PAGE 6
Squire Toby’s Will
by
"Hullo! Is that like him?" said the squire, stopping short, and pointing with his stick at a dirty-white dog, with a large black head, which was scampering round them in a wide circle, half-crouching with that air of uncertainty and deprecation which dogs so well know how to assume.
He whistled the dog up. He was a large, half-starved bull dog.
"That fellow has made a long journey thin as a whipping post, and stained all over, and his claws worn to the stumps," said the squire, musingly. "He isn’t a bad dog, Cooper. My poor father liked a good bull dog, and knew a cur from a good’ un. "
The dog was looking up into the squire’s face with the peculiar grim visage of his kind, and the squire ives thinking irreverently how strong a likeness it presented to the character of his father’s fierce pug features when he was clutching his horsewhip and swearing at a keeper.
"If I did right I’d shoot him. He’ll worry the cattle, and kill our dogs,” said the squire. "Hey, Cooper? I’ll tell the keeper to look after him, That fellow could pull down a sheep, and he shan’t liveon my mutton.”
But the dog was not to be shaken off. He looked wistfully after the squire, and after they had got a little way on, he followed timidly.
It was vain trying to drive him off. The dog ran round them in wide circles, like the infernal dog in Faust; only he left no track of thin flame behind him, These maneuvers were executed with a sort of beseeching air, which flattered and touched the object of this odd preference. So he called him up again, patted him and then and there in a manner adopted him.
The dog now followed their steps dutifully, as if he had belonged to handsome Charlie all his days. Cooper unlocked the little iron door, and the dog walked in close behind their heels, and followed them as they visited the roofless chapel.
The Marstons were lying under the floor of this little building in rows. There is not a vault. Each has his distinct grave closed in a lining of masonry. Each is surmounted by a stone kist, on the upper flag of which is enclosed his epitaph, except that of poor old Squire Toby. Over him was nothing but the grass and the line of masonry which indicate the site of the kist, whenever his family should afford him one like the rest.
"Well, it does look shabby. It’s the elder brother’s business; but if he won’t, I’ll see to it myself, and I’ll take care, old boy, to cut sharp and deep in it, that the elder son having refused to lend a hand the stone was put there by the younger. "
They strolled round this little burial ground. The sun was now below the horizon, and the red metallic glow from the clouds, still illuminated by the departed sun, mingled luridly with the twilight. When Charlie peeped again into the little chapel, he saw the ugly dog stretched upon Squire Toby’s grave, looking at least twice his natural length, and performing such antics as made the young squire stare. If you have ever seen a cat stretched on the floor, with a bunch of Valerian, straining, writhing, rubbing its jaws in long-drawn caresses, and in the absorption of a sensual ecstasy, you have seen a phenomenon resembling that which handsome Charlie witnessed on looking in.
The head of the brute looked so large, its body so long and thin, and its joints so ungainly and dislocated, that the squire, with old Cooper beside him, looked on with a feeling of disgust and astonishment, which, in a moment or two more, brought the squire’s stick down upon him with a couple of heavy thumps. The beast awakened from his ecstasy, sprang to the head of the grave, and there on a sudden, thick and bandy as before, confronted the squire, who stood at its foot, with a terrible grin, and eyes that glared with the peculiar green of canine fury.