Aileen Aroon, A Memoir

One evening a large black tom-cat who was a great favourite of mine, and often brought me tit-bits, said to me, “There’s a few of us going out shopping to-night; will you come?”

“I’ll try,” I answered feebly, “for I do feel faint and sick and hungry.”

We tried some fishmongers’ shops first, and were very successful; then we went to another shop. Ill as I was, I could not help admiring the nimble way my Tom, as I called him, sprang on to a counter and helped himself to a whole string of delicious sausages. I tried to emulate Tom’s agility, but oh, dear! I missed my footing and fell down into the very jaws of a terrible dog.

How I got away I never could tell, but I did; and wounded and bleeding sorely, I managed to drag myself down a quiet street and into a garden, and there, under a bush, I lay down to die. It was pitilessly cold, and the rain beat heavily down, and the great drops fell through the bush and drenched me to the skin. Then the cold and pain seemed all at once to leave me. I had fallen into an uneasy doze, and I was being chased once more by dogs with large eyes and faces, up and down in long wet streets where the gas flickered, through many a muddy pool. Then I thought I found myself once again in the fields near my own home, with the sun brightly shining and the birds making the air ring with their music. Then I heard a gentle voice saying —

“Now, Mary, I think that will do. The cheese-box and cushion make such a fine bed for her; and when she awakes give the poor thing that drop of warm milk and sugar.”

I did awake, and was as much surprised as pleased to find myself in a nice snug room, and lying not far from the fire. A neatly-dressed servant-girl was kneeling near me, and not far off a lady dressed in black sat sewing.

This, then, was my new mistress, and —I was saved. How different she was from poor Miss Laura, who, you know, did not mean to be cruel to me. This lady was very, very kind to me, though she made but little fuss about it. Her thoughtfulness for all my comforts and her quiet caresses soon wooed me back again to life, and now I feel sure I am one of the happiest cats alive. I am not dirty and disreputable now, nor is my fur matted. I am no longer a thief, for I do not need to steal. My mistress has a canary, but I would not touch it for worlds – indeed, I love to hear it sing, although its music is not half so sweet to me as that of the teakettle. Of an evening when the gas is lighted, and a bright fire burning in the grate, we all sing together – that is, the kettle, canary, and myself. They say I am very beautiful, and I believe they are right, for I have twice taken a prize at a cat show, and hope to win another. And if you go to the next great exhibition of cats, be sure to look for me. I am gentle in face and short in ears, my fur is long, and soft, and silky, and my eyes are as blue as the sea in summer. So you are sure to know me.

Ida sat silent, but evidently thinking, for some time after I had finished.

“That is quite a child’s story, isn’t it?” she said at last.

“Yes,” I replied; “but don’t you like it?”

“Oh yes, I do,” she said – “I like all your stories; so now just tell me one more.”

“No, no,” I cried, “it is quite time we returned; your auntie will be back, and dinner waiting; besides, we have about three miles to walk.”

“Just one little, little tale,” she pleaded.

“Well,” I replied, “it must be a very little, little one, and then we’ll have to run. I shall call the story – ”

Lost; or, Little Nellie’s Favourite

“It was a bitterly cold morning in the month of February, several years ago. How the time does fly, to be sure! Snow had been lying on the ground for weeks, and more had fallen during the night; the wind, too, blew high from the east, and the few passengers who were abroad made the best of their way along the street, I can assure you, and looked as though they would rather be at home and at the fireside. I myself was out in the cold from force of habit. It had long been my custom to take a short walk before breakfast, and as the post-office of our village was only half a mile from my residence, going down for the letters that arrived by the first mail afforded me just sufficient excuse for my early ramble. But on this particular morning, as I was returning homewards, I was very much surprised to find my little friend Nellie May standing at her gate bare-headed, and with her pretty auburn hair blowing hither and thither in the wind.

“‘Why, Nellie, dear!’ I exclaimed, ‘what can have sent you out of the house so early? It is hardly eight o’clock, and the cold will kill you, child.’

“‘I was watching for you, sir,’ said Nellie, looking as serious as a little judge. ‘Do come and tell me what I shall do with this poor dog. He was out in the snow, looking so unhappy, and has now taken up his abode in the shed, and neither Miss Smith nor I can entice him out, or get him to go away. And we are afraid to go near him.’

