Aileen Aroon, A Memoir Part 8

Therefore there cannot be the slightest possible objection to her either sitting on my shoulder on one end, and gazing wonderingly around her, or examining my ear, or making a nest of my beard, or running down my arm, and having a dance over the tablecloth. I think I said Mary was an honest rat, but she has just one tiny failing in the way of honesty, which, as her biographer, I am bound to mention. She can't quite resist the temptation of a bit of b.u.t.ter. But she helps herself to just one little handful, and does it, too, with such a graceful air, that, for the life of me, I couldn't be angry with her.

Well, except a morsel of b.u.t.ter, Mary will touch nothing on the table, nor will she take anything from your hand, if you offer it to her ever so coaxingly. She prefers to eat her meals in Greenland, or on the North Pole itself.

Mary's tastes as regards food are various. She is partial to a bit of cheese, but would not touch bacon for the world. This is rather strange, because it was exactly the other way with her brother and sister.

The great treat of the twenty-four hours with Mary is to get down in the evening, when the lamps are lighted, to have a scamper on the table.

Her cage is brought in from the kitchen, and set down, and the door of it thrown open. This cage thus becomes Mary's harbour of refuge, from which she can sally forth and play tricks. Anything you place on the table is seized forthwith, and carried inside. She will carry an apple nearly as big as herself, and there will not be much of it left in the morning; for one of Mary's chief delights is to have a little feast all to herself, when the lights are out. Lettuce leaves she is partial to, and will carry them to her cage as fast as you can throw them down to her. She rummages the work-basket, and hops off with every thimble she can find.

After Fairy Mary's private establishment was broken up in the kitchen, it became necessary to clean up the corner of the pantry where she had dwelt. Then was Mary's frugality and prudence as a housewife made clear to the light of day I could hardly be supposed to tell you everything she had stored up, but I remember there were crusts of bread, bits of cheese, lumps of dog-biscuit, halves of apples, small potatoes, and crumbs of sugar, and candle ends, and bones and herrings' heads, besides one pair of gold sleeve-links, an odd shirt-stud, a gla.s.s stopper from a scent-bottle, bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and, to crown the lot, one silver threepenny-piece of the sterling coin of the realm.

And that is the story of my rat; and I'm sure if you knew her you, too, would like her. She is such a funny, wee, sweet little _mite_ of a Mary.

Note 1. "The Cruise of the _s...o...b..rd_" published by Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, Paternoster Row.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

ONLY A DOG.

"Old dog, you are dead--we must all of us die-- You are gone, and gone whither? Can any one say?

I trust you may live again, somewhat as I, And haply, 'go on to perfection'--some way!"

Tupper.

Poor little Fairy Mary, the favourite pet of Aileen Aroon, went the way of all rats at last. She was not killed. No cat took her. Our own cats were better-mannered than to touch a pet. But we all went away on a summer holiday, and as it was not convenient to take every one of our pets with us, Mary was left at home in charge of the servants. When we returned she was gone, dead and buried. She had succ.u.mbed to a tumour in the head which was commencing ere we started.

I think Aileen missed her very much, for she used to lie and watch the empty cage for an hour at a time, thinking no doubt that by-and-by Fairy Mary would pop out of some of her usual haunts.

"Dolls" was one of Aileen's contemporaries, and one that she had no small regard for. Dolls was a dog, and a very independent little fellow he was, as his story which I here give will show.

DOLLS: HIS LITTLE STORY.

There was a look in the dark-brown eyes of Dolls that was very captivating when you saw it. I say when you saw it, because it wasn't always you could see it, for Dolls' face was so covered with his dishevelled locks, that the only wonder was that he could find his way about at all.

Dolls was a Scotch terrier--a _real_ Scotch terrier. Reddish or sandy was he all over--in fact, he was just about the colour of gravel in the gloaming; I am quite sure of this, because when he went out with me about the twilight hour, I couldn't see him any more than if he wasn't in existence; when it grew a little darker, strange to say, Dolls became visible once more.

