NEXT to Mag and his grandfather Philip loved his dog Dash better than anything else in the world. He was a ragged little terrier with a head much too large for his body, a short stump of a tail, and an awkward way of getting under people’s feet and of tumbling all over himself when he ran; but he was a marvel of faithfulness and affection, and could do a multitude of the clever tricks which Philip delighted to teach him.
He had come to the door of the cottage one wild, stormy night, and had wailed so piteously outside that Mag said at last:
“Go, Philip, lad, unbolt the door; it is likely some poor dog perishing in the storm. We are not so poor but we can give the poor thing food and shelter for the night.”
So Philip ran and opened the door, and the little dog ran in and cowered shivering before the fire; he was very wet and dirty, and so thin that the bones in his poor little body stood out in a way that was quite pitiful to see; he had a jagged end of rope about his neck, as though he had broken away from some place of confinement; his feet were cut and bleeding, as though he had travelled a long distance; and he had a general air of being quite done up and exhausted.
Philip brought him some food and water, and you should have seen the look of gratitude in the creature’s eyes as he wagged his poor little stump of a tail, stopping now and then, hungry as he was, to lick the kind hand that fed him. Philip made a comfortable bed for him beside the fire, but next morning when he awoke and sat up in his own little bed, which stood beside his mother’s, there was his small new friend sitting gravely beside him, quietly waiting for him to awake. Later, when Mag missed her little boy from her side, she discovered him, still in his night-clothes, rolling about on the floor, in play with the dog.
“Oh, mother!” he cried when she called to him, “please may I keep him for my very own? Only see how we love each other already!”
And Mag, her great love for her boy shining in her dark eyes, laid her hand kindly on the little dog’s shaggy head.
“Sure, ye may keep the creature, Philip,” she said, “provided his proper owner does na’ call for him.”
But no one ever came to claim him, and from that day Philip and Dash were inseparable, except during the hours when Philip was down in the mine with his mother; there the dog was not allowed to follow his young master, but he would go with him every morning to the entrance of the shaft, and stand looking down, after the car which carried the miners to their work had started on its downward journey. When it was quite out of sight he would turn with a whimper and trot home again with a business-like air, seldom stopping to play with other dogs by the way, and staying very quietly and obediently with the old grandfather for the rest of the day. But at the exact hour when it was to be expected that the car would come up again from the mine, bringing the men, with Philip and his mother, there would be Dash waiting for them, and ready to escort them home each night with as much joy as though he had not seen them for a month. No one ever knew how the little fellow could always be sure of the exact time when Philip might be expected, but he was never known to be late, except on one occasion when his grandfather had gone to a neighbor’s, leaving Dash locked in the cottage. He must have managed to climb out of the window, which was several feet above the ground, for he came galloping down the road just as the miners were saying:
“Ah, Philip, lad, thy friend is failing thee the night.”