The Moral Sense. 225 
vestry door, and waited at the porch of the church to take 
up his position at the head of the procession. 
The interest of the dog was certainly bound up in somé 
way with the funeral, apart from his natural desire to be 
with his master. When a stranger took the duty once for 
my father, during a few weeks, Dash attended the funeral 
of an old parishioner that took place in the interval, and 
behaved in exactly the same manner. Dash knew as well as 
anybody the day on which a funeral was to be. The house 
was about a quarter of a mile from the church, and when- 
ever he heard the tolling of the bell, he went, in a state of 
excitement, to his master’s study, and barked with delight 
until he was outside the gate on the way to the church. 
Then his manner changed to that of solemn decorum, main- 
tained until the termination of the proceedings. 
As in all small villages, the carpenter of the place was 
also the undertaker; and this man, with whom the dog was 
familiar, as the chief official at all funerals, told me that. 
Dash would often look in at his shop for a few minutes, and 
then walk out again; but if a coffin was in course of being 
made, he would remain a long time, watching the work 
with much apparent satisfaction, doubtless in anticipation 
of another of those events which constituted the absorbing 
interest of his life. 
Some of my readérs may perhaps be disposed to question 
the possession by the dog of a moral sense, but I am afraid 
there are those who are “very fond of a dog in his praper 
place”’—which means a kennel, in a yard, with the de- 
pressing prospect of four blank walls and a stable broom— 
and who always address him, in a tone of kindly but con- 
temptuous patronage, as “poor fellow.” They, unhappily for 
them, do not know what a dog is. A creature so “cribb’d, 
cabin’d, and confin’d” becomes as dull, and often as vicious, 
as a galley slave. Indeed, we cannot put so high-spirited an 
animal to a.worse or more cruel use than to impose on him 
any of the indignities of bondage. His manners and morals 
Q 
