Aileen Aroon, A Memoir Part 13

There are wild pigeons build here, though it is close to two roads, and I see turtle-doves on the lawn every day.

"Did you commence the study of natural history at an early age, Gordon?"

said Frank to me one evening, as we all sat together on this lawn.

"In a practical kind of a way, yes, Frank," I replied, "and if I live for the next ten thousand years I may make some considerable progress in this study. _Ars longa vita brevia est_, Frank."

"True; and now," he continued, "spin us a yarn or two about some of the pets you have had."

"Well, Frank," I replied, "as you ask me in that off-hand way, you must be content to take my reminiscences in an off-hand way, too."

"We will," said Frank; "won't we, Ida?"

Ida nodded.

"Given a pen and put in a corner, Frank, I can tell a story as well as my neighbours, but the _extempore_ business floors me. I'm shy, Frank, shy. Another cup of tea, Dot--thank you--ahem!"

PETS OF MY EARLY YEARS.

There was no school within about three miles of a property my father bought when I was a little over two years of age. With some help from the neighbours my father built a school, which I believe is now endowed, but at that time it was princ.i.p.ally supported by voluntary contributions. I was sent there as a first instalment. I was an involuntary contribution. Nurse carried me there every morning, but I always managed to walk coming back. By sending a child of tender years to a day-school, negative rather than positive good was all that was expected, for my mother frankly confessed that I was only sent to keep me out of mischief. The first few days of my school life flew past quickly enough, for my teacher, a little hunchback, be it remembered, whom you may know by the name of Dominie W--, was very kind to me, candied me and lollipopped me, and I thought it grand fun to sit all day on my little stool, turning over the pages of picture-books, and looking at the other boys getting thrashed. This latter part indeed was the best to me, for the little fellows used to screw their miserable visages so, and make such funny faces, that I laughed and crowed with delight.

But I didn't like it when it came to my own turn. And here is how that occurred:--There was a large pictorial map that hung on the schoolroom wall, covered with delineations of all sorts of wild beasts. These were pointed out to the Bible-cla.s.s one by one, and a short lecture given on the habits of each, which the boys and girls were supposed to retain in their memories, and retail again when asked to. One day, however, the dromedary became a stumbling-block to all the cla.s.s; not one of them could remember the name of the beast.

"Did ever I see such a parcel of numskulls?" said Dominie W--. "Why, I believe that child there could tell you."

I felt sure I could, and intimated as much.

"What is it, then, my dear?" said my teacher encouragingly. "Speak out, and shame the dunces."

I did speak out, and with appalling effect.

"It's a schoolmaster," I said.

"A what?" roared the dominie.

"A schoolmaster," I said, more emphatically; "it has a hump on its back."

I didn't mean to be rude, but I naturally imagined that the hump was the badge of the scholastic calling, and that the dromedary was dominie among the beasts.

"Oh! indeed," said Dominie W--; "well, you just wait there a minute, and I'll make a hump on your back." And he moved off towards the desk for the strap.

As I didn't want a hump on my back, instant flight suggested itself to me, as the only way of meeting the difficulty; so I made tracks for the door forthwith.

"Hold him, catch him!" cried the dominie, and a big boy seized me by the skirt of my dress. But I had the presence of mind to meet my teeth in the fleshy part of the lad's hand; then I was free to flee. Down the avenue I ran as fast as two diminutive shanks could carry me, but I had still a hundred yards to run, and capture seemed inevitable, for the dominie was gaining on me fast. But help was most unexpectedly at hand, for, to my great joy, our pet bull-terrier, "Danger," suddenly put in an appearance. The dog seemed to take in the whole situation at a glance, and it was now the dominie's turn to shake in his shoes. And Danger went for him in grand style, too. I don't know that he hurt him very much, but to have to return to school with five-and-thirty pounds of pure-bred bull-terrier hanging to one's hump, cannot be very grateful to one's feelings. I was not sent to that seminary any more for a year, but it dawned upon me even thus early that dogs have their uses.