“I followed Nellie readily enough, and there, lying on a sack, which he had taken possession of, was the dog in question. To all intents and purposes he was of a very common kind. Nobody in his senses would have given sixpence for him, except perhaps his owner, and who that might be was at present a mystery.

“‘Will you turn him out and send him away?’ asked Nellie.

“The dog looked in my face, oh, so pleadingly!

“‘Kind sir,’ he seemed to say, ‘do speak a word for me; I’m so tired, my feet are sore, I’ve wandered far from home, and I am full of grief.’

“‘Send him away?’ I replied to Nellie. ‘No, dear; you wouldn’t, would you, if you thought he was weary, hungry, and in sorrow for his lost mistress? Look how thin he is.’

“‘Oh!’ cried Nellie, her eyes filling with tears, ‘I’ll run and bring him part of my own breakfast.’

“‘Nellie,’ I said, as we parted, ‘be kind to that poor dog; he may bring you good fortune.’

“I do not know even now why I should have made that remark, but events proved that my words were almost prophetic. It was evident that the dog had travelled a very long way; but under Nellie’s tender care he soon recovered health and strength and spirits as well, and from that day for three long years you never would have met the girl unaccompanied by ‘Tray,’ as we called him.

“Now it came to pass that a certain young nobleman came of age, and a great fête was given to his tenantry at P – Park, and people came from quite a long distance to join in it. I saw Nellie the same evening. It had been a day of sorrow for her. Tray had found his long lost mistress.

“‘And, oh, such an ugly little old woman!’ said Nellie almost spitefully, through her tears. ‘Oh, my poor Tray, I’ll never, never see him more!’

“Facts are stranger than fiction, however, and the little old lady whom Nellie thought so ugly adopted her (for she was an orphan), and Nellie became in time very fond of her. The dog Tray, whose real name by the way was Jumbo, had something to do with this fondness, no doubt.

“The old lady is not alive now; but Nellie has been left all she possessed, Jumbo included. He is by this time very, very old; his lips are white with age, he is stiff too, and his back seems all one bone. As to his temper – well, the less I say about that the better, but he is always cross with everybody – except Nellie.”

Chapter Five.
Embodying a Little Tale and a Little Adventure

 
“Reason raise o’er instinct as you can —
In this ’tis Heaven directs, in that ’tis man.”
 

If ever two days passed by without my seeing the portly form of my friend Captain D – , that is Frank, heaving in sight about twelve o’clock noon, round the corner of the road that led towards our cottage, then I at once concluded that Frank either had the gout or was gardening, and whether it were the fit of the gout or merely a fit of gardening, I felt it incumbent upon me to walk over to his house, a distance of little more than two miles, and see him.

Welcome? Yes; I never saw the man yet who could give one a heartier welcome than poor Frank did. He was passionately fond of my two dogs, Nero and Aileen Aroon, and the love was mutual.

But Frank had a dog of his own, “Meg Merrilees” to name, a beautiful and kind-hearted Scotch collie. Most jealous though she was of her master’s affections, she never begrudged the pat and the caress Nero and Aileen had, and, indeed, she used to bound across the lawn to meet and be the first to welcome the three of us.

On the occasion of my visits to Frank, I always stopped and dined with him, spending the evening in merry chatter, and tales of “auld lang syne,” until it was time for me to start off on the return journey.

When I had written anything for the magazines during the day, I made a practice of taking it with me, and reading over the manuscript to my friend, and a most attentive and amused listener he used to be. The following is a little jeu d’esprit which I insert here, for no other reason in the world than that Frank liked it, so I think there must be a little, little bit of humour in it. It is, as will be readily seen, a kind of burlesque upon the show-points and properties of the Skye-terrier. I called the sketch —

“That Skye-Terrier.” – A Burlesque

“He’s a good bred ’un, sir.” This is the somewhat unclassical English with which “Wasp’s” Yorkshire master introduced the puppy to me as he consigned it to my care, in return for which I crossed his hand five times with yellow gold. “And,” he added, “he’s a game ’un besides.”

