In Touch with Nature: Tales and Sketches from the Life

Danger; A Study in Dog Life

“Shall noble fidelity, courage, and love,
Obedience and conscience – all rot in the ground?
No room be found for them beneath or above,
Nor anywhere in all the Universe round?
I cannot believe it. Creation still lives,
And the Maker of all things made nothing in vain.”

    Tupper.
Danger is a very suggestive name for a dog, especially when that dog happens to be a guard-dog and a bull-terrier to boot. But such was the name by which the hero of this brief biography was always known. The probability is that he was descended from very ferocious ancestors; indeed, the dog had all the external appearance of one that could both tackle and hold, if occasion demanded any such display of his powers. However, one should judge, not even of a dog, from first impressions.

The dog Danger did not advance very high in my estimation at our first meeting. It wasn’t love on sight with either of us. I had gone into a shop in the dusk of a summer’s evening, to buy a small guide-book, being then on a tour through the lovely vale of Don, Aberdeenshire. I found no one in attendance except Danger, whom I did not at once perceive. A low ominous growl soon drew my attention to the spot where he was lying. I could just trace the dim outline of his figure, and see two eyes that glittered like balls of green fire. It would have been quite enough, no doubt, to make a person unaccustomed to dogs feel uneasy, more particularly as the shopkeeper seemed in no hurry to put in an appearance. He came at last, though.

“Is your dog dangerous?” I asked.

“He is very far from that,” was the quiet reply. “I often wish he were a trifle more so. But his name is Danger,” he added, smiling, as he lit the gas.

I had now a better look at the animal. He certainly was no beauty, and I thought at once of the painting by Landseer – “Jack in Office.” Danger was huge and somewhat ungainly, though not really so large as he looked. It was his immense head, and the general cloddiness of his body, that gave him the appearance of size. His ears were small and lopped over gracefully, his nose was both flat and broad, and his eyes did not look a bit more conciliatory in the light than they did in the semi-darkness. He came round behind, and forthwith instituted a very minute investigation of the calves of my legs. This was probably a proof of the dog’s high intelligence, but it was not over-pleasant to me nevertheless.

“There is hardly anything that animal won’t do,” said the shopkeeper.

“I can quite believe that,” I replied, with a furtive glance over my shoulder; “I can quite believe it.”

Danger went away presently, apparently satisfied with the result of his scrutiny, and my mind was relieved.

I had occasion to make many visits to the same shop after this, and Danger and I got to be very friendly indeed. There was something decidedly honest about Danger’s every look and action when you came to know him. Perhaps he had the same opinion about me. I trust he had. At all events he appeared to take to me, and had a quiet, queer way of showing his regard that many people wouldn’t have altogether relished: to wit, if I sat down in the shop, as I sometimes did, Danger would come and lay his great head in my lap; it weighed about ten pounds, apparently; any attempt at getting him to remove it, until he himself pleased, elicited a low growl, which was by no means reassuring. Yet, while he growled, he wagged his tail at the same time, as much as to say:

“I really do not wish to quarrel with you, unless you force me.”

If I stood in the shop instead of sitting, it was much the same, because Danger used to lie down beside me, and put his monster head on top of my foot, and go through the same performance if I attempted to disturb him. Nor would he always obey his master and come away when told; he was like the spirits in “the vasty deep.”

I made the village of V – my headquarters for several months it was so quiet, and I wanted rest. It came to pass eventually that Danger took it into his big head to go with me in my walks and rambles; I did not dare to refuse the convoy, though so forbidding did the animal look, that I was often ashamed to be seen in his company. I flatter myself that there is nothing of the Bill Sykes about my personal appearance; if there were, Danger was just the dog for me. Ladies meeting me and my questionable friend, would often look first at Danger and then at me, in a way I did not at all relish.

Danger was not a young dog; he had certainly arrived at years of discretion. He was well known in V – . Indeed, he was as much a part and parcel of the village as the town clock itself; and a fine, free and independent life Danger led, too. It was also a life of singular regularity. As soon as he had eaten his breakfast of a morning, he used to take a trot down the street, visiting exactly the same places or spots every day. Coming back, he would seat himself at a bend of the road and right in the middle thereof, where he could see all that was going on either up the street or down the street; and hear as well, for he always kept one of his ears turned each way – a very convenient arrangement. Danger spent the greater portion of every forenoon, wet day or dry day, in this way, only on Sundays he never appeared at all.

