Aileen Aroon, A Memoir, Page 3

where, in a small woodenhouse, was a bed of the cleanest straw, to say nothing of a dish ofwholesome food, and a bowl of the purest water. The doors to the yardwere locked, but no chain was put on the new pet, for the walls wereseven feet high or nearly so, and her safety was thus insured.

  So we thought, but, alas for our poor logic! We had yet to learn whatSable's jumping capabilities were. When I wrote next day, and told herold master that Sable had leapt the high wall and fled, the reply wasthat he regretted very much not having told me, that she was the mostwonderful dog to jump ever he had seen or heard tell of.

  Meanwhile Sable was gone. But where or whither? The country iswell-wooded, but there are plenty of sheep in it. Judging from Sable'spig-fighting qualities, I felt sure she would not starve, if she choseto feed on sheep. But one sheep a day, even for a week, would make ahole in my quarter's half-pay, and I shuddered to think of the littlebill Sable might in a very short time run me up. No one had seen Sable.So days passed; then came a rumour that some school children had beenfrightened nearly out of their little wits by the appearance of anenormous bear, in a wood some miles from our cottage.

  My hopes rose; the bear must be Sable. So an expedition was organisedto go in search of her. The rank and file of this expedition consistedof schoolboys. I myself was captain, and Theodore Nero, theNewfoundland, was first lieutenant.

  We were successful. My heart jumped for joy as I saw the great dog inthe distance. But she would not suffer any one to come near her. Thatwas not her form. I must walk on and whistle, and she would follow. Iwas glad enough to close with the offer, and gladder still when wereached home before she changed her mind and went off again.

  Chaining now became imperative until Sable became reconciled to hersituation in life, until I had succeeded in taming her by kindness.

  This was by no means an easy task. For weeks she never responded toeither kind word or caress, but one day Sable walked up to me as I satwriting, and, much to my surprise, offered me her great paw.

  "Shake hands," she seemed to say as she wagged her tail, "Shake hands.You're not half such a bad fellow as I first took you for."

  My friend, Captain D--, was delighted, and we must needs write at onceto Sable's old master to inform him of the unprecedented event.

  Sable became every day more friendly and loving in her own gentleundemonstrative and quiet fashion. But as yet she had never barked.

  One day, however, on throwing a stick to Nero, she too ran after it, andon making pretence to throw it again, Sable began to caper. Notgracefully perhaps, but still it was capering, and finally she barked.

  When I told friend Frank he was as much overjoyed as I was. I suggestedwriting at once to Ireland and making the tidings known.

  "A letter, Gordon," said my friend emphatically, "will not meet therequirements of the case. Let us telegraph. Let us wire, thus--`_Sablehas barked_.'"

  The good dog's former master was much pleased at the receipt of theinformation.

  "She will do now," he wrote; "and I'm quite easy in my mind about her."

  Now all this may appear very trivial to some of my readers, but therereally was for a time, a probability that Sable would die of sheergrief, as, poor dog, she eventually succumbed to consumption.

  We were, if possible, kinder to Sable, or Aileen Aroon, as she was nowcalled, than ever. She became the constant companion of all our walksand rambles, and developed more and more excellences every week.Without being what might be called brilliant, Aileen was clever and mostteachable. She never had been a trained or educated dog. Theodore Nerohad, and whether he took pity on his wife's ignorance or not, I cannotsay, but he taught her a very great deal she never knew anything aboutbefore.

  Here is a proof that Aileen's reasoning powers were of no mean order.When Master Nero wanted a tit-bit he was in the habit of making a bowfor it. The bow consisted in a graceful inclination or lowering of thechest and head between the outstretched fore-paws. Well, Aileen was notlong in perceiving that the performing of this little ceremony alwaysprocured for her husband a morsel of something nice to eat, that "Toboo, and to boo, and to boo," was the best of policies.

  She therefore took to it without any tuition, and to see those "twadogs," standing in front of me when a biscuit or two were on the board,and booing, and booing, and booing, was a sight to have made adray-horse smile.

