CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THE STORY OF AILEEN'S HUSBAND, NERO.

"The pine-trees, gathering closer in the shadows, Listened in every spray--"

I certainly had no intention of bringing tears to little Ida's eyes; it was mere thoughtlessness on my part, but the result was precisely the same; and there was Ida kneeling beside that great Newfoundland, Theodore Nero, with her arms round his neck, and a moment or two after I had spoken, I positively saw a tear fall on his brow, and lie there like a diamond. Ah! such tears are far more precious than any diamonds.

"You don't love that dog, mouse?" These were the words I had given utterance to, half-banteringly, as she sat near me on the grass playing with the dog. I went on with my writing, and when I looked up again beheld that tear.

Yes, I felt sorry, and set about at once planning some means of amends. I knew human nature and Ida's nature too well to make any fuss about the matter--I would not even let her know I had seen her wet eyelashes, nor did I attempt to soothe her. If I had done so, there would have been some hysterical sobbing and a whole flood of tears, with red eyes and perhaps a headache to follow. So without looking up I said--

"By the way, birdie, did ever I tell you Nero's story?"

"Oh, no," she said, in joyful forgetfulness of her recent grief; "and I would so like to hear it. But," she added, doubtfully, "a few minutes ago you said you could not talk to me, that you must finish writing your chapter. Why have you changed your mind?"

"I don't see why in this world, Ida," I replied, smiling, "a man should not be allowed to change his mind sometimes as well as a woman."

This settled the matter, and I put away my paper in my portfolio, and prepared to talk.

Where were we seated? Why, under the old pine-tree--our _very_ favourite seat. My wife was engaged at home turning gooseberries into jam, and had packed Ida and me off, to be out of the way, and friend Frank himself had gone that day on some kind mission or other connected with boys. I never saw any one more fond of boys than Frank was; I am sure he spent all his spare cash on them. He was known all over the parish as the boys' friend. If in town Frank saw a new book suitable for a boy, it was a temptation he could not resist. If he had been poor, I'm certain he would have gone without his dinner in order to secure a good book for a boy. He was constantly finding out deserving lads and getting them situations, and the day they were going to start was a very busy one indeed for Frank. He would be up betimes in the morning, sometimes before the servants, and often before the maids came down he would have the fire lighted, and the kettle boiling, and everything ready for breakfast. Then he would hurry away to the boy's home, to see he got all ready in time for the start, and that he also had had breakfast. He saw him to the station, gave him much kind and fatherly advice, and, probably, in the little kit that accompanied the lad, there were several comforts in the way of clothes, that wouldn't have been there at all if friend Frank had not possessed the kindest heart that ever warmed a human breast.

I said Frank found out the _deserving_ boys; true. But he did not forget the undeserving either, and positively twice every season what should Frank do but get up what he called--

"THE BAD BOYS' CRICKET MATCH."

Nobody used to play at these matches but the bad boys and the unregenerate and the ungrateful boys. And after the match was over, if you had peeped into the tent you would have seen Frank, his jolly face radiant, seated at the head of a well-spread table, and all his bad boys around him, and, had you been asked, you could not have said for certain whether Frank looked happier than the boys, or the boys happier than Frank.

But I've seen a really bad boy going away from home to some situation, where Frank was sending him on trial, and bidding Frank good-bye with the big lumps of tears rolling down over cheeks and nose, and heard the boy say--

"God bless ye, sir; ye've been a deal kinder to me than my own father, and I'll try to deserve all your goodness, sir, and lead a better life."

To whom Frank would curtly reply, perhaps with a tear in his own honest blue eye--

"Don't thank me, boy--I can't stand that. There, good-bye; turn over a new leaf, and don't let me see you back for a year--only write to me. Good-bye."

And Frank's boys' letters, how he did enjoy them to be sure!

Dear Frank! he is dead and gone, else dare I not write thus about him, for a more modest man than my friend I have yet to find.

