Sigurd Our Golden Collie, and Other Comrades of the Road

They welcome it from the wall;
Their voices call.

But the Warder saith: "Nay, this
Is the City of Holy Bliss.
What claim canst thou make good
To angelhood?"

"Joy," answereth it from eyes
That are amber ecstasies,
Listening, alert, elate,
Before the gate.

Oh, how the frolic feet
On lonely memory beat!
What rapture in a run
'Twixt snow and sun!

"Nay, brother of the sod,
What part hast thou in God?
What spirit art thou of?"
It answers: "Love,"

Lifting its head, no less
Cajoling a caress,
Our winsome collie wraith,
Than in glad faith

The door will open wide,
Or kind voice bid: "Abide,
A threshold soul to greet
The longed-for feet."

Ah, Keeper of the Portal,
If Love be not immortal,
If Joy be not divine,
What prayer is mine?

THE CALL OF THE BLOOD

"Come, brother; away!"

    – Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

Sigurd was not the only representative of his family in our favored town. His sister Hildigunna, who might well be described in the words applied to Hildigunna of the saga as "one of the fairest," was given to a comparatively remote household in Wellesley Hills from which – alas! – she soon was stolen and spirited away to fates unknown. But his brother Hrut, a name speedily changed by his new owners to Laddie, took up his happy abode at The Orchard, not half a mile from us. These owners, returning from one of their many holidays abroad, had found on shipboard the Lady of Cedar Hill, on her way back from Norway. Of course she told them about the ten puppies and of course she promised them one.

Reared in the best traditions of New England, these travelers had already achieved an ideal success as founders and directors of a famous school for girls and had retired from active labors to a tranquil home whose broad Colonial porches were screened with "white foam flowers" of the clematis. They were Neighbors par excellence, so beloved, so leaned upon, so beset with callers and "old girls," with church committees and town committees, with causes and confidences, that they literally had to go to Europe to secure an occasional rest. And it was charming to see how their modest dignity and winsome graciousness received due meed of honor the Old World over, from titled personages of London to the very cab-drivers of Florence, whom they believed to be "honorable men" and were undoubtedly cheated less for so believing. Hard, shrewd faces of Paris pensions and Swiss hotels softened in their presence, and even the severe old Scotch dame who rated them roundly for gadding about the globe instead of having married and reared a freckled family, like hers, was moved to add: "But I mak nae doobt ye are mooch respectet where ye cam fram." She would have been confirmed in this amiable concession if she could have seen how their return was a village jubilee and how all our accumulated joys and sorrows trooped in at once through their open doors. They were Ladies of rare and precious quality, with a touch of precise, old-fashioned elegance, which made one frank admirer exclaim: "But they are like finest china, like porcelain, like Sèvres. There is nothing so exquisite left on earth. They are classics." Most eminently of all, they were Sisters. A childhood of strange peril and suffering, in which their hearts clung so close together that they grew into one, had fitted naturally dissimilar natures into an utter harmony of desire and deed. Nobody ever thought of one without the other. Not Castor and Pollux shine with a more closely related and serener light.

The Sisters hardly waited for our first tumult of greetings to subside before, on a September afternoon as quietly radiant as their own faces, they drove over to Cedar Hill to see what they described as "ten little fluffy balls, only just large enough to wriggle." The choice of their collie they left to the giver. It was not determined then, but early in April they had a message setting the day on which they were to "come for Hrut." I presume they kissed the telephone. At all events, they went with glad alacrity. As the door opened to admit them, a beautiful little collie, pure white save for touches of a rich golden brown on the ears, on the fall of the tail and on the top of his nobly carried head, ran to meet them and sprang into the outstretched arms of the foremost, cuddling there as if he knew that he had found his Earthly Paradise.

His mistress had followed directly after him, aglow with pride in the grace of his welcome.

"But this one cannot be ours, – he is too lovely," exclaimed the Sister who was already clasping him tight.

"Yes," smiled the Lady of Cedar Hill, "this one is yours," and the puppy acquiesced with wagging tail and lapping tongue and every collie courtesy.

From the first a delicate little fellow, the long drive back made him ill, but he never gave, then or later, the least sign of homesickness, settling at once with aristocratic ease into the comforts and privileges of his new environment and lavishly returning love for love.

The Sisters, as well as the elder Cousin who dwelt with them, were "lovers of all things alive," from bishops and other dignitaries, who paid them appreciative homage, to the South Sea Islanders, of whose costumes they disapproved but to whom, from babyhood up, they had helped send missionaries. The grimiest urchin in town would grin confidentially as he touched his cap to them, and their sympathy overflowed all local limits to childhood everywhere. Little cripples were the special objects of their care and tenderness. Of birds and beasts they were spirited champions. No man dared whip his horse if they were in sight. One of the Sisters had a magic pen, and many of her stories, whimsical and wise, carried an appeal for human gratitude toward the domestic animals who spend their patient strength in human service, and for friendliness toward all these sensitive fellow-creatures, our brief companions on a whirling star. The quadrupeds must have passed on from one to another the glad tidings of these Ladies of Lovingkindness, for many a hungry and thirsty cur sought the hospitalities of their kitchen, and stray cats, forsaken by selfish owners on vacation, used their piazza and even their parlor as a summer hotel. Early one July morning I was starting out for the college grounds on the search for a wretched mongrel that, having appeared from nowhere in the spring term, as dogs will, had become a cheerful hobo of the campus, living sumptuously through unlimited attendance on the out-of-door luncheon parties of the village students. A Commencement auto had broken one of his legs and frightened him into hiding, and now the ebb of all that girl life which had fed and petted him and the disappearance of chance bones from the closed back doors of the dormitories had brought upon the college, I was informed by special delivery letter from an indignant alumna, "the disgrace of leaving one of God's creatures to suffer slow starvation." Old experience led me, before setting forth to the rescue, to telephone the Sisters and ask if they had any news of this divine vagabond.

