Dave belonged to a wood-carter, and both man and dog had bad names. When Dave at last took to worrying sheep by the dozen, his master was communicated with in a way he hardly relished, and so Dave was put on chain, and peace in the village canine community was happily restored.
The winter came on, and a wild, bitter winter it was, with high, icy, east winds, sleet and snow. I happened to be passing one day near to the cottage where Dave’s master dwelt, and, hearing a mournful whine issuing from a shed, I peeped in. There lay poor dog Dave, and a pitiable sight he was, and no sign of either water or food was to be seen. My heart bled for the creature. Bad enough he was in all conscience, but to make him suffer thus was revolting. I got little satisfaction at first from his cruel master, who told me he had no time to attend properly to a dog on chain. The promise of an occasional coin brought about a better state of existence for Dave. But this did not last long. Once only I saw him led out on a string for a little exercise. How wretched he looked!—lean and mangy, and trembling like an old aspen-tree, his hocks plaiting and bending beneath him at every step. There was no fight in Dave now! He even wagged his tail to Danger when he met him, and Danger returned the salute with a hearty goodwill, which showed how much of benevolence dwelt beneath that ugly phiz of his.
But I was witness to a still greater proof of the kindness of Danger’s heart, a few days after this. It was a grey, dull day, with a keen wind blowing from the north-east. I was just dressing to go out, when who should I see making his way along the pavement but my friend Danger. He had a great ham-bone in his mouth. I got out as quickly as I could, and followed Danger down the street and down the lane, and straight to the shed where poor Dave lay dying—for dying he undoubtedly was.
I never before had read or heard of so generous an act being done by one dog to another—that other, too, a quondam foe. Dave lay on his miserable bed of damp, unwholesome straw in the woodshed, through every cranny and chink of which the wintry wind was whistling and sighing. Dave was shivering, but more, I think, from sickness than cold. Danger approached with a ridiculous grin on his foolish phiz, and many an apologetic wag of his tail. “Here, Dave,” he seemed to say, “here is a bone I have saved for you; there certainly isn’t much on it, but it may just do for a picking.”
But poor Dave was past even picking a ham-bone, and two days after this the shed had no tenant; Dave was dead. I do sincerely wish that my tale had not so gloomy a finish, but as I am writing facts, I have no power to make it otherwise. Danger’s master lived in a cottage about a mile up the Don, and close to its bank. One night a terrible rain-storm came on, and I was told next day that the river was in “spate;” that many sheep had been carried away, and even cattle and horses. After breakfast I went to see it. There was something even awe-inspiring in the sight; the quiet and placid river of the day before, with its clear, brown, rippling water, was swollen into a wide, yellow, surging, roaring torrent. The sturdy old bridge on which I stood shook and trembled with the force of the water that dashed underneath. Pine-trees, hay, straw, and even the carcases of cattle, came down stream every minute. I left the bridge at last, and walked slowly up along the top of a wooded cliff.
Till this day I regret that I did not go straight home from the bridge, for I shall always remember what I saw. Something was coming floating down the turgid river, right in the centre, and rapidly approaching me, swirling round and round in the current.
It was a small hay-cock. How he had got on I never knew, but on the top thereof was my honest friend Danger. I called him.
The pitiable, pleading look with which he replied went straight to my heart. Danger could not swim!
What made the matter more mentally painful to me was, that there was quite as much of the ludicrous as the pathetic about the situation. For, poor dog, his great solemn face never looked uglier, never looked more distressed than now; and the glance he gave me as he was borne hurriedly onwards to certain destruction—why, I have but to close my eyes to see it even now, as I sit here.
And that was the last that was ever seen of Danger; he never appeared again on the streets of the village of V—.