When I was a year or two older I had as a companion and pet a black-and-tan terrier called "Tip," and a dear good-hearted game little fellow he was; and he and I were always of the same mind, full of fan and fond of mischief. Tip could fetch and carry almost anything; a loose railway rug, for example, would be a deal heavier than he, but if told he would drag one up three flights of stairs walking backwards.

Again, if you showed him anything, and then hid it, he would find it wherever it was. He was not on friendly terms with the cat though; she used him shamefully, and finding him one day in a room by himself she whacked him through the open window, and Tip fell two storeys. Dead?

No. Tip fell on his feet.

One day Tip was a long time absent, and when he came into the garden he came up to me and placed a large round ball all covered with thorns at my feet.

"Whatever is it, Tip?" I asked.

"That's a hoggie," said Tip, "and ain't my mouth sore just."

I put down my hands to lift it up, and drew them back with p.r.i.c.ked and bleeding fingers. Then I shrieked, and nursie came running out, and shook me, and whacked me on the back as if I had swallowed a bone.

That's how she generally served me.

"What is it now?" she cried; "you're never out of mischief; did Tip bite you?"

"No, no," I whimpered, "the beastie bited me."

Then I had three pets for many a day, Tip and the cat and the hedgehog, who grew very tame indeed.

Maggie Hay was nursie's name. I was usually packed off to bed early in the evening, and got the cat with me, and in due time Maggie came. But one night the cat and I quarrelled, so I slipped out of bed, and crept quietly down to the back kitchen, and returned with my hoggie in the front of my nightdress, and went back to my couch. I was just in that blissful state of independence, between sleeping and waking, when Maggie came upstairs to bed. The hoggie had crept out of my arms, and had gone goodness knows whither, and I didn't care, but I know this much, that Maggie had no sooner got in and laid down, than she gave vent to a loud scream, and sprang on to the floor again, and stood shaking and shivering like a ghost in the moonlight. I suppose she had laid herself down right on top of my hoggie, and hoggie not being used to such treatment had doubtless got its spines up at once. I leave you to guess whether Maggie gave me a shaking or not. This pet lived for three long happy months, and its food was porridge and milk, morsels of green food, and beetles, which it caught on its own account. But I suppose it longed for its old gipsy life in the green fields, and missed the tender herbs and juicy slugs it had been wont to gather by the foot of the hedgerows. I don't know, but one morning I found my poor hoggie rolled up in a little ball with one leg sticking out; it was dead and stiff.

Maggie took it solemnly up by that one leg as if it had been a handle and carried it away and buried it; then she came back with her eyes wet and kissed me, and gave me a large--very large--slice of bread with an extra allowance of treacle on it. But there seemed to be a big lump in my throat; I tried hard to eat, but failed miserably, only--I managed to lick the treacle off.

My little friend Tip was of a very inquiring turn of mind, and this trait in his character led to his miserable end.

One day some men were blasting stones in a neighbouring field, and Tip seeing what he took to be a rat's tail sticking out of a stone, and a thin wreath of blue smoke curling up out of it, went to investigate.

He did not come back to tell tales; he was carried on high with the hurtling stones and _debris_, and I never saw my poor Tip any more.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

EARLY STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY.

"Within a bush her covert nest A little birdie fondly prest; The dew sat chilly on her breast, Sae early in the morning."

Burns.

Shortly after the melancholy death of Tip, some one presented me with a puppy, and some one else presented me with a rook. My knowledge of natural history was thus progressing. That unhappy pup took the distemper and died. If treated for the dire complaint at all, it was no doubt after the rough and harsh fashion, common, till very lately, of battling with it.

So my puppy died. As to the rook, a quicker fate was reserved for him.

