Aileen Aroon, A Memoir. Stables Gordon

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      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.

      The following is the life-story of one of Aileen’s especial favourites: —

      My Mary is a rat. It is just as well to state this much at the outset. Candour, indeed, necessitates my doing so, because I know the very name of “rat” carries with it feelings which are far from pleasing to many. And now, having broken the ice, I may tell you that Mary is not an ordinary black or brown rat, but a rat of high, high caste indeed, having come from a far-away Oriental clime – Java, to wit. If you had never seen one of the same breed before, you would hardly take Mary to be a rat at all. Children are exceedingly fond of her; gentlemen admire her; old ladies dote on her, and young ones love her. I think even my black tom-cat is especially fond of her, judging from the notice he takes of her; he will sit for hours, and hardly ever take his green eyes off her cage.

      Black Tom once paid Mary a domiciliary visit, by way of appearing neighbourly. It was a grand spring, but missed by an inch, so Tom returned, looking inglorious.

      Having so far introduced my Mary, and confident you will like her better as you read on, let me try to describe the winsome wee thing. Mary – my rodent, let me call her – is smaller than a rat, and not quite the same in shape, for Mary’s symmetry is elegance itself. Her eyes round, protrusive, but loving withal, are living burning garnets – garnets that speak. Her whole body is covered with long snowy fur, far richer than the finest ermine, and with an almost imperceptible golden tint at the tips, this tint being only seen in certain lights. Her tail is perhaps one of her principal points of beauty – long, sweeping, and graceful; she positively seems to talk with it. The forearms are very short and delicate, the hind-legs strong and muscular. Sitting on one end is Mary’s almost constant position – kangaroo-like; then she holds up her little hands beseechingly before her. These latter are almost human in shape, and when she gives you her delicate, cold, transparent paw, you might easily fancy you were shaking hands with a fairy; and thus she is often called “Fairy Mary.” Mary’s hands are bare and pink, and the wrists are covered with very short downy fur, after which the coat suddenly elongates, so much so, that when she stands on end to watch a fly on the ceiling, you would imagine she wore a gown tight at the wrist, and with drooping sleeves.

      Now Mary is not only beautiful, but she is winning and graceful as well, for every one says so who sees her. And in under her soft fur Mary’s skin is as clean and white and pure as mother-of-pearl. It only remains to say of this little pet, that in all her ways and manners she is as cleanly as the best-bred Persian cat, and her fur has not the faintest odour, musky or otherwise.

      Fairy Mary was originally one of three which came to me as a present. Alas for the fate of Mary’s twin sister and only brother! A vagrant cat one evening in summer, while I was absent, entered by the open window, broke into the cage, and Mary alone was left alive. For a long time after this Mary was missing. She was seen at times, of an evening, flitting ghost-like across the kitchen floor, but she persistently refused to return to her desolated cage-home. She much preferred leading a free and easy vagrant kind of life between the cellar, the pantry, and the kitchen. She came out at times, however, and took her food when she thought nobody was looking, and she was known to have taken up her abode in one corner of the pantry, where once a mouse had lived. When she took this new house, I suppose she found it hardly large enough for her needs, because she speedily took to cleaning it out, and judging from the shovelfuls of rags, paper, shavings, and litter of all sorts, very industrious indeed must have been the lives of the “wee, tim’rous, cowerin’ beasties” who formerly lived there. Then Mary built unto herself a new home in that sweet retirement, and very happy she seemed to be.

      Not happening to possess a cat just then, the mice had it all their own way; they increased and multiplied, if they didn’t replenish the kitchen, and Mary reigned among them – a Bohemian princess, a gipsy queen. I used to leave a lamp burning in the kitchen on purpose to watch their antics, and before going to bed, and when all the house was still, I used to go and peep carefully through a little hole in the door. And there Fairy Mary would be, sure enough, racing round and round the kitchen like a mad thing, chased by at least a dozen mice, and every one of them squeaking with glee. But if I did but laugh – which, for the life of me, I could not sometimes help – off bolted the mice, leaving Fairy Mary to do an attitude wherever she might be. Then Mary would sniff the air, and listen, and so, scenting danger, hop off, kangaroo fashion, to her home in the pantry corner.

      It really did seem a pity to break up this pleasant existence of Mary’s, but it had to be done. Mice eat so much, and destroy more. My mice, with Mary at their head, were perfect sappers and miners. They thought nothing of gutting a loaf one night, and holding a ball in it the next. So, eventually, Mary was captured, and once more confined to her cage, which she insisted upon having hung up in our sitting-room, where she could see all that went on. Here she never attempted, even once, to nibble her cage, but if hung out in the kitchen nothing could keep her in.

      At this stage of her existence, the arrangements for Mary’s comfort were as follows: she dwelt in a nice roomy cage, with two perches in it, which she very much enjoyed. She had a glass dish for her food, and another for her milk, and the floor of the cage was covered with pine shavings, regularly changed once in two days, and among which Mary built her nest.

      Now, Fairy Mary has a very strong resemblance to a miniature polar bear, that is, she has all the motions of one, and does all his attitudes – in fact, acts the part of Bruin to perfection. This first gave me the notion – which I can highly recommend to the reader – of making Mary not only amusing, but ornamental to our sitting-room as well, for it must be confessed that a plain wooden cage in one’s room is neither graceful nor pretty, however lovely the inmate may be. And here is how I managed it. At the back of our sitting-room is the kitchen, the two apartments being separated by a brick wall. Right through this wall a hole or tunnel was drilled big enough for Mary to run through with ease. The kitchen end of this tunnel was closed by means of a little door, which was so constructed that by merely touching an unseen spring in the sitting-room, it could be opened at will. Against the kitchen end of the tunnel a cage СКАЧАТЬ