Kitabı oku: «Aileen Aroon, A Memoir», sayfa 9
Chapter Fifteen.
A Bird-Haunted Churchyard
“Adieu, sweet bird! thou erst hast been
Companion of each summer scene,
Loved inmate of our meadows green,
And rural home;
The music of thy cheerful song
We loved to hear; and all day long
Saw thee on pinion fleet and strong
About us roam.”
It is usual in the far north of Scotland, where the writer was reared, to have, as in England, the graveyard surrounding the parish church. The custom is a very ancient and a very beautiful one; life’s fitful fever past and gone, to rest under the soft sward, and under the shadow of the church where one gleaned spiritual guidance. There is something in the very idea of this which tends to dispel much of the gloom of death, and cast a halo round the tomb itself.
But at the very door of the old church of N – a tragedy had, years before I had opened my eyes in life, been enacted, and since that day service had never again been conducted within its walls. The new church was built on an open site quite a mile from the old, which latter stands all by itself – crumbling ivy-clad ruins, in the midst of the greenery of an acre of ancient graves. There is a high wall around it, and giant ash and plane trees in summer almost hide it from view. It is a solitary spot, and on moonlit nights in winter, although the highway skirts it, few there be who care to pass that way. The parish school or academy is situated some quarter of a mile from the auld kirkyard, and in the days of my boyhood even bird-nesting boys seldom, if ever, visited the place. It was not considered “canny.” For me, however, the spot had a peculiar charm. It was so quiet, so retired, and haunted, not with ghosts, but with birds, and many a long sunny forenoon did I spend wandering about in it, or reclining on the grass with my Virgil or Horace in hand – poets, by the way, who can only be thoroughly enjoyed out of doors in the country.
A pair of owls built in this auld kirkyard for years. I used to think they were always the same old pair, who, year after year, stuck to the same old spot, sending their young ones away to the neighbouring woods to begin life on their own account as soon as they were able to fly. They were lazy birds; for two whole years they never built a nest of their own, but took possession of a magpie’s old one. But at last the lady owl said to her lord —
“My lord, this nest is getting quite disreputable – we must have a new one this spring.”
“Very well,” said his lordship, looking terribly learned, “but you’ll have to build it, my lady, for I’ve got to think, and think, you know.”
“To be sure, my lord,” said she. “The world would never go on unless you thought, and thought.”
She chose an old window embrasure, and, half hid in ivy, there she built the new nest with weeds and sticks and stubble, while he did nothing but sit and talk Greek and natural philosophy at her.
There were tree sparrows built in the ivy of those crumbling walls, each nest about as big as the bottom of an armchair, and containing as many feathers as would stuff a small pillow-case, to say nothing of threads of all colours, hair, and pieces of printed paper. Seven, eight, and ten eggs would be in some of those, white as to ground, and beautifully speckled with brown and grey.
I have heard the tree sparrow called a nasty, common, dowdy thing. It really is not at all dowdy, and although it may be called the country cousin of the busy, chattering little morsel of feathers and fluff that hops nimbly but noisily about our roof-tops, and is constantly quarrelling with its neighbours, the tree sparrow is far more pretty. Nor is it quite plebeian. It is the Passer montanus of some naturalists, the becfin friquet of the French; it belongs to the Greek family, the Fringillidae, and does not the linnet belong to that family too? Yes, and the beautiful bullfinch and the gaudy goldfinch as well, to say nothing of the siskin and canary, so it cannot be plebeian. The tree sparrow makes a nice wee pet, very loving and gentle, and not at all particular as to food. It likes canary-seed, but insects and worms as well, and it is not shy at picking a morsel of sugar, nor a tiny bit of bread and butter.
There were more birds of the same family that haunted this auld kirkyard. The greenfinch or green-grosbeak used to flit hither and thither among the ivy like a tiny streak of lightning, and the pretty wee redpole was also there.
