A Rough Shaking | Page 8

shore of silence into a new sea of talk, when we were interrupted by the invasion of half a dozen dogs. They were of all sorts down to no sort. Mr. Skymer called one of them Tadpole--I suppose because he had the hugest tail, while his legs were not visible without being looked for.
"That animal," said his master, "--he looks like a dog, but who would be positive what he was!--is the cleverest in the pack. He seems to me a rare individuality. His ancestors must have been of all sorts, and he has gathered from them every good quality possessed by each. Think what a man might be--made up that way!"
"Why is there no such man?" I said.
"There may be some such men. There must be many one day," he answered, "--but not for a while yet. Men must first be made willing to be noble."
"And you don't think men willing to be made noble?"
"Oh yes! willing enough, some of them, to be made noble!"
"I do not understand. I thought you said they were not!"
"They are willing enough to be made noble; but that is very different from being willing to be noble: that takes trouble. How can any one become noble who desires it so little as not to fight for it!"
The man drew me more and more. He had a way of talking about things seldom mentioned except in dull fashion in the pulpit, as if he cared about them. He spoke as of familiar things, but made you feel he was looking out of a high window. There are many who never speak of real things except in a false tone; this man spoke of such without an atom of assumed solemnity--in his ordinary voice: they came into his mind as to their home--not as dreams of the night, but as facts of the day.
I sat for a while, gazing up through the thin veil of water at the blue sky so far beyond. I thought how like that veil was to our little life here, overdomed by that boundless foreshortening of space. The lines in Shelley's Adonais came to me:
"Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments."
Then I thought of what my host had said concerning the too short lives of horses, and wondered what he would say about those of dogs.
"Dogs are more intelligent than horses," I said: "why do they live a yet shorter time?"
"I doubt if you would say so in an Arab's tent," he returned. "If you had said, 'still more affectionate,' I should have known better how to answer you."
"Then I do say so," I replied.
"And I return, that is just why they live no longer. They do not find the world good enough for them, die, and leave it."
"They have a much happier life than horses!"
"Many dogs than some horses, I grant."
That instant arose what I fancied must be an unusual sound in the place: two of the dogs were fighting. The master got up. I thought with myself, "Now we shall see his notions of discipline!" nor had I long to wait. In his hand was a small riding-whip, which I afterward found he always carried in avoidance of having to inflict a heavier punishment from inability to inflict a lighter; for he held that in all wrong-doing man can deal with, the kindest thing is not only to punish, but, with animals especially, to punish at once. He ran to the conflicting parties. They separated the moment they heard the sound of his coming. One came cringing and crawling to his feet; the other--it was the nondescript Tadpole--stood a little way off, wagging his tail, and cocking his head up in his master's face. He gave the one at his feet several pretty severe cuts with the whip, and sent him off. The other drew nearer. His master turned away and took no notice of him.
"May I ask," I said, when he returned to his seat, "why you did not punish both the animals for their breach of the peace?"
"They did not both deserve it."
"How could you tell that? You were not looking when the quarrel began!"
"Ah, but you see I know the dogs! One of them--I saw at a glance how it was--had found a bone, and dog-rule about finding is, that what you find is yours. The other, notwithstanding, wanted a share. It was Tadpole who found the bone, and he--partly from his sense of justice--cannot endure to have his claims infringed upon. Every dog of them knows that Tadpole must be in the right."
"He looked as if he expected you to approve of his conduct!"
"Yes, that is the worst of Tadpole! he is so self-righteous as to imagine he deserves praise for standing