"Jeannie was an ass. I do not make this remark in any disparaging way,
for a more interesting member of the genus donkey never, I believe,
stood upon four legs. Indeed, I do not think I would be going too far
if I said that I have known many individuals not half so wise who stood
upon two. Now, although I mention Jeannie in the past tense, it is
because she is not present with me, but she is still, I believe, alive
and well, and is at this moment, I have little doubt, quietly cropping
the grass on her own green field, or gazing pensively at the ocean from
the Worthing sands.
"I must tell you who was my travelling companion when I first made the
acquaintance of the heroine of this little sketch. He was a very large
jet-black Newfoundland dog. Such a fellow! And with such a coat too,
not one curly hair in all his jacket, all as straight as quills, and as
sheeny as the finest satin. Hurricane Bob can play in the sea, toying
with the waves for hours, and still not be wet quite to the skin, and
when he comes on shore again he just gives himself a shake or two,
buckets of water fly in all directions, for the time being he looks like
an animated mop, then away he feathers across the sands, and in a few
minutes he is dry enough for the drawing-room. Bob is quite an
aristocrat in his own way, and every inch a gentleman--one glance at his
beautiful face and his wide, thoughtful eyes would convince you of
this--nor, on being introduced to him, would you be surprised to be told
that not only is he a winner of many prizes himself, but that his father
is a champion dog, and his grandfather before him as well. I do not
think that Hurricane Bob--or Master Robert, as we call him on high days
and holidays--has a single fault, unless probably the habit he has of
going tearing along the streets and roads, when out for a walk, at the
rate of twenty miles an hour. It is this habit which has gained for him
the sobriquet of Hurricane; it is sometimes a little awkward for the
lieges, but to his credit be it said that whenever he runs down a little
boy or girl he never fails to stop and apologise on the spot, licking
the hands of the prostrate one, and saying, as plainly as a dog can
speak, `There, there, I didn't really mean to hurt you, and you'll be
all right again in a minute.'
"We called the place where Jeannie lived, at Worthing, Jeannie's
boarding-house. It was a nice roomy stable, with a coach-house, a yard
for exercise, and a loose-box. The door of the stable was always left
open at Jeannie's request, so that she could go out and in as she
pleased. The loose-box was told off to Hurricane Bob; he had a dish of
nice clean water, a box to hold his dog-biscuits, and plenty of dry
straw, so he was as happy as a king.
"When his landlady, Jeannie, first saw him she sniffed him all over,
while Bob looked up in her face.
"`Just you be careful, old lady,' said Bob, `for I might be tempted to
catch you by the nose.'
"But Jeannie was satisfied.
"`You'll do, doggie,' she said; `there doesn't seem to be an ounce of
real harm in your whole composition.'
"The other members of Jeannie's boarding establishment were about twenty
hens, old and young, more useful perhaps than ornamental. Now, any
other landlady in the world would have had a bad time of it with this
ill-bred feathered squad, for they were far from polite to her, and
constantly grumbling about their food; they said they hadn't enough of
it, and that it was not good what they did get. Then they were
continually squabbling or fighting with each other; the little fowls
always stole all the big pieces, and the big fowls chased and pecked the
little ones all round the yard in consequence, till their backs, under
their feathers, must have been black and blue, and they hadn't peace to
eat the portion they had stolen. `Tick, tuck,' the big fowl would say;
`tick, tuck, take that, and that; tick, tuck, that's what greed gets.'
"But Jeannie was a philosopher, she simply looked at them with those
quiet brown eyes of hers, shook one ear, and said--
"`Grumble away, grumble away, I'm too well known to be afraid of ye; ye
can't bring disgrace on my hotel. Hee, haw! Haw, hee! There!'
"Hurricane Bob paid his bill _every_ morning and every night with a
dog-biscuit. The first morning I offered Jeannie the biscuit she looked
at me.
