Kitabı oku: «Aileen Aroon, A Memoir», sayfa 18

“I was coming from the shore one day, when Sambo fell from a port into the sea. Nero at once leapt into the water, and swimming up to his friend, attempted to seize him. The conversation between them seemed to be something like the following —

“Nero: ‘You’re drowning, aren’t you? Let me hold you up.’

“Sambo: ‘Nonsense, Nero, let go my neck; I could keep afloat as long as yourself.’

“Nero: ‘Very well, here goes then; but I must pick something up.’

“So saying, Nero swam after a piece of newspaper, seized that, and swam to the ladder with it; some of the men lent him a helping hand, and up he went.

“The flagship was a tall old line of battle ship; on the starboard side was a broad ladder, on the port merely a ladder of ropes. On stormy days, with a heavy sea on, the starboard ladder probably could not be used, and so the dog had to be lowered into the boat and hoisted up therefrom with a long rope. To make matters more simple and easy for him, one of the men made the dog a broad belt of canvas. To this corset the end of the rope was attached, and away went Nero up or down as the case happened to be.

“Although as gentle by nature as a lamb, Nero would never stand much impudence from another dog without resenting it. When passing through the dockyard one day, we met an immense Saint Bernard, who strutted up to Nero, and at once addressed him in what appeared to me the following strain —

“‘Hullo! Got on shore, have you? I daresay you think yourself a pretty fellow now? But you’re not a bit bigger than I am, and not so handsome. I’ve a good mind to bite you. Yah! you’re only a surgeon’s dog, and my master is captain of the dockyard. Yah!’

“‘Don’t growl at me,’ replied Nero; ‘my master is every bit as good as yours, and a vast deal better, so don’t raise your hair, else I may lose my temper.’

“‘Yah! yah!’ growled the Saint Bernard.

“‘Come on, Nero,’ I cried; ‘don’t get angry, old boy.’

“‘Half a minute, master,’ replied Nero; ‘here is a gentleman that wants to be brought to his bearings.’

“Next moment those two dogs were at it. It was an ugly fight, and some blood was spilled on both sides, but at last Nero was triumphant. He hauled the Saint Bernard under a gun carriage and punished him severely, I being thus powerless to do anything.

“Then Nero came out and shook himself, while the other dog lay beaten and cowed.

“‘I don’t think,’ said Nero to me, ‘that he will boast about his master again in a hurry.’

“Generosity is a part of the Newfoundland dog’s nature. At my father’s village in the far north, called Inverurie, there used to be a large black half-bred dog, that until Nero made an appearance lorded it over all the other dogs in the town. This animal was a bully, and therefore a coward. He had killed more than one dog.

“The very first day that he saw Nero he must needs rush out and attack him. He found himself on his back on the pavement in a few moments. Then came the curious part of the intercourse. Instead of worrying him, Nero simply held him down, and lay quietly on top of him for more than two minutes, during which time he appeared to reason with the cur, who was completely cowed.

“‘I’ll let you up presently,’ Nero said; ‘but you must promise not to attempt to attack me again.’

“‘I promise,’ said the other dog.

“Then, much to the amusement of the little crowd that had collected, Nero very slowly raised himself and walked away. Behold! no sooner had he turned his back than his prostrate foe sprang up and bit him viciously in the leg.

“It was no wonder Nero now lost his temper, or that he shook that black dog as a servant-maid shakes a hearthrug.

“I tried to intervene to save the poor mongrel, but was kept back by the mob.

“‘Let him have it, sir,’ cried one man; ‘he killed S – ’s dog.’

“‘Yes, let him have it,’ cried another; ‘he kills dogs and he kills sheep as well.’

“To his honour be it said, I never saw Nero provoke a fight, but when set upon by a cur he always punished his foe. In two instances he tried to drown his antagonist. A dog at Sheerness attacked him on the beach one day. Nero punished him well, but seeing me coming to the dog’s rescue, he dragged the dog into the sea and lay on him there. I had to wade in and pull Master Nero off by the tail, else the other dog would assuredly have been drowned. I am referring to a large red retriever, lame in one leg, that belonged to the artillery. He had been accidentally blown from a gun and set fire to. That was the cause of his lameness.

“There was a large Newfoundland used to be on the Great Eastern, whose name was ‘Sailor.’ Before Nero’s appearance at Sheerness, he was looked upon as the finest specimen of that kind of dog ever seen. He had to lower his flag to Nero, however.

“They met one morning on the beach at the oyster beds.