Plenty of coat had Dolls too. You could have hidden a glove under his mane, and n.o.body been a bit the wiser. When he sat on one end, gazing steadfastly up into a tree, from which some independent p.u.s.s.y stared saucily down upon him, Dolls looked for all the world like a doggie image draped in a little blanket.

Dolls had a habit of treeing p.u.s.s.ies. This, indeed, was about the only bad trait in Dolls' character. He hated a p.u.s.s.y more than sour milk, and n.o.body knew this better than the p.u.s.s.ies themselves. Probably, indeed, they were partly to blame for maintaining the warfare. I've seen a cat in a tree, apparently trying her very best to mesmerise poor Dolls--Dolls blinking funnily up at her, she gazing cunningly down.

There they would sit and sit, till suddenly down to the ground would spring p.u.s.s.y, and with a warlike and startling "Fuss!" that quite took the doggie's breath away, and made all his hair stand on end, clout Master Dolls in the face, and before that queer wee specimen of caninity could recover his equanimity, disappear through a neighbouring hedgerow.

Now cats have a good deal more patience than dogs. Sometimes on coming trotting home of an evening, Dolls would find a cat perched up in the pear-tree sparrow-expectant.

"Oh! _you're_ there, are you?" Dolls would say. "Well, I'm not in any particular hurry, I can easily wait a bit." And down he would sit, with his head in the air.

"All right, Dolls, my doggie," p.u.s.s.y would reply. "I've just eaten a sparrow, and not long ago I had a fine fat mouse, and, milk with it, and now I'll have a nap. Nice evening, isn't it?"

Well, Master Dolls would watch there, maybe for one hour and maybe for two, by which time his patience would become completely exhausted.

"You're not worth a wag of my tail," Dolls would say. "So good-night."

Then off he would trot.

But Dolls wasn't a beauty, by any manner of means. I don't think anybody who wasn't an admirer of doormats, and a connoisseur in heather besoms could have found much about Dolls to go into raptures over, but, somehow or other, the little chap always managed to find friends wherever he went.

Dolls was a safe doggie with children, that is, with well-dressed, clean-looking children, but with the gutter portion of the population Dolls waged continual warfare. Doubtless, because they teased him, and made believe to throw pebbles at him, though I don't think they ever did in reality.

Dolls was a great believer in the virtues of fresh air, and spent much of his time out of doors. He had three or four houses, too, in the village which he used to visit regularly once, and sometimes twice, a day. He would trot into a kitchen with a friendly wag or two of his little tail, which said, plainly enough, "Isn't it wet, though?" or "Here is jolly weather just!"

"Come away, Dolls," was his usual greeting.

Thus welcomed, Dolls would toddle farther in, and seat himself by the fire, and gaze dreamily in through the bars at the burning coals, looking all the while as serious as possible.

I've often wondered, and other people used to wonder too, what Dolls could have been thinking about as he sat thus. Perhaps--like many a wiser head--he was building little morsels of castles in the air, castles that would have just the same silly ending as yours or mine, reader--wondering what he should do if he came to be a great big bouncing dog like Wolf the mastiff; how all the little doggies would crouch before him, and how dignified he would look as he strode haughtily away from them; and so on, and so forth. But perhaps, after all, Dolls was merely warming his mite of a nose, and not giving himself up to any line of thought in particular.

Now, it wasn't with human beings alone that this doggie was a favourite; and what I am now going to mention is rather strange, if not funny. You see, Dolls always got out early in the morning. There was a great number of other little dogs in the village besides himself--poodles, Pomeranians, and Skyes, doggies of every denomination and all shades of colour, and many of these got up early too. There is no doubt early morn is the best time for small dogs, because little boys are not yet up, and so can't molest them. Well, it did seem that each of these doggies, almost every morning, made up its mind to come and visit Dolls.

At all events, most of them _did_ come, and, therefore, Dolls was wont to hold quite a tiny _levee_ on the lawn shortly after sunrise.

After making obeisance to General Dolls, these doggies would form themselves into a _conversazione_, and go promenading round the rose-trees in twos and twos.

