In Touch with Nature: Tales and Sketches from the Life

“Isn’t it first-rate?” Dumps seemed to say; “fancy being back again among you all; and how is the grass, and how is the rose-tree, and how is the dumpling?”

When we returned at last to the parlour, the parson glanced at his family and burst out laughing, and the members of his family looked at each other and laughed too. And no wonder, for what with the rain, and the coal-dust of the pony’s neck, I never before or since have seen a family of faces that more needed washing.

But what did that signify? Wasn’t Dumps in the stable once more?

Chapter Fourteen.

A Quiet Evening – Rover’s Experience

“Lo! in the painted oriel of the west,
Whose panes the sunken sun incardines,
Like a fair lady at her casement shines
The Evening Star, the star of love and rest.”

    Longfellow.
“I can’t see them,” said Frank.

“Nor I either,” was my answer.

The sun had gone down some time ago, not as the song says:

“The sun has gone down o’er the lofty Ben Lomond,
And left the red clouds to preside o’er the scene.”

There were no red clouds worth the name, only far up in the west a few scarlet feathers. But projecting straight up into the heavens from the spot where Sol had sunk in a yellow haze, was one broad beam or ray. It looked strange, weird-like, and it remained for quite a long time. Meanwhile an orange flush of intense depth spread all along the horizon, and the pine-trees on the distant hills were etched out in darkest ink against it; higher up was all sea-green, then blue, and here shone the evening star.

We had the front door of the caravan open. Frank sat on the driver’s seat – the horses were sung in stable, bedded up to the knees – and I and the children lay among the rugs on the coupé. Our coupé, mind you, was quite a verandah.

How very still it was, how beautiful was the scenery all around us! We were far north of Dunkeld, we had toiled through the pass of Kiliecrankie, and were on the verge of one of the loneliest passes of the Grampian range.

There was hardly a sound to be heard, except the monotonous drowsy hum of a waterfall, hidden among those solemn pine-trees in the glen close adjoining.

“No,” continued Frank, “they won’t come out.”

“What is it?” said Maggie May.

“That tall ray of sunshine,” I answered, “is the nearest approach to what we in Greenland call sun-dogs, and Frank and I were looking for them.”

“What are sun-dogs?”

“A strange kind of mirage, Maggie May, in which the sun is reflected four times in the sky, so that you can actually see four or even five suns – that is, one real, and four unreal.”

“Now,” said Ida, “tell me a stoly.”

“And me a story too,” said Maggie May.

“Get your fiddle and play, Frank.”

Frank did so, and sang too, but the children would not be put off, so I had to begin.

“It is about a little dog – a spaniel, Ida – and it is the poor little fellow himself that is supposed to be speaking. Do you understand?”

“I twite understand; go on.”

Rover’s Experience.

“I’m not tired,” said Rover, for that was the dog’s name, “and I’m not sad, though I sigh – at least, not very sad.”

“O,” he continued aloud, his brown eyes dilating with earnestness, as he began to tell his story, “it was not my dear old master’s fault that he parted with me. He was poor, and tempted by a large price; and the tears coursed down his cheeks as he bade me farewell. I could see them, though he tried to hide them.”

“‘Good-bye, dear old Rover,’ he said, ‘you will be happy where you are.’ The luxury of tears is denied to dogs, but, O! what a big choking lump was at my throat, as, led by a string, I went away with my new master.

“I tried to do my duty by him at first, although I could see he was empty, vain, and foolish. He gave me a new name, he bought me a new collar, such a fine one, and he bought a new silver-mounted whip – dear old master never used a whip. He bought something else —he bought a muzzle!

“‘This,’ he said, shaking it at me and smiling, ‘is to put on you in the dog days, my boy.’

“I shuddered. This man, then, believed in the old worn-out fallacy and superstition that dogs go mad in the dog days. From that very moment I determined to leave him. I would not return to my old master. No; I would not pain him by proofs of my disobedience, but I would go somewhere – anywhere away from the cruelty that now surrounded me. It was the cruelty of ignorance – the cruelty, I might say, of luxury – for my kennel was superb, the dish from which I lapped my milk was china, my chain was of polished steel; but had it been of the purest gold it was still a chain, a fetter. And, alas! while I had plenty of the best meat and bones to eat, I often lacked bread; and although my milk was brought fresh every morning, I often wanted water. All my master cared about was to hear me praised and called beautiful.

“My relief came at last. I was taken down to the copse one day in June; my master had his gun.

“‘See now, good dog,’ he said, ‘if you can’t start a rabbit. In you go.’

“‘With all the joy in life,’ I replied, speaking with my tail. But it is not given to men like him to understand the language of dogs.

“I plunged into the copse, and my master started to walk round and watch. He may be walking round and watching till this day for anything I know, or care. I did not go far till I sat down, to enjoy, to drink in a portion of the life, the freedom, and the joy everywhere around me.

“It was in a little glade carpeted with meadow grass and wild flowers, many with pink eyes peeping through the green, many with blue; then there were tall branching ferns and trailing white-blossomed brambles, and glittering buttercups, starry-flowered fairy bedstraw, and the modest little crow-pea that rivalled the buttercups in richness of yellow. Down in this quiet copse the nightingale and blackcap still trilled their song, and gorgeous birds and butterflies innumerable flew hither and thither, all so happy in their freedom.

