Sigurd Our Golden Collie, and Other Comrades of the Road

by Katharine Lee Bates

The curtal dogs, so taught they were,

They caught the arrows in their mouth."

But Petit-Crin, the fairy dog from Avalon that Tristram gave to Iseult, was more than any honest collie could endure.

"No tongue could tell the marvel of it; 'twas of such wondrous fashion that no man might say of what color it was. If one looked on the breast, and saw naught else, one had said 'twas white as snow, yet its thighs were greener than clover, and its sides, one red as scarlet, the other more yellow than saffron. Its under parts were even as azure, while above 'twas mingled, so that no one color might be distinguished; 'twas neither green nor red, white nor black, yellow nor blue, and yet there was somewhat of all these therein; 'twas a fair purple brown. And if one saw this strange creation of Avalon against the lie of the hair there would be no man wise enough to tell its color, so manifold and changing were its hues.

"Around its neck was a golden chain, and therefrom hung a bell, which rang so sweet and clear when it began to chime Tristram forgot his sadness and his sorrow, and the longing for Iseult that lay heavy at his heart. So sweet was the tone of the bell that no man heard it but he straightway forgat all that aforetime had troubled him.

"Tristram hearkened, and gazed on this wondrous marvel; he took note of the dog and the bell, the changing colors of the hair, and the sweet sound of the chimes; and it seemed to him that the marvel of the dog was greater than that of the music which rang in his ears, and banished all thought of sorrow.

"He stretched forth his hand and stroked the dog, and it seemed to him that he handled the softest silk, so fine and so smooth was the hair to his touch. And the dog neither growled, nor barked, nor showed any sign of ill temper, however one might play with it; nor, as the tale goes, was it ever seen to eat or to drink."

At this point, Sigurd rose, shook himself and stalked out to the kitchen. He could bear a great deal from his pedantic mistresses, but there were limits. Satiated with history and literature, he proposed to relax his mind by a turn at psychology.

From Cecilia's successor, Ellen, Sigurd was taking a brief but vivid course in psychics. To be sure, a bona fide professor in that field dwelt near us, her high-picketed fence enclosing a baker's dozen of spaniels. It was understood, to the awe of the community, that by their aid she investigated certain dark corners of her shadowy subject; but Sigurd, embarrassed by the attentions thrust upon him by the grandmother of the spaniel family, rested content with his unacademic tutor.

"Poor Ellen," as she invariably called herself, was a small, wiry, nut-brown Irish woman, whose gray hair rose erect, as if just affrighted by pouke or pixy, from above a constantly wrinkling forehead and a pair of snapping jet eyes. She must have been on the borders of insanity, if not across, when she came to us. She was a furious worker, cycloning about the house with mop and broom at all hours and not hesitating to upbraid the college president herself, most benign and punctilious of ladies, if her boots brought one speck of mud into "Poor Ellen's clane hall." Her chief pride, however, was in her frugality, as we discovered to our dismay on her second afternoon, when, as it often happily chanced, the Dryad, then living on the campus, dropped in for a call and consented to remain for dinner.