Aileen Aroon, A Memoir
Page 11
all over--in fact, he was just about the colour of gravel in thegloaming; I am quite sure of this, because when he went out with meabout the twilight hour, I couldn't see him any more than if he wasn'tin existence; when it grew a little darker, strange to say, Dolls becamevisible once more.
Plenty of coat had Dolls too. You could have hidden a glove under hismane, and nobody been a bit the wiser. When he sat on one end, gazingsteadfastly up into a tree, from which some independent pussy staredsaucily down upon him, Dolls looked for all the world like a doggieimage draped in a little blanket.
Dolls had a habit of treeing pussies. This, indeed, was about the onlybad trait in Dolls' character. He hated a pussy more than sour milk,and nobody knew this better than the pussies themselves. Probably,indeed, they were partly to blame for maintaining the warfare. I'veseen a cat in a tree, apparently trying her very best to mesmerise poorDolls--Dolls blinking funnily up at her, she gazing cunningly down.There they would sit and sit, till suddenly down to the ground wouldspring pussy, and with a warlike and startling "Fuss!" that quite tookthe doggie's breath away, and made all his hair stand on end, cloutMaster Dolls in the face, and before that queer wee specimen of caninitycould recover his equanimity, disappear through a neighbouring hedgerow.
Now cats have a good deal more patience than dogs. Sometimes on comingtrotting home of an evening, Dolls would find a cat perched up in thepear-tree sparrow-expectant.
"Oh! _you're_ there, are you?" Dolls would say. "Well, I'm not in anyparticular hurry, I can easily wait a bit." And down he would sit, withhis head in the air.
"All right, Dolls, my doggie," Pussy would reply. "I've just eaten asparrow, and not long ago I had a fine fat mouse, and, milk with it, andnow I'll have a nap. Nice evening, isn't it?"
Well, Master Dolls would watch there, maybe for one hour and maybe fortwo, by which time his patience would become completely exhausted.
"You're not worth a wag of my tail," Dolls would say. "So good-night."Then off he would trot.
But Dolls wasn't a beauty, by any manner of means. I don't thinkanybody who wasn't an admirer of doormats, and a connoisseur in heatherbesoms could have found much about Dolls to go into raptures over, but,somehow or other, the little chap always managed to find friendswherever he went.
Dolls was a safe doggie with children, that is, with well-dressed,clean-looking children, but with the gutter portion of the populationDolls waged continual warfare. Doubtless, because they teased him, andmade believe to throw pebbles at him, though I don't think they ever didin reality.
Dolls was a great believer in the virtues of fresh air, and spent muchof his time out of doors. He had three or four houses, too, in thevillage which he used to visit regularly once, and sometimes twice, aday. He would trot into a kitchen with a friendly wag or two of hislittle tail, which said, plainly enough, "Isn't it wet, though?" or"Here is jolly weather just!"
"Come away, Dolls," was his usual greeting.
Thus welcomed, Dolls would toddle farther in, and seat himself by thefire, and gaze dreamily in through the bars at the burning coals,looking all the while as serious as possible.
I've often wondered, and other people used to wonder too, what Dollscould have been thinking about as he sat thus. Perhaps--like many awiser head--he was building little morsels of castles in the air,castles that would have just the same silly ending as yours or mine,reader--wondering what he should do if he came to be a great bigbouncing dog like Wolf the mastiff; how all the little doggies wouldcrouch before him, and how dignified he would look as he strodehaughtily away from them; and so on, and so forth. But perhaps, afterall, Dolls was merely warming his mite of a nose, and not giving himselfup to any line of thought in particular.
Now, it wasn't with human beings alone that this doggie was a favourite;and what I am now going to mention is rather strange, if not funny. Yousee, Dolls always got out early in the morning. There was a greatnumber of other little dogs in the village besides himself--poodles,Pomeranians, and Skyes, doggies of every denomination and all shades ofcolour, and many of these got up early too. There is no doubt earlymorn is the best time for small dogs, because little boys are not yetup, and so can't molest them. Well, it did seem that each of thesedoggies, almost every morning, made up its mind to come and visit Dolls.At all events, most of them _did_ come, and, therefore, Dolls was wontto hold quite a tiny _levee_ on the lawn shortly after sunrise.