Goodness only knows what they talked about; but I must tell you that these meetings were nearly always of a peaceable, amicable nature. Only once do I remember a _conversazione_ ending in a general conflict.

"Well," said Dolls, "if it _is_ going to be a free fight, I'm in with you." Then Dolls threw himself into it heart and soul.

But to draw the story of Dolls to a conclusion, there came to live near my cottage home an old sailor, one of Frank's friends. This ancient mariner was one of the Tom Bowling type, for the darling of many a crew he had been in his time, without doubt. There was good-nature, combined with pluck, in every lineament of his manly, well-worn, red and rosy countenance, and his hair was whitened--not by the snows of well-nigh sixty winters, for I rather fancy it was the summers that did it, the summers' heat, and the _bearing of_ the brunt of many a tempest, and the anxiety inseparable from a merchant skipper's pillow. There was a merry twinkle in his eyes, that put you mightily in mind of the monks of old.

And when he gave you his hand, it was none of your half-and-half shakes, let me tell you; that there was honesty in every throb of that man's heart you could tell from that very grasp.

Yes, he was a jolly old tar, and a good old tar; and he hadn't seen Dolls and been in his company for two hours, before he fell in love with the dog downright, and, says he, "Doctor, you want a good home for Dolls; there is something in the little man's eye that I a sort of like.

As long as he sails with me, he'll never want a good bed, nor a good dinner; so, if you'll give him to me, I'll be glad to take him."

We shook hands.

Now this was to be the last voyage that ever that ancient mariner meant to make, until he made that long voyage which we all must do one of these days. And it _was_ his last too; not, however, in the way you generally read of in stories, for the ship didn't go down, and he wasn't drowned, neither was Dolls. On the contrary, my friend returned, looking as hale and hearty as ever, and took a cottage in the country, meaning to live happily and comfortably ever after. And almost the first intimation I received of his return was carried by the doggie himself, for going out one fine morning, I found Dolls on the lawn, surrounded as usual, by about a dozen other wee doggies, to whom, from their spellbound look, I haven't a doubt he was telling the story of his wonderful adventures by sea and by land, for, mind you, Dolls had been all the way to Calcutta. And Dolls was so happy to see me again, and the lawn, and the rose-trees, and vagrant p.u.s.s.ies, and no change in anything, that he was fain to throw himself at my feet and weep in the exuberance of his joy.

Dolls' new home was at H--, just three miles from mine; and this is somewhat strange--regularly, once a month the little fellow would trot over, all by himself, and see me. He remained in the garden one whole day, and slept on the doormat one whole night, but could never be induced either to _enter the house or to partake of food_. So no one could accuse Dolls of cupboard love. When the twenty-four hours which he allotted to himself for the visit were over, Dolls simply trotted home again, but, as sure as the moon, he returned again in another month.

A bitter, bitter winter followed quickly on the heels of that pleasant summer of 187--. The snow fell fast, and the cold was intense, thermometer at times sinking below zero. You could ran the thrushes down, and catch them by hand, so lifeless were they; and I could show you the bushes any day where blackbirds dropped lifeless on their perches. Even rooks came on to the lawn to beg; they said there wasn't a hip nor a haw to be found in all the countryside. And robin said he couldn't sing at all on his usual perch, the frost and the wind quite took his breath away; so he came inside to warm his toes.

One wild stormy night, I had retired a full hour sooner to rest, for the wind had kept moaning so, as it does around a country house. The wind moaned, and fiercely shook the windows, and the powdery snow sifted in under the hall-door, in spite of every arrangement to prevent it. I must have been nearly asleep, but I opened my eyes and started at _that_--a plaintive cry, rising high over the voice of the wind, and dying away again in mournful cadence. Twice it was repeated, then I heard no more. It must have been the wind whistling through the keyhole, I thought, as I sunk to sleep. Perhaps it was, reader; but early next morning I found poor wee Dolls dead on the doorstep.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A TALE TOLD BY THE OLD PINE-TREE.

"Dumb innocents, often too cruelly treated, May well for their patience find future reward."

Tupper.