Chapter 6

“Then we'll go back this morning to the waterfall,” he said, “and tell it that it's all come right. And now, we'll bow to those crazy people out there, those make-believe dream-people, who don't know that there is nothing real in this world but just you and me, and that we love each other.”

A dishevelled orderly bearing a tray with two glasses confronted Ranson at the door. “Here's the Scotch and sodas, lieutenant,” he panted. “I couldn't get 'em any sooner. The men wanted to take 'em off me--to drink Miss Cahill's health.”

“So they shall,” said Ranson. “Tell them to drink the canteen dry and charge it to me. What's a little thing like the regulations between friends? They have taught me my manners. Mr. Cahill,” he called.

The post-trader returned from the veranda.

Ranson solemnly handed him a glass and raised the other in the air. “Here's hoping that the Red Rider rides on his raids no more,” he said; “and to the future Mrs. Ranson--to Mary Cahill, God bless her!”

He shattered the empty glass in the grate and took Cahill's hand.

“Father-in-law,” said Ranson, “let's promise each other to lead a new and a better life.”

THE BAR SINISTER

I

The Master was walking most unsteady, his legs tripping each other. After the fifth or sixth round, my legs often go the same way.

But even when the Master's legs bend and twist a bit, you mustn't think he can't reach you. Indeed, that is the time he kicks most frequent. So I kept behind him in the shadow, or ran in the middle of the street. He stopped at many public-houses with swinging doors, those doors that are cut so high from the sidewalk that you can look in under them, and see if the Master is inside. At night when I peep beneath them the man at the counter will see me first and say, “Here's the Kid, Jerry, come to take you home. Get a move on you,” and the Master will stumble out and follow me. It's lucky for us I'm so white, for no matter how dark the night, he can always see me ahead, just out of reach of his boot. At night the Master certainly does see most amazing. Sometimes he sees two or four of me, and walks in a circle, so that I have to take him by the leg of his trousers and lead him into the right road. One night, when he was very nasty-tempered and I was coaxing him along, two men passed us and one of them says, “Look at that brute!” and the other asks “Which?” and they both laugh. The Master, he cursed them good and proper.

This night, whenever we stopped at a public-house, the Master's pals left it and went on with us to the next. They spoke quite civil to me, and when the Master tried a flying kick, they gives him a shove. “Do you want we should lose our money?” says the pals.

I had had nothing to eat for a day and a night, and just before we set out the Master gives me a wash under the hydrant. Whenever I am locked up until all the slop-pans in our alley are empty, and made to take a bath, and the Master's pals speak civil, and feel my ribs, I know something is going to happen. And that night, when every time they see a policeman under a lamp-post, they dodged across the street, and when at the last one of them picked me up and hid me under his jacket, I began to tremble; for I knew what it meant. It meant that I was to fight again for the Master.

I don't fight because I like it. I fight because if I didn't the other dog would find my throat, and the Master would lose his stakes, and I would be very sorry for him and ashamed. Dogs can pass me and I can pass dogs, and I'd never pick a fight with none of them. When I see two dogs standing on their hind-legs in the streets, clawing each other's ears, and snapping for each other's windpipes, or howling and swearing and rolling in the mud, I feel sorry they should act so, and pretend not to notice. If he'd let me, I'd like to pass the time of day with every dog I meet. But there's something about me that no nice dog can abide. When I trot up to nice dogs, nodding and grinning, to make friends, they always tell me to be off. “Go to the devil!” they bark at me; “Get out!” and when I walk away they shout “mongrel,” and “gutter-dog,” and sometimes, after my back is turned, they rush me. I could kill most of them with three shakes, breaking the back-bone of the little ones, and squeezing the throat of the big ones. But what's the good? They are nice dogs; that's why I try to make up to them, and though it's not for them to say it, I am a street-dog, and if I try to push into the company of my betters, I suppose it's their right to teach me my place.