There was one bird in particular that used to build in the trees that grew inside the graveyard wall. I refer to my old friend and favourite the chaffinch, called in Scotland the boldie. He is most brilliant in plumage, being richly clad in russet red and brown, picked out with blue, yellow, and white. The chaffinch is lovely whether sitting or flying, whether trilling his song with head erect and throat puffed out, or keeking down from the branch of a tree with one saucy eye, to see if any one is going near his nest. His song in the wild state is more celebrated for brilliancy and boldness than for sweetness or variation, but in confinement it may be improved.
But this same nest is something to look at and admire for minutes at a time. I used to think my chaffinch – the chaffinch that built in my churchyard – was particularly proud of his nest.
“Pink, pink, pink,” he used to say to me; “I see you looking up at my nest. You may go up, if you like, and have a look in. She is from home just now, and there are four eggs in at present. There will be five by-and-by. Now, did you ever see such beautiful eggs?”
“Never,” I would reply; “they are most lovely.”
“Well, then,” he would continue, “pink, pink, pink! look at the nest itself. What do you think of that for architecture? It is built, you see, some twelve feet from the ground, against the stem, but held in its place by a little branch. It is out of the reach of cats; if it were higher up the wind would shake it, or the hawks would see it. It is not much bigger than your two hands; and just look at the artistic way in which the lichens are mingled with the moss on the outside, to blend with the colour of the tree!”
“Yes, but,” I would remark, “there are bits of paper there, as well as lichens.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” the bird would reply; “bits of paper do almost as well as lichens. Pink, pink, pink! There is the whole of Lord Palmerston’s speech there; Palmerston is a clever man, but he couldn’t build a nest like that.”
I mentioned the redpole. It is, as far as beauty goes, one of the best cage-birds we have; a modest, wee, affectionate, unassuming pet, but deficient in song.
“Cheet, cheet, cheet, cheet, cheet, cheet, chee-ee!” What sweet little voice is that repeating the same soft song over and over again, and dwelling on the last syllable with long-drawn cadence? The music – for music it is, although a song without variations – is coming from yonder bonnie bush of golden-blossomed broom, that grows in the angle between the two walls in a remote corner of the auld kirkyard. I throw Horace down, and get up from the grass and walk towards it.
“Chick, chick, chick, chick, chee-ee!”
“Oh, yes! I daresay you haven’t a nest anywhere near; but I know better.” This is my reply.
I walk across the unhallowed ground, as this patch is called, for – whisper it! – suicides lie here, and the graves have not been raised, nor do stones mark the spot where they lie.
Here is the nest, in under a bit of weedy bank, and yonder is the bird himself – the yellow-hammer, skite, or yellow bunting – looking as gay as a hornet, for well he knows that I will not disturb his treasures. The eggs are shapely, white in ground, and beautifully streaked and speckled, and splashed with reddish brown. But there are no eggs; only four morsels of yellow fluff, apparently, surrounded by four gaping orange-red mouths. But they are cosy. I catch a tiny slug, and break it up between them, and the cock-bird goes on singing among the broom, while the hen perches a little way off, twittering nervously and peevishly.
“Chick, chick, che-ee!” says the bird. “I don’t pretend to build such a pretty nest as the chaffinch; besides, such a flimsy thing as his would not do on the ground; mine has a solid foundation of hay, don’t you see? That keeps out the damp, and that lining of hair is warmer than anything else in the world.”
A poor, persecuted little bird is this same yellow bunting; and schoolboys often, when they find the nest, scatter it and its precious contents to the four winds of heaven.
All the more reason why we should be kind to the pet if we happen to have it in confinement. It is true the wild song is not very interesting; but when a young one is got, it will improve itself if it can listen to the song of another bird, for nearly all our feathered songsters possess the gift of imitation.
Chapter Sixteen.
A Friend of my Student Days
“He was a gash and faithfu’ tyke
As over lap a sheugh or dyke.”
Burns.
I had cured friend Frank’s dog of some trifling ailment, and she seemed fonder of me than ever. “Poor Meg,” I said, patting her.
