Aileen Aroon, A Memoir Part 17

Strange to say, Tyro, who during my poor mother's illness had never left her room, refused food for days after her death.

He got thin, and dropsy set in.

With my _own_ hand, I tapped him no less than fifteen times, removing never less than one gallon and three quarters of water. The first operation was a terrible undertaking, owing to the dog making such fierce resistance; but afterwards, when he began to understand the immense relief it afforded him, he used to submit without even a sigh, allowing himself to be strapped down without a murmur, and when the operation (excepting the stab of the trocar, there is little or no pain) was over, he would give himself a shake, then lick the hands of all the a.s.sistants--generally four--and present a grateful paw to each; then he had his dinner, and next day was actually fit to run down a rabbit or hare.

Thinner and weaker, weaker and thinner, month by month, and still I could not, as some advised, "put him out of pain;" he had once saved my life, and I did not feel up to the mark in Red Indianism. And so the end drew nigh.

The saddest thing about it was this: the dog had the idea (knowing little of the mystery of death) that I could make him well; and at last, when he could no longer walk, he used to crawl to meet me on my morning visit, and gaze in my face with his poor imploring eyes, and my answer (_well_ he knew what I said) was always, "Tyro, doggie, you'll be better the morn (to-morrow), boy." And when one day I could stand it no longer, and rained tears on my old friend's head, he crept back to his bed, and that same forenoon he was dead.

Poor old friend Tyro. Though many long years have fled since then, I can still afford a sigh to his memory.

On a "dewy simmer's gloaming" my Tyro's coffin was laid beneath the sod, within the walls of a n.o.ble old Highland ruin. There is no stone to mark where he lies, but I know the spot, and I always think the _gowan blinks_ bonniest and the gra.s.s grows greenest there.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE DAYS WHEN WE WENT CRUISING.

"O'er the glad waters of the dark-blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless and ourselves as free."

Byron.

When cruising round Africa some years ago in a saucy wee gunboat, that shall be nameless, I was not only junior a.s.sistant surgeon, but I was likewise head surgeon, and chief of the whole medical department, and the whole of that department consisted of--never a soul but myself. As we had only ninety men all told, the Admiralty couldn't afford a medical officer of higher standing than myself. I was ably a.s.sisted, however, in my arduous duties, which, by the way, occupied me very nearly half an hour every morning, after, not before, breakfast, by the loblolly boy "Sugar o' Lead." I don't suppose he was baptised Sugar o' Lead. I don't think it is likely ever he was baptised at all. This young gentleman used to make my poultices, oatmeal they were made of, of course--I'm a Scot. But Sugar o' Lead always put salt in them, ate one half and singed the rest. He had also to keep the dispensary clean, which he never did, but he used to rub the labels off the bottles, three at a time, and stick them on again, but usually on the wrong bottles.

This kept me well up in my pharmacy; but when one day I gave a man a dose of powder of jalap, instead of Gregory, Sugar o' Lead having changed the labels, the man said "it were a kinder rough on him." Sugar o' Lead thought he knew as much as I, perhaps; but Epsom salts and sulphate of zinc, although alike in colour, are very different in their effects when given internally. Sugar o' Lead had a different opinion.

Another of the duties which devolved upon Sugar o' Lead was to clean up after the dogs. At this he was quite at home. At night he slept with the monkeys. Although the old c.o.c.katoo couldn't stand him, Sugar o'

Lead and the monkeys were on very friendly terms; they lived together on that great and broad principle which binds the whole of this mighty world of ours together, the principle of "You favour me to-day and I'll favour you to-morrow." Sugar o' Lead and the monkeys acted upon it in quite the literal sense.

At Symon's Town, I was in the habit of constantly going on sh.o.r.e to prospect, gun in hand, over the mountains. Grand old hills these are, too, here and there covered with bush, with bold rocky bluffs ab.u.t.ting from their summits, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s bedecked with the most gorgeous geraniums, and those rare and beautiful heaths, which at home you can only find in hot-houses.

My almost constant attendant was a midshipman, a gallant young Scotchman, whom you may know by the name of Donald McPhee, though I knew him by another.

The very first day of our many excursions "in the pursuit of game," we were wading through some scrub, about three or four miles from the sh.o.r.e, when suddenly my companion hailed me thus: "Look-out, doctor, there's a panther yonder, and he's nearest you."

So he was; but then he wasn't a panther at all, but a very large Pointer. I shouldn't like to say that he was good enough for the show bench; he was, however, good enough for work. Poor Panther, doubtless he now rests with his fathers, rests under the shadow of some of the mighty mountains, the tartaned hills, over which he and I used to wander in pursuit of game. On his grave green lizards bask, and wild cinerarias bloom, while over it glides the shimmering snake; but the poor, faithful fellow blooms fresh in my memory still. I think I became his special favourite. Perhaps he was wise enough to admire the Highland dress I often wore. Perhaps he thought, as I did, that of all costumes, that was the best one for hill work. But the interest he took in everything I did was remarkable. He seemed rejoiced to see me when I landed, as betokened by the wagging tail, the lowered ears, slightly elevated chin, and sparkling eye--a canine smile.