He was not only well known to every human being in the village, but to every dog and cat also, and no dog ever went past Danger without coming and saying a friendly word or two, or exchanging tail-waggings, which is much the same. I have sat at my window and seen all sorts and all kinds and conditions of dogs come and make their obeisance to Danger of a forenoon – lordly Saint Bernards, noble Newfoundlands, stately mastiffs, business-looking collies, agile greyhounds, foxy Pomeranians, wee, wiry Scotch-terriers, daft-like Skyes, and even ladies’ darlings, the backs of whom Danger could have broken at one bite, had he been so minded.

I am perfectly sure that Danger knew he was not very prepossessing in appearance, and that he looked a fierce dog, though he did not feel it. Occasionally a strange dog would come trotting up the street, and then it was amusing to watch Danger’s tactics. Of course the new dog would not like to pass Danger without making some sign. To do so would have looked cowardly, and no dog cares to show fear, whether he feels it or not. Danger would bend all his energies to getting the new-comer to advance and be friendly. He would not get up, because that might be construed into a menace, but he would positively wriggle on the road and grin. This made him appear more grotesquely hideous than ever, but the other dog seldom failed to understand it.

“I confess I do look terribly ugly and terribly ferocious,” Danger would seem to say, “but I am the meekest-minded dog in all the village. Come along. Don’t be afraid. I never met you before, but I am satisfied we shall be the very best of friends.”

“Well,” the new dog would apparently reply, “you are certainly no beauty, but I think I can trust you nevertheless.”

Now there came to the village one day a large half-bred cur, partly smooth sheep-dog, and partly mastiff. He came swinging up the street in a very independent manner indeed, and as soon as he saw Danger he stopped short, and raised his hair from head to tail. This was meant for a challenge to Danger, but Danger was slow to see it; he simply began to grin in his usual idiotic fashion. But when the mongrel advanced, Danger grasped the situation in a moment. At the same time the cur seized Danger by the neck, and a fierce fight ensued. Five minutes after the mongrel slunk away home, beaten, bleeding, cowed; and Danger lay quietly down again as if nothing unusual had happened.

“Dave,” as the mongrel was called, had had enough of Danger, and used to go past him afterwards as if he saw him not; but he took his revenge on the other village dogs, all the same. There was scarcely one he did not attack and badly use. When, however, Dave one day lamed a Pomeranian, who was a great favourite with Danger, and when that wee dog came limping up and seemed to show Danger his grievous wounds, the latter thought it was quite time to be up and doing. He now purposely threw himself in Dave’s way at every opportunity, and stout and fierce were the battles fought, Danger invariably coming off triumphant.

Dave belonged to a wood-carter, and both man and dog had bad names. When Dave at last took to worrying sheep by the dozen, his master was communicated with in a way he hardly relished, and so Dave was put on chain, and peace in the village canine community was happily restored.

The winter came on, and a wild, bitter winter it was, with high, icy, east winds, sleet and snow. I happened to be passing one day near to the cottage where Dave’s master dwelt, and, hearing a mournful whine issuing from a shed, I peeped in. There lay poor dog Dave, and a pitiable sight he was, and no sign of either water or food was to be seen. My heart bled for the creature. Bad enough he was in all conscience, but to make him suffer thus was revolting. I got little satisfaction at first from his cruel master, who told me he had no time to attend properly to a dog on chain. The promise of an occasional coin brought about a better state of existence for Dave. But this did not last long. Once only I saw him led out on a string for a little exercise. How wretched he looked! – lean and mangy, and trembling like an old aspen-tree, his hocks plaiting and bending beneath him at every step. There was no fight in Dave now! He even wagged his tail to Danger when he met him, and Danger returned the salute with a hearty goodwill, which showed how much of benevolence dwelt beneath that ugly phiz of his.

