Aileen Aroon, A Memoir Part 31

"Very prettily put, birdie," I said; "resume the thread of Nero's narrative. Did I actually make use of those words? Very well, I will, though I fear you will think the story a little dull, and probably the story-teller somewhat prosy.

"Do you know, then, Ida, that I am quite convinced that Providence gave mankind the dog to be a real companion to him, and I believe that this is the reason why a dog is so very, very faithful, so long-suffering under trial, so patient when in pain, and so altogether good and kind.

When I look at poor old Nero, as he lies beside you there, half asleep, yet listening to every word we say, my thoughts revert to many a bygone scene in which he and I were the princ.i.p.al actors. And many a time, Ida, when in grief and sorrow, I have felt, rightly or wrongly, that I had not a friend in the world but himself.

"Well, dear, I had learned to love Nero, and love him well, when I received an appointment to join the flags.h.i.+p at Sheerness. The fact is I had been a whole year on sick leave, and Nero and I had been travelling for the sake of my health. There was hardly a town in England, Ireland, or Scotland we had not visited, and I always managed it so that the dog should occupy the same room as myself. By the end of a twelvemonth, Nero had got to be quite an old and quite a wise traveller. His special duty was to see after the luggage--in other words, Master Nero was baggage-master. When I left a hotel, my traps were generally taken in a hand-cart or trolly. Close beside the man all the way to the station walked my faithful friend, he himself in all probability carrying a carpet bag, and looking the very quintessence of seriousness and dignified importance. As soon as he saw the porter place the luggage in the van, then back he would come to me, with many a joyous bark and bound, quite regardless of the fact that he sometimes ran against a pa.s.senger, and sent him sprawling on the platform.

"When we arrived at our journey's end, Nero used to be at the luggage van before me. And here is something worth recording: as we usually came out at a door on the opposite side of the train to that at which we had entered, I was apt for a moment or two to forget the position of the luggage van. Nero never made a mistake, so I daresay his scent a.s.sisted him. As soon as the luggage was put on the trolly, and the man started with it, the dog went with him, but as the man often went a long way ahead of me, Nero was naturally afraid of losing sight of me; therefore if the porter attempted to turn a corner the dog invariably barked, not angrily, but determinedly, till he stopped. As soon as I came up, then the procession went on again, till we came to another corner, when the man had to stop once more. I remember he pulled a man down, because he would not stop, but he did not otherwise hurt him at all.

"In the train, he either travelled in the same carriage with myself, or in cases where the guard objected to this, I travelled in the van with the dog, so we were not separated.

"If a man is travelling much by train or by steamboat, he need never feel lonely if he has as splendid a dog as the Champion Theodore Nero with him; for the dog makes his master acquaintances.

"When Nero was with me, I could hardly stand for a moment at a street corner or to look in at a shop window without attracting a small crowd.

I was never half an hour on the deck of a steamer without some one coming up and saying--

"'Excuse me, sir, but what a n.o.ble-looking dog you have! What breed is he? Pure Newfoundland, doubtless.'

"This would in all probability lead to conversation, and many an acquaintance I have thus formed, which have ripened into friends.h.i.+ps that last till this day.

"Well, Ida, when I received my appointment to the flags.h.i.+p, my very first thoughts were about my friend the dog, and with a sad feeling of sinking at my heart, I asked myself the question--'Will Nero be permitted to live on board?' To part with the dear fellow would have been a grief I could not bear to contemplate.

"An answer to the question, however, could not be obtained until I joined my s.h.i.+p, that was certain; so I started.

"It was in the gloaming of a bl.u.s.tering day in early spring that the train in which we travelled, slowly, and after much unseemly delay, rolled rattling into the little station at Sheerness, and after a shoulder-to-shoulder struggle between half a dozen boatmen, who wished to take me, bag and baggage, off somewhere, and the same number of cabbies, who wished to carry me anywhere else, I was lucky enough to get seated in a musty conveyance that smelt like the aroma of wet collie-dogs and stale tobacco, with a slight suspicion of bad beer.

Against the windows of this rattletrap beat the cold rain, and the mud flew from the wheels as from a wet swab. Lights were springing up here and there in the street under the busy fingers of a lamp-lighter, who might have been mistaken for a member of the monkey tribe, so nimbly did he glide up and down his skeleton ladder, and hurry along at his task.