Well, Frank was away to-day on some good mission, and that is how Ida and I were alone with the dogs. Nero, by the way, was on the sick-list to some extent. Indeed, Nero never minded being put on the sick-list if there was nothing very serious the matter with him, because this entailed a deal of extra petting, and innumerable tit-bits and dainties that would never otherwise have found the road to his appreciative maw. As to petting, the dog could put up with any amount of it; and it is a fact that I have known him sham ill in order to be made much of. Once, I remember, he had hurt his leg by jumping, and long after he was better, if any of us would turn about, when he was walking well enough, and say--in fun, of course--"Just look how lame that poor dear dog is!" then Nero would assume the Alexandra limp on the spot, and keep it up for some time, unless a rat happened to run across the road, or a rabbit, or a hedgehog put in an appearance--if so, he forgot all about the bad leg.

"Well, birdie," I said, "to give you anything like a complete history of that faithful fellow you are fondling is impossible. It would take up too much time, because it would include the history of the last ten years of my own life, and that would hardly be worth recording. When my poor old Tyro died, the world, as far as dogs were concerned, seemed to me a sad blank. I have never forgotten Tyro, the dog of my student days, I never shall, and I am not ashamed to say that I live in hopes of meeting him again.

"What says Tupper about Sandy, birdie? Repeat the lines, dear, if you remember them, and then I'll tell you something about Nero."

Ida did so, in her sweet, girlish tones; and even at this moment, reader, I have only to shut my eyes, and I seem to see and hear her once more as she sits on that mossy bank, with her one arm around the great Newfoundland's neck, and the summer wind playing with her bonnie hair.

"Thank you, birdie," I said, when she had finished.

"Now then," said Ida.

"I was on half-pay when I first met Nero," I began, "and for some time the relations between us were somewhat strained, for Newfoundlands are most faithful to old memories. The dog seemed determined not to let himself love me or forget his old master, and I felt determined not to love him. It seemed to me positively cruel to let any other animal find a place in my affections, with poor Tyro so recently laid in his grave in the romantic old castle of Doune. So a good month went past without any great show of affection on either side.

"Advancement towards a kindlier condition of feeling betwixt us took place first and foremost from the dog's side. He began to manifest regard for me in a somewhat strange way. His sleeping apartment was a nice, clean, well-bedded out-house, but every morning he used to find his way upstairs to my room before I was awake, and on quietly gaining an entrance, the next thing he would do was to place his two fore-paws on the bed at my shoulder, then raise himself straight up to the perpendicular.

"So when I awoke I would find, on looking up, the great dog standing thus, looming high above me, but as silent and fixed as if he had been a statue chiselled out of the blackest marble.

"At first it used to be quite startling, but I soon got used to it. He never bent his head, but just stood there.

"`I'm here,' he seemed to say, `and you can caress me if you choose; I wouldn't be here at all if I didn't care just a little about you.'

"But one morning, when I put up my hand and patted him, and said--`You are a good, honest-hearted dog, I do believe,' he lowered his great head instantly, and licked my face.

"That is how our friendship began, Ida, and from that day till this we have never been twenty-four hours parted--by sea or on land he has been my constant companion.

"He was very young when I first got him, and had only newly been imported, but he was even then quite as big as he is now.

"The ice being broken, as I might say, affection both on his side and on mine grew very fast; but what cemented our friendship infrangibly was a terrible illness that the poor fellow contracted some months after I got him.

"He began to get very thin, to look pinched about the face, and weary about the eyes, his coat felt harsh and dry, and his appetite went away entirely.

"He used to look up wistfully in my face, as if wanting me to tell him what could possibly be the matter with him.

"The poor dog was sickening for distemper.

"All highly-bred dogs take this dreadful illness in its very worst form.

"I am not going to describe the animal's sufferings, nor any part of them; they were very great, however, and the patience with which he bore them all would have put many a human invalid to shame. He soon came to know that I was doing all I could to save him, and that, nauseous though the medicines were he had to take, they were meant to do him good, and at last he would lick his physic out of the spoon, although so weak that his head had to be supported while he was doing so.

"One night, I remember, he was so very ill that I thought it was impossible he could live till morning, and I remember also sorrowfully wondering where I should lay his great body when dead, for we lived then in the midst of a great, bustling, busy city. But the fever had done its worst, and morning saw him not only alive, but slightly better.