“‘Don’t leave the copse till nightfall,’ said a sweet bell-like voice that proceeded from a beautiful moth deep hid among the crow-peas, ‘don’t leave till nightfall – we never do; don’t leave, don’t leave – ’ I heard no more; slumber stole over me, a slumber more sweet than any I had enjoyed for many months; and when I awoke the stars were all out, and a lovely moon, and the moths were floating and dancing among the elder blossoms. It was very dreary in that copse, and when I heard the distant village clock chime out the hour of midnight and the owl hoot mournfully, I felt frightened, for all dogs are superstitious.

“Flap! flap! flap! At that moment a great owl flew right over the glade, and I started and ran, and never pulled up until I was miles upon miles away from that eerie, dreary copse.

“I got to a highway at last, and went straight on, and on, and on; but towards morning, when the stars began to pale, I forsook this road, and took once more to the wilds, keeping the direction in which I knew London to lie, for that I determined should be my destination. I had been running since midnight, and was now very tired and very hungry, and glad enough I was, you may be sure, when I came to a humble cottage, from the roof of which the smoke was curling. Here a woman gave me a little milk to drink, and would fain have caught me afterwards; but, though not ungrateful, I was too near the place from which I had escaped; and so I ran on again once more.

“All that day I slept under a wreath of newly mown hay, until the stars once more shone out that I thought were to guide me on to London. Then I had the good fortune to find a plentiful repast, in the shape of a young rabbit. Part of it I ate, and part I took along with me.

“Towards morning I was in quite a wild country. There was not a house to be seen, save one shepherd’s hut, and this I determined to avoid; but Fate willed it otherwise. I caught my leg in a trap that had been set for a fox. How can people be so cruel! My limb was frightfully lacerated, and when towards evening the shepherd’s boy came to my relief, I expected nothing but death. How different was the treatment I received at the hands of the dear boy who found me! He carried me away to his mother’s cot, and for weeks between the two of them they tended and fed me as if I had been a baby. The food I had may have been rough. What of that? I had it regularly, and my drink was the pure water from the neighbouring rill. When at last I was able to follow my kind young protector away over the wild moorland after his fleecy flock, O! I don’t think there could have been a much happier dog than I. I could have lived there for ever. But happiness will not, cannot, last in his world. One day a bird-catcher came over the moor. I went to look at him, he threw me a piece of meat and I ate it. I remembered no more until I found myself tied by the neck with a rope, and the blackness of darkness everywhere about me. How I blamed my greed in not having been contented with the kindly fare my humble master and mistress never failed to place before me. But my life with this bird-catcher was of short duration; he sold me, and before many months were over I was re-sold, and sold and sold again. Sometimes I was owned by rich, sometimes by poor; at times I slept in stables, at times on beds of down; but I cannot say I ever was happy. I was seldom fed with regularity either – indeed, the time on any day at which I dined was merely chance; my water, whenever I had a dish, was seldom pure; and as for exercise, I had to take it whenever I could. Folk little think how cruel such treatment as this is, but the time is coming when they will know, although my poor bones will then be mouldering in the dust. We have but a short life, we poor doggies. I think those who own us, and whom we love and try to serve so faithfully, might often be a little kinder to us than they are. But there – I will not sadden this happy meeting by one word of complaint. The last master I had was one of the best of all, but even he was thoughtless, and I determined if I had the chance to leave him. That chance came. It came with Christmas Eve. I could see that preparations were being made to send me away, and to my joy I heard more than once mention of the name of London. Finally, I was led to the station and consigned to the tender mercies of the railway officials. Never shall I forget the horrors of that journey, for instead of putting me in a clean hamper, properly directed as he ought to have done, my master simply sent me off on a collar and chain. So I was thrust into a terrible box, called ‘the boot,’ with at each end of it a grating; the way was long, the night was piercing cold, I had neither food nor water, nor straw to lie upon, and the wind whistled over me till my very bones felt frozen. But, worse than all, I had to change carriages towards morning. I was taken out, therefore, and tied up at the station at a corner, where the wind blew most fiercely, and the whirling snow almost choked me. The snow was all the refreshment I had for many, many hours; so there I starved and shivered all the livelong day. Rosy-cheeked, happy-looking children and people in holiday attire brushed past me, friends met friends; there were laughing and gaiety and joy on all sides, but no one looked towards poor me. Yes, forgive me if I forgot thee, dear mild-eyed gentle woman, you came and stood in front of me, and I could see a tear quiver for a moment, ere it fell on my head. This dear lady, whom I never saw again, opened her bag and gave me to eat.

“At length came a porter, a rough, hard-handed, cruel man, and undid my chain, but my poor limbs were quite paralysed, and refused to move.

“‘Come, you must,’ he cried, and kicked me.

“But I could not; then he dragged me along on my side by the chain; I was choking, my eyes were starting from their sockets, when at last my champion came.

“Only a railway guard – only a big, burly, bine-coated, brass-buttoned railway guard – but as, lamp in hand, he stood there, square-shouldered and erect, glancing with indignant eyes at the wretched cowering porter, he seemed all a hero.

“‘How dare you use a dog in that way?’ he cried.

“Then he took me in his arms and carried me into his own van, and gave me a bed of warm straw. Heaven bless his brown beard, wherever he is; but for him I should have died.