The bird and I soon grew as thick as thieves. He was a very affectionate old chap, and slept at night in a starling's cage in the bedroom. He was likewise a somewhat noisy bird, and very self-a.s.serting, and would never allow us to sleep a wink after five in the morning. Maggie tried putting his breakfast into the cage the night before. This only made matters worse, for he got up at three o'clock to eat it, and was quite prepared for another at five. Maggie said she loved the bird, because he saved her so many scoldings by wakening her so punctually every morning. I should think he did waken her, with a vengeance too. He had a peculiar way of roaring "Caw! Caw!" that would have wakened Rip Van Winkle himself. Like the great Highland bagpipe, the voice of a healthy rook sounds very well about a mile off, but it isn't exactly the thing for indoor delectation. But my uncle sat down upon my poor rook one day, and the bird gave vent to one last "Caw!" and was heard again--nevermore. My mother told him he ought to be more careful. My uncle sat down on the same chair again next day, and, somehow, a pin went into him further than was pleasant. Then I told him he ought to be more careful, and he boxed my ears, and I bit him, and nursie came and shook me and whacked me on the back as if I had been choking; so, on the whole, I think I was rather roughly dealt with between the two of them. However, I took it out of Maggie in another way, and found her very necessary and handy in my study of natural history, which, even at this early age, I had developed a taste for. I had as a plaything a small wooden church, which I fondled all day, and took to bed with me at night. One fine day I had an adventure with a wasp which taught me a lesson. I had half-filled my little church with flies to represent a congregation, but as they wouldn't sing unless I shook them, and as Maggie told me n.o.body ever shook a real church to make the congregation sing, I concluded it was a parson they lacked, and went to catch a large yellow fly, which I saw on the window-ledge. _He_ would make them sing I had no doubt. Well, he made me sing, anyhow. It was long before I forgot the agony inflicted by that sting. Maggie came flying towards me, and I hurled church, congregation, and all at her head, and went off into a first-cla.s.s fit. But this taught me a lesson, and I never again interfered with any animal or insect, until I had first discovered what their powers of retaliation were; beetles and flies were old favourites, whose attendance at church I compelled. I wasn't sure of the earthworm at first, nor of the hairy caterpillar, but a happy thought struck me, and, managing to secure a specimen of each, and holding them in a tea-cup, I watched my chance, and when nursie wasn't looking emptied them both down her back. When the poor girl wriggled and shrieked with horror, I looked calmly on like a young stoic, and asked her did they bite. Finding they didn't, they became especial favourites with me. I put every new specimen I found, instantly or on the first chance, down poor Maggie's back or bosom, and thus, day by day, while I increased in stature, day by day I grew in knowledge. I wasn't quite successful once, however, with a centipede.

I had been prospecting, as the Yankees say, around the garden, searching for specimens, and I found this chap under a stone. He was about as long as a penholder, and had apparently as many legs as a legion of the Black Watch. Under these circ.u.mstances, thinks I to myself what a capital parson he'll make. So I dismissed all my congregation on the spot, and placed the empty church at his disposal, with the door thereof most invitingly open, but he wouldn't hear of going in. Perhaps, thought I, he imagines the church isn't long enough to hold him, so I determined, for his own comfort, to cut him in two with my egg-cup, then I could capture first one end of him, and then the other, and empty them down nursie's back, and await results. But, woe is me! I had no sooner commenced operations than the ungrateful beast wheeled upwards round my finger and bit it well. I went away to mourn.

When nine years old my opportunities for studying birds and beasts were greatly increased, for, luckily for me, the teacher of my father's school nearly flogged the life out of me. It might have been more lucky still had he finished the job. However, this man was a bit of a dandy in his way, and was very proud of his school. And one fine day who should walk in at the open doorway but "Davy," my pet lamb. As soon as he spied me he gave vent to a joyful "Ba-a!" and as there was a table between us, and he couldn't reach me, he commenced to dance in front of it.

"Good gracious!" cried the teacher, "a sheep of all things in my school, and positively dancing." On rushing to save my pet, whom he began belabouring with a cane, the man turned all his fury on me, with the above gratifying result.

I was sent to a far-off seminary after this.

Three miles was a long distance for a child to walk to school over a rough country. It was rough but beautiful, hill and dale, healthy moorlands, and pine woods. It was glorious in summer, but when the snows of winter fell and the roads were blocked, it was not quite so agreeable.

I commenced forthwith, however, to make acquaintance with every living thing, whether it were a creepie-creepie living under a stone, or a bull in the fields.

My pets, by the way, were a bull, that I played with as a calf, and could master when old and red-eyed and fierce, half a dozen dogs, and a peac.o.c.k belonging to a farmer. This bird used to meet me every morning, not for crumbs--he never would eat--but for kind words and caresses.