"I was on what we sailors call a spell of half-pay, so I had plenty of time to attend to him--no other cares then, Ida. I did all my skill could suggest to get him over the after effects of the distemper, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing him one of the most splendid Newfoundlands that had ever been known in the country, with a coat that rivalled the raven's wing in darkness and sheen.

"The dog loved me now with all his big heart--for a Newfoundland is one of the most grateful animals that lives--and if the truth must be told, I already loved the dog.

"Nero was bigger then, Ida, than he is now."

"Is that possible?" said Ida.

"It is; for, you see, he is getting old."

"But dogs don't stoop like old men," laughed Ida.

"No," I replied, "not quite; but the joints bend more, the fore and hind feet are lengthened, and that, in a large dog like a Saint Bernard or Newfoundland, makes a difference of an inch or two at the shoulder. But when Nero was in his prime he could easily place his paws on the shoulder of a tall man, and then the man's head and his would be about on a level.

"Somebody taught him a trick of taking gentlemen's hats off in the street."

"Oh!" cried Ida, "I know who the somebody was; it was you, uncle. How naughty of you!"

"Well, Ida," I confessed, "perhaps you are right; but remember that both the dog and I were younger then than we are now. But Nero frequently took a fancy to a policeman's helmet, and used to secure one very neatly when the owner had his back turned, and having secured it, he would go galloping down the street with it, very much to the amusement of the passengers, but usually to the great indignation of the denuded policeman. It would often require the sum of sixpence to put matters to rights."

"I am so glad," said Ida, "he does not deprive policemen of their helmets now; I should be afraid to go out with him."

"You see, Ida, I am not hiding any of the dog's faults nor follies. He had one other trick which more than once led to a scene in the street. I was in the habit of giving him my stick to carry. Sometimes he would come quietly up behind me and march off with it before I had time to prevent him. This would not have signified, if the dog had not taken it into his head that he could with impunity snatch a stick from the hands of any passer-by who happened to carry one to his--the dog's--liking. It was a thick stick the dog preferred, a good mouthful of wood; but he used to do the trick so nimbly and so funnily that the aggrieved party was seldom or never angry. I used to get the stick from Nero as soon as I could, giving him my own instead, and restore it with an ample apology to its owner.

"But one day Nero, while out walking with me, saw limping on ahead of us an old sailor with a wooden leg. I daresay he had left his original leg in some field of battle, or some blood-stained deck.

"`Oh!' Nero seemed to say to himself, `there is a capital stick. That is the thickness I like to see. There is something in that one can lay hold of.'

"And before I could prevent him, he had run on and seized the poor man by the wooden leg. Nero never was a dog to let go hold of anything he had once taken a fancy to, unless he chose to do so of his own accord. On this occasion, I feel convinced he himself saw the humour of the incident, for he stuck to the leg, and there was positive merriment sparkling in his eye as he tugged and pulled. The sailor was Irish, and just as full of fun as the dog. Whether or not he saw there was half-a-crown to be gained by it I cannot say, but he set himself down on the pavement, undid the leg, and off galloped Nero in triumph, waving the wooden limb proudly aloft. The Irishman, sitting there on the pavement, made a speech that set every one around him laughing. I found the dog, and got the leg, slipping a piece of silver into the old sailor's hand as I restored it.

"Well, that was an easy way out of a difficulty. Worse was to come, however, from this trick of Nero's; for not long after, in a dockyard town, while out walking, I perceived some distance ahead of me our elderly admiral of the Fleet. I made two discoveries at one and the same time: the first was, that the admiral carried a beautiful strong bamboo cane; the second was, that master Nero, after giving me a glance that told me he was brimful of mischief, had made up his mind to possess himself of that bamboo cane. Before I could remonstrate with him, the admiral was caneless, and as brimful of wrath as the dog was of fun.

"The situation was appalling.

"I was in uniform, and here was a living admiral, whom _my_ dog assaulted, the dog himself at that very moment lying quietly a little way off, chewing the head of the cane into match-wood. An apology was refused, and I couldn't offer him half-a-crown as I had done the old wooden-legged sailor.

"The name of my ship was demanded, and with fear and trembling in my heart I turned and walked sorrowfully away."

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