sedate looking little dog sitting by the front door waiting for her.
Tyke’s life was a long and a merry one. It ended peacefully, for one morning it was a little lifeless form that his friends found lying in his basket.
IX
“There can be no question at all that the dog is capable of a kind of fidelity, which presents all the characteristics of loyal and passionate devotion. When that is the case ... there appear to be the germ of true moral and spiritual quality.”