"Well, that is sensible, I must confess," said the gardener. "The dumb animal has found missy's book, and brought it back. Miss Lily would like to hear that."
"Ah, she always thought a deal of the creature," replied his wife; "and for her sake he shan't be neglected. Here's your dinner, Captain."
"Give him that bone," said the gardener; "that's what he'll like."
So they gave me a charming bone, quite to my taste; and for a time I forgot all my anxieties in the pleasure of turning it round, sucking, biting, pawing, and growling over it. I cared for no other dinner; indeed I never could understand how people could trouble themselves to eat anything else as long as there was a bone to gnaw. But it is fortunate there are various tastes in the world; and the strange preference of men for other food is convenient for us dogs, as it leaves us in more undisputed possession of the bones than if our masters liked gnawing them too.
But the pleasure of a bone does not last for ever, and among the nobler races of animals Thought cannot be entirely kept under by eating. I have heard that greedy human beings sometimes reduce themselves to the condition of pigs, who are entirely devoted to cramming; but I should not choose to degrade myself to that level. So I soon began meditating, and cogitating, and speculating again.
My life now grew every day more and more dismal. Dinner-time brought its bone, but bones soon failed to comfort me. The gardener said I was "off my feed," and his wife feared I should mope to death. All day I wandered about looking for Lily, and at night retired to my kennel, under the sad impression that she was farther off than ever. The gardener himself once invited me into the flower-garden in hopes of amusing me, and I explored all the gravel-walks, carefully avoiding the borders; but there was no trace of my lost Lily, and I never cared to visit it again.
One day I thought I would search the house. It was thrown open to me. There were no forbidden drawing-rooms now; I prowled about as I pleased. If the doors were shut, I might scratch as long as I liked; nobody answered. If open, I walked round and round the room, brushing the wainscot with my tail. There were no china ornaments to be thrown down now, and I might whisk it about as I would. Formerly I had often wished for free entrance to those rooms; now I should have welcomed a friendly hand that shut me out of them. In passing before a large mirror, I marvelled at my own forlorn and neglected appearance. Once, I was worth looking at in a glass; now, what a difference! Sorrow had so changed my whole aspect, that I stared with dismay at the gaunt spectre which stared at me in return, and we howled at each other for company.
CAPTAIN'S DREAM. [Page 40]
Lying down before the blank mirror, which had formerly thrown back so many pleasant images, and now reflected only my solitary figure in the deserted room, I silently pondered on the past. In a half-wakeful, half-dozing state, my eyes alternately opening and shutting, now winking and blinking at the glass, now for a moment losing sight of every thing, the events of my life seemed to pass before me in a dream; the persons with whom I had been connected rose up again as shadows, and I myself seemed another shadow gliding about among them, but a shadow whose behaviour I had acquired a new faculty of observing.