“‘Hullo!’ said Sailor, ‘you are the dog that everybody is making such a fuss over. You’re Nero, aren’t you?’

“‘My name is Theodore Nero,’ said my friend, bristling up at the saucy looks of the stranger.

“‘And my name is Sailor, at your service,’ said the other, ‘and I belong to the largest ship in the world. And I don’t think much of you. Yah!’

“‘Good-morning,’ said Nero.

“‘Not so fast,’ cried the other; ‘you’ve got to fight first, but I daresay you’re afraid. Eh! Yah!’

“‘Am I?’ said Nero. ‘We’ll see who is afraid.’

“Next moment the oyster beach was a battle-field. But some sailors coming along, we managed to pull the dogs asunder by the tails. Whenever Sailor saw Nero after this he took to his heels and ran away. But a good dog was Sailor for all that, and a very clever water-dog. He used to jump from the top of the paddle-box of the great ship into the sea – a height, I believe, of about seventy feet.

“Nero’s prowess as a water-dog was well known in Sheerness, and wonderful stories are told about him, even to this day; not all of which are true, any more than the tales of the knights of old are. But some of our marines managed to turn his swimming powers to good account, as the following will testify.

“On days when it was impossible for me to get on shore, I used to send my servant with the dog for a swim and a run. When near the dockyard steps, a great log of wood used to be pitched out of the boat, and Nero sent after it. Anything Nero fetched out of the water he considered his own or his master’s property, which it would be dangerous for any one to meddle with. Well, as soon as he had landed with the log, Nero used to march up the steps, the water flowing behind from his splendid coat, up the steps and through the dockyard; the policemen only stood by marvelling to see a dog carrying such an immense great log of wood. If my servant carried a basket, that would be searched for contraband goods, rum or tobacco.

“Then my servant would pass on, smiling in his own sleeve as the saying is, for no one ever dreamed of searching the dog.”

“Searching the dog!” said Ida, with wondering eyes.

“Yes, dear, the dog was a smuggler, though he did not know it. For that log of wood was a hollow one, and stuffed with tobacco. I did not know of this, of course.”

“How wicked!” said Ida. “Why, Nero, you’ve been a regular pirate of the boundless ocean.”

Chapter Twenty Nine.
The Story of Aileen’s Husband, Nero – Continued

 
“Poor dog! he was faithful and kind, to be sure,
And he constantly loved me, although I was poor.”
 

Campbell.

“Do I think that Master Nero knows we are talking about him? Yes, birdie, of that I am quite convinced. Just look at the cunning old rogue lying there pretending to be asleep, but with his ears well forward, and one eye half-open. And Aileen, too, knows there is a bit of biography going on, and that it is all about her well-beloved lord and master.

“But to tell you one-tenth part of all that had happened to Nero, or to me and Nero together, would take far more time than I can spare, dear Ida. I could give you anecdote after anecdote about his bravery, his strength, his nobility of mind, and his wonderful sagacity; but these would not make you love him more than you do.

“And you never can love the faithful fellow half so much as I do. I have been blamed for loving him far too well, and reminded that he is only a dog.

“Only a dog! How much I hate the phrase; and sinful though I know it to be, I can hardly help despising those who make use of it. But of those who do use the expression, there are few, I really believe, who would wonder at me loving that noble fellow so well did they know the sincere friend he has been many a time and oft to me.

“He saved my life – worthless though it may be – he saved the life of another. Tell you the story? It is not a story, but two stories; and though both redound to the extreme wisdom and sagacity and love of the dog, both are far too sad for you to listen to. Some day I may tell them. Perhaps – ”

There was a pause of some minutes here; Ida, who was lying beside the dog, had thrown her arms around his neck, and was fondly hugging him. Aileen came directly to me, sighed as usual, and put her head on my shoulder.

“Love begets love, Ida, and I think it was more than anything else the dog’s extreme affection for me, shown in a thousand little ways, that caused me to take such a strong abiding affection for him. He knew – as he does now – everything I said, and was always willing to forestall my wishes, and do everything in the world to please me.

“When ill one time, during some of our wanderings, and laid up in an out-of-the-way part of the country among strange people, it was a sad anxiety for me to have to tell the dog he must go out by himself and take his necessary ramble, as I was far too ill to leave my bed.

“The poor animal understood me.

“‘Good-bye, master,’ he seemed to say, as he licked my face; ‘I know you are ill, but I won’t stop out long.’