Of course, they don't know I'm the best fighting bull-terrier of my weight in Montreal. That's why it wouldn't be right for me to take no notice of what they shout. They don't know that if I once locked my jaws on them I'd carry away whatever I touched. The night I fought Kelley's White Rat, I wouldn't loosen up until the Master made a noose in my leash and strangled me, and if the handlers hadn't thrown red pepper down my nose, I never would have let go of that Ottawa dog. I don't think the handlers treated me quite right that time, but maybe they didn't know the Ottawa dog was dead. I did.

I learned my fighting from my mother when I was very young. We slept in a lumber-yard on the river-front, and by day hunted for food along the wharves. When we got it, the other tramp-dogs would try to take it off us, and then it was wonderful to see mother fly at them, and drive them away. All I know of fighting I learned from mother, watching her picking the ash-heaps for me when I was too little to fight for myself. No one ever was so good to me as mother. When it snowed and the ice was in the St. Lawrence she used to hunt alone, and bring me back new bones, and she'd sit and laugh to see me trying to swallow 'em whole. I was just a puppy then, my teeth was falling out. When I was able to fight we kept the whole river-range to ourselves, I had the genuine long, “punishing” jaw, so mother said, and there wasn't a man or a dog that dared worry us. Those were happy days, those were; and we lived well, share and share alike, and when we wanted a bit of fun, we chased the fat old wharf-rats. My! how they would squeal!

Then the trouble came. It was no trouble to me. I was too young to care then. But mother took it so to heart that she grew ailing, and wouldn't go abroad with me by day. It was the same old scandal that they're always bringing up against me. I was so young then that I didn't know. I couldn't see any difference between mother--and other mothers.

But one day a pack of curs we drove off snarled back some new names at her, and mother dropped her head and ran, just as though they had whipped us. After that she wouldn't go out with me except in the dark, and one day she went away and never came back, and though I hunted for her in every court and alley and back street of Montreal, I never found her.

One night, a month after mother ran away, I asked Guardian, the old blind mastiff, whose Master is the night-watchman on our slip, what it all meant. And he told me.

“Every dog in Montreal knows,” he says, “except you, and every Master knows. So I think it's time you knew.”

Then he tells me that my father, who had treated mother so bad, was a great and noble gentleman from London. “Your father had twenty-two registered ancestors, had your father,” old Guardian says, “and in him was the best bull-terrier blood of England, the most ancientest, the most royal; the winning 'blue-ribbon' blood, that breeds champions. He had sleepy pink eyes, and thin pink lips, and he was as white all over as his own white teeth, and under his white skin you could see his muscles, hard and smooth, like the links of a steel chain. When your father stood still, and tipped his nose in the air, it was just as though he was saying, 'Oh, yes, you common dogs and men, you may well stare. It must be a rare treat for you Colonials to see a real English royalty.' He certainly was pleased with hisself, was your father. He looked just as proud and haughty as one of them stone dogs in Victoria Park--them as is cut out of white marble. And you're like him,” says the old mastiff--“by that, of course, meaning you're white, same as him. That's the only likeness. But, you see, the trouble is, Kid--well, you see, Kid, the trouble is--your mother--”

“That will do,” I said, for I understood then without his telling me, and I got up and walked away, holding my head and tail high in the air.

But I was, oh, so miserable, and I wanted to see mother that very minute, and tell her that I didn't care.

Mother is what I am, a street-dog; there's no royal blood in mother's veins, nor is she like that father of mine, nor--and that's the worst--she's not even like me. For while I, when I'm washed for a fight, am as white as clean snow, she--and this is our trouble, she--my mother, is a black-and-tan.

When mother hid herself from me, I was twelve months old and able to take care of myself, and, as after mother left me, the wharves were never the same, I moved uptown and met the Master. Before he came, lots of other men-folks had tried to make up to me, and to whistle me home. But they either tried patting me or coaxing me with a piece of meat; so I didn't take to 'em. But one day the Master pulled me out of a street-fight by the hind-legs, and kicked me good.

“You want to fight, do you?” says he. “I'll give you all the FIGHTING you want!” he says, and he kicks me again. So I knew he was my Master, and I followed him home. Since that day I've pulled off many fights for him, and they've brought dogs from all over the province to have a go at me, but up to that night none, under thirty pounds, had ever downed me.