Dogs are never ungrateful for kindnesses, but I have seen many noted instances of revenge, and so doubtless have many of my readers. Here is a case. At one time of day my father possessed a breed of beautiful black game-cocks. One of these had a great aversion to dogs, and a bull-terrier, who was tied up in a stall in the stable, came in for a considerable share of blows and abuse from a certain brave bird of the King Jock strain. I myself was a witness to the assault, but I dared not interfere, for to tell you the truth, that game-cock was one too many for me then, and I wouldn’t care to be attacked by a bird of the same kind even now. King Jock had come into the stable to pick a bit by himself, for he was far too cavalierly to eat much before the hens. “Give everything to the ladies and go without yourself” is game-cock etiquette. Presently he spied “Danger” lying in the stall with his head on his two fore-paws.
“Oh! you’re there, are you?” said King Jock, holding his head to the ground, and keening up with one eye at the poor dog. “Didn’t notice ye before. It ain’t so light as it might be.”
Danger gave one apologetic wag of his tail. “Pretty fellow you are, ain’t ye?” continued the cock, edging a bit nearer.
“Eh? Why don’t you speak?”
“Ho! ho! it’s chained ye are, is it? I’ve a good mind to let you have it on that ugly patched face of yours. And, by my halidom, I will too. Who ran through the yard yesterday and scared the senses out of half my harem? Take that, and that, and that. Try to bite, would you? Then you’ll have another; there! and there!”
Poor Danger’s head was covered with round lumps as big as half marbles, and each lump had a spur-hole. Cock Jock had made good practice, which he had much reason to repent, for one day Master Danger broke loose, and went straight away to look for his enemy. Jock possessed a tail that any cock might have been proud of, but after his encounter with Danger his pride had a fall, for in his speedy flight he got stuck in a hedge, and the dog tore every feather out, and would have eaten his way into, and probably through, King Jock himself, if the twig hadn’t snapped, and the bird escaped. After that King Jock was content to treat bull-terriers with quiet disdain.
Dogs know much of what is said to them, especially if you do not speak too fast, for, if you do, they get nervous, and forget their English. It is, in my opinion, better not to alter your form of speech, nor the tone of your voice, when talking to a dog. My old friend Tyro, a half-bred collie, but most beautiful animal, understood and was in the habit of being talked to in three languages, to say nothing of broad Scotch, namely, English, Gaelic, and Latin – no, not dog Latin, by your leave, sir, but the real Simon Pure and Ciceronic. I don’t mean to assert that he could appreciate the beauties of the Bucolics, nor Horatian love lays if read to him; but he would listen respectfully, and he would obey ordinary orders when couched in the Roman tongue. Every animal that had hair and ran was, to Tyro, a cat; every animal that had feathers was a crow, and these he qualified by size. In a flock of sheep, for instance, if you asked him to chase out the big “cat,” it was a ram, who got no peace till he came your way; if, in a flock of fowls, you had asked him to chase out the big “crow,” it was the cock who had to fly; if you said the wee crow, a bantam or hen would be the victim. An ordinary cat was simply a cat, and if you asked him to go and find one, it would be about the barn-yards or stables he would search. But if you told him to go and find a “grub-cat,” it was off to the hills he would be, and if you listened you would presently hear him in chase, and he would seldom return without a grub-cat, that meant a cat that could be eaten – i.e., a hare or rabbit. He knew when told to go and take a drink of water; but, at sea, the ocean all around him was pointed out to him as the big drink of water. In course of time he grew fond of the sea, though the commotion in the water and the breakers must have been strange and puzzling to him; but if at any time he was told to go and take a look at the big drink of water, he would put his two fore-paws on the bulwarks and watch the waves for many minutes at a time.
“I have often heard you speak of your dog Tyro, Gordon,” said Frank; “can’t you tell us his history?”
“I will, with pleasure,” I replied. “He was the dog of my student days. I never loved a dog more, I never loved one so much, with the exception perhaps of Theodore Nero – or you, Aileen, for I see you glancing up at me. No, you needn’t sigh so.”
