through an inn window, after a comic fugitive. The next scene of
importance to the fable was a little marred in its interest by his
over-anxiety; forasmuch as while his master (a belated soldier in a
den of robbers on a tempestuous night) was feelingly lamenting the
absence of his faithful dog, and laying great stress on the fact
that he was thirty leagues away, the faithful dog was barking
furiously in the prompter’s box, and clearly choking himself
against his collar. But it was in his greatest scene of all, that
his honesty got the better of him. He had to enter a dense and
trackless forest, on the trail of the murderer, and there to fly at
the murderer when he found him resting at the foot of a tree, with
his victim bound ready for slaughter. It was a hot night, and he
came into the forest from an altogether unexpected direction, in
the sweetest temper, at a very deliberate trot, not in the least
excited; trotted to the foot-lights with his tongue out; and there
sat down, panting, and amiably surveying the audience, with his
tail beating on the boards, like a Dutch clock. Meanwhile the
murderer, impatient to receive his doom, was audibly calling to him
‘CO-O-OME here!’ while the victim, struggling with his bonds,
assailed him with the most injurious expressions. It happened
through these means, that when he was in course of time persuaded
to trot up and rend the murderer limb from limb, he made it (for
dramatic purposes) a little too obvious that he worked out that
awful retribution by licking butter off his blood-stained hands.
In a shy street, behind Long-acre, two honest dogs live, who
perform in Punch’s shows. I may venture to say that I am on terms
of intimacy with both, and that I never saw either guilty of the
falsehood of failing to look down at the man inside the show,
during the whole performance. The difficulty other dogs have in
satisfying their minds about these dogs, appears to be never
overcome by time. The same dogs must encounter them over and over
again, as they trudge along in their off-minutes behind the legs of
the show and beside the drum; but all dogs seem to suspect their
frills and jackets, and to sniff at them as if they thought those
articles of personal adornment, an eruption – a something in the
nature of mange, perhaps. From this Covent-garden window of mine I
noticed a country dog, only the other day, who had come up to
Covent-garden Market under a cart, and had broken his cord, an end
of which he still trailed along with him. He loitered about the
corners of the four streets commanded by my window; and bad London
dogs came up, and told him lies that he didn’t believe; and worse
London dogs came up, and made proposals to him to go and steal in
the market, which his principles rejected; and the ways of the town
confused him, and he crept aside and lay down in a doorway. He had
scarcely got a wink of sleep, when up comes Punch with Toby. He
was darting to Toby for consolation and advice, when he saw the
frill, and stopped, in the middle of the street, appalled. The
show was pitched, Toby retired behind the drapery, the audience
formed, the drum and pipes struck up. My country dog remained
immovable, intently staring at these strange appearances, until
Toby opened the drama by appearing on his ledge, and to him entered
Punch, who put a tobacco-pipe into Toby’s mouth. At this
spectacle, the country dog threw up his head, gave one terrible
howl, and fled due west.
We talk of men keeping dogs, but we might often talk more
expressively of dogs keeping men. I know a bull-dog in a shy
corner of Hammersmith who keeps a man. He keeps him up a yard, and
makes him go to public-houses and lay wagers on him, and obliges
him to lean against posts and look at him, and forces him to
neglect work for him, and keeps him under rigid coercion. I once
knew a fancy terrier who kept a gentleman – a gentleman who had