Decided by some such discipline to run the gauntlet, and in a state of temper alternating between war and peace, inclining, as I remarked, strange contradiction! to the former when the latter was in prospect, and to the latter when the former, I proceeded in guarded vigilance. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,” no doubt, but in my case evil deferred doth oftentimes as much. The substantial presence of danger for me, before its fearful imminence—the real onset of a canine crew, before the terrible suspense of passing the open den in which haply they lay wait, the shrill gamut of attack splitting your ear worse in apprehension than in action. But attention! yonder is the first position. Egad! I’m in luck to-day; the coast seems clear, and—the pacific now prevails amain—poor devils, I won’t make any ruction.
“Ever follow peace
If you’d live at ease,”
saith the tuneful proverb, and I’ll pass inoffensively if I can. Ay, i’faith, I may well say if I can, for if my eyes are worth a turnip, yonder is an outpost stretched before that sty. No, I’m wrong, it is a young pig—worthy little fellow, would I had the craft of Circe to change every cur in the land into your similitude! A grunt before a snarl, a snore before a snap any day. But what am I gabbling about?—there is evil at hand indeed, for yonder is a lurching devil squatted behind that stone, and no mistake. But softly: he seems asleep, and I may perchance steal past unnoticed—about as probable, my present experience assures me, as that you could ring my well-bred friend Piggie without an acknowledgment—he is sole sentry, and if I can but bilk him, I’ll do. Vain hope—he is waking, he is giving a preparatory stretch to his limbs and to his jaws, and, miserable sinner that I am! I’m in for it. But there is yet a single chance—I’ll try the magic of the human eye: there is wonder-working majesty, they say, in it. Did I not myself see Van Amburgh’s brutes blench before it?—am not I too a man?—ay, and I’ll let them see it. Whereupon, with the most astounding corrugation of my brows I could accomplish, I fixed my grim regards upon the cur, expecting to see him sneak in awe away as I drew nigh. But, alas! for the majesty of man, in a pinch like this let me tell him it is but a sorry safeguard—the veriest whelp in the land will bandy surly looks, and haply something worse, in its despite: a cudgel or a “hardy,” I now say, on such an emergency, before the most confounding countenance that ever frowned beneath a diadem. The foe, then, recking but little my display of the tremendous, gave a fierce alarm, while in the vehemence of his wrath he described three circles, his hind legs being the centre, which brought the whole posse of aids and abettors fast and furious into view. And now commenced the fray in earnest: beleaguered on every side, my blood, not to speak boastfully, rose with the great occasion: my tongue gave vigorous utterance to my fury, and my cane swept gallantly from right to left and from left to right, though from the wariness with which, ’mid all their fuss and clamour, the war was waged by my assailants, it was but seldom that a shrill yelp piercing through the din announced its collision with flesh and blood. Never was man more thoroughly put to it. As I made a dash forward upon one, my unprotected rear was promptly invested by another: my only security lay in the rapidity of my evolutions, and considering I am a man five feet five in height and fifteen stone in weight, I fairly take credit to myself for performances in this line, which poor Joe Grimaldi himself were he alive could not eclipse. But a man’s sinews are not of steel, nor are his lungs as tough as a pair of bellows, and under my extraordinary exertions I speedily began to think of vacating a field whereon nothing but a barren display of prowess without satisfaction was to be reaped. Accordingly, all my craft in strategy was put in practice, and by a most dexterous combination of manœuvres—now advancing, now receding, now stooping as if to seize a stone (incomparable among expedients in canine encounters), for the road here of course was as bare of them as a barn-floor, and now feigning to fling it—I at length contrived to draw the battle from their own ground, and their pugnacity being inversely as their distance from home, had the relief, for by this time I was blowing like a grampus, of seeing them retire in detachments, giving volleys in token of triumph and defiance so long as I remained in view. This brisk affair concluded with the loss only of a mouthful or two of my coat-tails, and the gain of a few trifling transparencies in the legs of my trousers—thank my boots, I have not to add in those of my person—I proceeded to the scene of my next “passage at arms,” about half a mile off. So ruffled was I that at first, after a few score peghs and puffs restorative, I bustled bravely on, desiring nothing so much as an opportunity of wreaking my wrath on some of the odious race, to which purpose I providently deposited a few pretty pebbles in my pocket.