But about Tyro. Here is his story: – He was bred from a pure Scottish collie, the father a powerful retriever (Irish). “Bah!” some one may here say, “only a mongrel,” a class of dogs whose praises few care to sing, and whose virtues are written in water. A watch-dog of the right sort was Tyro; and from the day when his brown eyes first rested on me, for twelve long years, by sea and land, I never had a more loving companion or trusty friend. He was a large and very strong dog, feathered like a Newfoundland, but with hair so soft and long and glossy, as to gain for him in his native village the epithet of “silken dog.” In colour he was black-and-tan, with snow-white gauntlets and shirt-front. His face was very remarkable, his eyes bright and tender, giving him, with his long, silky ears, almost the expression of a beautiful girl. Being good-mannered, kind, and always properly groomed, he was universally admired, and respected by high and low. He was, indeed, patted by peers and petted by peasants, never objected to in first-class railway cars or steamer saloons, and the most fastidious of hotel waiters did not hesitate to admit him, while he lounged daintily on sofa or ottoman, with the sang froid of one who had a right. Tyro came into my possession a round-pawed fun-and-mischief-loving puppy. His first playmate was a barn-door fowl, of the male persuasion, who had gained free access to the kitchen on the plea of being a young female in delicate health; which little piece of deceit, on being discovered by his one day having forgot himself so far as to crow, cost “Maggie,” the name he impudently went by, his head. Very dull indeed was poor Tyro on the following day, but when the same evening he found Maggie’s head and neck heartlessly exposed on the dunghill, his grief knew no bounds. Slowly he brought it to the kitchen, and with a heavy sigh deposited it on the hearthstone-corner, and all the night and part of next day it was “waked,” the pup refusing all food, and flashing his teeth meaningly at whosoever attempted to remove it, until sleep at last soothed his sorrow. I took to the dog after that, and never repented it, for he saved my life, of which anon. Shortly after his “childish sorrow,” Tyro had a difference of opinion with a cat, and got rather severely handled, and this I think it was that led him, when a grown dog, to a confusion of ideas regarding these animals, plus hares and rabbits; “when taken to be well shaken,” was his motto, adding “wherever seen,” so he slew them indiscriminately. This cat-killing propensity was exceedingly reprehensible, but the habit once formed never could be cured; although I, stimulated by the loss of guinea after guinea, whipped him for it, and many an old crone – deprived of her pet – has scolded him in English, Irish, and Scotch, all with the same effect.
Talking of cats, however, there was one to whom Tyro condescendingly forgave the sin of existing. It so fell out that, in a fight with a staghound, he was wounded in a large artery, and was fast bleeding to death, because no one dared to go near him, until a certain sturdy eccentric woman, very fond of our family, came upon the scene. She quickly enveloped her arms with towels, to save herself from bites, and thus armed, thumbed the artery for two hours; then dressing it with cobwebs, saved the dog’s life. Tyro became, when well, a constant visitor at the woman’s cottage; he actually came to love her, often brought her the hares he killed, and, best favour of all to the old maid, considerately permitted her cat to live during his royal pleasure; but, if he met the cat abroad, he changed his direction, and inside he never let his eyes rest upon her.
When Tyro came of age, twenty-one (months), he thought it was high time to select a profession, for hitherto he had led a rather roving life. One thing determined him. My father’s shepherd’s toothless old collie died, and having duly mourned for her loss, he – the shepherd – one day brought home another to fill up the death-vacancy. She was black, and very shaggy, had youth and beauty on her side, pearly teeth, hair that shone like burnished silver, and, in short, was quite a charming shepherdess – so, at least, thought Tyro; and what more natural than that he should fall in love with her? So he did. In her idle hours they gambolled together on the gowny braes, brushed the bells from the purple heather and the dewdrops from the grass, chased the hares, bullied the cat, barked and larked, and, in short, behaved entirely like a pair of engaged lovers of the canine class; and then said Tyro to himself, “My mother was a shepherdess, I will be a shepherd, and thus enjoy the company of my beloved ‘Phillis’ for ever, and perhaps a day or two longer.” And no young gentleman ever gave himself with more energy to a chosen profession than did Tyro. He was up with the lark – the bird that picks up the worm – and away to the hill and the moor. To his faults the shepherd was most indulgent for a few days; but when Tyro, in his over-zeal, attempted to play the wolf, he was, very properly, punished. “What an indignity! Before one’s Phillis too!” Tyro turned tail and trotted sulkily home. “Bother the sheep!” he must have thought; at any rate, he took a dire revenge – not on the shepherd, his acquaintance he merely cut, and he even continued to share the crib with his little ensnarer – but on the sheep-fold.