“He was back again in a quarter of an hour, and the same thing occurred every time he was sent by himself; he never stopped more than fifteen minutes.

“Would a human friend have been as careful? Do you not think that there were temptations to be resisted even during that short ramble of his – things he would have liked to have stopped to look at, things he would have liked to have chased? Many a dog, I have no doubt, invited him to stop and play, but the dog’s answer must have been, ‘Nay, nay, not to-day; I have a poor sick master in bed, and I know not what might happen to him in this strange place, and among so many strange people. I must hurry and get home.’

“When he did return, he did so as joyfully and made as much fuss over me as if he had been away for a week.

“‘I didn’t stop long, did I, master?’ he would always say, when he returned.

“But wasn’t he a happy dog when he got me up and out again? Weak enough I was at first, but he never went far away from me, just trotted on and looked about encouragingly and waited. I allowed him to take me where he chose, and I have reason to believe he led me on his own round, the round he had taken all by himself every day for weeks before that.

“‘Nero, old boy,’ I said to him one day, some time after this sickness, ‘come here.’

“The dog got up from his corner, and laid his saucy head on my lap.

“‘I’m all attention, master,’ he said, talking with his bonnie brown eyes.

“‘I don’t believe there are two better Newfoundlands in England than yourself, Nero.’

“‘I don’t believe there is one,’ said Nero.

“‘Don’t be saucy,’ I said.

“‘Didn’t I take a cup at the Crystal Palace?’

“‘Yes, but it was only second prize, old boy.’

“‘True, master, but nearly every one said it ought to have been first. I’m only two years old and little over, and isn’t a second prize at a Crystal Palace show a great honour for a youngster like myself?’

“‘True, Nero, true; and now I’ve something to propose.’

“‘To which,’ said the dog, ‘I am willing to listen.’

“‘Well,’ I said, ‘there are dozens of dog-shows about to take place all over the country. I want a change: suppose we go round. Suppose we constitute ourselves show folk. Eh?’

“‘Capital.’

“‘And you’ll win lots of prize-money, Nero.’

“‘And you’ll spend it, master. Capital again.’

“‘There won’t be much capital left, I expect, doggie, by the time we get back; but we’ll see a bit of England, at all events.’

“So we agreed to start, and so sure of winning with the dog was I that I bought that splendid red patent leather collar that you, Ida, sometimes wear for a waist-belt. The silver clasps on it were empty then, but each time the dog won a prize, the name of the town was engraved on one of the clasps.”

“They are pretty well filled up now,” said Ida.

“Yes, the dog won nineteen first prizes and cups in little over three months, which was very fair for those days. He was then dubbed champion. There was not a Newfoundland dog from Glasgow to Neath that would have cared to have met Nero in the show ring.

“He used to enter the arena, too, with such humour and dash, with his grand black coat floating around him, and the sun glittering on it like moonbeams on a midnight sea. That was how Nero entered the judging ring; he never slunk in, as did some dogs. He just as often as not had a stick in his mouth, and if he hadn’t, he very soon possessed himself of one.

“‘Yes, look at me all over,’ he would say to the judges; ‘there is no picking a fault in me, nor in my master either for that matter. I’m going to win, that’s what I’m here for.’

“But when I was presented with the prize card by the judge, Nero never failed to make him a very pretty bow.

“The only misfortune that ever befell the poor fellow was at Edinburgh dog-show.

“On the morning of the second day – it was a three or four day exhibition – I received a warning letter, written in a female hand, telling me that those who were jealous of the dog’s honours and winnings were going to poison him.

“I treated the matter as a joke. I could not believe the world contained a villain vile enough to do a splendid animal like that to death, and so cruel a death, for the sake of pique and jealousy. But I had yet to learn what the world was.

“The dog was taken to the show, and chained up as usual at his place on the bench. Alas! when I went to take him home for the night I found his head down, and hardly able to move. I got him away, and sat up with him all night administering restoratives.

“He was able to drink a little milk in the morning, and to save his prize-money I took him back, but had him carefully watched and tended all the remaining time that the show was open.

“We went to Boston, Lincoln, Gainsborongh, and all over Yorkshire and Lancaster and Chester, besides Scotland, and our progress was a triumph to the grand and beautiful dog. Especially was he admired by ladies at shows. Wherever else they might be, there was always a bevy of the fair sex around Nero’s cage. During that three months’ tour he had more kisses probably than any dog ever had before in the same time. It was the same out of the show as in it – no one passed him by without stopping to admire him.

