My uncle said he should never have dreamed there could have been such stirring times in this prosaic nineteenth century as he had, training that dog.
Oh, the wild, wild scamperings over the breezy common – the dog trying to catch a swallow, and my uncle, unable to hold him back, following at the other end of the chain!
Oh, the merry frolics in the fields, when the dog wanted to kill a cow, and the cow wanted to kill the dog, and they each dodged round my uncle, trying to do it!
And, oh, the pleasant chats with the old ladies when the dog wound the chain into a knot around their legs, and upset them, and my uncle had to sit down in the road beside them, and untie them before they could get up again!
But a crisis came at last. It was a Saturday afternoon – uncle being exercised by dog in the usual way – nervous children playing in road, see dog, scream, and run – playful young dog thinks it a game, jerks chain out of uncle’s grasp, and flies after them – uncle flies after dog, calling it names – fond parent in front garden, seeing beloved children chased by savage dog, followed by careless owner, flies after uncle, calling him names – householders come to doors and cry, “Shame![51]” – also throw things at dog – things don’t hit dog, hit uncle – things that don’t hit uncle, hit fond parent – through the village and up the hill, over the bridge and round by the green – grand run, mile and a half without a break! Children sink exhausted – dog gambols up among them – children go into fits – fond parent and uncle come up together, both breathless.
“Why don’t you call your dog off, you wicked old man?”
“Because I can’t recollect his name, you old fool, you!”
Fond parent accuses uncle of having set dog on – uncle, indignant, reviles fond parent – exasperated fond parent attacks uncle – uncle retaliates with umbrella – faithful dog comes to assistance of uncle, and inflicts great injury on fond parent – arrival of police – dog attacks police – uncle and fond parent both taken into custody[52] – uncle fined five pounds and costs for keeping a ferocious dog at large – uncle fined five pounds and costs for assault on fond parent – uncle fined five pounds and cost for assault on police!
My uncle gave the dog away soon after that. He did not waste him. He gave him as a wedding-present to a near relation.
But the saddest story I ever heard in connection with a bull-dog, was one told by my aunt herself.
Now you can rely upon this story, because it is not one of mine, it is one of my aunt’s, and she would scorn to tell a lie. This is a story you could tell to the heathen, and feel that you were teaching them the truth and doing them good. They give this story out at all the Sunday-schools in our part of the country, and draw moral lessons from it. It is a story that a little child can believe.
It happened in the old crinoline days[53]. My aunt, who was then living in a country-town, had gone out shopping one morning, and was standing in the High Street, talking to a lady friend, a Mrs. Gumworthy, the doctor’s wife. She (my aunt) had on a new crinoline that morning, in which, to use her own expression, she rather fancied herself. It was a tremendously big one, as stiff as a wire-fence; and it “set” beautifully.
They were standing in front of Jenkins’, the draper’s; and my aunt thinks that it – the crinoline – must have got caught up in something, and an opening thus left between it and the ground. However this may be, certain it is that an absurdly large and powerful bull-dog, who was fooling round about there at the time, managed, somehow or other, to squirm in under my aunt’s crinoline, and effectually imprison himself beneath it.
Finding himself suddenly in a dark and gloomy chamber, the dog, naturally enough, got frightened, and made frantic rushes to get out. But whichever way he charged, there was the crinoline in front of him. As he flew, he, of course, carried it before him, and with the crinoline, of course, went my aunt.
But nobody knew the explanation. My aunt herself did not know what had happened. Nobody had seen the dog creep inside the crinoline. All that the people did see was a staid and eminently respectable middle-aged lady suddenly, and without any apparent reason, throw her umbrella down in the road, fly up the High Street at the rate of ten miles an hour, rush across it at the imminent risk of her life, dart down it again on the other side, rush sideways, like an excited crab, into a grocer’s shop, run three times round the shop, upsetting the whole stock-in-trade[54], come out of the shop backward and knock down a postman, dash into the roadway and spin round twice, hover for a moment, undecided, on the curb, and then away up the hill again, as if she had only just started, all the while screaming out at the top of her voice for somebody to stop her!
Of course, everybody thought she was mad. The people flew before her like chaff before the wind. In less than five seconds the High Street was a desert. The townsfolk scampered into their shops and houses and barricaded the doors. Brave men dashed out and caught up little children and bore them to places of safety amid cheers. Carts and carriages were abandoned, while the drivers climbed up lampposts!
What would have happened had the affair gone on much longer – whether my aunt would have been shot, or the fire-engine brought into requisition against her – it is impossible, having regard to the terrified state of the crowd, to say. Fortunately for her, she became exhausted. With one despairing shriek she gave way, and sat down on the dog; and peace reigned once again in that sweet rural town.
The Man Who Would Manage
(From Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green, 1893)
It has been told me by those in a position to know – and I can believe it – that at nineteen months of age he wept because his grandmother would not allow him to feed her with a spoon, and that at three and a half he was fished, in an exhausted condition, out of the water-butt, whither he had climbed for the purpose of teaching a frog to swim.
Two years later he permanently injured his left eye, showing the cat how to carry kittens without hurting them, and about the same period was dangerously stung by a bee while conveying it from a flower where, as it seemed to him, it was only wasting its time, to one more rich in honey-making properties.
His desire was always to help others. He would spend whole mornings explaining to elderly hens how to hatch eggs, and would give up an afternoon’s black-berrying to sit at home and crack nuts for his pet squirrel. Before he was seven he would argue with his mother upon the management of children, and reprove his father for the way he was bringing him up.
As a child nothing could afford him greater delight than “minding” other children, or them less. He would take upon himself this harassing duty[55] entirely of his own accord, without hope of reward or gratitude. It was immaterial to him whether the other children were older than himself or younger, stronger or weaker, whenever and wherever he found them he set to work to “mind” them. Once, during a school treat, piteous cries were heard coming from a distant part of the wood, and upon search being made, he was discovered prone upon the ground, with a cousin of his, a boy twice his own weight, sitting upon him and steadily whacking him[56]. Having rescued him, the teacher said:
“Why don’t you keep with the little boys? What are you doing along with him?”
“Please, sir,” was the answer, “I was minding him.”
He would have “minded” Noah if he had got hold of him.
He was a good-natured lad, and at school he was always willing for the whole class to copy from his slate – indeed he would urge them to do so. He meant it kindly, but inasmuch as his answers were invariably quite wrong – with a distinctive and inimitable wrongness peculiar to himself – the result to his followers was eminently unsatisfactory; and with the shallowness of youth that, ignoring motives, judges solely from results, they would wait for him outside and punch him.