But that night, so soon as they carried me into the ring, I saw the dog was over-weight, and that I was no match for him. It was asking too much of a puppy. The Master should have known I couldn't do it. Not that I mean to blame the Master, for when sober, which he sometimes was, though not, as you might say, his habit, he was most kind to me, and let me out to find food, if I could get it, and only kicked me when I didn't pick him up at night and lead him home.

But kicks will stiffen the muscles, and starving a dog so as to get him ugly-tempered for a fight may make him nasty, but it's weakening to his insides, and it causes the legs to wabble.

The ring was in a hall, back of a public-house. There was a red-hot whitewashed stove in one corner, and the ring in the other. I lay in the Master's lap, wrapped in my blanket, and, spite of the stove, shivering awful; but I always shiver before a fight; I can't help gettin' excited. While the men-folks were a-flashing their money and taking their last drink at the bar, a little Irish groom in gaiters came up to me and give me the back of his hand to smell, and scratched me behind the ears.

“You poor little pup,” says he. “You haven't no show,” he says. “That brute in the tap-room, he'll eat your heart out.”

“That's what you think,” says the Master, snarling. “I'll lay you a quid the Kid chews him up.”

The groom, he shook his head, but kept looking at me so sorry-like, that I begun to get a bit sad myself. He seemed like he couldn't bear to leave off a-patting of me, and he says, speaking low just like he would to a man-folk, “Well, good-luck to you, little pup,” which I thought so civil of him, that I reached up and licked his hand. I don't do that to many men. And the Master, he knew I didn't, and took on dreadful.

“What 'ave you got on the back of your hand?” says he, jumping up.

“Soap!” says the groom, quick as a rat. “That's more than you've got on yours. Do you want to smell of it?” and he sticks his fist under the Master's nose. But the pals pushed in between 'em.

“He tried to poison the Kid!” shouts the Master.

“Oh, one fight at a time,” says the referee. “Get into the ring, Jerry. We're waiting.” So we went into the ring.

I never could just remember what did happen in that ring. He give me no time to spring. He fell on me like a horse. I couldn't keep my feet against him, and though, as I saw, he could get his hold when he liked, he wanted to chew me over a bit first. I was wondering if they'd be able to pry him off me, when, in the third round, he took his hold; and I began to drown, just as I did when I fell into the river off the Red C slip. He closed deeper and deeper, on my throat, and everything went black and red and bursting; and then, when I were sure I were dead, the handlers pulled him off, and the Master give me a kick that brought me to. But I couldn't move none, or even wink, both eyes being shut with lumps.

“He's a cur!” yells the Master, “a sneaking, cowardly cur. He lost the fight for me,” says he, “because he's a---------cowardly cur.” And he kicks me again in the lower ribs, so that I go sliding across the sawdust. “There's gratitude fer yer,” yells the Master. “I've fed that dog, and nussed that dog, and housed him like a prince; and now he puts his tail between his legs, and sells me out, he does. He's a coward; I've done with him, I am. I'd sell him for a pipeful of tobacco.” He picked me up by the tail, and swung me for the men-folks to see. “Does any gentleman here want to buy a dog,” he says, “to make into sausage-meat?” he says. “That's all he's good for.”

Then I heard the little Irish groom say, “I'll give you ten bob for the dog.”

And another voice says, “Ah, don't you do it; the dog's same as dead--mebby he is dead.”

“Ten shillings!” says the Master, and his voice sobers a bit; “make it two pounds, and he's yours.”

But the pals rushed in again.

“Don't you be a fool, Jerry,” they say. “You'll be sorry for this when you're sober. The Kid's worth a fiver.”

One of my eyes was not so swelled up as the other, and as I hung by my tail, I opened it, and saw one of the pals take the groom by the shoulder.

“You ought to give 'im five pounds for that dog, mate,” he says; “that's no ordinary dog. That dog's got good blood in him, that dog has. Why, his father--that very dog's father--”

I thought he never would go on. He waited like he wanted to be sure the groom was listening.

“That very dog's father,” says the pal, “is Regent Royal, son of Champion Regent Monarch, champion bull-terrier of England for four years.”