“‘Aren’t we having a splendid time, master?’ the dog said to me one day.

“‘Splendid,’ I replied; ‘but I think we’ve done enough, my doggie. I think we had better retire now and go to sea for a spell.’

“‘Heigho!’ the dog seemed to say; ‘but wherever your home is there mine is too, master.’”

“There is a prize card hanging on the wall of the wigwam,” said Ida, “on which Nero is said to have won at a life-saving contest at Southsea.”

“Yes, dear, that was another day’s triumph for the poor fellow. He had won on the show bench there as well, and afterwards proved his prowess in the sea in the presence of admiring thousands.

“Your honest friend there, Ida, has been all along as fond of human beings and other animals as he is now. In their own country Newfoundlands are used often as sledge dogs, and sometimes as retrievers, but I do not think it is in their nature to take life of any kind, unless insect life, my gentle Ida. They don’t like blue-bottles nor wasps, I must confess, but Nero has given many proofs of the kindness of heart he possesses that are really not easily forgotten.

“Tell you a few? I’ll tell you one or two. The first seems trivial, but there is a certain amount of both pathos and humour about it. Two boys had been playing near the water at Gosport, and for mischiefs sake one had pitched the other’s cap into the tide and ran off. The cap was being floated away, and the disconsolate owner was weeping bitterly on the bank, when we came up. Nero, without being told, understood what was wrong in a moment; one glance at the floating cap, another at the boy, then splash! he had sprang into the tide, and in a few minutes had laid the rescued article at the lad’s feet; then he took his tongue across his cheek in a rough kind of caressing way.

“‘There now,’ he appeared to say, ‘don’t cry any more.’

“Nero ought to have made his exit here, and he would have come off quite the hero; but no, the spirit of mischief entered into him, and he shook himself, sending buckets of water all over the luckless lad, who was almost as wet now as if he had swam in after his cap himself. Then Nero came galloping up to me, laughing all over at the trick he had played the poor boy.

“This trick of shaking himself over people was taught him by one of my messmates; and he used to delight to take him along the beach on a summer’s day, and put him in the water. When he came out, my friend would march along in front of the dog, till the latter was close to some gay lounger, then turn and say, ‘Shake yourself, boy.’ The dénouement may be more easily imagined than described, especially if the lounger happened to be a lady. I’m ashamed of my friend, but love the truth, Ida.”

“How terribly wicked of Nero to do it!” said Ida.

“And yet I saw the dog one day remove a drowning mouse from his water dish, without putting a tooth in it. He placed it on the kitchen floor, and licked it as tenderly over as a cat would her kitten. He looked up anxiously in my face, as much as to say, ‘Do you think the poor thing can live?’

“Hurricane Bob there, his son, does not inherit all his father’s finest qualities; he would not scruple to kill mice or rats by the score. In fact, I have reason to believe he rather likes it. His mother was just the same before him; a kindly-hearted dog she was, but as wild as a wolf, and full of fun of the rough-and-tumble kind.”

“Were you never afraid of losing poor Nero?”

“I did lose him one dark winter’s night, Ida, in the middle of a large and populous city. Luckily, I had been staying there for some time – two weeks, I think – and there were different shops in different parts of the city where I dealt, and other places where I called to rest or read. The dog was always in the habit of accompanying me to the shops, to bring home the purchases, so he knew them all. The very day on which I lost the dog I had changed my apartments to another quarter of the city.

“In the evening, while walking along a street, with Nero some distance behind me, it suddenly occurred to me to run into a shop and purchase a magazine I saw in the window. I never thought of calling the dog. I fancied he would see me entering the book-shop and follow, but he didn’t; he missed me, and thinking I must be on ahead, rushed wildly away up the street into the darkness and rain, and I saw him no more that night.

“Only those who have lost a favourite dog under such circumstances can fully appreciate the extent of my grief and misery. I went home at long last to my lonely lodgings. How dingy and dreadful they seemed without poor Nero’s honest form on the hearthrug! Where could he be, what would become of him, my only friend, my gentle, loving, noble dog, the only creature that cared for me? You may be sure I did not sleep, I never even undressed, but sat all night in my chair, sleeping towards morning, and dreaming uneasy dreams, in which the dog was always first figure.

“I was out and on my way to the police offices ere it was light. The weather had changed, frost had come, and snow had fallen.

“Several large black dogs had been found during the night; I went to see them all. Alas! none was Nero. So after getting bills printed, and arranging to have them posted, I returned disheartened to my lodgings. But when the door opened, something as big as a bear flew out, flew at me, and fairly rolled me down among the snow.