"Doctor," he seemed to say, "I was beginning to think you weren't coming. But won't we have a day of it, just?"

And away we would go, through the busy town and along the sea beach, where the lisping wavelets broke melodiously on sands of silvery sheen, where many a monster medusa lay stranded, looking like huge umbrellas made of jelly, and on, and on, until we came to a tiny stream, up whose rocky banks we would scramble, skirting the bush, and arriving at last at the great heath land. We followed no beaten track, we went here, there, and everywhere. The scenery was enchantingly wild and beautiful, and there was health and its concomitant happiness in every breeze.

Sometimes we would sit dreamily on a rock top, Panther and I, for an hour at a time, vainly trying to drink in all the beauties of the scene.

How bright was the blue of the distant sea! How fleecy the cloudlets!

How romantic and lovely that far-off mountain range, its rugged outline softened by the purple mists of distance! These everlasting mountains we could people with people of our own imagination. I peopled them with foreign fairies. Panther, I think, peopled them with rock rabbits.

Weary at last with gazing on the grandeur everywhere around us, we would rivet our attention for a spell upon things less romantic--bloater paste and sea biscuit. I shared my lunch with Panther.

Panther was most civil and obliging; he not only did duty as a pointer and guide, but he would retrieve as well, rock rabbits and rats, and such; and as he saw me bag them, he would look up in my face as much as to say--

"Now aren't you pleased? Don't you feel all over joyful? Wouldn't you wag a tail if you had one? I should think so."

Panther wouldn't retrieve black snakes.

"No," said Panther, "I draw the line at black snakes, doctor."

I would fain have taken him to sea with me, as he belonged to no one; but Panther said, "No, I cannot go."

"Then good-bye, dear friend," I said.

"Farewell," said Panther.

And so we parted.

He looked wistfully after the boat as it receded from the sh.o.r.e. I believe, poor fellow, he knew he would never see me again.

Conceive, if you can, of the lonesomeness, the dreariness of going to sea without a dog. But as Panther wouldn't come with me, I had to sail without him. As the purple mountains grew less and less distinct, and shades of evening gathered around us, and twinkling lights from rocky points glinted over the waters, I could only lean over the taffrail and sing--

"Happy land! happy land!

Who would leave the glorious land?"

Who indeed? but sailor-men must. And now darkness covers the ocean, and hides the distant land, and next we were out in the midst of just as rough a sea as any one need care to be in. My only companion at this doleful period of my chequered career was a beautiful white pigeon.

Here is how I came by him. Out at the Cape, in many a little rocky nook, and by many a rippling stream, grow sweet flowerets that come beautifully out in feather work. Feather-flower making then was one of my chief delights and amus.e.m.e.nts; the art had been taught me by a young friend of mine, whose father grew wine and kept hunters (jackal-hunting), and had kindly given me "the run" of the house.

Before leaving, on the present cruise, I had secured some particularly beautiful specimens of flowers, too delicate to be imitated by anything, save the feathers of a pigeon; so I had bought a pure white one, which I had ordered to be killed and sent off.

"Steward," I cried, as we were just under weigh, "did a boy bring a white pigeon for me?"

"He did, sir; and I put it in your cabin in its basket, which I had to give him sixpence extra for."

"But why," said I, "didn't you tell him to put his nasty old basket on his back and take it off with him?"

"Because," said the steward, "the bird would have flown away."

"Flown away!" I cried. "Is the bird alive then?"

"To be sure, sir," said the steward.

"To be sure, you blockhead," said I; "how can I make feather-flowers from a live pigeon?"

The man was looking at me pityingly, I thought.

"Can't you kill it, sir? Give him to me, sir; I'll Wring his neck in a brace of shakes."

"You'd never wring another neck, steward," I said; "you'd lose the number of your mess as sure as a gun."

When I opened the basket, knowing what rogues n.i.g.g.e.r-boys are, I fully expected to find a bird with neither grace nor beauty, and about the colour of an old white clucking hen. The boy had not deceived me, however. The pigeon was a beauty, and as white as a Spitzbergen snow-bird. Out he flew, and perched on a clothes-peg in my bulkhead, and said--

"Troubled wi' you. Tr-rooubled with you."

"You'll need," said I, "to put up with the trouble for six months to come, for we're messmates. Steward," I continued, "your fingers ain't itching, are they, to kill that lovely creature?"

"Not they," said the fellow; "I wouldn't do it any harm for the world."

"There's my rum bottle," I said; "it always stands in that corner, and it is always at your service while you tend upon the pigeon."