  I am sure that Nero soon grew exceedingly fond of his new companion, andshe of him in her quiet way.

  I may state here parenthetically, that Master Nero had had a companionbefore Aileen. His previous experience of the married state, however,had not been a happy one. His wife, "Bessie" to name, had taken tohabits of intemperance. She had been used to one glass of beer a daybefore she came to me, and it was thought it might injure her to stopit. If she had kept to this, it would not have mattered, but she usedto run away in the evenings, and go to a public-house, where she wouldalways find people willing to treat her for the mere curiosity of seeinga dog drink. When she came home she was not always so steady as shemight be, but foolishly affectionate. She would sit down by me andinsist upon shaking hands about fifteen times every minute, or she wouldannoy Nero by pawing him till he growled at her, and told her, or seemedto tell her, she ought to be ashamed of herself for being in the stateshe was. She was very fat, and after drinking beer used to take Nero'sbed from him and sleep on her back snoring, much to his disgust. Thisdog was afterwards sold to Mr Montgomery, of Oxford, who stopped herallowance for some months, after which she would neither look at ale norgin-and-water, of which latter she used to be passionately fond.

  Aileen and Nero used to be coupled together in the street with a shortchain attached to their collars. But not always; they used to walktogether jowl to jowl, whether they were coupled or not, and these twosplendid black dogs were the wonder and admiration of all who beheldthem. Whatever one did the other did, they worked in couple. When Igave my stick to Nero to carry, Aileen must have one end of it. When wewent shopping they carried the stick thus between them, with a bag orbasket slung between, and their steadiness could be depended on.

  They used to spring into the river or into the sea from a boat bothtogether, and both together bring out whatever was thrown to them.Their immense heads above the water both in friendly juxta-position,were very pretty to look at.

  They were in the habit of hunting rats or rabbits in couples, one goingup one side of the hedge, the other along the other side.

  I am sorry to say they used at times, for the mere fun of the thing, andout of no real spirit of ill-nature, to hunt horses as well as rabbits,one at one side of the horse the other at the other, and likewisebicyclists; this was great fun for the dogs, but the bicyclists lookedat the matter from quite another point of view. But I never managed tobreak them altogether of these evil habits.

  It has often seemed to me surprising how one dog will encourage anotherin doing mischief. A few dogs together will conceive and execute deedsof daring, that an animal by himself would never even dream ofattempting.

  As I travelled a good deal by train at that time, and always took my twodogs with me, it was more convenient to go into the guard's van with mypets, than take a first or second class carriage by storm. I shallnever forget being put one day with the two dogs into a large almostempty van. It was almost empty, but not quite. There was a ram tied upat the far end of it.

  Now if this ram had chosen to behave himself, as a ram in respectablesociety ought to, it would have saved me a deal of trouble, and the ramsome danger. But no sooner had the train started than the obstreperousbrute began to bob his head and stamp his feet at me and my companionsin the most ominous way.

  Luckily the dogs were coupled; I could thus more easily command them.But no sooner had the ram begun to stamp and bob, than both dogscommenced to growl, and wanted to fly straight at him. "Let us killthat insolent ram," said Nero, "who dares to stamp and nod at us."

  "Yes," cried Aileen, "happy thought! let us kill him."

>   I was ten minutes in that van before the train pulled up, ten minutesduring which I had to exercise all the tact of a great general in orderto keep the peace. Had the ram, who was just as eager for the fray asthe dogs, succeeded in breaking his fastenings, hostilities would havecommenced instantly, and I would have been powerless.

  By good luck the train stopped in time to prevent a catastrophe, and wegot out, but for nearly a week, as a result of my struggle with thedogs, I ached all over and felt as limp as a stranded jelly-fish.

  CHAPTER THREE.

  CONTAINING THE STORY OF ONE OF AILEEN'S FRIENDS.

  "The straw-thatched cottage, or the desert air, To him's a palace if his master's there."

  Just eighteen months after the events mentioned in last chapter, asnovelists say, things took a turn for the better, and we retired alittle farther into the country into a larger house. A bigger