with which he avoided making the least noise while I was asleep, or
pretending to be asleep, was quite touching: even the sight of a Cat
outside, which at any other time rendered him frantic, only causing him
to tremble violently with suppressed emotion, when he had reason to
suppose that I was not awake. If I overslept myself, however, he used
to jump upon the bed and push my shoulder gently with his paw.”
[Illustration: GREYHOUND.]
“The following instance is likewise very instructive. I must premise
that the Terrier in question far surpassed any animal or human
being I ever knew in the keen sensitiveness of his feelings, and
that he was never beaten in his life. Well, one day he was shut up
in a room by himself, while everybody else in the house where he
was went out. Seeing his friends from the window as they departed,
the Terrier appears to have been overcome by a paroxysm of rage,
for when I returned I found that he had torn all the bottoms of the
window-curtains to shreds. When I first opened the door he jumped about
as Dogs in general do under similar circumstances, having apparently
forgotten, in his joy at seeing me, the damage he had done. But when,
without speaking, I picked up one of the torn shreds of the curtains,
the Terrier gave a howl, and rushing out of the room, ran up-stairs
screaming as loudly as he was able. The only interpretation I can
assign to this conduct is, that his former fit of passion having
subsided, the Dog was sorry at having done what he knew would annoy
me; and not being able to endure in my presence the remorse of his
smitten conscience, he ran to the farthest corner of the house, crying
_peccavi_ in the language of his nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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