The wind, too, was doing all in its power to render his work abortive, and the gas-lights burned blue under the blast.

"We were glad when we reached the hotel, but I was gladder still when, on making some inquiries about the s.h.i.+p I was about to join, I was told that the commander was extremely fond of dogs, and that he had two of his own.

"I slept more soundly after that.

"Next day, leaving my friend carefully under lock and key in charge of the worthy proprietor of the Fountain Hotel, I got into uniform, and having hired a sh.o.r.e boat, went off to my s.h.i.+p to report myself. To my joy I found Commander C--to be as kind and jovial a sailor as any one could wish to see and talk to. I was not long before I broached the subject nearest to my heart.

"'Objection to your dog on board?' he said, laughing. 'Bring him, by all means; he won't kill mine, though, I hope.'

"'That I'm sure he won't,' I replied, feeling as happy as if I had just come into a fortune.

"I went on sh.o.r.e with a light heart, and hugged the dog.

"'We're not going to be parted, dear old boy,' I said. 'You are going on board with me to-morrow.'

"The evening before my heart was as gloomy as the weather; to-day the sun shone, and my heart was as bright as the sky was blue. Nero and I set out after luncheon to have a look at the town.

"Sheerness on two sides is bounded by the dockyard, which divides it from the sea. Indeed, the dockyard occupies the most comfortable corner, and seems to say to the town, 'Stand aside; you're n.o.body.' The princ.i.p.al thoroughfare of Sheerness has on one side of it the high, bleak boundary wall, while on the other stands as ragged-looking a line of houses as one could well imagine, putting one in mind of a regiment of militia newly embodied and minus uniform. As you journey from the station, everything reminds you that you are in a naval seaport of the lowest cla.s.s. Lazy watermen by the dozen loll about the pier-head with their arms, to say nothing of their hands, buried deeply in their breeches-pockets, while every male you meet is either soldier or sailor, dockyard's man or solemn-looking policeman. Every shop that isn't a beer-house, is either a general dealer's, where you can purchase anything nautical, from a sail-needle to sea boots, or an eating house, in the windows of which are temptingly exposed joints of suspiciously red corned-beef, soapy-looking mutton and uninviting pork, and where you are invited to partake of tea and shrimps for ninepence.

"So on the whole the town of Sheerness itself is by no means a very inviting one, nor a very savoury one either.

"But away out beyond the dockyard and over the moat, and Sheerness brightens up a little, and spreads out both to left and right, and you find terraces with trim little gardens and green-painted palings, while instead of the odour of tar and cheese and animal decay, you can breathe the fresh, pure air from over the ocean, and see the green waves come tumbling in and break in soft music on the snowy s.h.i.+ngle.

"Here live the benedicts of the flags.h.i.+p. At half-past seven of a fine summer morning you may see them, hurried and hungry, trotting along towards the dockyard, looking as if another hour's sleep would not have come amiss to them. But once they get on board their s.h.i.+ps, how magic-like will be the disappearance of the plump soles, the curried lobster, the corned-beef, and the remains of last night's pigeon-pie, while the messman can hardly help looking anxious, and the servants run each other down in their hurry to supply the tea and toast!

"Of the country immediately around this town of Sheerness, the princ.i.p.al features are open ditches, slimy and green, evolving an effluvium that keeps the very bees at bay, encircling low flat fields and marshy moors, affording subsistence only to crazy-looking sheep and water rats. The people of Sheerness eat the sheep; I have not been advised as to their eating the rats.

"But, and if you are young, and your muscles are well developed, and your tendo Achillis wiry and strong, then when the summer is in its prime and the sun is brightly s.h.i.+ning, shall you leave the odoriferous town and its aguish surroundings, and like 'Jack of the bean-stalk,'

climb up into a comparative fairyland. At the top of the hill stands the little village of Minster, its romantic old church and ivied tower begirt with the graves of generations long since pa.s.sed and gone, the very tombstones of which are mouldering to dust. The view from here well repays the labour of climbing the bean-stalk. But leave it behind and journey seaward over the rolling tableland. Rural hamlets; pretty villages; tree-lined lanes and clovery fields with grazing kine--you shall scarcely be tired of such quiet and peaceful scenery when you arrive at the edge of the clayey cliff, with the waves breaking among the boulders on the beach far beneath you, and the sea spreading out towards the horizon a vast plain of rippling green, crowded with s.h.i.+ps from every land and clime. Heigho! won't you be sorry to descend your bean-stalk and re-enter Sheerness once again?

