I have come to the advent of a prized dog, so long a much esteemed member of the household, that she was regarded, not only by ourselves but our friends, as one of the family. She was a pure bred and fine terrier, given when she was about a year old to my brother, as the parting gift of a friend about to sail for Ceylon. She was dear for his sake as well as for her own, but she soon needed no external recommendation to make her a chief favourite. I have only a hazy recollection of her introduction to us, but a fragment of her illustrious pedigree, which was imparted with befitting seriousness, lingers in my mind. “Her mother was a lineal descendant of the dog that fought the lion at Warwick.” What sort of lion-baiting this was? how it happened to take place at Warwick? what was the date of the event? whether the whole story were not a tradition of the great Bevis? were questions never answered. But we were accustomed to repeat the assertion as a solemn attestation to Skatta’s claims to superiority.
Skatta, like Rona, was named for an island in the West—an island which has a substantial existence. Yet though we were told, and implicitly believed for many a day, that the dog was of Western origin, a Skye terrier, this was ultimately disputed. I have been assured that she was a fine Dandie Dinmont terrier, of the renowned mustard species, and that she and her forbears ought to have been traced to pastoral Liddesdale in the South, and not to the corries of Cuchullin in the Land of Mist. I am sorry that I am not possessed of sufficient erudition to settle the point.
In the eyes of connoisseurs Skatta was a beautiful dog, though I am doubtful whether the uninitiated world would have perceived the extent of her claims. Her colour hovered between a sulphur yellow and a buff. She was short in the legs and rather long in the body, but not with such an ungainly length as I am told a true Skye terrier should show, just as a genuine Belgian canary-bird ought to be slightly hump-backed. The hair on her back was rough and wiry—one of her good points in our estimation; it was softer on her breast, legs, and feathery tail, and on her head, especially in the case of an admired lock that lay on her forehead, the texture of which was almost as fine as that of floss-silk. Her acute ears were of course erect. Her subtlest of noses was, in accordance with her complexion, red, not black. Her honest affectionate eyes were of warm hazel.
Skatta was by instinct alone an excellent game dog, and her glory was to be in attendance on the taking down of a stack in the yard, to sit watching with all her wits about her, and to pounce on and despatch each rat as it appeared. There were rabbit warrens in the neighbourhood, not without danger to the terrier. In her hot pursuit of the rabbits, she would follow them into their burrows by passages and windings too narrow for her to turn herself in, while the sandy soil fell down behind her, and she was detained till her absence was remarked. The dog’s half-suffocated yelps indicated her subterranean place of imprisonment, when aid was speedily lent to restore her to the upper world.
On other occasions Skatta’s feet were caught in the traps set by the rabbit-catchers, and though her bones were strong enough to resist the pressure, and she was not maimed, as so many of our cats became, but generally freed herself after a struggle, and returned home triumphantly without much injury, in two instances she was a serious sufferer from the accident. In the first it was not known that she had been caught in a trap, and nobody guessed why she paid such sedulous attention to one of her front paws, till after an interval of weeks, in the face of an impending lameness, a close examination detected a portion of brass-wire bound tightly round, and eating into the festering flesh. At a much later date, when Skatta was an old dog, her master missed her from his heel after crossing one of these warrens. It was a dark night, and he could not stay to search for her, even if it had been possible to find her. He trusted that, if she had been caught in a trap, she would free herself, as she had been wont to do, and follow on his steps. As she remained absent, however, the entire night—an unexampled incident in her history—my brother started early next morning in search of her, and found her lying unable to stir, with one of her legs terribly lacerated. She was carried carefully home, and after being tended for weeks, during which she showed great patience and gratitude, she was restored to the full use of her limbs.
In spite of the danger, the rabbit-haunted links, with their wild thyme, cowslips, and harebells in the seasons, presented the utmost fascination in life to Skatta. After the links, she cared for the weasel and rat-frequented fields and ditches of the strath, with their bugloses and poppies, brooklime and irises; but the links formed par excellence her happy hunting-ground. I have heard her master say that on returning home, or taking a stroll before retiring to rest on a summer night, her mute entreaty was sometimes so irresistible, that he would turn away from the house and take the path to the solemn sea and the silent links, to grant her the half-hour’s indulgence she besought.
At one period she walked with the women of the family every afternoon, and amused them by her uncontrollable disappointment and chagrin—though she was for the most part a modest, reasonable dog—when they resorted to the rocks and the sands as their place of promenade. She would sit down beside them while they rested, and begin to shiver, though she was in perfect health, and to whimper under her breath a reproach for their perversity. Why were they so provoking? Why could they not have walked on the springy turf of the links, or by the pleasant field path? Then she might have hunted to her heart’s content, and still have been in their company.
When my brother was at home, Skatta made a marked distinction between him and the rest of the family, acknowledging him pointedly as her master, and electing herself his constant companion. When he first left home, she was very disconsolate for a few days, and sat a good deal on the garden wall, howling as Gasto did when my father was ill. After a time she seemed to make up her mind to the separation, and transferred her primary allegiance in a measure, and for the moment, to my father. (Though she was of the female sex herself, she gave no support to the rights of women, farther than being social and happy with us girls.) Her real master’s absence was sometimes for many months, and lasted over a period of years; but the moment he reappeared on the scene she returned unfailingly to her first love. So perfect was the good understanding between man and dog, and so blameless was the conduct of the latter as a rule, that I have heard my brother say he only struck his dog twice in the whole course of their long connection. On the first occasion the blow was administered to correct a fault, but on the second his stick fell on the wrong dog in a combat which had been thrust on Skatta, and which he was trying to stop. He averred that he could not bear to look his dog in the face afterwards, because of the meek wonder with which she submitted to the unjust stroke, and, as he complained, he had not the comfort of explaining to her that it was all a mistake.
Skatta was never more than friendly to people outside her family, and there was one family friend whom she, like most reflective dogs, held in abhorrence. She hated the doctor, and laid aside her peaceful character to growl out her enmity every time she was in his company. I have heard various reasons assigned for the dislike of dogs to doctors.[C] Do their delicate noses detect and find fault with any subtle aroma hanging about the man who orders drugs? Are the dogs’ affectionate hearts moved by sympathy with the signs of suffering and anxiety, which they are quick to read, in the faces of the family? The dumb animals are clever enough to connect these tokens with the presence of the doctor, while they are not sufficiently well informed—given to leap at conclusions as they are—to comprehend that he is there to relieve distress instead of being its author.
If dogs detest doctors, they do not often extend their dislike to clergymen. Skatta was not only on perfectly civil terms with the “minister” of her master’s kirk, she herself knew the Sunday, and was disposed to respect its observance like a true-blue Presbyterian. She did not, to be sure, go to the kirk like the dog of one of the ministers in the village,[D] but she consented to stay at home without any protest, and only burst out and greeted her family rather uproariously on their return in the ranks of their fellow-worshippers.