THE YELLOW DOG.
RE joined us on the way to the station, greeting us politely but without effusion, and our harried acknow- ledgment of his civility was certainly not cordial enough to justify the event. We were very late for a train that professed to be starting very early, and we had no time for conversations by the way. In fact, nothing but a sense of the politeness due from man to dog could have distracted our minds just then from the warning voice of the engine at that moment getting up -steam beyond the big sluice-gates. It was an obliging train, however, and waited for us while we scuffled for tickets, and scrambled up its steep sides, and collected our faculties and belongings in a corner of the carriage. There were various changes to be made on a cross-country journey, and the railway guide banished the memory of the stranger who had spoken to us outside, until an unobtrusive movement beneath the seat recalled him to our minds. Looking under- neath in some anxiety, there, sure enough, we saw him in person, and he retreated further into the shadow with a slightly apologetic movement, but seemed otherwise unabashed by discovery. He was a yellow dog, of that primitive and ubiquitous type 'which is said to be the foundation of dog-kind since the first parents of the race were named in Eden. Besides his yellow coat, brindled in places, he had short legs and a sharp nose, and a long thin tail with an undignified tendency to marl. It is a rudimentary pattern which underlies innumerable develop- ments, from the most aristocratic of collies to the most preposterous of fanciers' freaks. It is enduring though inelegant, and possesses a capacity for certain primitive virtues almost obliterated in Bonn over-bred patrician dogs. He was rather an unromantic animal, but be looked ea if he knew what he was about and had his own plans. What we wished to know, however, was whether his plans had any reference to us. It is embarrassing when a sudden addition is made to your party unprovided with a ticket. But the question was, did the yellow dog propose to join our party P It looked as if he did, for he had both spoken to us outside, and had chosen our corner to hide in, whereas there were other people in the carriage, natives of the place, with whom he was presumably acquainted. But then perhaps he was in the habit of travelling without a ticket, and had only chosen us because of the convenient shelter afforded by petticoats. At any rate, after consultation, we decided that we had better mind our own business and let the yellow dog mind his, for fear that inquiry should determine him to join us. So we said nothing, and the yellow dog said nothing, until it was time to collect properties and prepare to climb out of the train, and then the yellow dog put out his nose and looked at us with a look which clearly said that he meant to get out too.
Things began to be serious, because, besides the responsibility of having a dog loose among rails and wheels, it is a delicate matter to make off with somebody else's dog in a foreign land. Appearances were damaging, even if we should explain that he had forced himself upon us. Then, too, we were sight- seeing, and architecture was presumably not in the yellow dog's line, and be might get lost, and strange hotels might refuse him hospitality, and in any case we were coming back the next day, so that decidedly the yellow dog must be dis- couraged.
We tried guile. A biscuit was produced just as the train drew up, and broken under his nose. An illogical animal would have seized the biscuit and chanced the rest ; but this one had an object hi view to which all other considerations gave way. He wagged Lis tail and ignored the biscuit, and when we had climbed out in a great hurry, hoping that his attention had been distracted and he would be left behind, we found that the yellow dog had climbed out too, and was standing still and looking at us with the disarming confidence of the canine adventurer. It was quite clear that he had no other business at all, but had come simply with the intention of making us adopt him, and there he was, wagging a humble tail, and looking at us rather seriously, because he was not yet quite sure how far his plan had succeeded.
So far from succeeding, however, the yellow dog, had failed signally. It was hard on all parties, for there are few things more flattering than the esteem and gratitude of dogs, but in the circumstances there seemed nothing for it but to send him back. It was an ungracious task, for when we ex- plained matters to him he only wagged more cheerfully, taking our remarks for consent. Then we tried flight, but the yellow dog followed at fall trot. He had no appearance of regarding the affair as a joke; he was a serious animal who probably never had time to cultivate a sense of humour. His mind was filled with the one idea of being befriended, and he meant to be befriended at all costs. The next train was nearly due, and we suffered agonies of apprehension at seeing him in the track of the engines. Nothing remained but to try violence, and with much outward ferocity and inward compunction we tried to drive him back. But when he was chased round one corner he came back by another, and at first he refused to be taken in by all this pretence. He was convinced that we were not really heartless, and it was some time before his tail sank below half-mast. This desperate persistencesvas very touching, but it was impossible to take hini. So finally we bribed a porter to get him back again, and, with the inconsequence of human nature, suffered pangs of perfectly groundless remorse at the memory of his despairing yellow tail tucked beneath the arm of the pester who was bearing him baok, all un- willing, to safety.
