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once over the side, ‘Hurrah!’ he would seem to say, then away he would bound, and away, and away, and away, straight ahead as crow could fly, through the snow and through the snow, which rose around him in feathery clouds, till he appeared but a little dark speck in the distance. This race straight ahead was meant to get rid of his super-extra steam. Having expended this, back he would come with a rush, and a run, make pretence to jump his master down, but dive past him at the last moment. Then he would gambol in front of his master in such a daft and comical fashion that made Allan laugh aloud; and, seeing his master laughing, Oscar would laugh too, showing such a double regiment of white, flashing, pearly teeth, that, with the quickness of the dog’s motions, they seemed to begin at his lips and go right away down both sides of him as far as the tail.

      “Hurroosh! hurroosh! Each exclamation, reader, is meant to represent a kind of a double-somersault, which I verily believe Oscar invented himself. He performed it by leaping off the ground, bending sideways, and going right round like a top, without touching the snow, with a spring like that of a five-year-old salmon getting over a weir.

      “Hurroosh! hurroosh!

      “Then Allan would make a grab at his tail.

      “‘Oh, that’s your game!’ Oscar would say; ‘then down you go!’

      “And down Allan would roll, half buried in the powdery snow, and not be able to get up again for laughing; then away Oscar would rush wildly round and round in a complete circle, having a radius of some fifty yards, with Allan McGregor on his broad back for a centre.”

      Theodore Nero was as full of sauciness and chique as ever was an Eton boy home for the holidays, or a midshipman on shore for a cruise. The following anecdote will illustrate his merry sauciness and Aileen’s good-natured simplicity at the same time.

      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: —

“Fairy Mary.”

      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,

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