Aileen Aroon, A Memoir. Stables Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ ugly; I myself, and all my friends, think it is most engaging. To be sure, it is partially hidden with bonnie soft locks of an ambery or golden hue; but push those locks aside, and you will see nothing in those beautiful dark hazel eyes but love and fun. For Dandie is fall of fun. Oh! doesn’t she enjoy a run out with the children! On the road she goes feathering, here, there, and everywhere. Her legs are hardly straight, you must understand – the legs of very few Dandies are, for they are so accustomed to go down drains, and all sorts of holes, and go scraping here, and scraping there, that their feet and fore-legs turn at last something like a mole’s.

      Dandie wasn’t always the gentle loving creature she is now, and this is the reason I am writing her story. Here, then, is how I came by Dandie.

      I was sitting in my study one morning, writing as usual, when a carriage stopped at the door, and presently a friend was announced.

      “Why, Dawson, my boy!” I cried, getting up to greet him, “what wind blew you all the way here?”

      “Not a good one, by any means,” said Dawson; “I came to see you.”

      “Well, well, sit down, and tell me all about it. I sincerely hope Miss Hall is well.”

      “Well! yes,” he replied abstractedly. “I think I’ve done all for the best; though that policeman nearly had her. But she left her mark on him. Ha! ha!”

      I began to think my friend was going out of his mind.

      “Dawson,” I said, “what have you done with her?”

      “She’s outside in the carriage,” replied Dawson.

      I jumped up to ring the bell, saying, “Why, Dawson, pray have the young lady in. It is cruel to leave her by herself.”

      Dawson jumped up too, and placing his hand on my arm, prevented me from touching the bell-rope.

      “Nay, nay!” he cried, almost wildly, I thought; “pray do not think of it. She would bite you, tear you, rend you. Oh, she is a vixen!” This last word he pronounced with great emphasis, and sinking once more into the chair, and gazing abstractedly at the fire, he added, “And still I love her, good little thing!”

      I now felt quite sorry for Dawson. A moment ago I merely thought he was out of his mind, now I felt perfectly sure of it.

      There was a few minutes’ silence; and then suddenly my friend rushed to the window, exclaiming —

      “There, there! She’s at it again! She has got the cabby by the coat-tails, and she’ll eat her way through him in five minutes, if I don’t go.”

      And out he ran; and I followed, more mystified than ever; and there in the carriage was no young lady at all, but only the dear little Dandie whose story I am writing. She was most earnestly engaged in tearing the driver’s blue coat into the narrowest strips, and growling all the while most vigorously.

      She quieted down, however, immediately on perceiving her master, jumped into his arms, and began to lick his face.

      So the mystery was cleared up; and half an hour afterwards I was persuaded to become the owner of that savage Dandie, and Dawson had kissed her, and left lighter in heart than when he had come.

      I set aside one of the best barrel kennels for her, had a quantity of nice dry straw placed therein, and gave her two dishes, one to be filled daily with pure clean water – without which, remember, no dog can be healthy – and the other to hold her food.

      Now, I am not afraid of any dog. I have owned many scores in my time, and by treating them gently and firmly, I always managed to subdue even the most vicious among them, and get them to love me. But I must confess that this Dandie was the most savage animal that I had ever yet met.

      When I went to take her dish away next morning, to wash and replenish it, only my own celerity in beating a retreat prevented my legs from being viciously bitten. I then endeavoured to remove the dish with the stable besom. Alas for the besom! Howling and growling with passion, with scintillating eyes and flashing teeth, she tore that broom to atoms, and then attacked the handle. But I succeeded in feeding her, after which she was quieter.

      Now, dogs, to keep them in health, need daily exercise, and I determined Dandie should not want that, wild though she seemed to be. There was another scene when I went to unloose her; and I found the only chance of doing so was to treat her as they do wild bulls in some parts of the country. I got a hook and attached it to the end of a pole the same length as the chain. I could then keep her at a safe distance. And thus for a whole week I had to lead her out for exercise. I lost no opportunity of making friends with her, and in about a fortnight’s time I could both take her dish away without a broom and lead her out without the pole.

      She was still the vixen, however, which her former master had called her. When she was presented with a biscuit, she wouldn’t think of eating it, before she had had her own peculiar game with it. She would lay it first against the back of the barrel, and for a time pretend not to see it, then suddenly she would look round, next fly at it, growling and yelping with rage, and shake it as she would a rat. Into such a perfect fury and frenzy did she work herself during her battle with the biscuit, that sometimes on hearing her chain rattle she would turn round and seize and shake it viciously. I have often, too, at these times seen her bite her tail because it dared to wag – bite it till the blood sprang, then with a howl of pain bite and bite it again and again. At last I made up my mind to feed her only on soil food, and that resolution I have since stuck to.

      Poor Dandie had now been with us many months, and upon the whole her life, being almost constantly on the chain, was by no means a very happy one. Her hair, too, got matted, and she looked altogether morose and dirty, and it was then that the thought occurred to my wife and me that she would be much better dead. I considered the matter in all its bearings for fully half an hour, and it was then I suddenly jumped up from my chair.

      “What are you going to do?” asked my wife.

      “I’m going to wash Dandie; wash her, comb out all her mats, dry her, and brush her, for, do you know, I feel quite guilty in having neglected her.”

      My wife, in terror of the consequences of washing so vicious a dog, tried to dissuade me. But my mind was made up, and shortly after so was Dandie’s bed – of clean dry straw in a warm loft above the stable. “Firmly and kindly does it,” I had said to myself, as I seized the vixen by the nape of the neck, and in spite of her efforts to rend any part of my person she could lay hold of, I popped her into the tub.

      Vixen, did I say? She was popped into the tub a vixen, sure enough, but I soon found out I had “tamed the shrew,” and after she was rinsed in cold water, well dried, combed, and brushed, the poor little thing jumped on my knee and kissed me. Then I took her for a run – a thing one ought never to neglect after washing a dog. And you wouldn’t have known Dandie now, so beautiful did she look.

      Dandie is still alive, and lies at my feet as I write, a living example of the power of kindness. She loves us all, and will let my sister, wife, or little niece do anything with her, but she is still most viciously savage to nearly all strangers. She is the best guard-dog that I ever possessed, and a terror to tramps. She is very wise too, this Dandie of mine, for when out walking with any one of my relations, she is as gentle as a lamb, and will let anybody fondle her. She may thus be taken along with us with impunity when making calls upon friends, but very few indeed of those friends dare go near her when in her own garden or kennel. We have been well rewarded for our kindness to Dandie, for although her usual residence by day is her own barrel, and by night she has a share of the straw with the other dogs, she is often taken into the house, and in spite СКАЧАТЬ