Atonement

“You ask me how I lost my foot?  You I see that dog?”—an unattractive beast lying before the fire—“well, when I tell you how I came by him you will know how I lost it;” and he then related the following story:—

I was in Westmoreland with my wife and children for a holiday and we had brought our dog with us, for we knew he would be unhappy with the strangers to whom we had let our house.  The weather was very wet and our lodgings were not comfortable; we were kept indoors for days together, and my temper, always irritable, became worse.  My wife never resisted me when I was in these moods and the absence of opposition provoked me all the more.  Had she stood up against me and told me I ought to be ashamed of myself it would have been better for me.  One afternoon everything seemed to go wrong.  A score of petty vexations, not one of which was of any moment, worked me up to desperation.  I threw my book across the room, to the astonishment of my children, and determined to go out, although it was raining hard.  My dog, a brown retriever, was lying on the mat just outside the door, and I nearly fell over him.  “God damn you!” said I, and kicked him.  He howled with pain, but, although he was the best of house-dogs and would have brought down any thief who came near him, he did not growl at me, and quietly followed me.  I am not squeamish, but I was frightened directly the oath had escaped my lips.  I felt as if I had created something horrible which I could not annihilate, and that it would wait for me and do me some mischief.  The dog kept closely to my heels for about a mile and I could not make him go on in front.  Usually the least word of encouragement or even the mere mention of his name would send him scampering with delight in advance.  I began to think of something else, but in about a quarter of an hour I looked round and found he was not behind me.  I whistled and called, but he did not come.  In a renewed rage, which increased with every step I took, I turned back to seek him.  Suddenly I came upon him lying dead by the roadside.  Never shall I forget that shock—the reproach, the appeal of that poor lifeless animal!  I stroked him, I kissed him, I whispered his name in his ear, but it was all in vain.  I lifted up his beautiful broad paw which he was wont to lay on my knee, I held it between my hands, and when I let it go it fell heavily to the ground.  I could not carry him home, and with bitter tears and a kind of dread I drew him aside a little way up the hill behind a rock.  I went to my lodgings, returned towards dusk with a spade, dug his grave in a lonely spot near the bottom of a waterfall where he would never be disturbed, and there I buried him, reverently smoothing the turf over him.  What a night that was for me!  I was haunted incessantly by the vivid image of the dead body and by the terror which accompanies a great crime.  I had repaid all his devotion with horrible cruelty.  I had repented, but he would never know it.  It was not the dog only which I had slain; I had slain Divine faithfulness and love.  That God damn you sounded perpetually in my ears.  The Almighty had registered and executed the curse, but it had fallen upon the murderer and not on the victim.  When I rose in the morning I distinctly felt the blow of the kick in my foot, and the sensation lasted all day.  For weeks I was in a miserable condition.  A separate consciousness seemed to establish itself in this foot; there was nothing to be seen and no pain, but there was a dull sort of pressure of which I could not rid myself.  If I slept I dreamed of the dog, and generally dreamed I was caressing him, waking up to the dreadful truth of the corpse on the path in the rain.  I got it into my head—for I was half-crazy—that only by some expiation I should be restored to health and peace; but how to make any expiation I could not tell.  Unhappy is the wretch who longs to atone for a sin and no atonement is prescribed to him!

One night I was coming home late and heard the cry of “Fire!”  I ran down the street and found a house in flames.  The fire-escape was at the window, and had rescued a man, his wife and child.  Every living creature was safe, I was told, save a dog in the front room on the ground-floor.  I pushed the people aside, rushed in, half-blinded with smoke, and found him.  I could not escape by the passage, and dropped out of the window into the area with him in my arms.  I fell heavily on that foot, and when I was helped up the steps I could not put it to the ground.  “You may have him for your pains,” said his owner to me; “he is a useless cur.  I wouldn’t have ventured the singeing of a hair for him.”  “May I?” I replied, with an eagerness which must have seemed very strange.  He was indeed not worth half a crown, but I drew him closely to me and took him into the cab.  I was in great agony, and when the surgeon came it was discovered that my ankle was badly fractured.  An attempt was made to set it, but in the end it was decided that the foot must be amputated.  I rejoiced when I heard the news, and on the day on which the operation was performed I was calm and even cheerful.  Our own doctor who came with the surgeon told him I had “a highly nervous temperament,” and both of them were amazed at my fortitude.  The dog is a mongrel, as you see, but he loves me, and if you were to offer me ten thousand golden guineas I would not part with him.