"I do not think, Ida, that s.h.i.+p dogs' lives are as a rule very happy ones. They get far too little exercise and far too much to eat, so they grow both fat and lazy. But in this particular flags.h.i.+p neither I nor my friend Nero had very much to grumble about. The commander was as good as he looked, and there was not an officer in the s.h.i.+p, nor a man either, that had not a kind word for the dog.

"The great event of the day, as far as Nero and I were concerned, was going on sh.o.r.e in the afternoon for a walk, and a dip in the sea when the weather was warm. Whether the weather was warm or not, Nero always had his bath, for the distance to the sh.o.r.e being hardly half a mile, no sooner had the boat left the vessel's side than there were cries from some of us officers of the vessel--

"'Hie over, you dogs, hie over, boys.'

"The first to spring into the sea would be Nero, next went his friend Sambo, and afterwards doggie Daidles. The three black heads in the water put one in mind of seals. Although the retrievers managed to keep well up for some time, gradually the Newfoundland forged ahead, and he was in long before the others, and standing very anxiously gazing seawards to notice how Sambo was getting on; for the currents run fearfully strong there. Daidles always got in second. Of Daidles Nero took not the slightest notice; even had he been drowning he would have made no attempt to save him; but no sooner did Sambo approach the stone steps than with a cry of fond anxiety, the n.o.ble Newfoundland used to rush downwards, seize Sambo gently by the neck, and help him out.

"I was coming from the sh.o.r.e one day, when Sambo fell from a port into the sea. Nero at once leapt into the water, and swimming up to his friend, attempted to seize him. The conversation between them seemed to be something like the following--

"_Nero_: 'You're drowning, aren't you? Let me hold you up.'

"_Sambo_: 'Nonsense, Nero, let go my neck; I could keep afloat as long as yourself.'

"_Nero_: 'Very well, here goes then; but I _must_ pick something up.'

"So saying, Nero swam after a piece of newspaper, seized that, and swam to the ladder with it; some of the men lent him a helping hand, and up he went.

"The flags.h.i.+p was a tall old line of battle s.h.i.+p; on the starboard side was a broad ladder, on the port merely a ladder of ropes. On stormy days, with a heavy sea on, the starboard ladder probably could not be used, and so the dog had to be lowered into the boat and hoisted up therefrom with a long rope. To make matters more simple and easy for him, one of the men made the dog a broad belt of canvas. To this corset the end of the rope was attached, and away went Nero up or down as the case happened to be.

"Although as gentle by nature as a lamb, Nero would never stand much impudence from another dog without resenting it. When pa.s.sing through the dockyard one day, we met an immense Saint Bernard, who strutted up to Nero, and at once addressed him in what appeared to me the following strain--

"'Hullo! Got on sh.o.r.e, have you? I daresay you think yourself a pretty fellow now? But you're not a bit bigger than I am, and not so handsome.

I've a good mind to bite you. Yah! you're only a surgeon's dog, and my master is captain of the dockyard. Yah!'

"'Don't growl at me,' replied Nero; 'my master is every bit as good as yours, and a vast deal better, _so_ don't raise your hair, else I may lose my temper.'

"'Yah! yah!' growled the Saint Bernard.

"'Come on, Nero,' I cried; 'don't get angry, old boy.'

"'Half a minute, master,' replied Nero; 'here is a gentleman that wants to be brought to his bearings.'

"Next moment those two dogs were at it. It was an ugly fight, and some blood was spilled on both sides, but at last Nero was triumphant. He hauled the Saint Bernard under a gun carriage and punished him severely, I being thus powerless to do anything.

"Then Nero came out and shook himself, while the other dog lay beaten and cowed.

"'I don't think,' said Nero to me, 'that he will boast about his master again in a hurry.'

"Generosity is a part of the Newfoundland dog's nature. At my father's village in the far north, called Inverurie, there used to be a large black half-bred dog, that until Nero made an appearance lorded it over all the other dogs in the town. This animal was a bully, and therefore a coward. He had killed more than one dog.

"The very first day that he saw Nero he must needs rush out and attack him. He found himself on his back on the pavement in a few moments.