I knew the former of these statements was quite correct from young Wasp’s pedigree, and of the latter I was so convinced, before a week was over, that I consented to sell him to a parson for the same money I gave for him – and glad enough to get rid of him even then. At this time the youthful Wasp was a mere bundle of black fluff, with wicked blue eyes, and flashing teeth of unusually piercing properties. He dwelt in a distant corner of the parson’s kitchen, in a little square basket or creel, and a servant was told off to attend upon him; and, indeed, that servant had about enough to do. Wasp seemed to know that Annie was his own particular “slavey,” and insisted on her being constantly within hail of him. If she dared to go upstairs, or even to attend the door-bell, Wasp let all the house hear of it, and the poor good-natured girl was glad to run back for peace’ sake. Another thing he insisted on was being conveyed, basket and all, to Annie’s bedroom when she retired for the night. He also intimated to her that he preferred eating the first of his breakfasts at three o’clock every morning sharp, upon pain of waking the parson; his second at four; third at five, and so on until further notice.

I was sorry for Annie.

From the back of his little basket, where he had formed a fortress, garrisoned by Wasp himself, and provisioned with bones, boots, and slippers enough to stand a siege of any length of time, he used to be always making raids and forays on something. Even at this early age the whole aim of his existence seemed to be doing mischief. If he wasn’t tearing Annie’s Sunday boots, it was because he was dissecting the footstool; footstool failing, it was the cat. The poor cat hadn’t a dog’s life with him. He didn’t mind pussy’s claws a bit; he had a way of his own of backing stern on to her which defied her and saved his eyes. When close up he would seize her by the paw, and shake it till she screamed with pain.

I was sorry for the cat.

If you lifted Wasp up in your arms to have a look at him, he flashed his alabaster teeth in your face one moment, and fleshed them in your nose the next. He never looked you straight in the face, but aslant, from the corners of his wicked wee eyes.

In course of time – not Pollok’s – Wasp’s black puppy-hair fell off, and discovered underneath the most beautiful silvery-blue coat ever you saw in your life; but his puppy-manners did not mend in the least. In his case the puppy was the father of the dog, and if anything the son was worse than the father.

Talk of growing, oh! he did grow: not to the height – don’t make any mistake, please; Wasp calculated he was plenty high enough already – but to the length, if you like. And every day when I went down to see him Annie would innocently ask me —

“See any odds on him this morning, doctor?”

“Well, Annie,” I would say, “he really does seem to get a little longer about every second day.”

“La! yes, sir, he do grow,” Annie would reply – “’specially when I puts him before the fire awhile.”

Indeed, Annie assured me she could see him grow, and that the little blanket with which she covered him of a night would never fit in the morning, so that she had to keep putting pieces to it.

As he got older, Wasp used to make a flying visit upstairs to see the parson, but generally came flying down again; for the parson isn’t blessed with the best of tempers, anyhow. Quickly as he returned, Wasp was never down in time to avoid a kick from the clergyman’s boot, for the simple reason that when Wasp’s fore-feet were at the kitchen-door his hindquarters were never much more than half-way down the stairs.

N.B. – I forgot to say that this story may be taken with a grain of salt, if not found spicy enough to the taste.

There was a stove-pipe that lay in a back room; the pipe was about two yards long, more or less. Wasp used to amuse himself by running in at one end of it and out at the other. Well, one day he was amusing himself in this sort of way, when just as he entered one end for the second time, what should he perceive but the hindquarters of a pure-bred Skye just disappearing at the other. (You will please to remember that the stove-pipe was two yards long, more or less.) Day after day Wasp set himself to pursue this phantom Skye, through the pipe and through the pipe, for Wasp couldn’t for the life of him make out why the animal always managed to keep just a little way ahead of him. Still he was happy to think that day after day he was gaining on his foe, so he kept the pot a-boiling. And one day, to his intense joy, he actually caught the phantom by the tail, in the pipe. Joy, did I say? I ought to have said sorrow, for the tail was his own; but, being a game ’un, he wouldn’t give in, but hung on like grim death until the plumber came and split the pipe and relieved him. (Don’t forget the length of the pipe, please.) Even after he was clear he spun round and round like a Saint Catherine’s wheel, until he had to give in from sheer exhaustion. Yes, he was a long dog.