But I am pre-eminently a reasoning man, in whom the reign of passion is but brief, and discretion had so far recovered its rightful ascendency as I drew nigh the next “picket,” that I began to think it more prudent, more benevolent I mean, to bottle up, or repress I should say, my indignation, and try what the “gentle charities,” a benign demeanour and a pleasant salutation, might avail in the way of securing a peaceful transit. With this aim I threw a prodigious amount of amiability (if somewhat more than I felt, Heaven forgive the hypocrisy) into my countenance, and accompanied a few familiar fillips of my finger with a most honied, and, as I thought, captivating phraseology of address, to a sinister-faced wretch who lay recumbent on the nearest threshold. But it would not do: up bounced the vile ingrate with obstreperous bay; his myrmidons were forthcoming on the instant, and in a jiffey I, a grave, reserved, and middle-aged man, a short, stout, and not very well-winded man, was in the melée once more, yerking my heels out fore and aft, whacking right and left, puffing, blowing, and altogether cutting such uncouth capers as verily it shames me now to think upon. Whether or not it was that my resentment, and proportionably thereto my prowess, were aggravated by the flagrant ingratitude displayed, I distributed my “dissuaders” on this occasion with such distinguished emphasis as well as science, as speedily to create a considerable diversion in my favour, and make more than one repentant sinner yelp out “devil take the hindmost,” in such vigorous style as to bring a bevy of grandam fogies in wrath from their chimney corners. “An what are yees abusin’ the poor craythurs for, that wouldn’t harm nobody in the world at all at all, barrin’ a pig or so? It’s a wonder yees been’t ashamed to treat the poor dumb (!) brutes that way, that niver did an ill hand’s turn to us nor one belonging to us, an’ it’s longer we’re acquaint with them than you. Come here, Trig—come here, Daisy—in there, Snap—down there, Peerie,” and so forth. Recrimination on such opponents was out of the question; and this brush over in rather creditable style, I made all speed from the united clamour of the offended crones and their injured innocents.
The next sore point I happily passed in the company of an iron-nerved, long-thonged carman, whom I providently engaged in conversation at the crisis. This fellow minded them no more than if they had been so many sods of turf, nor in truth did they, having probably tasted erewhile the crusty quality of such a customer, pay much regard to him, although not a few ill-favoured glances were cast askew at my poor self, as under his lee I stoutly stumped along; and some ill-suppressed growls and spiteful grins gave me to understand that I owed my safety solely to my company. A jolly beggarman—alack-a-day! that I should ever stand in need of such a convoy—to whose nimble fictions I gave ear for the nonce with singular philanthropy, was my next protector, and a sixpence paid for the safe conduct, at which rate I am pretty confident, had he seen how matters lay, he would have offered to trudge it at my elbow far enough, for the sturdy rogue cared not a snuff for them had they been twice as numerous; and in a few seconds after, I saw him with a flourish of his duster enter a hut in the midst of them all.