I was sore, and torn, and chewed most awful, but what the pal said sounded so fine that I wanted to wag my tail, only couldn't, owing to my hanging from it.

But the Master calls out, “Yes, his father was Regent Royal; who's saying he wasn't? but the pup's a cowardly cur, that's what his pup is, and why--I'll tell you why--because his mother was a black-and-tan street-dog, that's why!”

I don't see how I get the strength, but some way I threw myself out of the Master's grip and fell at his feet, and turned over and fastened all my teeth in his ankle, just across the bone.

When I woke, after the pals had kicked me off him, I was in the smoking-car of a railroad-train, lying in the lap of the little groom, and he was rubbing my open wounds with a greasy, yellow stuff, exquisite to the smell, and most agreeable to lick off.

II

“Well--what's your name--Nolan? Well, Nolan, these references are satisfactory,” said the young gentleman. My new Master called “Mr. Wyndham, sir.”

“I'll take you on as second man. You can begin to-day.”

My new Master shuffled his feet, and put his finger to his forehead. “Thank you, sir,” says he. Then he choked like he had swallowed a fish-bone. “I have a little dawg, sir,” says he.

“You can't keep him,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” very short.

“'Es only a puppy, sir,” says my new Master; “'e wouldn't go outside the stables, sir.”

“It's not that,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir;” “I have a large kennel of very fine dogs; they're the best of their breed in America. I don't allow strange dogs on the premises.”

The Master shakes his head, and motions me with his cap, and I crept out from behind the door. “I'm sorry, sir,” says the Master. “Then I can't take the place. I can't get along without the dog, sir.”

“Mr. Wyndham, sir,” looked at me that fierce that I guessed he was going to whip me, so I turned over on my back and begged with my legs and tail.

“Why, you beat him!” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” very stern.

“No fear!” the Master says, getting very red. “The party I bought him off taught him that. He never learnt that from me!” He picked me up in his arms, and to show “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” how well I loved the Master, I bit his chin and hands.

“Mr. Wyndham, sir,” turned over the letters the Master had given him. “Well, these references certainly are very strong,” he says. “I guess I'll let the dog stay this time. Only see you keep him away from the kennels--or you'll both go.”

“Thank you, sir,” says the Master, grinning like a cat when she's safe behind the area-railing.

“He's not a bad bull-terrier,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” feeling my head. “Not that I know much about the smooth-coated breeds. My dogs are St. Bernards.” He stopped patting me and held up my nose. “What's the matter with his ears?” he says. “They're chewed to pieces. Is this a fighting dog?” he asks, quick and rough-like.

I could have laughed. If he hadn't been holding my nose, I certainly would have had a good grin at him. Me, the best under thirty pounds in the Province of Quebec, and him asking if I was a fighting dog! I ran to the Master and hung down my head modest-like, waiting for him to tell my list of battles, but the Master he coughs in his cap most painful. “Fightin' dog, sir,” he cries. “Lor' bless you, sir, the Kid don't know the word. 'Es just a puppy, sir, same as you see; a pet dog, so to speak. 'Es a regular old lady's lap-dog, the Kid is.”

“Well, you keep him away from my St. Bernards,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” “or they might make a mouthful of him.”

“Yes, sir, that they might,” says the Master. But when we gets outside he slaps his knee and laughs inside hisself, and winks at me most sociable.

The Master's new home was in the country, in a province they called Long Island. There was a high stone wall about his home with big iron gates to it, same as Godfrey's brewery; and there was a house with five red roofs, and the stables, where I lived, was cleaner than the aerated bakery-shop, and then there was the kennels, but they was like nothing else in this world that ever I see. For the first days I couldn't sleep of nights for fear someone would catch me lying in such a cleaned-up place, and would chase me out of it, and when I did fall to sleep I'd dream I was back in the old Master's attic, shivering under the rusty stove, which never had no coals in it, with the Master flat on his back on the cold floor with his clothes on. And I'd wake up, scared and whimpering, and find myself on the new Master's cot with his hand on the quilt beside me; and I'd see the glow of the big stove, and hear the high-quality horses below-stairs stamping in their straw-lined boxes, and I'd snoop the sweet smell of hay and harness-soap, and go to sleep again.

