Aileen Aroon, A Memoir Part 39

"Oh!" cried Ida, "but that is _too_ short. Pray, just one little one more, then I will sleep. You shall play me to sleep. Let it be about a dog," she continued. "You can always tell a story about a dog."

I looked once more into the old portfolio, and found this--

SINDBAD; OR, THE DOG OF PENELLAN.

"Unless you go far, very far north indeed, you will hardly find a more primitive place than the little village of Penellan, which nestles quite close to the sea on the southern coast of Cornwall. I say it _nestles_, and so it does, and nice and cosy it looks down there, in a kind of glen, with green hills rising on either side of it, with its pebbly beach and the ever-sounding sea in front of it.

"It was at Widow Webber's hostelry that there arrived, many years ago, the hero, or rather heroes, of this short tale. Spring was coming in, the gardens were already gay with flowers, and the roses that trailed around the windows and porches of the pilchard fishermen's huts were all in bud, and promised soon to show a wealth of bloom.

"Now, not only Widow Webber herself, but the whole village, were on tiptoe to find out who the two strangers were and what could possibly be their reason for coming to such a little outlying place--fifteen miles, mind you, from the nearest railway town. It appeared they were not likely soon to be satisfied, for the human stranger--the other was his beautiful Newfoundland retriever, 'Sindbad'--simply took the widow's best room for three months, and in less than a week he seemed to have settled down as entirely in the place, as though he had been born there, and had never been out of it. The most curious part of the business was that he never told his name, and he never even received a letter or a visitor. He walked about much out of doors, and over the hills, and he hired a boat by the month, and used to go long cruises among the rocks, at times not returning until sun was set, and the bright stars twinkling in the sky. He sketched a great deal, too--made pictures, the pilchard fishermen called it. Was he an artist? Perhaps.

"The 'gentleman,' as he was always called, had a kind word and a pleasant smile, for every one, and his dog Sindbad was a universal favourite with the village children. How they laughed to see him go splashing into the water! And the wilder the sea, and the bigger the waves, the more the dog seemed to enjoy the fun.

"Being so quiet and neighbourly, it might have been thought that the gentleman would have been as much a favourite with the grown-up people as Sindbad was with the young folk. Alas! for the charity of this world, he was not so at first. Where, they wondered, did he come from?

Why didn't he give his name, and tell his story? It couldn't possibly be all right, they felt sure of that.

"But when the summer wore away, and winter came round, and those policemen, whom they fully expected to one day take the gentleman away, never came, and when the gentleman seemed more a fixture than ever, they began to soften down, and to treat him as quite one of themselves.

Sindbad had been one of them for a very long time, ever since he had pulled the baker's little Polly out of the sea when she fell over a rock, and would a.s.suredly have been drowned except for the gallant dog's timely aid.

"So they were content at last to take the gentleman just as they had him.

"'Concerts!' cried Widow Webber one evening, in reply to a remark made by the stranger. 'Why, sir, concerts in our little village! Whoever will sing?'

"But the stranger only laid down his book with a quiet smile, and asked the widow to take a seat near the fire, and he would tell her all about it.

"With honest Sindbad asleep on the hearthrug, and p.u.s.s.y singing beside him, and the kettle singing too, and a bright fire in the grate, the room looked quite cosy and snug-like. So the poor widow sat down, and the stranger unfolded all his plans.

"And it all fell out just as the stranger wished it. He was an accomplished pianist, and also a good performer on the violin. And he had good-humour and tact, and the way he kept his cla.s.s together, and drew them out, and made them all feel contented with their efforts and happy, was perfectly wonderful. The first concert was a grand success, a crowded house, though the front seats were only sixpence and the back twopence. And all the proceeds were handed over to the clergyman to buy books and magazines.

"So the winter pa.s.sed more quickly and cheerfully than any one ever remembered a winter to pa.s.s before, and summer came once more.

"It would need volumes, not pages, to tell of all poor Sindbad's clever ways. Indeed, he became quite the village dog; he would go errands for any one, and always went to the right shop with his basket. Every morning, with a penny in his mouth, he went trotting away to the carrier's and bought a paper for his master; after that he was free to romp and play all the livelong day with the children on the beach. It might be said of Sindbad as Professor Wilson said of his beautiful dog--'_Not_ a child of three years old and upwards in the neighbourhood that had not hung by his mane and played with his paws, and been affectionately worried by him on the flowery greensward.'

"Another winter went by quite as cheerily as the last, and the stranger was by this time as much a favourite as his dog. The villagers had found out now that he was not by any means a rich man, although he had enough to live on; but they liked him none the less for that.

"The Easter moon was full, and even on the wane, for it did not, at the time I refer to, rise till late in the evening. A gale had been blowing all day, the sea was mountains high, for the wind roared wildly from off the broad Atlantic. One hundred years ago, if the truth must be told, the villagers of Penellan would have welcomed such a gale; it might bring them wealth. They had been wreckers.