"Yes, indeed," rang back a cheery voice. "He is breakfasting with us now on the porch. He came limping up the walk just as the bell rang, exactly as if he had been invited. Such a pleasant dog in his manners, though dreadfully thin and – it's not his fault, poor dear —so dirty! I have just been calling Dr. Vet. to come and see what can be done for that poor leg."

Of course Laddie was not their first dog. The checks of the school are still stamped with the head of Don, their black Newfoundland, who had a passion for attending the morning service in the school hall and nipping the heels of the kneeling girls. In the repeating of the Lord's Prayer he would join with a subdued rumble, doubtless acceptable to his Creator, but when shut out from the sacred exercises, he would howl under the windows an anthem of his own that offended both Heaven and earth.

In the inexorable process of the years, Don grew old, becoming a very Uncle Roly-Poly, but he was only loved the more. A cherished legend of the school relates how he was sleeping on his rug by the bed of one of his mistresses on a winter night, dreaming a saintly dream of chasing cats out of Paradise, when some real or fancied noise awoke him and, the faithful guardian of the school, he rushed through the low, open window and out upon the piazza roof, barking his thunderous warning to all trespassers. But he was still so bewildered with sleep that his legs ran faster than his mind and, before he knew it, he had pitched off the edge of that icy roof and was floundering in the snow beneath, the most astonished dog that ever bayed the moon. What happened to him then is supposed to have been related by Don himself:

"My howls dismayed the starry skies,
The Great and Little Dippers, O!
Till came an angel in disguise,
In dressing gown and slippers, O!
I staggered up the steepy stair;
She pushed me from behind, Bow wow!
She tended me with mickle care,
O winsome womankind! Bow wow!
She bathed my brow and bruisèd knee.
I only whined the louder, O!
She murmured: 'Homeopathy!
I'll give dear Don a powder,' O!
And may I be a pink-eyed rabbit
If she chose not from her stock, Bow wow!
FOR PERSONS OF A GOUTY HABIT
WHO'VE HAD A NERVOUS SHOCK. Bow wow!"

Other dogs had come after, notably Cardigan, a stately St. Bernard, who made the fatal mistake of biting a pacifist, but Laddie, the only real rival of Don in the Sisters' affections, was the crown of their delight in doghood.

Sigurd had been with us only a few days when we took him over to see his brother, already for nearly three months a resident at The Orchard. We found Laddie, slender, white and dainty, quite at home on the luxurious drawing-room sofa.

"I'm stronger than you," growled Sigurd, but Laddie, always the gentlest and sweetest tempered of collies, acquiesced so pleasantly that it was an amicable meeting. At the first hint of a second growl, Laddie gave up the place of honor to his guest.

Of course we remonstrated, admonished Sigurd and urged the accommodating host, whose good manners delighted the Sisters, to jump back, which he did, tucking himself unobtrusively into the further corner of the sofa. Sigurd immediately claimed that corner, which Laddie yielded to him with unruffled magnanimity, crossing over to the other. Sigurd promptly changed his mind again, pushing Laddie, this time a little inclined to demur, down to the floor. Unable to devise a plan by which he could curl into both corners at once, Sigurd stretched himself out at full length, doing his best to reach from end to end of the sofa, while Laddie, closely copying the attitude of this arrogant big brother, lay along the rug below. Scandalized by Sigurd's conduct, we would have removed him from his usurped throne in short order, but the Sisters, rejoicing in the perfection of Laddie's social graces and secretly convinced of their collie's moral superiority to ours, would not allow any interference with the visiting puppy's comfort.

That freedom of the sofa was precious to Sigurd's pride and by repeated efforts he tried to convince his obtuse mistresses that he was entitled to the same privilege at home. But Joy-of-Life, who did not believe in "pampering pets," stood firm. There was one evening, in particular, when Sigurd jumped up on our living-room lounge some score of times, keeping all the while a challenging eye on her, and just as many times was ignominiously tumbled off. When she finally took possession herself, laughing at his discomfiture, he banged his way out into the kitchen and went down with a thump on the bare floor, hoping that we would hear how hard it was and realize how sorely poor Sigurd was abused. Finding that no apologies were forthcoming, he bounded to the front door, barked his orders to have it opened and shot out into the dark. Within five minutes the familiar tinkle called us to the telephone and over the wire flowed the blithe voice of one of the Sisters.

"I must tell you what a lovely call we are having from dear Sigurd. He barked to come in only a minute ago and went right up to the sofa and took it all for himself – oh, yes, our Cousin had been sitting there with Laddie, but they didn't mind at all – and there he is now, making himself so charmingly at home, the beautiful boy. I do wish you could see him."

"We will," responded Joy-of-Life, and off we started to chastise Young Impudence, whom we had begun to suspect of being a trifle self-willed; but when we arrived the Sisters would by no means consent to his overthrow. So there, while the chat went on, Sigurd lolled and sprawled, yawning, stretching himself to an incredible length, rolling over on his back with paws held high as if to applaud his victory and continually turning up to Joy-of-Life eyes of such sparkling glee that her purposes of discipline melted in mirth.

None the less, she was a match for him, resorting to strategy when she was forbidden the exercise of force. Calling Laddie to her, she began to stroke his nestling head. Instantly Sigurd, with a multitudinous flourish of legs that might have moved a centipede to envy, flung himself off the sofa and roared imperiously at the front door:

"Open this, Somebody, and be quick about it, too. Time to be off. Oh, come along, Folks. You've no need to pat any dog but me. Good-night, Lovely Ladies. S'long, Lad. See you tomorrow in the gloaming."