A neighbouring farmer’s dog, of no particular breed, was in the habit of meeting Tyro at summer gloaming, in a wood equidistant from their respective homes. They then shook tails, and trotted off side by side. Being a very early riser, I used often to see Tyro coming home in the mornings, jaded, worn, and muddy, avoiding the roads, and creeping along by ditches and hedgerows. When I went to meet him, he threw himself at my feet, as much as to say, “Thrash away, and be quick about it.” This went on for weeks, though I did not know then what mischief “the twa dogs” had been brewing, although ugly rumours began to be heard in all the countryside about murdered sheep and bleeding lambs; but my eyes were opened, and opened with a vengeance, when nineteen of the sheep on my father’s hill-side were made bleeding lumps of clay in one short “simmer nicht”; and had Tyro been tried for his life, he could scarcely have proved an alibi, and, moreover, his pretty breast was like unto a robin’s, and his gauntlets steeped in gore. Dire was the punishment that fell on Tyro’s back for thus forsaking the path of virtue for a sheep-walk; and for two or three years, until, like the “Rose o’ Anandale,” he —
“Left his Highland home
And wandered forth with me,”
he was condemned to the chain.
He now became really a watch-dog, and a right good one he proved.
The chain was of course slipped at night when his real duties were supposed to commence. Gipsies – tinklers we call them – were just then an epidemic in our part of the country; and our hen-roosts were in an especial manner laid under blackmail. One or two of those same long-legged gentry got a lesson from Tyro they did not speedily forget. I have seldom seen a dog that could knock down a man with less unnecessary violence. So surely as any one laid a hand on his master, even in mimic assault, he was laid prone on his back, and that, too, in a thoroughly business-like fashion; and violence was only offered if the lowly-laid made an attempt to get up till out of arrest.
I never had a dog of a more affectionate disposition than my dead-and-gone friend Tyro. By sea and land, of course I was his especial charge; but that did not prevent him from joyously recognising “friends he had not seen for years.” Like his human shipmates, he too used to look out for land, and he was generally the first to make known the welcome news, by jumping on the bulwarks, snuffing the air, and giving one long loud bark, which was slightly hysterical, as if there were a big lump in his throat somewhere.
I should go on the principle of de mortuis nil nisi bonum; but I am bound to speak of Tyro’s faults as well as his virtues. Reader, he had a temper – never once shown to woman or child, but often, when he fancied his casus belli just, to man, and once or twice to his master. Why, one night, in my absence, he turned my servant out, and took forcible possession of my bed. It was hard, although I had stayed out rather late; but only by killing him could I have dislodged him, so for several reasons I preferred a night on the sofa, and next morning I reasoned the matter with him.
During our country life, Tyro took good care I should move as little as possible without him, and consequently dubbed himself knight-companion of my rambles over green field and heathy mountain, and these were not few. We often extended our excursions until the stars shone over us, then we made our lodging on the cold ground, Tyro’s duties being those of watch and pillow. Often though, on awakening in the morning, I found my head among the heather, and my pillow sitting comfortably by my side panting, generally with a fine hare between its paws, for it had been “up in the morning airly” and “o’er the hills and far awa’,” long before I knew myself from a stone.
Tyro’s country life ended when his master went to study medicine. One day I was surprised to find him sitting on the seat beside me. The attendant was about to remove him.
“Let alone the poor dog,” said Professor L. “I am certain he will listen more quietly than any one here.” Then after the lecture, “Thank you, doggie; you have taught my students a lesson.” That naughty chain prevented a repetition of the offence; but how exuberant he was to meet me at evening any one may guess. Till next morning he was my second shadow. More than once, too, he has been a rather too faithful ally in the many silly escapades into which youth and spirits lead the medical student. His use was to cover a retreat, and only once did he floor a too-obtrusive Bobby; and once he saved me from an ugly death.