"Every one was about retiring for rest, when boom boom! from out of the darkness seaward came the roar of a minute gun. Some great ship was on the rocks not far off. Boom! and no a.s.sistance could be given. There was no rocket, no lifeboat, and no ordinary boat could live in that sea.

Boom! Everybody was down on the beach, and ere long the great red moon rose and showed, as had been expected, the dark hull of a ship fast on the rocks, with her masts gone by the board, and the sea making a clean breach over her. The villagers were brave; they attempted to launch a boat. It was staved, and dashed back on the beach.

"'Come round to the point, men,' cried the stranger. 'I will send Sindbad with a line.'

"The point was a rocky promontory almost to windward of the stranded vessel.

"The mariners on board saw the fire lighted there, and they saw that preparations of some kind were being made to save them, and at last they discerned some dark object rising and falling on the waves, but steadily approaching them. It was Sindbad; the piece of wood he bore in his mouth had attached to it a thin line.

"For a long time--it seemed ages to those poor sailors--the dog struggled on and on towards them. And now he is alongside.

"'Good dog!' they cry, and a sailor is lowered to catch the morsel of wood. He does so, and tries hard to catch the dog as well. But Sindbad has now done his duty, and prepares to swim back.

"Poor faithful, foolish fellow! if he had but allowed the sea to carry him towards the distant beach. But no; he must battle against it with the firelight as his beacon.

"And in battling _he died_.

"But communication was effected by Sindbad betwixt the ship and the sh.o.r.e, and all on board were landed safely.

"Need I tell of the grief of that dog's master? Need I speak of the sorrow of the villagers? No; but if you go to Penellan, if you inquire about Sindbad, children even yet will show you his grave, in a green nook near the beach, where the crimson sea-pinks bloom.

"And older folk will point you out 'the gentleman's grave' in the old churchyard. He did not _very_ long survive Sindbad.

"The grey-bearded old pilchard fisherman who showed it to me only two summers ago, when I was there, said--

"'Ay, sir! there he do lie, and the sod never hid a warmer heart than his. The lifeboat, sir? Yes, sir, it's down yonder; his money bought it. There is more than me, sir, has shed a tear over him. You see, we weren't charitable to him at first. Ah, sir! what a blessed thing charity do be!'"

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

A SHORT, BECAUSE A SAD ONE.

"Why do summer roses fade, If not to show how fleeting All things bright and fair are made, To bloom awhile as half afraid To join our summer greeting?"

"Now," said Frank one evening to me, "a little change is all that is needed to make the child as well again as ever she was in her life."

"I think you are right, Frank," was my reply; "change will do it--a few weeks' residence in a bracing atmosphere; and it would do us all good too; for of course you would be of the party, Frank?"

"I'll go with you like a shot," said this honest-hearted, blunt old sailor.

"What say you, then, to the Highlands?"

"Just the thing," replied Frank. "Just the place--

"'My heart's in the Hielans.

My heart is not here; My heart's in the Hielans, chasing the deer; Chasing the wild deer and following the roe-- My heart's in the Hielans, wherever I go.'"

"Bravo! Frank," I cried; "now let us consider the matter as practically settled. And let us go in for division of labour in the matter of preparation for this journey due north. You two old folks shall do the packing and all that sort of thing, and Ida and I will--get the tickets."

And, truth to tell, that is really all Ida and myself did do; but we knew we were in good hands, and a better caterer for comfort on a journey, or a better baggage-master than Frank never lived.

He got an immense double kennel built for Aileen and Nero; all the other pets were left at home under good surveillance, not even a cat being forgotten. This kennel, when the dogs were in it, took four good men and true to lift it, and the doing so was as good as a Turkish bath to each of them.

We had a compartment all to our four selves, and as we travelled by night, and made a friend of the burly, brown-bearded guard, the dogs had water several times during the journey, and we human folks were never once disturbed until we found ourselves in what Walter Scott calls--

"My own romantic town."

A week spent in Edinburgh in the sweet summer-time is something to dream about ever after. We saw everything that was to be seen, from the Castle itself to Greyfriars' Bobby's monument, and the quiet corner in which he sleeps.

Then onward we went to beautiful and romantic Perth. Then on to Callander and Doune. At the latter place we visited the romantic ruin called Doune Castle, where my old favourite Tyro is buried. In Perthshire we spent several days, and once had the good or bad fortune to get storm-stayed at a little wayside hotel or hostelry, where we had stopped to dine. The place seemed a long way from anywhere. I'm not sure that it wasn't at the back of the north wind; at all events, there was neither cab nor conveyance to be had for love nor money, and a Scotch mist prevailed--that is, the rain came down in streams as solid and thick as wooden penholders. So we determined to make the best of matters and stay all night; the little place was as clean as clean could be, and the landlady, in mutch of spotless white, was delighted at the prospect of having us.