Besides illustrating the desire for vengeance, this is as good an instance of reason as any we have given. The Dog evidently argued to himself in this wise:—“If I fly upon this wretched Cat and deprive her of her stolen goods by force, she will get nothing more than a fright, or, perhaps, a few tooth marks; but if I lodge a complaint against her before the proper tribunal, her guilt will be manifest to the whole household, and she will be got rid of, or even killed.” The Dog, by the way he conceived and acted on this plan, showed himself to be nearly as clever and almost as wicked as a great many men one reads about in history.
We have spoken of maternal love as exhibited by the Dog. This is, of course, a case of instinct; but instances are not wanting in which Dogs have shown the high faculty of devoted love towards other than their offspring, and of friendship like that of Ruth for Naomi. Mr. Darwin mentions a Greyhound bitch who, contrary to the usual custom of her race, fell deeply in love with a Pointer, and would have nothing to say to any other Dog during the life of her lover; and, stranger still, when he died, she showed a constancy equal to that of the best of her sex among the human race, and remained strictly faithful to his memory, never afterwards bearing pups.
Rarer than conjugal affection amongst animals, is friendship between individuals of the same sex; of this, too, instances are not wanting. Mr. Youatt relates the following:—“Two Dogs, the property of a gentleman at Shrewsbury, had been companions for many years, until one of them died of old age. The survivor immediately began to manifest an extraordinary degree of restless anxiety, searching for his old associate in all his former haunts, and refusing every kind of food. He gradually wasted away, and at the expiration of the tenth day he died, the victim of an attachment that would have done honour to man.”
Of equally intense devotion to man, instances are so numerous that one hardly knows which to mention. None is, perhaps, more wonderful or more affecting than that we have already mentioned, of the Dog who watched for three months by the corpse of his dead master on Helvellyn. There is also a tale of a Newfoundland Dog, whose master—a soldier—returned to his home, after an absence of many years, when the Dog recognised him at once, “leaped upon his neck, licked his face, and died.” He must have retained, during the whole of the time his master was away, the memory of his care and friendship. One cannot doubt that he often thought of and longed for him; and the rush of joy and hope fulfilled was too much for the great heart of the noble animal. He succumbed to the intensity of his feelings, thereby showing himself to be superior in one of the highest and grandest of qualities to by far the greater proportion of the human race. How many men, or even women, of one’s own acquaintance, are capable of dying of joy?
But there is a dark side to this picture. A very large proportion of Dogs possess but little of this virtue of fidelity, but have greatly developed the contrary vice of extreme fickleness. They will change masters without the slightest objection, and be “off with the old love and on with the new” absolutely without a pang. Froissart, the chronicler, tells a curious tale respecting the treachery of Richard II.’s Dog, “a Grayhounde, called Mithe, who always wayted upon the kynge, and woulde knowe no man els. For where so ever the kynge did ryde, he that kept the Grayhounde dyd lette him lose, and he wolde streyght mime to the kynge, and faune uppon hym, and leape with his fore fete uppon the kynge’s shoulders. And as the kynge and the Erle of Derby (Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV.) talked togyder in the courte, the Grayhounde, who was wonte to leape uppon the kynge, left the kynge, and came to the Erle of Derby, Duke of Lancastre, and made to him the same friendly continuance and chere as he was wonte to do to the kynge. The duke, who knewe not the Grayhounde, demanded of the kynge what the Grayhounde would do? ‘Cousin,’ quod the kynge, ‘it is a greate goode token to you, and an evyl signe to me.’ ‘How knowe you that?’ quod the duke. ‘I knowe it well,’ quod the kynge. ‘The Grayhounde acknowledgeth you here this day as Kynge of England, as ye shall be, and I shall be deposed; the Grayhounde hath this knowledge naturally; therefore take hym to you: he wyll follow you and forsake me.’ The duke understood well these words, and cherished the Grayhounde, who wolde never after follow Kynge Richard, but followed the Duke of Lancastre.” This anecdote, curious, if true, would seem to show that rats and men are not the only animals who make haste to leave a sinking ship.
POMERANIAN DOG.
We have made mention of a certain quarrelsome Dog, fond of picking a quarrel, who always took care, with the true instinct of a cowardly bully, to pick out old or infirm persons as objects of his attacks. We are glad to say that we have found a notice of a Setter who showed a becoming respect for age. His owner says:—
“One other curious fact may here be mentioned about this Dog. Although naturally a very vivacious animal, and, when out for a walk with myself or any other young person, perpetually ranging about in search of game, yet, if taken out for a walk by an elderly person, he keeps close to heel all the time, pacing along with a slow step and sedate manner, as different as possible from that which is natural to him. This curious behaviour is quite spontaneous on his part, and appears to arise from the sense of the respect that is due to age.”