But I was witness to a still greater proof of the kindness of Danger’s heart, a few days after this. It was a grey, dull day, with a keen wind blowing from the north-east. I was just dressing to go out, when who should I see making his way along the pavement but my friend Danger. He had a great ham-bone in his mouth. I got out as quickly as I could, and followed Danger down the street and down the lane, and straight to the shed where poor Dave lay dying – for dying he undoubtedly was.

I never before had read or heard of so generous an act being done by one dog to another – that other, too, a quondam foe. Dave lay on his miserable bed of damp, unwholesome straw in the woodshed, through every cranny and chink of which the wintry wind was whistling and sighing. Dave was shivering, but more, I think, from sickness than cold. Danger approached with a ridiculous grin on his foolish phiz, and many an apologetic wag of his tail. “Here, Dave,” he seemed to say, “here is a bone I have saved for you; there certainly isn’t much on it, but it may just do for a picking.”

But poor Dave was past even picking a ham-bone, and two days after this the shed had no tenant; Dave was dead. I do sincerely wish that my tale had not so gloomy a finish, but as I am writing facts, I have no power to make it otherwise. Danger’s master lived in a cottage about a mile up the Don, and close to its bank. One night a terrible rain-storm came on, and I was told next day that the river was in “spate;” that many sheep had been carried away, and even cattle and horses. After breakfast I went to see it. There was something even awe-inspiring in the sight; the quiet and placid river of the day before, with its clear, brown, rippling water, was swollen into a wide, yellow, surging, roaring torrent. The sturdy old bridge on which I stood shook and trembled with the force of the water that dashed underneath. Pine-trees, hay, straw, and even the carcases of cattle, came down stream every minute. I left the bridge at last, and walked slowly up along the top of a wooded cliff.

Till this day I regret that I did not go straight home from the bridge, for I shall always remember what I saw. Something was coming floating down the turgid river, right in the centre, and rapidly approaching me, swirling round and round in the current.

It was a small hay-cock. How he had got on I never knew, but on the top thereof was my honest friend Danger. I called him.

The pitiable, pleading look with which he replied went straight to my heart. Danger could not swim!

What made the matter more mentally painful to me was, that there was quite as much of the ludicrous as the pathetic about the situation. For, poor dog, his great solemn face never looked uglier, never looked more distressed than now; and the glance he gave me as he was borne hurriedly onwards to certain destruction – why, I have but to close my eyes to see it even now, as I sit here.

And that was the last that was ever seen of Danger; he never appeared again on the streets of the village of V – .

Chapter Thirteen.

Dicky Dumps: the Parson’s Pony

“A little water, chaff and hay,
And sleep, the boon of Heaven;
How great return for these have they,
To your advantage, given!
And yet the worn-out horse or ass.
Who makes your daily gaining,
Is paid with goad and thong, alas!
Though nobly uncomplaining.”

    Tupper.
There are, or were, two immortal men, who never spoke without saying something – I refer to Shakespeare and Burns; and when the former remarks so prettily, —

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

we cannot help replying, “That is true.”

But for all that, every one who owns a pet animal of any kind, that he really loves, will be ready enough to admit that seemingly senseless though the names be which we sometimes give them, there is generally some reason in them, albeit there may not be much rhyme. When we talk to animals which we have a great affection for, we often use a deal of ridiculous abbreviations. Never mind – they, our favourites, understand them, and really appear to prefer them. Just one or two examples. There is an immense Newfoundland lying not far from me while I write, an animal who by reason of his beauty, his bounding independence, and his very roguishness, takes all hearts by storm. His name was originally “Robin;” that soon came down to honest simple “Bob.” He is known in what is called the canine world as “Hurricane Bob,” he being a show dog. He derives the sobriquet “Hurricane” from the mad way he rushes round his own paddock when he first gets out of a morning. With his long black hair floating in the wind, he is hardly visible as he races round and round about you. You can just see a black shape, that is all, which you conclude is Hurricane Bob. You can set him off racing round and round at any time by calling —

“Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane!”

He has a great sense of humour and of the ridiculous; but if you say to him, “Robert, come here,” he then approaches very gravely indeed.

“What’s up!” he seems to say, “that I am being called Robert? Have I done anything wrong, I wonder?”

Again, if you call him Bobbie, he expects to be patted, caressed, and made much of.