In Touch with Nature Part 15

But poor Dave was past even picking a ham-bone, and two days after this the shed had no tenant; Dave was dead. I do sincerely wish that my tale had not so gloomy a finish, but as I am writing facts, I have no power to make it otherwise. Danger's master lived in a cottage about a mile up the Don, and close to its bank. One night a terrible rain-storm came on, and I was told next day that the river was in "spate;" that many sheep had been carried away, and even cattle and horses. After breakfast I went to see it. There was something even awe-inspiring in the sight; the quiet and placid river of the day before, with its clear, brown, rippling water, was swollen into a wide, yellow, surging, roaring torrent. The st.u.r.dy old bridge on which I stood shook and trembled with the force of the water that dashed underneath. Pine-trees, hay, straw, and even the carcases of cattle, came down stream every minute. I left the bridge at last, and walked slowly up along the top of a wooded cliff.

Till this day I regret that I did not go straight home from the bridge, for I shall always remember what I saw. Something was coming floating down the turgid river, right in the centre, and rapidly approaching me, swirling round and round in the current.

It was a small hay-c.o.c.k. How he had got on I never knew, but on the top thereof was my honest friend Danger. I called him.

The pitiable, pleading look with which he replied went straight to my heart. Danger could not swim!

What made the matter more mentally painful to me was, that there was quite as much of the ludicrous as the pathetic about the situation.

For, poor dog, his great solemn face never looked uglier, never looked more distressed than now; and the glance he gave me as he was borne hurriedly onwards to certain destruction--why, I have but to close my eyes to see it even now, as I sit here.

And that was the last that was ever seen of Danger; he never appeared again on the streets of the village of V--.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

d.i.c.kY DUMPS: THE PARSON'S PONY.

"A little water, chaff and hay, And sleep, the boon of Heaven; How great return for these have they, To your advantage, given!

And yet the worn-out horse or a.s.s.

Who makes your daily gaining, Is paid with goad and thong, alas!

Though n.o.bly uncomplaining."

Tupper.

There are, or were, two immortal men, who never spoke without saying something--I refer to Shakespeare and Burns; and when the former remarks so prettily,--

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet."

we cannot help replying, "That is true."

But for all that, every one who owns a pet animal of any kind, that he really loves, will be ready enough to admit that seemingly senseless though the names be which we sometimes give them, there is generally some reason in them, albeit there may not be much rhyme. When we talk to animals which we have a great affection for, we often use a deal of ridiculous abbreviations. Never mind--they, our favourites, understand them, and really appear to prefer them. Just one or two examples.

There is an immense Newfoundland lying not far from me while I write, an animal who by reason of his beauty, his bounding independence, and his very roguishness, takes all hearts by storm. His name was originally "Robin;" that soon came down to honest simple "Bob." He is known in what is called the canine world as "Hurricane Bob," he being a show dog.

He derives the sobriquet "Hurricane" from the mad way he rushes round his own paddock when he first gets out of a morning. With his long black hair floating in the wind, he is hardly visible as he races round and round about you. You can just see a black shape, that is all, which you conclude is Hurricane Bob. You can set him off racing round and round at any time by calling--

"Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane!"

He has a great sense of humour and of the ridiculous; but if you say to him, "Robert, come here," he then approaches very gravely indeed.

"What's up!" he seems to say, "that I am being called Robert? Have I done anything wrong, I wonder?"

Again, if you call him Bobbie, he expects to be patted, caressed, and made much of.

So he has a name for all weathers, as a sailor would say.

"Eily" is the name of a splendid collie of mine. In the course of years her name became Eily-Biley. She prefers this. There is love and affection and pats and pieces of cake, and all kinds of pleasantness a.s.sociated with the name. Eily is simply her business name, as it were, and there are times when she is called "Bile" emphatically, and on these occasions she knows she has been doing something wrong and is to be scolded, so she at once throws herself at my feet, makes open confession, and sues for forgiveness.

"Yes, dear master," she seems to say; "it is quite true, I did chase the c.o.c.k, and I did tree the cat. They did provoke me, but I will try not to do so again."

I have a great many wild-bird friends. There are several sparrows visit me every day, at and in my wigwam, or garden study. One comes to name.

That name is "Weekie!" I heard his little wife call him "Weekie" one day, so the name has stuck to him. We have been friends for years, Weekie and I. He is bold and pert, but affectionate. He roosts in winter among the creepers on my wigwam, and steals morsels of my ma.n.u.scripts to help in building his nest in summer.

So there _is_ something in _pet_ names at all events. I daresay most of my readers would think that "Dumps" was a queer name to give a pony.

Well, and so it is; but the name grew, for he was originally d.i.c.k; from d.i.c.k to d.i.c.kie the transition is natural. "But how about the 'Dumps'?"

you may ask. Well, d.i.c.kie belonged to a good old country parson that I knew, who lived some years ago in one of the wildest glens of our Scottish Highlands. If this parson was not, like some one else, "_Pa.s.sing rich with forty pounds a year_," he managed to live and support his family upon not much more than double that sum. But he had a very thrifty wife, and his children were each and all of them as good as they looked, and that is saying a deal. They possessed the kind hearts that are worth more than coronets, and the simple faith that is better far than Norman blood. So poor though Mr Mack, let us call him, was, his home was a very happy one. Mrs Mack rather prided herself on her cookery, and her skill in the art was fully appreciated by all the family--including d.i.c.kie the pony. But what d.i.c.k particularly loved was a morsel of suet dumpling.

