Aileen Aroon, A Memoir
Page 58
over to the clergyman to buybooks and magazines.
"So the winter passed more quickly and cheerfully than any one everremembered a winter to pass before, and summer came once more.
"It would need volumes, not pages, to tell of all poor Sindbad's cleverways. Indeed, he became quite the village dog; he would go errands forany one, and always went to the right shop with his basket. Everymorning, with a penny in his mouth, he went trotting away to thecarrier's and bought a paper for his master; after that he was free toromp and play all the livelong day with the children on the beach. Itmight be said of Sindbad as Professor Wilson said of his beautifuldog--`_Not_ a child of three years old and upwards in the neighbourhoodthat had not hung by his mane and played with his paws, and beenaffectionately worried by him on the flowery greensward.'
"Another winter went by quite as cheerily as the last, and the strangerwas by this time as much a favourite as his dog. The villagers hadfound out now that he was not by any means a rich man, although he hadenough to live on; but they liked him none the less for that.
"The Easter moon was full, and even on the wane, for it did not, at thetime I refer to, rise till late in the evening. A gale had been blowingall day, the sea was mountains high, for the wind roared wildly from offthe broad Atlantic. One hundred years ago, if the truth must be told,the villagers of Penellan would have welcomed such a gale; it mightbring them wealth. They had been wreckers.
"Every one was about retiring for rest, when boom boom! from out of thedarkness seaward came the roar of a minute gun. Some great ship was onthe rocks not far off. Boom! and no assistance could be given. Therewas no rocket, no lifeboat, and no ordinary boat could live in that sea.Boom! Everybody was down on the beach, and ere long the great red moonrose and showed, as had been expected, the dark hull of a ship fast onthe rocks, with her masts gone by the board, and the sea making a cleanbreach over her. The villagers were brave; they attempted to launch aboat. It was staved, and dashed back on the beach.
"`Come round to the point, men,' cried the stranger. `I will sendSindbad with a line.'
"The point was a rocky promontory almost to windward of the strandedvessel.
"The mariners on board saw the fire lighted there, and they saw thatpreparations of some kind were being made to save them, and at last theydiscerned some dark object rising and falling on the waves, but steadilyapproaching them. It was Sindbad; the piece of wood he bore in hismouth had attached to it a thin line.
"For a long time--it seemed ages to those poor sailors--the dogstruggled on and on towards them. And now he is alongside.
"`Good dog!' they cry, and a sailor is lowered to catch the morsel ofwood. He does so, and tries hard to catch the dog as well. But Sindbadhas now done his duty, and prepares to swim back.
"Poor faithful, foolish fellow! if he had but allowed the sea to carryhim towards the distant beach. But no; he must battle against it withthe firelight as his beacon.
"And in battling _he died_.
"But communication was effected by Sindbad betwixt the ship and theshore, and all on board were landed safely.
"Need I tell of the grief of that dog's master? Need I speak of thesorrow of the villagers? No; but if you go to Penellan, if you inquireabout Sindbad, children even yet will show you his grave, in a greennook near the beach, where the crimson sea-pinks bloom.
"And older folk will point you out `the gentleman's grave' in the oldchurchyard. He did not _very_ long survive Sindbad.
"The grey-bearded old pilchard fisherman who showed it to me only twosummers ago, when I was there, said--
"`Ay, sir! there he do lie, and the sod never hid a warmer heart thanhis. The lifeboat, sir? Yes, sir, it's down yonder; his money boughtit. There is more than me, sir, has shed a tear over him. You see, weweren't charitable to him at first. Ah, sir! what a blessed thingcharity do be!'"
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.
A SHORT, BECAUSE A SAD ONE.
"Why do summer roses fade, If not to show how fleeting All things bright and fair are made, To bloom awhile as half afraid To join our summer greeting?"
"Now," said Frank one evening to me, "a little change is all that isneeded to make the child as well again as ever she was in her life."
"I think you are right, Frank," was my reply; "change will do it--a fewweeks' residence in a bracing atmosphere; and it would do us all goodtoo; for of course you would be of the party, Frank?"