And it came to pass, or was always coming to pass, that he grew, and he grew, and he grew, and the more he grew, the longer and thicker his hair grew, till, when he had grown his full length – and I shouldn’t like to say how long that was – you couldn’t have told which was his head and which was his tail till he barked; and even Annie confessed that she frequently placed his dish down at the wrong end of him. It was funny. If you take half a dozen goat-skins and roll them separately, in cylinders, with the hairy side out, and place them end to end on the floor, you will have about as good an idea of Wasp’s shape and appearance as any I can think about. You know those circular sweeping-machines with which they clean the mud off the country roads? Well, Wasp would have done excellently well as the roller of one of those; and indeed, he just looked like one of them – especially when he was returning from a walk on a muddy morning. It was funny, too, that any time he was particularly wet and dirty, he always came to the front door, and made it a point of duty always to visit the drawing-room to have a roll on the carpet previously to being kicked downstairs.

Getting kicked downstairs was Wasp’s usual method of going below. I believe he came at last to prefer it – it saved time.

Wasp’s virtues as a house-dog were of a very high order: he always barked at the postman, to begin with; he robbed the milkman and the butcher, and bit a half-pound piece out of the baker’s leg. No policeman was safe who dared to live within a hundred yards of him. One day he caught one of the servants of the gas company stooping down taking the state of the metre. This man departed in a very great hurry to buy sticking-plaster and visit his tailor.

I lost sight of Wasp for about six months. At the end of that time I paid the parson a visit. When I inquired after my longitudinal friend, that clergyman looked very grave indeed. He did not answer me immediately, but took two or three vigorous draws at his meerschaum, allowing the smoke to curl upwards towards the roof of his study, and following it thoughtfully with his eyes; then he slowly rose and extracted a long sheet of blue foolscap from his desk, and I imagined he was going to read me a sermon or something.

“Ahem!” said the parson. “I’ll read you one or two casual items of Wasp’s bill, and then you can judge for yourself how he is getting on.”

There is no mistake about it —

Wasp was a “well bred ’un and a game ’un.” At the same time, I was sorry for the parson.

“I am really vexed that it is so dark and wet,” said Frank that night, as he came to the lawn-gate to say good-bye. “I wish I could walk in with you, but my naughty toe forbids; or, I wish I could ask you to stay, but I know your wife and Ida would feel anxious.”

“Indeed they would,” I replied; “they would both be out here in the pony and trap. Good-night; I’ll find my way, and I’ve been wet before to-night.”

“Good-night; God bless you,” from Frank.

Now the lanes of Berkshire are most confusing even by daylight, and cabmen who have known them for years often go astray after dark, and experience considerable difficulty in finding their way to their destination. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that I, almost a stranger to them, should have lost myself on so dark a night.

Aileen Aroon and Nero were coupled together, and from the centre of the short chain depended a small bicycle lamp, which rendered the darkness visible if it did nothing else.

I led the dogs with a leathern strap.

“It is the fourth turning to the right, then the second to the left, and second to the right again; so you are not going that way.”

I made this remark to the dogs, who had stopped at a turning, and wanted to drag me in what I considered the wrong direction.

“The fourth turning, Aileen,” I repeated, forcing them to come with me.

The night seemed to get darker, and the rain heavier every moment, and that fourth turning seemed to have been spirited away. I found it at last, or thought I had done so, then the second to the left, and finally the second to the right.

By this time the lights of the station should have appeared.

They did not. We were lost, and evidently long miles from home. Lost, and it was near midnight. We were cold and wet and weary; at least I was, and I naturally concluded the poor dogs were so likewise.

We tried back, but I very wisely left it to the two Newfoundlands now to find the way if they could.

“Go home,” I cried, getting behind them; and off they went willingly, and at a very rapid pace too.

Over and over again, I felt sure that the poor animals were bewildered, and were going farther and farther astray.

Well, at all events, I was bewildered, and felt still more so when I found myself on the brow of a hill, looking down towards station lights on the right instead of on the left, they ought to have been. They were our station lights, nevertheless, and a quarter of an hour afterwards we were all having supper together, the Newfoundlands having been previously carefully dried with towels. Did ever dogs deserve supper more? I hardly think so.

Chapter Six.
Aileen and Nero – A Dog’s Receipt for Keeping Well – Dog’s in the Snow in Greenland – The Life-Story of Aileen’s Pet, “Fairy Mary.”

 
“Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace.”
 

