"Dogs can study out many things better than men can," said Shamus, in his most impressive manner. "Before I left old Ireland for America, I had a dashing beast, with as much wit as any boy in the country. He could poach a rabbit and steal a bird from under the gamekeeper's nose, an' give the swatest howl of warnin' whenever a bailiff came into them parts."
Sachem suggested that these were rather remarkable habits for a dog connected with the great house of Dobeen.
"But yez must know he was only a pup when my fortunes went by," responded Shamus, "and he learnt these tricks afterward. Ah, but he was a smart chap! Couldn't he smell bailiffs afore ever they came near, an' see all the witches and ghosts, too, by second sight! He wouldn't never go near the O'Shea's house, that had a haunted room, though pretty Mary, the house-girl, often coaxed at him with the nicest bits of meat."
Sachem thought that perhaps the animal's second sight might have shown him that stray shot from pretty Mary's master, aimed at a vagabond, might perhaps hit the vagabond's dog.
"I wasn't a vagabond them times," retorted Shamus, quickly, yet with entire good humor, "and sorry for it I am that the name could ever belong to me since. And please, Mr. Sachem, don't be after interruptin' again. Some people wonder why the dogs bark at the new moon an' howl under the windows afore a death. In the one matter, your honors, they see the witches on a broomstick, ridin' roun' the sky, an' gatherin' ripe moon-beams for their death-mixtures an' brain blights. Many a man in our grandfathers' time—yes, an' now-a-days too—sleepin' under the full moon, has had his brains addled by the unwholesome powder falling from the witches' aprons. Wise men call it comet dust. And why shouldn't a dog that has grown up to mind his duty of watchin' the family, howl when he sees Death sittin' on the window sill, a starin' within, and preparin' to snatch some darlint away? Ah, but their second sight is a wonderful gift though!
"The name of my dog, your honors, was Goblin, an' he came to us in a queer sort of way, just like a goblin should. There was a hard storm along the coast, an' the next mornin' a broken yawl drifted in, half full of water, with a dead man washin' about in it, an' a half-drowned pup squattin' on the back seat. Me an' my cousin buried the man, an' the other beast I brought up. May be there was somethin' in this distress that he got into so young that he couldn't outgrow. Even the priest used to notice it, and say the poor creature had a sort of touch of the melancholy; an' sure, he never was a joyful dog. Smart an' true he was, but, faith, he wasn't never happy; yez might pat him to pieces, an' get never a wag of the tail for it. He delighted in wakes and buryins, an' when a neighborin' gamekeeper died, he howled for a whole day an' a night, though the man had shot at him twenty times. Mighty few men, your honors, with a dozen slugs in their skin, would have stood on the edge of a man's grave that shot them, an' mourned when the earth rattled on the box the way Goblin, poor beast, did then. Ah, nobody knows what dogs can see with their wonderful second sight. That beast thought an' studied out things better than half the men ye'll find; an' it's my belief that dogs did so before, an' they have done it since, an' they always will."
"You are right, Dobeen," said the Professor. "Put a wise dog, and a foolish, vicious master together. The brute exhibits more tenderness and thoughtfulness than the man. In the latter, even the mantle of our largest charity is insufficient to cover his multitude of sins, while the skin of his faithful animal wraps nothing but honest virtue. The dog, having once suffered from poison, avoids tempting pieces of meat thenceforward, when proffered by strange hands, but the man steeps his brain in poison again and again—or as often as he can lay hold of it. While grasping the deadly thing, he sees, stretching out from the bar room door, a down grade road, with open graves at the end, and frightened madmen, chased by the blue devils and murder and misery, rushing madly toward them. These swallow their victims, as the hatches of a prison ship do the galley slave, and close upon them to give them up only when the jailer, the angel of the resurrection, shall unlock the tombs, and calls their occupants to judgment. Does the sight appall and bring him to his senses? No, he crowds among the terrors, and takes to his bosom the same venomous serpent that he has seen sting so many thousands to death before him. And yet people give to the brute's wisdom the name of instinct, and call man's madness wisdom."
"But, your honors," interposed Dobeen, "I shall be after losing my dog entirely, unless yez lave off interruptin' me, an' let me finish my story."
"Go on, Shamus, go on!" we all cried with one breath.
"Well, then, when Goblin came to me in his infancy, he wore a silver collar with his name all beautifully engraved on it. May be the dead man in the boat had been bringing him from some strange land to the childer at home, and thinking how the odd name would please them all, when the shadows were darting around his hearth. And so Goblin howled his way through the world, till one full moon eve, when every bog was shinin' as if the peat was silver. Such times, any way in old Ireland, your honors, the air is full of unwholesome spirits. This was good as a wake for Goblin, and I can just hear him now the way he cried and howled that night! He kept both eyes fixed on the moon, and no mortal man, livin' or dead, will ever know what he saw, but when he howled out worse nor common that night, it meant, may be, that some witch, uglier than the rest, had just whisked across the shinin' sky. Just at midnight, I was waked out of a swate sleep by the quietness without, the way a miller is when his mill stops. I looked out of the window at the dog where he sat, an', faith, the dog wasn't there at all! Just then I heard a despairin' sort of howl, away up in the air above the trees, an' by that token I knew the witches had Goblin. Next mornin', one of the lads livin' convanient to us told me he had heard the same cry in the middle of the night, the cry, your honors, of the poor beast as the witches carried him off. Afore the week was out, Goblin's collar was found on the gamekeeper's grave; that was all—not a hair else of him was ever seen in old Ireland."