"I'll go with you like a shot," said this honest-hearted, blunt oldsailor.
"What say you, then, to the Highlands?"
"Just the thing," replied Frank. "Just the place--
"`My heart's in the Hielans. My heart is not here; My heart's in the Hielans, chasing the deer; Chasing the wild deer and following the roe-- My heart's in the Hielans, wherever I go.'"
"Bravo! Frank," I cried; "now let us consider the matter as practicallysettled. And let us go in for division of labour in the matter ofpreparation for this journey due north. You two old folks shall do thepacking and all that sort of thing, and Ida and I will--get thetickets."
And, truth to tell, that is really all Ida and myself did do; but weknew we were in good hands, and a better caterer for comfort on ajourney, or a better baggage-master than Frank never lived.
He got an immense double kennel built for Aileen and Nero; all the otherpets were left at home under good surveillance, not even a cat beingforgotten. This kennel, when the dogs were in it, took four good menand true to lift it, and the doing so was as good as a Turkish bath toeach of them.
We had a compartment all to our four selves, and as we travelled bynight, and made a friend of the burly, brown-bearded guard, the dogs hadwater several times during the journey, and we human folks were neveronce disturbed until we found ourselves in what Walter Scott calls--
"My own romantic town."
A week spent in Edinburgh in the sweet summer-time is something to dreamabout ever after. We saw everything that was to be seen, from theCastle itself to Greyfriars' Bobby's monument, and the quiet corner inwhich he sleeps.
Then onward we went to beautiful and romantic Perth. Then on toCallander and Doune. At the latter place we visited the romantic ruincalled Doune Castle, where my old favourite Tyro is buried. InPerthshire we spent several days, and once had the good or bad fortuneto get storm-stayed at a little wayside hotel or hostelry, where we hadstopped to dine. The place seemed a long way from anywhere. I'm notsure that it wasn't at the back of the north wind; at all events, therewas neither cab nor conveyance to be had for love nor money, and aScotch mist prevailed--that is, the rain came down in streams as solidand thick as wooden penholders. So we determined to make the best ofmatters and stay all night; the little place was as clean as clean couldbe, and the landlady, in mutch of spotless white, was delighted at theprospect of having us.
She heaped the wood on the hearth as the evening glome began to descend;the bright flames leapt up and cast great shadows on the wall behind us,and we all gathered round the fire, the all including Nero and Aileen;the circle would not have been complete without them.
No, thank you, we told the landlady, we wouldn't have candles; it wasever so much cosier by the light of the fire. But, by-and-by, we wouldhave tea.
Despite the Scotch mist, we spent a very happy evening. Ida was morethan herself in mirth and merriment; her bright and joyous face was atreat to behold. She sang some little simple Highland song to us thatwe never knew she had learned; she said she had picked it up on purpose;and then she called on Frank to "contribute to the harmony of theevening"--a phrase she had learned from the old tar himself.
"Me!" said Frank; "bless you, you would all run out if I began to sing."
But we promised to sit still, whatever might happen, and then we got the"Bay of Biscay" out of him, and he gave it that genuine, true sea-ringand rhythm, that no landsman, in my opinion, can imitate. As he sang,in fact, you could positively imagine you were on the deck of thatstorm-tossed ship, with her tattered c
anvas fluttering idly in thebreeze, her wave-riddled bulwarks, and wet and slippery decks. Youcould see the shivering sailors clinging to shroud or stay as the greenseas thundered over the decks; you could hear the wind roaring in therigging, and the hissing boom of the breaking waters, all about andaround you.
He stopped at last, laughing, and--
"Now, Gordon, it is your turn at the wheel," he said. "You must eithersing or tell a story."
"My dear old sailor man," I replied, "I will sing all the evening if youdon't ask me to tell a story."
"But," cried Ida, shaking a merry forefinger at me, "you've got to do_both_, dear."
There were more stories than mine told that night by the "ingleside" ofthat