But it is needless to dive any farther into the budget of adventures which then and there befell me, except to mention, as a sort of set-off, a notable retaliation that I right happily achieved on one of my tormentors. After a scuffle, contested on both sides with considerable toughness, I was retiring from a sort of drawn battle, when I espied a short-legged, long-backed, crook-knee’d, lumpish-looking rascal scuttling along through a field at a prodigious pace. He had heard the well-known gathering-note when at a distance with some turf-cutters in a bog, and, eager for sport, namely, a pluck at my inexpressibles, lost no time in making for the scene. The affair was, however, over before he arrived upon the ground; but determined that his “trevally” should not be for nought, he gave me immediate chase up the road, reserving his fire as if intent on close combat alone, and altogether showing such an earnest business-like way with him, as made me set him down as a singularly crabbed customer. On he came at a rate that soon left me nothing for it, was I ever so much disinclined, but to face about and stand at bay. Hereupon, however—so conversant with currish character was I now become—a much increased ostentation of action upon his part, accompanied with a much diminished rate of progression, and a most superfluous discharge of barks, let me into a gratifying little secret. “Ha, my gentleman,” thought I, “Is this the way the land lies? You’re not just so stout a hero as you would fain be thought; and as, i’faith, I have no notion of being made sport of by such small ware as you, I’ll just try if I cannot give you a lesson worth the learning.” With that I again showed him my heels, which relieved him of his rather awkward suspense, and, turning round a corner, dexterously managed in a few moments to have my lad ensconced in a pretty angle, with a deep pool behind him, and a high stone wall on either side. Even in the height of my triumph and wrath, I could not help noticing the extraordinary mutations the outwitted ettercap underwent at this astounding juncture. The last yelp perished incomplete: a dismal wonder-what-ails-him bewilderment, horror, cowardice, despair, supplied a sort of prelibation of “the condign” my injured honour and outraged rights craved in expiation. Before him I flourished my cane in a fashion that made the very thought of contact therewith terrible—behind him lay the expectant plunge-bath of which he, in common with all his tribe, entertained a most hydrophobic horror. Thrice he seemed to contemplate an eruption, and thrice my waving weapon turned him to the watery gulf behind, and in mortal misery he appeared to balance their respective terrors. A cogent persuasive delivered rearward in handsome style, created a partial preponderance in favour of the latter. One paw was passed over the fearful brim; a timely reiteration sent the other after; the avenging rod was upraised to give the grand finale, when his outstretched tail suggested a device, which I rapturously seized on to prevent that gradual fulfilment of inevitable fate which the cowardly caitiff seemed to meditate. In the fervour of my career I even laid hands on this appendage of my once so dreaded foe, and swinging him aloft, to give him a proper elevation, as well as a momentary view of the murky abyss to which a few aërial evolutions were to bring him, dismissed him by a most righteous retribution to his fate. A gurgling yelp announced the crisis of the plump, and a few moments after, snorting and kicking, wriggling and splashing, in a perfect frenzy of amaze, the culprit emerged, and made way like mad for the bank. Tempering justice with mercy, with a noble magnanimity I allowed him to scramble up to the road, which he did with most astonishing alacrity, and, without even a shake to his bedraggled coat, or more than a glance of horror at myself, scurried homeward at a rate with which even his pursuit could not compare: he never troubled me again. With this beautiful illustration of retributive justice—oh, that I could but make it universal!—I will wind up the relation of my misfortunes and feats on this plaguy but memorable day, which I have selected—may my vanity be pardoned—as exhibiting myself, though I say it who shouldn’t say it, in rather a distinguished point of view, as being devoid of certain humiliating circumstances with which on most other occasions my lot was accompanied, and as being at the same time sufficient, without wanton trifling with my own feelings and those of others, to make the resentment of all who are susceptible of sympathy with their kind burn fierce against these pestiferous persecutors of our race. I have said enough to show, that if we care to maintain that native supremacy which these contumacious rebels make but light of questioning, if we wish to rescue our order from the disgrace and contumely from such vile sources cast upon it, the time for action, systematic, conjoint, national action, has now arrived. “Union,” say the sages of the rostrum with admirable discernment, “Union is strength.” Let us act on the profound discovery; let combination be the order of the day; let the cry of “Down with the cynocracy!” ring resistless through the land; let pistol pellets and pounded glass be in every one’s possession; let the legislature be simultaneously bombarded; let the squire whose game is incontinently gobbled up in embryo, the wayfarer whose person and all that hangs thereon is supinely compromised, the philanthropist who would augment human happiness, the humanist who would diminish dumb-brute suffering, the vindicator of the pig, the cat, the donkey, and all the tribe of cur-bebitten animals, ay, even the friends (if such besotted beetleheads there be) of the detested breed themselves, who hold it better “not to be” than “to be” in semi-starvation, in mangy malevolence, in spiteful pugnacity, in the perpetual distribution of snarls, bites, and barks, and receipt of cuffs, kicks, and cudgels—let all and every of these great and various parties agitate, agitate, agitate, petition, petition, petition, that such comprehensive measures as the enormity of the case demands be forthwith adopted for the correction, abatement, or abolition of this national scourge, by taxation, suspension, submersion, decapitation, or deportation, as to the “collective wisdom” may most advisable appear.
A Man.