The stables was my jail, so the Master said, but I don't ask no better home than that jail.

“Now, Kid,” says he, sitting on the top of a bucket upside down, “you've got to understand this. When I whistle it means you're not to go out of this 'ere yard. These stables is your jail. And if you leave 'em I'll have to leave 'em, too, and over the seas, in the County Mayo, an old mother will 'ave to leave her bit of a cottage. For two pounds I must be sending her every month, or she'll have naught to eat, nor no thatch over 'er head; so, I can't lose my place, Kid, an' see you don't lose it for me. You must keep away from the kennels,” says he; “they're not for the likes of you. The kennels are for the quality. I wouldn't take a litter of them woolly dogs for one wag of your tail, Kid, but for all that they are your betters, same as the gentry up in the big house are my betters. I know my place and keep away from the gentry, and you keep away from the Champions.”

So I never goes out of the stables. All day I just lay in the sun on the stone flags, licking my jaws, and watching the grooms wash down the carriages, and the only care I had was to see they didn't get gay and turn the hose on me. There wasn't even a single rat to plague me. Such stables I never did see.

“Nolan,” says the head-groom, “some day that dog of yours will give you the slip. You can't keep a street-dog tied up all his life. It's against his natur'.” The head-groom is a nice old gentleman, but he doesn't know everything. Just as though I'd been a street-dog because I liked it. As if I'd rather poke for my vittles in ash-heaps than have 'em handed me in a wash-basin, and would sooner bite and fight than be polite and sociable. If I'd had mother there I couldn't have asked for nothing more. But I'd think of her snooping in the gutters, or freezing of nights under the bridges, or, what's worse of all, running through the hot streets with her tongue down, so wild and crazy for a drink, that the people would shout “mad dog” at her, and stone her. Water's so good, that I don't blame the men-folks for locking it up inside their houses, but when the hot days come, I think they might remember that those are the dog-days and leave a little water outside in a trough, like they do for the horses. Then we wouldn't go mad, and the policemen wouldn't shoot us. I had so much of everything I wanted that it made me think a lot of the days when I hadn't nothing, and if I could have given what I had to mother, as she used to share with me, I'd have been the happiest dog in the land. Not that I wasn't happy then, and most grateful to the Master, too, and if I'd only minded him, the trouble wouldn't have come again.

But one day the coachman says that the little lady they called Miss Dorothy had come back from school, and that same morning she runs over to the stables to pat her ponies, and she sees me.

“Oh, what a nice little, white little dog,” said she; “whose little dog are you?” says she.

“That's my dog, miss,” says the Master. “'Is name is Kid,” and I ran up to her most polite, and licks her fingers, for I never see so pretty and kind a lady.

“You must come with me and call on my new puppies,” says she, picking me up in her arms and starting off with me.

“Oh, but please, Miss,” cries Nolan, “Mr. Wyndham give orders that the Kid's not to go to the kennels.”

“That'll be all right,” says the little lady; “they're my kennels too. And the puppies will like to play with him.”

You wouldn't believe me if I was to tell you of the style of them quality-dogs. If I hadn't seen it myself I wouldn't have believed it neither. The Viceroy of Canada don't live no better. There was forty of them, but each one had his own house and a yard--most exclusive--and a cot and a drinking-basin all to hisself. They had servants standing 'round waiting to feed 'em when they was hungry, and valets to wash 'em; and they had their hair combed and brushed like the grooms must when they go out on the box. Even the puppies had overcoats with their names on 'em in blue letters, and the name of each of those they called champions was painted up fine over his front door just like it was a public-house or a veterinary's. They were the biggest St. Bernards I ever did see. I could have walked under them if they'd have let me. But they were very proud and haughty dogs, and looked only once at me, and then sniffed in the air. The little lady's own dog was an old gentleman bull-dog. He'd come along with us, and when he notices how taken aback I was with all I see, 'e turned quite kind and affable and showed me about.

“Jimmy Jocks,” Miss Dorothy called him, but, owing to his weight, he walked most dignified and slow, waddling like a duck as you might say, and looked much too proud and handsome for such a silly name.