quotes_july3_2011.htm

One other curious thing happened which frightened me as much as anything in all the night’s work. When Fleete was dressed he came into the dining-room and sniffed. He had a quaint trick of moving his nose when he sniffed. “Horrid doggy smell, here,” said he. “You should really keep those terriers of yours in better order. Try sulphur, Strick.”

This is from “The Mark of the Beast” in Life’s Handicap.

Fleete gets drunk at the Club on New Year’s Eve, and desecrates a temple of Hanuman the Monkey God, by stubbing out his cigar on the image of the God. A priest, who is a leper, clasps Fleete to him, and bites him on the breast, leaving a livid mark.
Soon after, Fleete starts to behave like a man possessed, gnawing raw meat, grovelling in the earth of the garden, and howling like a wolf. Only when Strickland and the narrator have captured the priest and forced him by torture to remove the spell does the demented man return to sanity.

They were half-wild, starving beasts, and though utter cowards, yet where nine or ten of them get together they will mob and kill and eat an English dog. I kept a whip with a long lash for them … The bull was ploughing along in the dust, fifty yards behind, rolling in his run, and smiling as bull-terriers will. I heard Vixen squeal; half a dozen of the curs closed in on her; a white streak came up behind me; a cloud of dust rose near Vixen, and, when it cleared, I saw one tall pariah with his back broken, and the bull wrenching another to earth.

This is from “Garm. a hostage” in Actions and Reactions.

The narrator has agreed to take Garm, the much-loved bull terrier of Private Ortheris, as a guarantee for his good behaviour, The narrator’s own terrier, Vixen, is jealous of Garm, but here the great dog rescues her from death.

Now, you wouldn’t think, would you’—he glanced off the book toward my wildly swaying dressing-gown on the door—‘that I’ve been seeing things for the last half-hour? ’Fact is, I’m just on the edge of ’em, skating on thin ice round the corner—nor’east as near as nothing—where that dog’s looking at me.’ … He stiffened and pointed. ‘Damn it all! The dog sees it too with half an—— Why, he knows you! Knows you perfectly. D’you know him?’

This is from “The Dog Hervey” in A Diversity of Creatures, a strange and complex tale, which some vritics believe is to do with witchcraft.

A rich needy woman has lavished affection on a little squinting dog. Here a man she loves, who is suffering the extreme effects of alcoholism, has been seeing visions of the dog.