In Touch with Nature Part 16

I could not help noticing now that it was a case of _pinch, pinch, pinch_ with the Macks. Indeed, I fear their table no longer groaned with the weight of the good things of this life, but rather for the want of them. But for all that--let it be said to his credit--the poor of the parish never went without the dole to which they had been so long accustomed.

Things grew worse instead of better, although, when I expressed my concern, Mr Mack a.s.sured me, with a sadly artificial smile on his face, that after a certain day it would be all right again.

"My dear," said Mr Mack to his wife one evening as she sat sewing after the young folks had all gone to bed, "to-morrow is the fair at B--, and I fear I must go. Poor old Dumps! My heart is as cold as lead at the thoughts of parting with our children's pet."

His wife never looked up. She couldn't have spoken a single word if she had tried to, but the tears rolled down her cheeks and fell thick and fast on the white seam.

Mr Mack was up next morning betimes. I question if he had slept a single wink. He was up before the lark, and long before any one in the house was stirring. He made himself a hasty breakfast, fed Dumps, and started. It was better, he thought, to go ere the family were about.

When Mrs Mack took the children into the study, and explained to them _why_ they were forced to part with Dumps, they showed far less exuberance of grief than might have been expected, and lent their aid individually to console the mother; but--

O! the sorrow was deep, though silent.

The father returned the same evening alone. He looked jaded and wan.

Hardly any one touched a bit of supper that night, and, judging from their faces next morning, I feel sure some of the girls mast have cried themselves to sleep.

It would be waste of words to say that d.i.c.kie Dumps, with all his droll, wise ways, was sadly missed. Poor old fellow, they would have given almost anything now to see his head popped in through the breakfast-window, or even to see him cropping the rose-leaves. Who, they thought, would give him his morsel of dumpling now? And they hoped and trusted that he might have a good home.

One day the parson came to see me.

"I've got bad news to-day," he said. "O! I wouldn't that my wife and darlings knew it for all I possess."

"Nothing very serious, I hope," I inquired anxiously.

"Some might not think so," he replied. "My dear old pony! He is working in a coal-mine: slaving away down in the dark and grime; the horse that took my wife away on our marriage tour, the horse that has been my children's friend all their lives. Don't think me foolish, Gordon, but only think, the poor old fond creature that loved us all so well, been used to the green country all his life, to sunlight and daisied leas and kind treatment, and now--"

He couldn't say any more, and I did not wonder; and I tell you, reader, that at that moment I wished to be rich as much as ever I did in my life.

I went away over the hills. I walked for miles and miles. It is a capital plan this, when one is thinking. I was thinking, and before I returned I had concocted a scheme which, if successful, would restore Dumps once more to the bosom of his family. I told the parson of the plan, and he was delighted, and rubbed his hands and chuckled with gladness.

A day or two after, a short series of lectures was advertised to take place in the village school-house, to be ill.u.s.trated with a magic lantern. Two lecturers were to officiate every night, and together tell stories of their lives and wandering adventures. One was a soldier friend of mine--dead now, alas!--the other my humble self. The lectures were somewhat original in their way, for we not only told stories on the little stage, but we sang songs, and even gave specimens of the dances of all nations, including the savages of America, Africa, and Southern Australia. I daresay we succeeded in making fools of our two selves; but never mind, we made the people laugh and we drew b.u.mper houses, and the best of it all was, that we raised money enough to buy back Dumps.

"Never say a word to anybody," whispered the parson to me, "till d.i.c.kie is back again in the stable."

Nor did I.

But though Dumps had gone away a white pony, he returned a black one, and what made matters worse was that it was raining hard on the evening I led him round to his old stable at the manse.

I stopped to supper, of course, and as soon as thanks had been returned, Mr Mack went away into the kitchen and came back with the lantern lighted.

"I want you to see something," he said, "that I have in the stable."

Ah! but the parson spoiled the whole thing by looking so happy. His wife and children could read his face as easily as telling the clock.

There was a regular shout of "Dumps! O! pa, it must be Dumps!"

His wife s.n.a.t.c.hed the lantern out of his hand, and the children, wild with joy, ran after her, so that instead of being first in the stable the parson was the very last.

There was no occasion now to hide tears as they caressed the old pony, for they were tears of joy. Dumps was back, and nickering in the old foolish fond way, and nosing everybody all over in turn.

"Isn't it first-rate?" Dumps seemed to say; "fancy being back again among you all; and how is the gra.s.s, and how is the rose-tree, and how is the dumpling?"

When we returned at last to the parlour, the parson glanced at his family and burst out laughing, and the members of his family looked at each other and laughed too. And no wonder, for what with the rain, and the coal-dust of the pony's neck, I never before or since have seen a family of faces that more needed washing.

But what did that signify? Wasn't Dumps in the stable once more?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A QUIET EVENING--ROVER'S EXPERIENCE.

"Lo! in the painted oriel of the west, Whose panes the sunken sun incardines, Like a fair lady at her cas.e.m.e.nt shines The Evening Star, the star of love and rest."

Longfellow.

"I can't see them," said Frank.

"Nor I either," was my answer.

The sun had gone down some time ago, not as the song says:

"The sun has gone down o'er the lofty Ben Lomond, And left the red clouds to preside o'er the scene."

There were no red clouds worth the name, only far up in the west a few scarlet feathers. But projecting straight up into the heavens from the spot where Sol had sunk in a yellow haze, was one broad beam or ray. It looked strange, weird-like, and it remained for quite a long time.

Meanwhile an orange flush of intense depth spread all along the horizon, and the pine-trees on the distant hills were etched out in darkest ink against it; higher up was all sea-green, then blue, and here shone the evening star.

We had the front door of the caravan open. Frank sat on the driver's seat--the horses were sung in stable, bedded up to the knees--and I and the children lay among the rugs on the _coupe_. Our _coupe_, mind you, was quite a verandah.

How very still it was, how beautiful was the scenery all around us! We were far north of Dunkeld, we had toiled through the pa.s.s of Kiliecrankie, and were on the verge of one of the loneliest pa.s.ses of the Grampian range.

There was hardly a sound to be heard, except the monotonous drowsy hum of a waterfall, hidden among those solemn pine-trees in the glen close adjoining.

"No," continued Frank, "they won't come out."

"What is it?" said Maggie May.

"That tall ray of sunshine," I answered, "is the nearest approach to what we in Greenland call sun-dogs, and Frank and I were looking for them."

"What are sun-dogs?"

"A strange kind of mirage, Maggie May, in which the sun is reflected four times in the sky, so that you can actually see four or even five suns--that is, one real, and four unreal."

"Now," said Ida, "tell me a stoly."

"And me a story too," said Maggie May.

"Get your fiddle and play, Frank."

Frank did so, and sang too, but the children would not be put off, so I had to begin.