"It's a schoolmaster," I said.
"A what?" roared the dominie.
"A schoolmaster," I said, more emphatically; "it has a hump on its
back."
I didn't mean to be rude, but I naturally imagined that the hump was the
badge of the scholastic calling, and that the dromedary was dominie
among the beasts.
"Oh! indeed," said Dominie W--; "well, you just wait there a minute, and
I'll make a hump on your back." And he moved off towards the desk for
the strap.
As I didn't want a hump on my back, instant flight suggested itself to
me, as the only way of meeting the difficulty; so I made tracks for the
door forthwith.
"Hold him, catch him!" cried the dominie, and a big boy seized me by the
skirt of my dress. But I had the presence of mind to meet my teeth in
the fleshy part of the lad's hand; then I was free to flee. Down the
avenue I ran as fast as two diminutive shanks could carry me, but I had
still a hundred yards to run, and capture seemed inevitable, for the
dominie was gaining on me fast. But help was most unexpectedly at hand,
for, to my great joy, our pet bull-terrier, "Danger," suddenly put in an
appearance. The dog seemed to take in the whole situation at a glance,
and it was now the dominie's turn to shake in his shoes. And Danger
went for him in grand style, too. I don't know that he hurt him very
much, but to have to return to school with five-and-thirty pounds of
pure-bred bull-terrier hanging to one's hump, cannot be very grateful to
one's feelings. I was not sent to that seminary any more for a year,
but it dawned upon me even thus early that dogs have their uses.
When I was a year or two older I had as a companion and pet a
black-and-tan terrier called "Tip," and a dear good-hearted game little
fellow he was; and he and I were always of the same mind, full of fan
and fond of mischief. Tip could fetch and carry almost anything; a
loose railway rug, for example, would be a deal heavier than he, but if
told he would drag one up three flights of stairs walking backwards.
Again, if you showed him anything, and then hid it, he would find it
wherever it was. He was not on friendly terms with the cat though; she
used him shamefully, and finding him one day in a room by himself she
whacked him through the open window, and Tip fell two storeys. Dead?
No. Tip fell on his feet.
One day Tip was a long time absent, and when he came into the garden he
came up to me and placed a large round ball all covered with thorns at
my feet.
"Whatever is it, Tip?" I asked.
"That's a hoggie," said Tip, "and ain't my mouth sore just."
I put down my hands to lift it up, and drew them back with pricked and
bleeding fingers. Then I shrieked, and nursie came running out, and
shook me, and whacked me on the back as if I had swallowed a bone.
That's how she generally served me.
"What is it now?" she cried; "you're never out of mischief; did Tip bite
you?"
"No, no," I whimpered, "the beastie bited me."
Then I had three pets for many a day, Tip and the cat and the hedgehog,
who grew very tame indeed.
Maggie Hay was nursie's name. I was usually packed off to bed early in
the evening, and got the cat with me, and in due time Maggie came. But
one night the cat and I quarrelled, so I slipped out of bed, and crept
quietly down to the back kitchen, and returned with my hoggie in the
front of my nightdress, and went back to my couch. I was just in that
blissful state of independence, between sleeping and waking, when Maggie
came upstairs to bed. The hoggie had crept out of my arms, and had gone
goodness knows whither, and I didn't care, but I know this much, that
Maggie had no sooner got in and laid down, than she gave vent to a loud
scream, and sprang on to the floor again, and stood shaking and
shivering like a ghost in the moonlight. I suppose she had laid herself
down right on top of my hoggie, and hoggie not being used to such
treatment had doubtless got its spines up at once. I leave you to guess
whether Maggie gave me a shaking or not. This pet lived for three long
happy months, and its food was porridge and milk, morsels of green food,
and beetles, which it caught on its own account. But I suppose it
longed for its old gipsy life in the green fields, and missed the tender
herbs and juicy slugs it had been wont to gather by the foot of the
hedgerows. I don't know, but one morning I found my poor hoggie rolled
up in a little ball with one leg sticking out; it was dead and stiff.
Maggie took it solemnly up by that one leg as if it had been a handle
and carried it away and buried it; then she came back with her eyes wet
and kissed me, and gave me a large--very large--slice of bread with an
extra allowance of treacle on it. But there seemed to be a big lump in
my throat; I tried hard to eat, but failed miserably, only--I managed to
lick the treacle off.
My little friend Tip was of a very inquiring turn of mind, and this
trait in his character led to his miserable end.
One day some men were blasting stones in a neighbouring field, and Tip
seeing what he took to be a rat's tail sticking out of a stone, and a
thin wreath of blue smoke curling up out of it, went to investigate.
He did not come back to tell tales; he was carried on high with the
hurtling stones and _debris_, and I never saw my poor Tip any more.