The dining-room window looked over d.i.c.k's field, and was entirely surrounded with lovely climbing roses, as indeed was all the cottage, for great yellow roses could be gathered even through the attic windows, and they actually trailed around the chimneys.

In spring and summer the dining-room window used to be left open, and d.i.c.kie would station himself there, and wait with equine patience for his morsel of dumpling. Sometimes he got two or three pieces, and even then would have the audacity to ask for a fourth help. "It is so nice,"

he would appear to say, with a low, comical kind of a nicker. "It is dee-licious. Do you know what I'll do, if I don't have more dumpling?

I'll crop the rose-leaves."

"Ah, d.i.c.kie, would you dare?" Mrs Mack would cry; for she dearly loved the roses.

"Well, then," d.i.c.k would appear to answer, "give me some more dumpling."

Even at breakfast-time, if the window were open, d.i.c.k would pop his head in, and apparently ask: "Is there any of that dumpling left? I don't mind taking it cold."

So there is no great wonder that the pony came to be called "d.i.c.kie Dumpling," and finally, for short, Dumps.

Poor old Dumps, he was such a favourite; and no wonder either that the children all loved him so, for they had grown up with him; the eldest girl, Muriel, was seventeen, and Dumps was at the parsonage when she was a baby.

Dumps had been grey, when in his prime--a charming grey, almost a blue in point of fact; but, alas! he was white enough now, and there were hollows in his temples that, feed him as he would, his master never could fill up. Sometimes, too, Dumps' lower lip would hang a bit, and shake in a nervous kind of way; and as to his teeth! well, the less said about them the better; they could still scoop out a turnip or bite a bit of carrot, but as for his oats, Dumps had a decided preference for them bruised.

These, of course, were all signs of advancing age; but age had some advantages, for the older Dumps grew, the wiser he got. There was very little that concerned him that Dumps didn't know, and very little that concerned his master either.

The Rev Mr Mack was one of the most tenderhearted men I ever knew.

Many and many an old pauper blessed and prayed for him. Yes, and he for them; but I am bound in honesty to say that Mr Mack's blessings often took a very substantial and visible form. There was a large box under the seat of the old-fas.h.i.+oned gig, that the parson used to drive, and Dumps used to drag; and, nearly always, after he had prayed with, read, and talked a bit to some poor afflicted pauper, Mr Mack would go to the door, and stretch his arm in under the seat, and haul something out: it might be a loaf of bread, it might be a bit of cheese, a pot of jam-- Mrs Mack was a wonder at making jams and jellies--it might be merely the remains of yesterday's pie, or it might be--whisper, please--a tiny morsel of tobacco, or a pinch or two of snuff in a paper.

"Don't go away, Dumps," the parson would say to the pony, as he returned into the house.

Dumps would give a fond, foolish little nicker, that sounded like a laugh.

"At my age," the pony would seem to reply, "I'm not likely to run very far away."

I happened to be practising in Mr Mack's parish for six weeks, having taken the duties of a gentleman who was gone away to get married. I drove, the parson's pony.

"Just give him his head," said Mr Mack on the first day that I went to visit my paupers; "he'll take you all round."

Not knowing anything at all about the roads, I was very pleased to leave the whole arrangement of my visits that day to Dumps. He went jogging up the road, half a mile, then down a lane, and finally brought up at a long, low, thatched cottage. Then he jerked his head round to me, as much as to say, "Get out here."

And in the same way poor Dumps took me everywhere over the parish. Here would be a sick child to see, here a bedridden old woman, here a feeble, aged man, and so on and so forth.

The sun was set, and the stars coming out, and it appeared to me I must have still ten miles to drive before I reached the parsonage, when all at once that dear, rose-clad old cottage stood before me, and there were Mr Mack and two of his charming daughters standing at the gate laughing.

I was indeed surprised. The explanation is this: Dumps had returned by a different road. He had really and truly taken me on a round.

My friend, who had gone to get married, returned at last, and I left the glen. But happening to be on half-pay in the June of the succeeding year, I received a pressing invitation from my brother professional to spend the summer with him, and enjoy some fis.h.i.+ng, a sport of which I am extremely fond. It was while I was at his house that a cloud shadow fell on the old parsonage, and its inmates, hitherto so quietly happy, were plunged into grief.

I did not know, nor had I any business to know, the exact history of poor Mr Mack's trouble. From the little he told me, however, it was pretty evident that it was occasioned or arose from his own kind-heartedness: he had become security for the debts of a friend. O!

it is the same old story, you see; the friend had failed to meet certain demands, and they had fallen on Mr Mack. How willingly I would have come to the kindly parson's relief had it been in my power, and I believe he would have accepted a.s.sistance from me as soon as from any one, for I was looked upon as a friend of the family.