Aileen Aroon, A Memoir
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benches, and was generallyadmitted to be the largest and most handsome of her breed and sex everexhibited.--The Author.
CHAPTER TWO.
INTRODUCING AILEEN AROON.
"With eye upraised his master's looks to scan, The joy, the solace, and the aid of man, The rich man's guardian, and the poor man's friend, The only creature faithful to the end."
Crabbe.
"The Newfoundland, take him all in all, is unsurpassed, and possibly unequalled as the companion of man."--_Idstone_.
"These animals are faithful, good-natured, and friendly. They will allow no one to injure either their master or his property, however great be the danger. They only want the faculty of speech to make their good wishes understood."--"_Newfoundland Dogs_," in _McGregor's "Historical and Descriptive Sketches of British America_."
_Dog Barks_. Shepherd.--"Heavens! I could hae thocht that was `Bronte.'"
_Christopher North_.--"No bark like his, James, now belongs to the world of sound."
_Shepherd_.--"Purple black was he all over, as the raven's wing. Strength and sagacity emboldened his bounding beauty, but a fierceness lay deep down within the quiet lustre of his eye, that tauld ye, had he been angered he could hae torn in pieces a lion."
_North_.--"Not a child of three years old and upwards in the neighbourhood that had not hung by his mane, and played with his paws, and been affectionately worried by him on the flowery greensward."--"_Noctes Ambrosianae_."
"Heigho!" I sighed, as I sat stirring the fire one evening in ourlittle cosy cottage. "So that little dream is at an end."
"Twenty guineas," said my wife, opening her eyes in sad surprise."Twenty guineas! It is a deal of money, dear."
"Yes," I assented, "it is a deal of money for us. Not, mind you, thatSable isn't worth double. She has taken the highest honours on the showbenches; her pedigree is a splendid one, and all the sporting papers areloud in her praises. She is the biggest and grandest Newfoundland everseen in this country. But twenty guineas! Yes, that is a deal ofmoney."
"I wish I could make the money with my needle, dear," my wife remarked,after a few minutes' silence.
"I wish I could make the money with my pen, Dot," I replied; "but I feareven pen and needle both together won't enable us to afford so great aluxury for some time to come. There are bills that must be paid; bothbaker and butcher would soon begin to look sour if they didn't get whatthey call their little dues."
"Yes," said Dot, "and there are these rooms to be papered and painted."
"To say nothing of a new carpet to be bought," I said, "and oilcloth forthe lobby, and seeds for the garden."
"Yes, dear," said my wife, "and that American rocking-chair that you'veset your heart upon."
"Oh, that can wait, Dot. There are plenty other things needed more thanthat. But it is quite evident, Sable is out of the question for thepresent."
I looked down as I spoke, and patted the head of my championNewfoundland Theodore Nero, who had entered unseen and was gazing up inmy face with his bonnie hazel eyes as if he comprehended every word ofthe conversation.
"Poor Nero," I said, "I _should_ have liked to have had Sable just to bea mate and companion for you, old boy."
The great dog looked from me to my wife, and back again at me, andwagged his enormous tail.
"I've got you, master," he seemed to say, "and my dear mistress. Whatmore could I wish?"
Just as I pen these lines, gentle reader, two little toddlers are cominghome from forenoon school, with slates under their arms; but when theabove conversation took place, no toddlers were on the books, as theysay in the navy. We were not long married. It was nine long years ago,or going on that way. The previous ten years of my life had been spentat sea; but service in Africa had temporarily ruined my health, so thatinvaliding on a modicum of half-pay seemed more desirable than activeservice on full.
These were the dear old days of poverty and romance. Retirement fromactive duty afloat and--marriage. It is too often the case that he whomarries for love has to work for siller. Henceforward, literature wasto be my staff, if not the crutch on which I should limp along until "mytalents should be recognised," as my wife grandly phrased it.
"Poor and content is rich, and rich enough," says the greatest Williamthat ever lived. There is nothing to be ashamed of in poverty, and justas little to boast about. Naval officers who retire young are all poor.I know some who once upon a time were used to strut the quarter-deck orship's bridge in blue and gold, and who are now, God help them, sellingtea or taking orders for wine.
"With all my worldly goods I thee endow." I squeezed the hand of mybride at the altar as I spoke the words, and well she knew the pressurewas meant to recall to her mind a fact of which she was alreadycognisant, that "all my worldly goods" consisted of a Cremona fiddle,and my Newfoundland dog, and my old sea-chest; but the bottom of thatwas shaky.
But to resume my story.
"Hurrah!" I shouted some mornings after, as I opened the letters."Here's news, Dot. We're going to have Sable after all. Hear how D.O'C writes. He says--
"`Though I have never met you, judging from what I have seen of yourwritings, I would rather you accepted Sable as a gift, than that any oneelse should have my favourite for money,' and so on and so forth."
These are not the exact words of the letter, but they convey the exactmeaning.
Sable was to come by boat from Ireland, and I was to go to Bristol, adistance of seventy miles, to meet her, for no one who values the lifeand limbs of a dog, would trust to the tender mercies of the railwaycompanies.
"I'll go with you, Gordon," said my dear friend, Captain D--. Likemyself, he had been a sailor, but unmarried, for, as he used to expressit, "he had pulled up in time." He had taken _Punch's_ advice to peopleabout to marry--"Don't."
Captain D--didn't.
"Well, Frank," I said, "I'll be very glad indeed of your company."
So off we started the night before, for the boat would be in the basinat Hotwells early the next morning. The scene and the din on board thatIrish boat beggars description, and I do not know which made the mostnoise, the men or the pigs. I think if anything the pigs did. Itseemed to me that evil spirits had entered into the pigs, and theywanted to throw themselves into the sea. I believe evil spirits hadentered into the men, too; some of them, at all events, _smelt_ of evilspirits.
"Is it a thremendeous big brute 'av a black dog you've come to meet,sorr?" said the cook to me.
"Yes," I replied, "a big black dog, but not a brute."
"Well, poor baste, sorr, it's in my charge she has been all the way, andshe's had lashin's to ate and to drink. Thank you koindly, sir, and Godbless your honour. Yonder she is, sorr, tied up foreninst thehorse-box, and she's been foighting with the pigs all the noight, sorr."
She certainly had been fighting with the pigs, for she herself waswounded, and the ears of some of the pigs were in tatters.
Sable was looking very sour and sulky. She certainly had not relishedthe company she had been placed among. She permitted me to lead her onshore; then she gave me one glance, and cast one towards my friend.
"You'll be the _man_ that has come for me," she said; she did not say"the gentleman."
"Who is your fat friend?" she added.
We both caressed her without eliciting the slightest token on her partof any desire to improve our acquaintance.
"You may pat me," she told us, "and call me pet names as much as youplease. I won't bite you as I did the pigs, but I don't care a bone foreither of you, and, what is more, I never intend to. I have left myheart in Ireland; my master is there."
"Come on, Sable," I said; "we'll go now and have some breakfast."
"Don't pull," said Sable; "I'm big enough to break the chain and bolt ifI wish to. I'll go with you, but I'll neither be dragged nor driven."
No dog ever had a better breakfast put before her, but she would notdeign even to look at it.
"Yes," she
seemed to say, "it is very nice, and smells appetising, andI'm hungry, too; a bite of a sow's ear is all I've had since I lefthome; but for all that I don't mean to eat; I'm going to starve myselfto death, that is what I'm going to do."
It is very wrong and unfair to bring home any animal, whether bird orbeast, to one's house without having previously made everything needfulready for its reception. Sable's comfort had not been forgotten, and onher arrival we turned her into the back yard,