Bob Strong's Holidays Part 4

Rover came on; but, not altogether in the way his young master and mistress wished.

Galloping now in front, now in rear of the two, and then prancing towards them sideways, but always out of reach, he whirled his heavy chain about like a la.s.so, to the danger of everybody around; many of the pa.s.sengers being still on the platform looking after their belongings or waiting for cabs, most of the vehicles that had been drawn up on the cab-rank having already driven off loaded.

"Do catch hold of him, Bob!" cried poor Nellie in accents of alarm.

"He'll trip up somebody."

Rover seemed to hear and understand what she said; and, as if anxious to oblige her, at once twirled his clattering chain round the legs of a fat old lady, who, with her arms full of a number of parcels, was waiting for one of the porters to extract yet more from the carriage in which she had come down.

"Look out, ma'am!" said the Captain, seeing what was coming. "Keep clear of the dog, ma'am, or he'll foul your hawse!"

But, he was too late for the warning to be of any use; for, at the same instant, the old lady was whirled violently round and round like a teetotum and fell to the ground, uttering the while a series of wild shrieks, coupled with the smothered exclamation--"My good gracious!"

"I thought so!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old sailor as he hastened up to her rescue, and, with the aid of the porter, succeeded in placing her on her feet again; while Nellie and Bob set to work collecting her parcels which were scattered in every direction. "I hope you are not hurt, madam," Captain Dresser added when the lady was, as he expressed it, 'all a-taunto' once more. "I hope you are not hurt!"

However, she did not pay any attention to the polite inquiry, displaying more solicitude for her portable property than her person.

"Who's to pay for my eggs, I'd like to know?" was all she said. "I s'pose they be all bruck to pieces!"

She evidently alluded to the largest of her parcels, which still lay close to her on the platform, neither Bob nor Nellie having yet reached this to pick it up; for, a thick yellow fluid was oozing out from the wrappings, plainly betokening the nature of its fragile contents and their fate.

"Oh, never mind your eggs, ma'am," cried the Captain impatiently.

"We'll reimburse you for their loss, as the dog has caused the mischief.

I was thinking of your bones!"

"Drat my bones and the dog, too!" said the old lady with equal heat.

"One doesn't get noo laid eggs every day, I'd 'ave yer to know, sir, and I was a-taking these a puppose for my darter, which I brought all the way now from Gi'ford only to 'ave 'em bruck at last!"

"Never mind, never mind," replied the Captain soothingly; and on Mrs Gilmour at the same time telling her that she kept fowls and would send her some more fresh eggs the very next morning, to replace those broken, if she would give her address, the old lady was finally pacified.

She went off presently, with all her remaining parcels, in a cab, which the Captain insisted on paying for; the good dame beaming with satisfaction and looking as if she thought she had made rather a good thing than not by the mishap!

Meanwhile, Bob and Nellie had to interrupt their task of parcel- collecting to go after the truant Rover, who, not satisfied with the damage he had already done, was in active pursuit of the traffic manager's favourite cat, right through the station.

The roving delinquent ultimately 'treed' his prey in one of the waiting- rooms, where poor p.u.s.s.y sought refuge on the mantelpiece, knocking down a gla.s.s water-bottle and tumbler in jumping thither out of the reach of the frantic Rover, who scared half to death the occupants of the room as he dashed in, all in full cry!

Then a most delightful concerted duet ensued.

"Mia-ow, phoo, phit, phiz!" screamed p.u.s.s.y with all the varied expression of which the cat language is capable, running up the gamut into the treble and dying off in a wailing demi-semi-quaver. "Mia-o-w!"

"Bow, wow, wuff!" chanted Rover, singing his portion of the refrain in deep ba.s.s notes that produced a hollow echo through the waiting-room, making the noise seem to proceed from twenty dogs instead of one.

"Wough!"

Nor was Rover long content merely to take part in a musical performance only.

Bent on more active hostilities, he jumped up at the angry cat in her retreat on the mantelpiece--standing up on his hind legs for the purpose; and then, being only able to sniff near enough for puss to slap his face energetically with her paws right and left with a sharp 'smick smack,' Rover uttering an agonised howl that came in at the end of the chorus and must have been heard all over the station.

A catastrophe was avoided, just in time, by Bob and Nellie appearing on the scene of action; when, catching hold of the end of Rover's chain, they bore him away captive again to where their aunt and the Captain were waiting and wondering at their long delay.

Nemesis followed behind the trio in the shape of one of the railway police.

He came in the ostensible interests of the hunted cat and damaged property belonging to the waiting-room; but the elders of the party regarded him to be more intent on obtaining 'hush-money,' wherewith to blot out Rover's misdeeds and line his own pockets at the same time.