"`Do you take me for a dog?' she asked. Then she sniffed it. `It do
smell uncommonly nice,' she said; `I'll try it, anyhow.' So she took
the cake in her mouth, and marched into the yard; but returned almost
immediately, still holding it between her teeth.
"`What's the correct way to eat it?' she inquired.
"`That's what I want you to find out,' I said.
"Poor Jeannie! she tried to break it against the door, then against the
wall, and finally against the paving stone, but it resisted all her
efforts. Then, `Oh! I know,' she cried. `You puts it on the ground,
and holes it like a turnip.' N.B.--I'm not accountable for Jeannie's
bad grammar.
"Every morning, when I came to see Master Robert, Jeannie ran to meet
me, and put her great head under my arm for a cuddle. She called me
Arthur, but that isn't my name. She pronounced the first syllable in a
double bass key, and the second in a shrill treble. Ar--thur! Haw,
hee! Haw, hee!
"She was funny, was Jeannie. Some mornings, as soon as she caught sight
of me, she used to go off into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, then
she would apologise.
"`I can't help it, Arthur,' she seemed to say. `It does seem rude, I
daresay, but I really can't help it. It's the sight of you that does
it. Hee, haw! Hee, haw!'
"One day, and one day only, Bob and his landlady nearly had a quarrel.
Jeannie, having eaten her own biscuit, burst into the loose-box, to help
the dog with his. `Ho, ho!' said Hurricane Robert, `you've come to
raise the rent, have ye? Just look at this, old lady.' As he spoke,
the dog lifted one lip, and showed such a display of alabaster teeth,
that Jeannie was glad to retire without raising the rent.
"What was Jeannie like, did you ask? Why, straight in back and strong
in limb, with beautiful long ears to switch away the flies in summer,
with mild, intelligent eyes of hazel brown, and always a soft, smooth
patch on the top of her nose for any one to kiss who was so minded. In
winter Jeannie was rough in coat. She preferred it, she said, because
it kept out the cold, and made an excellent saddle for her three little
playmates to ride upon. Of these she was exceedingly fond, and never
more pleased and proud than when the whole three of them were on her
back at one time--wee, brown-eyed, laughing Lovat S--; young Ernie, bold
and bright and free; and little winsome Winnie C--.
"To be sure they often fell off, but there was where the fun and the
glee lay, especially when Jeannie sometimes bent her nose to the ground
and let them all tumble on the sand in a heap. And that, you know, was
Jeannie's joke, and one that she was never tired of repeating.
"In summer Jeannie shone, positively shone, all over like a race-horse
or a boatman beetle, and then I can tell you it was no easy matter for
her playmates to stick on her back at all. She was particularly
partial, as you have seen, to the society of human beings, and
brightened up wonderfully as soon as a friend appeared on the scene, but
I think when alone she was rather of a contemplative turn of mind.
There was a rookery not far from Jeannie's abode, and at this she never
tired gazing.
"`Well,' said Jeannie to me one day, `they do be funny creatures, those
rooks. I don't think I should like to live up there, Ar--thur. And
they're always a-fighting too, just like my boarders be, and never a
thing do they say from morning till night but caw, caw, caw. Now if
they could only make a few remarks like this, Haw, hee! Haw, hee! Haw
hee!'
"`Oh! don't, pray don't, Jeannie,' I cried, with my fingers in my ears.
"And now, then, what do you think made Jeannie such a bright, loving,
and intelligent animal? Why, kindness and good treatment.
"Dear old Jeannie, I may never gaze upon her classic countenance again,
but I shall not forget her. In my mind's eye I see her even now, as I
last beheld her. The sun had just gone down, behind a calm and silent
sea; scarcely do the waves speak as they break in ripples on the sand,
they do but whisper. And the clouds are tipped with gold and crimson,
and far away in the offing is a ship, a single ship, and these are all
the signs of life there are about, save Jeannie on the beach. Alone.
"I wonder what she was thinking about."