“‘No gentler caress, master,’ said Nero, for it was he, ‘would express the joy of the occasion.’

“Poor fellow, I found out that day that he had been at every one of the places at which I usually called; I daresay he had gone back to our old apartments too, and had of course failed to find me there. As a last resort he turned up at the house of an old soldier with whom I had had many a pleasant confab. This was about eleven o’clock; it was eight when he was lost. Not finding me here, he would have left again, and perhaps found his way to our new lodgings; but the old soldier, seeing that something must be amiss, took him in, kept him all night, found my rooms in the morning, and fetched him home. You may guess whether I thanked the old man or not.

“When Dolls (see page 76) came to me first, he was in great grief for the loss of his dear master⁶. Nero seemed to know it, and though he seldom made much of a fuss over dogs of this breed, he took Dolls under his protection; indeed, he hardly knew how kind to be to him.

“I ought to mention that Mortimer Collins and Nero were very great friends indeed, for the poet loved all things in nature good and true.

“There was one little pet that Nero had long before you knew him, Ida. His name was Pearl, a splendid Pomeranian. Perhaps Pearl reminded Nero very much of his old favourite, Vee-vee. At all events he took to him, used to share his bed and board with him, and protected him from the attacks of strange dogs when out. Pearl was fat, and couldn’t jump well. I remember our coming to a fence one day about a foot and a half high. The other dogs all went bounding over, but Pearl was left to whine and weep at the other side. Nero went straight back, bounded over and re-bounded over, as if showing Pearl how easy it was. But Pearl’s heart failed, seeing which honest Nero fairly lifted him over by the back of the neck.

“I was going to give a dog called ‘Pandoo’ chastisement once. Pandoo was a young Newfoundland, and a great pet of Nero, whose son he was. I got the cane, and was about to raise it, when Nero sprang up and snatched it from my hand, and ran off with it. It was done in a frolicsome manner, and with a deal of romping and jumping. At the same time, I could see he really meant to save the young delinquent; so I made a virtue of necessity, and pardoned Pandoo.

“But Nero’s love for other animals, and his kindness for all creatures less and weaker than himself, should surely teach our poor humanity a lesson. You would think, to see him looking pityingly sometimes at a creature in pain, that he was saying with the poet —

 
“‘Poor uncomplaining brute,
Its wrongs are innocent at least,
And all its sorrows mute.’
 

“One day, at the ferry at Hotwells, Clifton, a little black-and-tan terrier took the water after a boat and attempted to cross, but the tide ran strong, and ere it reached the centre it was being carried rapidly down stream. On the opposite bank stood Nero, eagerly watching the little one’s struggles, and when he saw they were unsuccessful, with one impatient bark – which seemed to say, ‘Bear up, I’m coming’ – he dashed into the water, and ploughed the little terrier all the way over with his broad chest, to the great amusement of an admiring crowd.

“On another occasion some boys near Manchester were sending a Dandie-Dinmont into a pond after a poor duck; the Dandie had almost succeeded in laying hold of the duck, when Nero sprang into the water, and brought out, not the duck, but the Dandie by the back of the neck.

“I saw one day a terrier fly at him and bite him viciously behind. He turned and snapped it, just once. Once was enough. The little dog sat down on the pavement and howled piteously. Nero, who had gone on, must then turn and look back, and then go back and lick the place he had bitten.

“‘I really didn’t intend to hurt you so much,’ he seemed to say; ‘but you did provoke me, you know. There! there! don’t cry.’”

“Now then, Ida, birdie, let us have one good scamper through the pine wood and meadow, and then hie for home. Come on, dogs; where are you all? Aileen, Nero, Bob, Gipsy, Eily, Broom, Gael, Coronach? Hurrah! There’s a row! There’s music! That squirrel, Ida, who has been cocking up there on the oak, listening to all we’ve been saying, thinks he’d better be off. There isn’t a bird in the wood that hasn’t ceased its song, and there isn’t a rabbit that hasn’t gone scurrying into its hole, and I believe the deer have all jumped clean out of the forest; the hare thinks he will be safer far by the river’s brink; and the sly, wily old weasel has come to the conclusion that he can wait for his dinner till the dogs go home. The only animal that doesn’t run away is the field-mouse. He means to draw himself up under a burdock leaf and wait patiently till the hairy hurricane sweeps onward past him. Then he’ll creep out and go nibbling round as usual. Come.”