When the time came for another long parting Bruce took the matter of his future guardianship into his own hands by attaching himself so lovingly to his master’s father that his decision was accepted without demur. Alas, Bruce never saw his master again, for old age and infirmities were upon him, and before another return from India the old dog had passed away.
It was characteristic of Bruce’s sense of the fitness of things that when he was too old to run with the carriage he still kept up the fiction of doing so. He would not give in to the disabilities entailed by his failing strength. He always greeted the arrival of the carriage at the front door with his old joyous excitement. When it started he rushed off bounding and barking as he had always done, but at a certain point in the road, not far from the end of the carriage drive, Bruce was seen to slip quietly through the hedge and disappear. When this point was reached on the return drive, out came Bruce, and trotted quietly home as if he had run with the carriage all the way.
Bruce’s constant habit during this last period of his life was to accompany his guardian, who was a clergyman, to the door of the church where the latter went for a daily morning service. When he came out, Bruce was waiting for him and trotted home in his company to breakfast. At last one morning Bruce was so weak and feeble that his guardian put him by his study fire before he left the house, and told the dog to wait there for him. Did Bruce feel the end was coming? Who can say, but in all his weakness he managed to crawl to his usual place by the church door, and was ready with a feeble welcome when his friend appeared. Carried back to the study fire, Bruce did not move again, but in the course of a few hours gave up his life. We may hope that no regrets for the absent master clouded the last moments of his waning powers.
Lugete o pueri et genus togatum Et quaecumque canes amant puellae, Ille emortuus est canis fidelis, Huius deliciae scholae decusque, Qui vix inferior domus magistro Formabat pueros sagax Agelli. Ast omnes studio pari ciebat Praesens Marlburios favente cauda, Qui propellere vel manu volantem Vel saevis pedibus pilam studebant, Exemplo aut tacito coarguebat Si quem dedecuit piger veternus Nam raptas modo quattuor superbus Mala continuit pilas minore, Elatrans modo equum procax anhelum Morsu callidiore persecutus. At liberrimus usque sic vagari Per campum solitus viasque nostras, Indignans Anatis tulisse vincla Innexo laqueo miser peremptus Aeterno dominum obruit dolore.[1]