Simplicity was one of the most prominent traits of Aileen’s character. In some matters she really was so simple and innocent, that she could hardly take her own part. Indeed, in the matter of food, her own part was often taken from her, for any of the cats, or the smaller dogs, thought nothing of helping the noble creature to drink her drop of milk of a morning.

Aileen, when they came to her assistance in this way, would raise her own head from the dish, and look down at them for a time in her kindly way.

“You appear to be very hungry,” she would seem to say, “perhaps more so than I am, and so I’ll leave you to drink it all.”

Then Aileen would walk gently away, and throw herself down beneath the table with a sigh.

There was a time when illness prevented me from leaving my room for many days, but as I had some serials going on in magazines, I could not afford to leave off working; I used, therefore, to write in my bedroom. As soon as she got up of a morning, often and often before she had her breakfast, Aileen would come slowly upstairs. I knew her quiet but heavy footsteps. Presently she would open the door about half-way, and look in. If I said nothing she would make a low and apologetic bow, and when I smiled she advanced.

“I’m not sure if my feet be over clean,” she would seem to say as she put her head on my lap with the usual deep-drawn sigh, “but I really could not help coming upstairs to see how you were this morning.”

Presently I would hear more padded footsteps on the stairs. This was the saucy champion Theodore Nero himself, there could be no mistake about that. He came upstairs two or three steps at a time, and flung the half-open door wide against the wall, then bounded into the room like a June thunderstorm. He would give one quick glance at Aileen.

“Hallo!” he would say, talking with eyes and tail, “you’re here, are you, old girl? Keeping the master company, eh? Well, I’m not very jealous. How goes it this morning, master?”

Nero always brought into the sick-room about a hundredweight at least of jollity, sprightliness, life, and love. It used to make me better to see him, and make me long to be up and about, and out in the dear old pine woods again.

“You always seem to be well and happy, Nero,” I said to him one day; “how do you manage it?”

“Wait,” said Nero, “till I’ve finished this chop bone, and I’ll tell you what you should do in order to be always the same as I am now.”

As there is some good in master Nero’s receipt, I give it here in fall.

A Dog’s Receipt for Keeping Well

“Get up in the morning as soon as the birds begin to sing, and if you’re not on chain, take a good run round the garden. Always sleep in the open air. Don’t eat more breakfast than is good for you, and take the same amount of dinner. Don’t eat at all if you’re not hungry. Eat plenty of grass, or green vegetables, if you like that better. Take plenty of exercise. Running is best; but if you don’t run, walk, and walk, and walk till you’re tired; you will sleep all the better for it. One hour’s sleep after exercise is deeper, and sweeter, and sounder, and more refreshing than five hours induced by port-wine negus. Don’t neglect the bath; I never do. Whenever I see a hole with water in it, I just jump in and swim around, then come out and dance myself dry. Do good whenever you can; I always do. Be brave, yet peaceful. Be generous, charitable, and honest. Never refuse a bit to a beggar, and never steal a bone from a butcher; so shall you live healthfully and happy, and die of the only disease anybody has any right to die of – sheer old age.”

I never saw a dog appreciate a joke better than did poor Nero. He had that habit of showing his teeth in a broad smile, which is common to the Newfoundland and collie.

Here is a little joke that Nero once unintentionally perpetrated. He had a habit of throwing up the gravel with his two immense hinder paws, quite regardless of consequences. A poor little innocent mite of a terrier happened one day to be behind master Nero, when he commenced to scrape. The shower of stones and gravel came like the discharge from a mitrailleuse on the little dog, and fairly threw him on his back. Nero happened to look about at the same time, and noticed what he had done.

“Oh!” he seemed to say as he broke into a broad grin, “this is really too ridiculous, too utterly absurd.”

Then bounding across a ditch and through a hedge, he got into a green field, where he at once commenced his usual plan of working off steam, when anything extra-amusing tickled him, namely, that of running round and round and round in a wide circle. Many dogs race like this, no doubt for this reason: they can by so doing enjoy all the advantages of a good ran, without going any appreciable distance away from where master is. Apropos of dogs gambolling and racing for the evident purpose of getting rid of an extra amount of animal electricity, I give an extract here from a recent book of mine². The sketch is painted from real life.