After that we had not much time to think about the adventure. But returning next day to the hotel, the fitilt thing we saw established in the midst of a sympathetic female crowd was the yellow dog. How had he got there P It then appeared that he WW1 the centre of a romance. He was an English-speaking dog belonging to the skipper of a West Country cargo-boat which had lately called at — and stayed a few days to reload. When the ship sailed the dog was left behind. Whether he had been deliberately deserted, or whether by being absent on business at the time of sailing he had missed his ship, could not be discovered, for he could not say. But there he was, a waif stranded on a foreign shore,
cut off from home and friends and belongings, all that makes life lovely to civilised dog-kind. He was no Ulysses, this dog, but a primitive creature whose heart was bound up in a few familiar things, and he had heard English voices in the street of the little Picard fishing village, where sounds and sights and smells were all unfamiliar to his canine intelligence ; and the masterless dog, hearing a tongue he knew, had followed different members of the English party in the hope that perhaps they might somehow bring him back to the other faces and places that were familiar too.
On consideration of the yellow dog, be proved to be an animal of character. There was something singularly touching In the way be accepted the situation. He assumed nothing, and demanded nothing, but awaited events with an air of subdued patience that was more moving than an urgent appeal. But though uncomplaining, the yellow dog bad his convictions, and he was clearly convinced that we had not behaved well to him. His manner had changed ; he was polite but distant, and reserved his friendliness for the youngest member of the party, who bad taken the waif to her arms with a large-hearted disregard for :hypothetical rights of property. Prudence is an unsatisfying virtue ; we acquire it with much pain, and are then apt to spend the rest of our lives wondering whether it was worth acquiring. The yellow dog's coldness hurt us very much, because we bad acted for his good. But that, after all, is a proceeding which not unusually entails a like result among creatures of a larger discourse who ought to look before and after more carefully than dogs.
This dog had none of the ordinary affectations and ideals of his kind. He was a very serious dog, and his eyes had a forlorn resignation as if be had long known the hopelessness of getting any two-legged creature to understand about things. His appearance was unromantic, in fact plebeian, and be had a subdued air of involuntary patience like the expression often seen in the eyes of , the very poor, as if they bore a great deal of hardness without being quite conscious Of it. He looked as if he belonged to the masses, the class where "tired millions toil noblest," with no room for illusions about life, because the elementary fact of its dreadful hardness fills all -their foreground. He was un- assuming and civil, but bad a foundation of reserve hard to fathom. He did not affect the attitude of adulation taken by canine humbugs who know humanity's weak points and its susceptibility to flattery. Neither had he the deprecating air of a dog whose green judgment has not yet taught him that the world takes you at Jour own valuation. And his obvious qualities were not inspiring. He looked steady and respectable, a very honest dog. At a guess, you would say he was industrious, good-tempered, and an early riser. Such unromantic virtues may balance finer ones among more privileged classes, He had none of the surface qualities of beauty, or charm, or quaintness which go so far towards smoothing life. As dogs go, he rimy have been a dull dog. But he would have been less pathetic if he had been more interesting.
There was much discussion about the yellow dog's fate, for every one felt he could not be left a waif in a strange land to face all the perils that beset a masterless dog. But-it was a hard question, because, though many were willing to adopt him, be had to be got across the Channel, and quarantine is a troublesome matter. Nobody was very clear about it either ; and then there was a long argument on the relative merits of the Dogs' Home in Paris, or a board-residence in some English port in charge of a quarantine official. Finding somebody in the place to adopt him was also proposed ; but then his rightful owner might come back and reclaim him, and there might be trouble.. The yellow dog sat under the table all the while, and appeared to listen with a forlorn air to the various plans. He looked as if he might have argued if he had not known what a hopeless case it is to get born with four legs. He was not enthusiastic about the petting that was lavished on him, and he ate everything every one offered him, not hungrily but for politeness' sake, and with an air of impending disaster which the result justified. For the question was finally settled by a practical person, who went out and interviewed the skipper of another Cornish ship lately, arrived. The skipper had a vacancy for a dog, and looked as if he could treat one properly, so the ownerless dog was promptly bestowed upon him. He did not want to go, and begged hard to be taken back to the hotel;
but in vain, and that was the last seen of the yellow dog. He is now in all probability engaged in plying up and down Channel in charge of a schooner, its crew and effects, so that he has a good chance of carving out a useful and respectable career. But perhaps he was a dog who yearned for greater things. We gave him two dreadful disappointments at all events, and it was grievous to imagine the sinking at his poor heart when he saw himself deserted for the second time by possible friends. The griefs of the inarticulate appeal with peculiar urgency to creatures possessing the specious gift of language. But it is at best a clumsy medium, and we are apt to forget that it parts at least as many articulate souls as it unites. "Words bring grief," said a dealer in words very wisely. Sometimes a sufferer is piteous enough until be begins to talk about his woes. So perhaps the yellow dog's ease was strongest because he could not state it may have possessed a tragic soul beset by dim gropings after the inexpressible. But at any rate he had the advantage of being unable to say so.
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