THE WATCH-DOG.
A MASTIFF that had received a severe kick from his master thus soliloquized as he walked slowly and sadly toward his kennel:
“I guard his house by day and by night, securing for him undisturbed rest, but hardly ever getting for myself so much as an hour’s sleep at a time. He never comes near me that I do not show my pleasure by a wag of my tail; and when he speaks to me and pats me on the head, my delight is so great that I can hardly control myself, and behave as a sensible dog ought to behave. And yet, because I happened, by accident, to be in his way, he has thus ill-used and disgraced me! What a shame, when he has the power so easily to make me happy that he abuses it in making me miserable!”
By this time the mastiff had reached his kennel, at the farther end of the garden; but, as he was about entering it, one of his own pups, that had been playing on the grass with a little terrier from the next house, caught sight of him. In a moment both the pup and the terrier let their tails drop and slunk out of sight. The old dog watched them as they disappeared, and after pausing a moment said to himself:
“This ought not to be. The harsh treatment that I have received makes me examine my treatment of others. I am afraid I’m as bad as my master. It is because they are growled at and snarled at so often these pups run away as if their innocent gambols might cost them a cudgelling. My master did not mean it; yet when he kicked me, he did me a favor, for so have my own faults been brought to my view, and from this very hour I mean to correct them.”
Before we judge those who have the rule over us, let us stop and ask, “What would they say whom we rule over?”