"Here's a pretty to-do, children," cried the Captain, taking this view of the matter and slipping a shilling into the man's hand to avoid any unnecessary explanations. "That dog of yours is like a wild elephant in an Indian jungle!"

"He's a fine dorg," observed the railway policeman parenthetically, pacified by the coin he had received and willing on the strength of it to forget alike the onslaught on p.u.s.s.y and the broken gla.s.s. "Finest dorg I ever seed for a retriever, sir."

"Ah, handsome is as handsome does!" replied the Captain sententiously.

"Dogs, like children, ought to be taught to behave themselves."

Nellie, however, did not like this sort of slur on Rover's character.

"Oh! Captain Dresser," she exclaimed. "It was only his playfulness on getting out of confinement."

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old sailor--"playfulness, eh? A playful dog like that once bit me playfully in the calf of the leg, stopping all my play for a fortnight!"

"Oh, Rover wouldn't do that," said Bob--"No, not he!"

"Wouldn't he? I'd be sorry to give him the chance," answered the other with a laugh, as he a.s.sisted Mrs Gilmour into an open fly, into which the children's luggage had been already put by the attentive d.i.c.k.

"There'd be precious little of me left, I'm afraid, if he once tackled me!"

Nellie and Bob then got into the fly, the Captain following them on their aunt's pressing invitation to escort them all down to her house on the south parade; while d.i.c.k, after having, with the help of the cabman, lifted Rover, who behaved like a lamb during the operation, on to the box-seat, where he was wedged in securely between the trunks and the driver's legs, climbed up himself and away they all started--'packed as tightly as herrings in a barrel,' to use the Captain's expression.

In the evening, after dinner, the whole party went down to the sh.o.r.e, where Bob and Nellie made their first acquaintance with the sea; a distant view of which they had a glimpse of previously from the balcony of their aunt's house on the parade.

Both were in ecstasies of delight as they gazed out on the undulating expanse of blue water, with the tiny little wavelets rippling up to their feet caressingly, as if inviting them to wade in over the glittering pebbles of the beach that glistened like jewels where wetted by the tide.

"Jolly, isn't it?" cried Bob enthusiastically. "Don't it make a noise though!"

"Not a noise," said Nellie, shocked at his unromantic description. "The waves seem to say 'Hush!' and speak to me, as softly as if they wanted to send me to sleep!"

"Bravo, young lady!" put in the Captain, overhearing her remark.

"'Rocked in the cradle of the deep,' as the old song runs, eh? Though I've almost forgotten all my Greek knocking about the world, or rather had it knocked out of me in a midshipmen's mess, if I recollect aright, old Homer describes the noise of the waves nearly in your own words, my dear. His term for it is _polyploisboio thala.s.ses_--the 'murmuring of the many-voiced sea!' Grand, isn't it; grand, eh? But, let us walk round the castle, and then you will see and hear it better."

They accompanied him, accordingly, around the sloping rampart; Mrs Gilmour walking by the side of the old sailor, while Bob and Nellie lingered behind with d.i.c.k.

On their way round the castle, Master Bob occasionally pitched in a piece of stick for Rover to fetch out of the sea, which the energetic dog did with the utmost gusto; barking with glee as he dashed into the water and coming out sedately with his coat all dripping, to deposit the stick at his master's feet, with a shake that sent a shower of drops like rain all over them, making them laugh in glee as great as his.

The stragglers presently came up with the seniors of the party who had seated themselves on a little ledge of the wall on the highest point of the glacis at the back of the old fortification, from whence away to the west the sun could be seen setting in a glory of crimson and gold behind the dockyard, with the masts of the ships standing out in red relief, as if on fire.

In front were the purple hills of the Isle of Wight, with the white- terraced Ryde lying in between, its houses lit up likewise by the rays of the sunset, and their windows all aflame; and, under their feet, stretching away to where it met the hills opposite and to the harbour's mouth and Haslar breakwater on the right, with the now twinkling Nab light on the extreme left, was the dancing, murmuring, restless sea, its hue varying every instant, from the rich crimson and gold it reflected from the western horizon to the darker shades of evening that came creeping up steadily from the eastward, blotting out by degrees its previous bright tones.

Two or three merchant ships were anch.o.r.ed at Spithead; but there was not a single sail moving in sight.

All was still; and, as if in harmony with the scene, the Captain and Mrs Gilmour sat in silent contemplation of the sight before them, neither uttering a word.

The children, however, were not quiet long.

"Hi, Rover, fetch it, good dog!" cried out Bob presently, pitching the stick into the water that laved the base of the sloping rampart. "Fetch it out, sir; fetch it."