It was Hogmanay – the last night of the year – and we had been merry. We, a jolly party of students, had elected to sing in the New Year. We did so, and had been very happy, while, as Burns hath it, Tyro —
“For vera joy had barkit wi’ us.”
Ringing out from every corner of the city, like cocks with troubled minds, came the musical voices of night-watchmen, bawling “half-past one,” as we left the streets, and proceeded towards our home in the suburbs. It was a goodly night, moon and stars, and all that sort of thing, which tempted me to set out on a journey of ten miles into the country, in order to be “first foot” to some relations that lived there. The road was crisp with frost, and walking pleasant enough, so that we were in one hour nearly half-way. About here was a bridge crossing a little rocky ravine, with a babbling stream some sixty feet below. On the low stone parapet of this bridge, like the reckless fool I was, I stretched myself at full length, and, unintentionally, fell fast asleep. How nearly that sleep had been my last! Two hours afterwards I awoke, and naturally my eyes sought the last thing they had dwelt upon, the moon; she had declined westward, and in turning round I was just toppling over when I was sharply pulled backwards toward the road. Here was Tyro with his two paws pressed firmly against the parapet, and part of my coat in his mouth, while with flashing teeth he growled as I never before had heard him. His anger, however, was changed into the most exuberant joy, when I alighted safely on the road, shuddering at the narrow escape I had just made. At the suggestion of Tyro, we danced round each other, for five minutes at least, in mutual joy, by which time we were warm enough to finish our journey, and be “first foot” to our friends in the morning.
When Tyro left home with me to begin a seafaring life, he put his whole heart and soul into the business. There was more than one dog in the ship, but his drawing-room manners and knowledge of “sentry-go” made him saloon dog par excellence.
His first voyage was to the Polar regions, and his duty the protection by night of the cabin stores, including the spirit room. This duty he zealously performed; in fact, Master Tyro would have cheerfully undertaken to take charge of the whole ship, and done his best to repel boarders, if the occasion had demanded it.
A sailor’s life was now for a time the lot of Tyro. I cannot, however, say he was perfectly happy; no dog on board ship is. He missed the wide moors and the heathy hills, and I’m sure, like his master, he was always glad to go on shore again.
Poor Tyro got old; and so I had to go to sea without him. Then this dog attached himself to my dear mother. When I returned home again, she was gone…
Strange to say, Tyro, who during my poor mother’s illness had never left her room, refused food for days after her death.
He got thin, and dropsy set in.
With my own hand, I tapped him no less than fifteen times, removing never less than one gallon and three quarters of water. The first operation was a terrible undertaking, owing to the dog making such fierce resistance; but afterwards, when he began to understand the immense relief it afforded him, he used to submit without even a sigh, allowing himself to be strapped down without a murmur, and when the operation (excepting the stab of the trocar, there is little or no pain) was over, he would give himself a shake, then lick the hands of all the assistants – generally four – and present a grateful paw to each; then he had his dinner, and next day was actually fit to run down a rabbit or hare.
Thinner and weaker, weaker and thinner, month by month, and still I could not, as some advised, “put him out of pain;” he had once saved my life, and I did not feel up to the mark in Red Indianism. And so the end drew nigh.
The saddest thing about it was this: the dog had the idea (knowing little of the mystery of death) that I could make him well; and at last, when he could no longer walk, he used to crawl to meet me on my morning visit, and gaze in my face with his poor imploring eyes, and my answer (well he knew what I said) was always, “Tyro, doggie, you’ll be better the morn (to-morrow), boy.” And when one day I could stand it no longer, and rained tears on my old friend’s head, he crept back to his bed, and that same forenoon he was dead.
Poor old friend Tyro. Though many long years have fled since then, I can still afford a sigh to his memory.
On a “dewy simmer’s gloaming” my Tyro’s coffin was laid beneath the sod, within the walls of a noble old Highland ruin. There is no stone to mark where he lies, but I know the spot, and I always think the gowan blinks bonniest and the grass grows greenest there.
