. The boy was playing before his door, when a
constable came by with his rifle on his shoulder, and asked him if he
had seen any unmuzzled dogs about; and partly from pride at being
addressed by a constable, partly from a nervous fear of refusing to
answer, and partly from a childish curiosity to see what would happen,
he said, "Yes; one over there by the pork-house." The constable
whistled, and the poor little animal, which had got lost from the farmer
it had followed to town, came running into sight round the corner of the
pork-house, and sat up on its haunches to look about. It was a small red
dog, the size of a fox, and the boy always saw it afterwards as it sat
there in the gray afternoon, and fascinated him with its deadly peril.
The constable swung his rifle quickly to his shoulder; the sharp,
whiplike report came, and the dog dropped over, and its heart's blood
flowed upon the ground and lay there in a pool. The boy ran into the
house, with that picture forever printed in his memory. For him it was
as if he had seen a fellow-being slain, and had helped to bring him to
his death.

Whilst Tip was still in his prime the family of children was further
enriched by the possession of a goat; but this did not belong to the
whole family, or it was, at least nominally, the property of that eldest
brother they all looked up to. I do not know how they came by the goat,
any more than I know how they came by Tip; I only know that there came a
time when it was already in the family, and that before it was got rid
of it was a presence there was no mistaking. Nobody who has not kept a
goat can have any notion of how many different kinds of mischief a goat
can get into, without seeming to try, either, but merely by following
the impulses of its own goatishness. This one was a nanny-goat, and it
answered to the name of Nanny with an intelligence that was otherwise
wholly employed in making trouble. It went up and down stairs, from
cellar to garret, and in and out of all the rooms, like anybody, with a
faint, cynical indifference in the glance of its cold gray eyes that
gave no hint of its purposes or performances. In the chambers it chewed
the sheets and pillow-cases on the beds, and in the dining-room, if it
found nothing else, it would do its best to eat the table-cloth.
Washing-day was a perfect feast for it, for then it would banquet on the
shirt-sleeves and stockings that dangled from the clothes-line, and
simply glut itself