Dogs in the Snow in Greenland

“The exuberance of great ‘Oscar’s’ joy when out with his master for a walk was very comical to witness. Out for a walk did I say? Nay, that word but poorly expresses the nature of Oscar’s pedal progression. It was not a walk, but a glorious compound of dance, scamper, race, gallop, and gambol. Had you been ever so old it would have made you feel young again to behold him. He knew while Allan was dressing that he meant to go out, and began at once to exhibit signs of impatience. He would yawn and stretch himself, and wriggle and shake; then he would open his mouth, and try to round a sentence in real verbal English, and tailing in this, fall back upon dog language, pure and simple, or he would stand looking at Allan with his beautiful head turned on one side, and his mouth a little open, just sufficiently so to show the tip of his bright pink tongue, and his brown eyes would speak to his master. ‘Couldn’t you,’ the dog would seem to ask – ‘couldn’t you get on your coat a little – oh, ever so little – faster? What can you want with a muffler? I don’t wear a muffler. And now you are looking for your fur cap, and there it is right before your very eyes!’

“‘And,’ the dog would add, ‘I daresay we are off at last,’ and he would hardly give his master time to open the companion door for him.

“But once over the side, ‘Hurrah!’ he would seem to say, then away he would bound, and away, and away, and away, straight ahead as crow could fly, through the snow and through the snow, which rose around him in feathery clouds, till he appeared but a little dark speck in the distance. This race straight ahead was meant to get rid of his super-extra steam. Having expended this, back he would come with a rush, and a run, make pretence to jump his master down, but dive past him at the last moment. Then he would gambol in front of his master in such a daft and comical fashion that made Allan laugh aloud; and, seeing his master laughing, Oscar would laugh too, showing such a double regiment of white, flashing, pearly teeth, that, with the quickness of the dog’s motions, they seemed to begin at his lips and go right away down both sides of him as far as the tail.

“Hurroosh! hurroosh! Each exclamation, reader, is meant to represent a kind of a double-somersault, which I verily believe Oscar invented himself. He performed it by leaping off the ground, bending sideways, and going right round like a top, without touching the snow, with a spring like that of a five-year-old salmon getting over a weir.

“Hurroosh! hurroosh!

“Then Allan would make a grab at his tail.

“‘Oh, that’s your game!’ Oscar would say; ‘then down you go!’

“And down Allan would roll, half buried in the powdery snow, and not be able to get up again for laughing; then away Oscar would rush wildly round and round in a complete circle, having a radius of some fifty yards, with Allan McGregor on his broad back for a centre.”

Theodore Nero was as full of sauciness and chique as ever was an Eton boy home for the holidays, or a midshipman on shore for a cruise. The following anecdote will illustrate his merry sauciness and Aileen’s good-natured simplicity at the same time.

Nero was much quicker in all his motions than Aileen, so that although she never failed to run after my walking-stick, she was never quick enough to find first. Now one day in throwing my stick it fell among a bed of nettles. Nero sprang after it as light as a cork, and brought it out; but having done so, he was fain to put it down on the road till he should rub his nose and sneeze, for the nettles had stung him in a tender part. To see what he would do, I threw the stick again among the nettles. But mark the slyness of the dog: he pretended not to see where it had fallen, and to look for it in quite another place, until poor simple Aileen had found it and fetched it. As soon as she got on to the road she must needs put down the stick to rub her nose, when, laughing all over, he bounded on it and brought it back to me. I repeated the experiment several times, with precisely the same result. Aileen was too simple and too good-natured to refuse to fetch the stick from the nettle-bed.

About five minutes afterwards the fun was over. Nero happened to look at Aileen, who had stopped once more to rub her still stinging nose. Then the whole humour of the joke seemed to burst upon his imagination. Simply to smile was not enough; he must needs burst through a hedge, and get into a field, and it took ten minutes good racing round and round, as hard as his four legs could carry him, to restore this saucy rascal’s mental equilibrium.

Aileen Aroon was as fond of the lower animals, pet mice, cats, and rats, as any dog could be. Our pet rats used to eat out of her dish, run all over her, sit on her head while washing their faces, and go asleep under her chin.

I saw her one day looking quite unhappy. She wanted to get up from the place where she was lying, but two piebald rats had gone to sleep in the bend of her forearm, and she was afraid to move, either for fear of hurting the little pets or of offending me.

Seeing the situation, I at once took the rats away and put them in the cage; then Aileen got up, made a low and grateful bow, and walked out.