on, Sable,” I said; “we’ll go now and have some breakfast.”
“Don’t pull,” said Sable; “I’m big enough to break the chain and bolt if I wish to. I’ll go with you, but I’ll neither be dragged nor driven.”
No dog ever had a better breakfast put before her, but she would not deign even to look at it.
“Yes,” she seemed to say, “it is very nice, and smells appetising, and I’m hungry, too; a bite of a sow’s ear is all I’ve had since I left home; but for all that I don’t mean to eat; I’m going to starve myself to death, that is what I’m going to do.”
It is very wrong and unfair to bring home any animal, whether bird or beast, to one’s house without having previously made everything needful ready for its reception. Sable’s comfort had not been forgotten, and on her arrival we turned her into the back yard, where, in a small wooden house, was a bed of the cleanest straw, to say nothing of a dish of wholesome food, and a bowl of the purest water. The doors to the yard were locked, but no chain was put on the new pet, for the walls were seven feet high or nearly so, and her safety was thus insured.
So we thought, but, alas for our poor logic! We had yet to learn what Sable’s jumping capabilities were. When I wrote next day, and told her old master that Sable had leapt the high wall and fled, the reply was that he regretted very much not having told me, that she was the most wonderful dog to jump ever he had seen or heard tell of.
Meanwhile Sable was gone. But where or whither? The country is well-wooded, but there are plenty of sheep in it. Judging from Sable’s pig-fighting qualities, I felt sure she would not starve, if she chose to feed on sheep. But one sheep a day, even for a week, would make a hole in my quarter’s half-pay, and I shuddered to think of the little bill Sable might in a very short time run me up. No one had seen Sable. So days passed; then came a rumour that some school children had been frightened nearly out of their little wits by the appearance of an enormous bear, in a wood some miles from our cottage.
My hopes rose; the bear must be Sable. So an expedition was organised to go in search of her. The rank and file of this expedition consisted of schoolboys. I myself was captain, and Theodore Nero, the Newfoundland, was first lieutenant.
We were successful. My heart jumped for joy as I saw the great dog in the distance. But she would not suffer any one to come near her. That was not her form. I must walk on and whistle, and she would follow. I was glad enough to close with the offer, and gladder still when we reached home before she changed her mind and went off again.
Chaining now became imperative until Sable became reconciled to her situation in life, until I had succeeded in taming her by kindness.
This was by no means an easy task. For weeks she never responded to either kind word or caress, but one day Sable walked up to me as I sat writing, and, much to my surprise, offered me her great paw.
“Shake hands,” she seemed to say as she wagged her tail, “Shake hands. You’re not half such a bad fellow as I first took you for.”
My friend, Captain D – , was delighted, and we must needs write at once to Sable’s old master to inform him of the unprecedented event.
Sable became every day more friendly and loving in her own gentle undemonstrative and quiet fashion. But as yet she had never barked.
One day, however, on throwing a stick to Nero, she too ran after it, and on making pretence to throw it again, Sable began to caper. Not gracefully perhaps, but still it was capering, and finally she barked.
When I told friend Frank he was as much overjoyed as I was. I suggested writing at once to Ireland and making the tidings known.
“A letter, Gordon,” said my friend emphatically, “will not meet the requirements of the case. Let us telegraph. Let us wire, thus – ‘Sable has barked.’”
The good dog’s former master was much pleased at the receipt of the information.
“She will do now,” he wrote; “and I’m quite easy in my mind about her.”
Now all this may appear very trivial to some of my readers, but there really was for a time, a probability that Sable would die of sheer grief, as, poor dog, she eventually succumbed to consumption.
We were, if possible, kinder to Sable, or Aileen Aroon, as she was now called, than ever. She became the constant companion of all our walks and rambles, and developed more and more excellences every week. Without being what might be called brilliant, Aileen was clever and most teachable. She never had been a trained or educated dog. Theodore Nero had, and whether he took pity on his wife’s ignorance or not, I cannot say, but he taught her a very great deal she never knew anything about before.
Here is a proof that Aileen’s reasoning powers were of no mean order. When Master Nero wanted a tit-bit he was in the habit of making a bow for it. The bow consisted in a graceful inclination or lowering of the chest and head between the outstretched fore-paws. Well, Aileen was not long in perceiving that the performing of this little ceremony always procured for her husband a morsel of something nice to eat, that “To boo, and to boo, and to boo,” was the best of policies.
She therefore took to it without any tuition, and to see those “twa dogs,” standing in front of me when a biscuit or two were on the board, and booing, and booing, and booing, was a sight to have made a dray-horse smile.
I am sure that Nero soon grew exceedingly fond of his new companion, and she of him in her quiet way.
I may state here parenthetically, that Master Nero had had a companion before Aileen. His previous experience of the married state, however, had not been a happy one. His wife, “Bessie” to name, had taken to habits of intemperance. She had been used to one glass of beer a day before she came to me, and it was thought it might injure her to stop it. If she had kept to this, it would not have mattered, but she used to run away in the evenings, and go to a public-house, where she would always find people willing to treat her for the mere curiosity of seeing a dog drink. When she came home she was not always so steady as she might be, but foolishly affectionate. She would sit down by me and insist upon shaking hands about fifteen times every minute, or she would annoy Nero by pawing him till he growled at her, and told her, or seemed to tell her, she ought to be ashamed of herself for being in the state she was. She was very fat, and after drinking beer used to take Nero’s bed from him and sleep on her back snoring, much to his disgust. This dog was afterwards sold to Mr Montgomery, of Oxford, who stopped her allowance for some months, after which she would neither look at ale nor gin-and-water, of which latter she used to be passionately fond.
Aileen and Nero used to be coupled together in the street with a short chain attached to their collars. But not always; they used to walk together jowl to jowl, whether they were coupled or not, and these two splendid black dogs were the wonder and admiration of all who beheld them. Whatever one did the other did, they worked in couple. When I gave my stick to Nero to carry, Aileen must have one end of it. When we went shopping they carried the stick thus between them, with a bag or basket slung between, and their steadiness could be depended on.
They used to spring into the river or into the sea from a boat both together, and both together bring out whatever was thrown to them. Their immense heads above the water both in friendly juxta-position, were very pretty to look at.
They were in the habit of hunting rats or rabbits in couples, one going up one side of the hedge, the other along the other side.
I am sorry to say they used at times, for the mere fun of the thing, and out of no real spirit of ill-nature, to hunt horses as well as rabbits, one at one side of the horse the other at the other, and likewise bicyclists; this was great fun for the dogs, but the bicyclists looked at the matter from quite another point of view. But I never managed to break them altogether of these evil habits.
It has often seemed to me surprising how one dog will encourage another in doing mischief. A few dogs together will conceive and execute deeds of daring, that an animal by himself would never even dream of attempting.
As I travelled a good deal by train at that time, and always took my two dogs with me, it was more convenient to go into the guard’s van with