Rona answered our expectations, and soon took Fido’s position in the house. She was a thoroughly worthy little dog; I don’t know that she was very clever, but I can vouch that she was exceedingly companionable. In her prime she was perfectly good-humoured to her friends, though I do not think that she was ever very accessible to strangers. She had queer ways of her own. She was very fond of fish, to which, as an article of food, dogs have either a great liking or loathing. She slept on the lower shelf of a cupboard, reserved for her use, in a dressing-room attached to the nursery. She would retire there for a morning snooze, and members of the family, unaware of her proximity, would be startled, on going into the nursery, by loud snores, exactly resembling those of a human being guilty of snoring, proceeding from the dressing-room at high noon. She had been taught to beg, and had great faith in the efficacy of the supplication. She would be found in a room alone begging with great patience to a closed door, and confidently expecting it would yield to the appeal.
Rona was peculiarly affected by certain kinds of music, as dogs sometimes are. I have read different opinions expressed of the impression made by music on dogs, with an attempt to decide whether it is pain or pleasure which is produced on the creature by the melody that awakens its attention and rouses its emotions. The preponderance of evidence tends to indicate that it is pain, or at least some form of fear or distress, which music causes in the dog. What I remember of Rona’s behaviour when so excited confirms this idea, though we children chose to class the performance as singing, and boasted loudly of it to our companions, who used to wait breathlessly for it to begin, and were filled with delighted wonder, amounting to awe, when the dog was got to exhibit its talent. The sound of a piano or of singing did not move her in the least, but an accordion drawn out, or a violin played, touched the chord which vibrated to music in Rona’s composition. She would generally retire beneath a chair or sofa, with a restless, disturbed air (I suppose we made out her withdrawal to be the assumed modesty of a great performer); and if the music were continued, she would raise her head and utter in prolonged bays and howls what, I am satisfied, was her protest against the sound which, for some occult reason, both excited and rendered her miserable. It was an evident relief to her when the concert, in which she had felt bound to bear a part, was brought to a conclusion.
I think it was for Rona that we children first manufactured a set of garments which figured on more than one dog. There was a pair of flannel pantaloons, into which we inserted the dog’s unwilling legs, fastening the pantaloons by strings across her back. There was a flannel gown, which we called a dressing-gown, and suspended round her shoulders. The costume was finished by a round cap, like a Highland bonnet, which we put on her head, tying it under her chin—or jaw: on high occasions we stuck a feather unto this cap.
Of course Rona objected strongly, in her own mind, to these incongruous decorations, though she had to submit outwardly to our will on that point. The pantaloons, after they had been donned, were least in her way, and she would appear to forget them and run about in them without protest for hours.
I remember one day, during a period of rainy weather, when even the sandy roads of that district were wet and miry, that an elder sister, who had gone to make calls in the village, came back half-a-mile with Rona. The dog had stolen out and kept at a safe distance in the rear, till she considered that she was beyond the danger of being marched home, when she capered to the front, and her unconscious companion not only perceived who was her attendant, but discovered, to her mingled diversion and chagrin, that the dog was dressed in that supremely absurd pair of pantaloons, plentifully bespattered with mud.
By the time the younger members of the family were sent to school, poor Rona was up in years, and had become peevish and snappish in her growing infirmities, so that it was judged advisable that she should be quietly put out of the way in her mistresses’ absence. When we came home jubilant, we found no Rona waddling out to greet us, and I am afraid we had so many to meet, and so much to occupy us, that we hardly missed our humble friend.
A contemporary of Rona’s was a tall, gaunt, black—with silver hairs, peculiarly ugly, and valuable sheep-dog, which was my father’s friend. His ugliness was the result either of disease or of an accident, which had removed a portion of the lip and exposed his teeth on one side, but which did not impair his health, or detract from his merit as a wise and an efficient collie. His name, which was not given by us, was peculiar. I imagine it was either a mistake or a corruption. Instead of being termed “Yarrow,” “Tweed,” or “Heather,” the traditional names for Scotch collies, he was called “Gasto,” which I have a notion must have been a perversion of “Gaston,” though how a Scotch collie came to bear a chivalrous French Christian name I have not the faintest idea.
He was a dog that had his proper business to mind, and did not take much account of us children. Shepherds who have the rearing of such dogs do not encourage their association with children, and regard it, where it occurs, as liable to be a source of deterioration in an animal which is bred to endure hardship, and to live under a sense of responsibility. And when the creature is trained to perfection, it is as valuable and important a member of the establishment on a sheep-farm as an ox or a horse on another farm. Gasto was one of the gravest dogs I ever saw, far too sober for play of any kind. Looking back, I cannot help associating him with wintry blasts and snow-drifts, in which he is buffeting the blast and wading through the drift, intent on his calling.
Gasto knew but one master, my father, and for him he lived and laboured with a still, deep devotion. On one occasion, when my father was attacked by a dangerous illness, and confined to his room for a time, the sheep-dog wandered about disconsolately, declining even to attend to his ordinarily rigidly discharged office, at the bidding of any other than his master. As the days wore on, about the time that the disease approached its crisis, the dog stationed himself on the garden wall, and in a manner foreign to his usually rather impassive, preoccupied demeanour when he was not about his work, howled dismally—conduct which, however well meant, was not calculated to cheer the invalid, or the watchers in the sick-room. The dog then refused to touch food, and it was feared he would die. After every other mode of coaxing was tried, without effect, Gasto was taken into the room where my father, by that time recovering, lay in bed—was shown his master, and spoken to by him. I don’t think the dog attempted to leap on the bed, or did more than wag his bushy tail with immense relief and repressed gladness; but when a plate with his food was offered to him in the loved presence, he ate it quietly without further demur. Forthwith he went about his business, content to discharge it faithfully, as a trust committed to him, and to wait hopefully for the reappearance of his master.
Poor Gasto, to my father’s great regret and indignation, was cruelly poisoned by some ill-disposed persons in the neighbourhood. Another dog of ours fell a victim to their misdeeds. He was a huge, fawn-coloured, young watch-dog, named “Neptune,” that was thus summarily cut off before he had got the beyond boisterous uncouthness of this hobble-de-hoyism.