After making obeisance to General Dolls, these doggies would formthemselves into a _conversazione_, and go promenading round therose-trees in twos and twos.
Goodness only knows what they talked about; but I must tell you thatthese meetings were nearly always of a peaceable, amicable nature. Onlyonce do I remember a _conversazione_ ending in a general conflict.
"Well," said Dolls, "if it _is_ going to be a free fight, I'm in withyou." Then Dolls threw himself into it heart and soul.
But to draw the story of Dolls to a conclusion, there came to live nearmy cottage home an old sailor, one of Frank's friends. This ancientmariner was one of the Tom Bowling type, for the darling of many a crewhe had been in his time, without doubt. There was good-nature, combinedwith pluck, in every lineament of his manly, well-worn, red and rosycountenance, and his hair was whitened--not by the snows of well-nighsixty winters, for I rather fancy it was the summers that did it, thesummers' heat, and the _bearing of_ the brunt of many a tempest, and theanxiety inseparable from a merchant skipper's pillow. There was a merrytwinkle in his eyes, that put you mightily in mind of the monks of old.And when he gave you his hand, it was none of your half-and-half shakes,let me tell you; that there was honesty in every throb of that man'sheart you could tell from that very grasp.
Yes, he was a jolly old tar, and a good old tar; and he hadn't seenDolls and been in his company for two hours, before he fell in love withthe dog downright, and, says he, "Doctor, you want a good home forDolls; there is something in the little man's eye that I a sort of like.As long as he sails with me, he'll never want a good bed, nor a gooddinner; so, if you'll give him to me, I'll be glad to take him."
We shook hands.
Now this was to be the last voyage that ever that ancient mariner meantto make, until he made that long voyage which we all must do one ofthese days. And it _was_ his last too; not, however, in the way yougenerally read of in stories, for the ship didn't go down, and he wasn'tdrowned, neither was Dolls. On the contrary, my friend returned,looking as hale and hearty as ever, and took a cottage in the country,meaning to live happily and comfortably ever after. And almost thefirst intimation I received of his return was carried by the doggiehimself, for going out one fine morning, I found Dolls on the lawn,surrounded as usual, by about a dozen other wee doggies, to whom, fromtheir spellbound look, I haven't a doubt he was telling the story of hiswonderful adventures by sea and by land, for, mind you, Dolls had beenall the way to Calcutta. And Dolls was so happy to see me again, andthe lawn, and the rose-trees, and vagrant pussies, and no change inanything, that he was fain to throw himself at my feet and weep in theexuberance of his joy.
Dolls' new home was at H--, just three miles from mine; and this issomewhat strange--regularly, once a month the little fellow would trotover, all by himself, and see me. He remained in the garden one wholeday, and slept on the doormat one whole night, but could never beinduced either to _enter the house or to partake of food_. So no onecould accuse Dolls of cupboard love. When the twenty-four hours whichhe allotted to himself for the visit were over, Dolls simply trottedhome again, but, as sure as the moon, he returned again in anothermonth.
A bitter, bitter winter followed quickly on the heels of that pleasantsummer of 187--. The snow fell fast, and the cold was intense,thermometer at times sinking below zero. You could ran the thrushesdown, and catch them by hand, so lifeless were they; and I could showyou the bushes any day where blackbirds dropped lifeless on theirperches. Even rooks came on to the lawn to beg; they said there wasn'ta hip nor a haw to be found in all the countryside.
And robin said hecouldn't sing at all on his usual perch, the frost and the wind quitetook his breath away; so he came inside to warm his toes.
One wild stormy night, I had retired a full hour sooner to rest, for thewind had kept moaning so, as it does around a country house. The windmoaned, and fiercely shook the windows, and the powdery snow sifted inunder the hall-door, in spite of every arrangement to prevent it. Imust have been nearly asleep, but I opened my eyes and started at_that_--a plaintive cry, rising high over the voice of the wind, anddying away again in mournful cadence. Twice it was repeated, then Iheard no more. It must have been the wind whistling through thekeyhole, I thought, as I sunk to sleep. Perhaps it was, reader; butearly next morning I found poor wee Dolls dead on the