"Come, Dumps, come."
My doggie wagged his scrumpy tail, cocked his expressive ears, and
glanced from me to his mistress, but did not rise.
"Pompey prefers to remain with me," said Edie; "let him stay."
"Punch is a wise dog," observed Robin, as we descended the stairs
together; "but you don't ought to let your spirits go down, sir," he
added, with a profoundly sagacious glance, "'cause, of course, he can't
'elp 'isself now. He'll 'ave to stick to you wotever 'appens--an' to me
too!"
I understood the meaning of his last words, and could not help smiling
at the presumptuous certainty with which he assumed that he was going to
follow my fortunes.
Is it needful to say that when I mentioned what had occurred to Dr
McTougall that amiable little man opened his eyes to their widest?
"You young dog!" he exclaimed, "was it grateful in you to repay all my
kindness by robbing me in this sly manner of my governess--nay, I may
say, of my daughter, for I have long ago considered her such, and
adopted her in my heart?"
"It was not done slily, I assure you," said I; "indeed, I fought against
the catastrophe with all my might--but I--I could not help it at last;
it came upon me, as it were, unexpectedly--took me by surprise."
"Humph!" ejaculated the doctor.
"Besides," I added, "you can scarcely call it robbery, for are not you
and I united as partners, so that instead of robbing you, I have, in
reality, created another bond of union between you and Edie?"
"H'm!" said the doctor.
"Moreover," I continued, "it happens most opportunely just now that the
house opposite this one is to let. It is a much smaller and
lower-rented house than this, and admirably suited for a very small
family, so that if I secure it we will scarcely, I may say, have to quit
your roof."
"Ah! to be sure," returned the doctor, falling in with my humour, "we
will have the pleasure of overlooking and criticising each other and our
respective households. We may sit at the windows and converse across
the street in fine weather, or flatten our noses on the glass, and make
faces at each other when the weather is bad. Besides, we can have a
tunnel cut under the street and thus have subterranean communication at
any time of the day or night--and what a charming place that would be
for the children to romp in! Of course, we would require to have it
made of bricks or cast-iron to prevent the rats connecting it with the
sewers, but--"
A breeze of pattering feet overhead induced the doctor to pause. It
increased to a gale on the staircase, to a tempest in the lobby. The
door was burst open, and Jack, and Harry, and Job, and Jenny, and Dolly,
with blazing cheeks and eyes, tumbled tumultuously into the room.
"Oh papa!" screamed Harry, "Lilly's been out an' found her mother!"
"No, it's not--it's her gan-muver," shrieked Dolly.
"Yes, an' Dr Mellon's going to marry her," cried Jenny.
"Who?--the grandmother?" asked the doctor, with a surprised look.
"No--Lilly," they all cried, with a shout of laughter, which Jack
checked by stoutly asserting that it was her great-grandmother that
Lilly had found. This drew an emphatic, "No, it's not," from Job, and a
firmly reiterated assertion that it was "only her gan-muver" from Dolly.
"But Robin said so," cried Jack.
"No, he _didn't_," said Job.
"Yes, he _did_," cried Harry.
"Robin said she's found 'er _gan-muver_," said Dolly.
"I'll go an' ask him," cried Jenny, and turning round, she rushed out of
the room. The others faced about, as one child, and the tempest swept
back into the lobby, moderated to a gale on the staircase, and was
reduced to a breeze--afterwards to a temporary calm--overhead.
Before it burst forth again the doctor and I had put on our hats and
left the house.
From that date forward, for many weeks, the number of lost grandmothers
that were found in the McTougall nursery surpasses belief. They were
discovered in all sorts of places, and in all imaginable circumstances--
under beds, tables, upturned baths, and basin-stands; in closets,
trunks, and cupboards, and always in a condition of woeful weakness and
melancholy destitution. The part of grandmother was invariably assigned
to Dolly, because, although the youngest of the group, that little
creature possessed a power of acting and of self-control which none of
the others could equal. At first they were careful to keep as close to
the original event as possible; but after a time, thirsting for variety,
they became lax, and the grandmothers were found not only by
granddaughters, but by daughters, and cousins, and nieces, and nephews;
but the play never varied in the points of extreme poverty and woe,
because Dolly refused, with invincible determination, to change or
modify her part.
After a time they varied the performance with a wedding, in which
innumerable Dr Mellons were united to endless Lilly Blythes; but after
the real wedding took place, and the cake had been utterly consumed,
they returned to their first love--Lost and Found, as they termed it or,
the Gan-muver's Play.
So, in course of time, the house over the way was actually taken and
furnished. Edie was installed therein as empress; I as her devoted
slave--when not otherwise engaged. And, to say truth, even when I _was_
otherwise engaged I always managed to leave my heart at home.
Anatomists may, perhaps, be puzzled by this statement. If so--let them
be puzzled! Gan-muver was also installed as queen-dowager, in a suite
of apartments consisting of one room and a closet.
It was not in Dr McTougall's nursery alone that the game of Lost and
Found was played.
In a little schoolroom, not far distant from our abode, that game was
played by Edie--assisted by Robin Slidder and myself--with considerable
success.
Robin crossed the street to me--came over, as it were--with Edith the
conqueror and our doggie, and afterwards became a most valuable ally in
searching for, drawing forth, tempting out and gathering in the lost.
He and I sought for them in some of the lowest slums of London. Robin's
knowledge of their haunts and ways, and, his persuasive voice, had
influence where none but himself--or some one like him--could have made
any impression. We tempted them to our little hall with occasional
feasts, in which buns, oranges, raisins, gingerbread, and tea played
prominent parts, and when we had gathered them in, Edith came to them,
like an angel of light and preached to them the gospel of Jesus, at once
by example, tone, look, and word.
Among others who came to our little social meetings was the Slogger.
That unpunished criminal not only launched with, apparently, heart and
soul into the good cause, but he was the means of inducing many others
to come, and when, in after years, his old comrade, Mr Brassey,
returned from his enforced residence in foreign parts, the Slogger
sought for and found him, and stuck to him with the pertinacity of his
bulldog nature until he fairly brought him in.
Thus that good work went on with us. Thus it is going on at the present
time in many, many parts of our favoured land, and thus it will go on,
with God's blessing, until His people shall all be gathered into the
fold of the Good Shepherd--until that day when the puzzlements and
bewilderments of this incomprehensible life shall be cleared up; when we
shall be enabled to understand _why_ man has been so long permitted to
dwell in the midst of conflicting good and evil, and why he has been
required to live on earth by faith and not by sight, trusting in the
unquestionable goodness and wisdom of Him who is our Life and our Light.
In all our work, whether temporal or spiritual, we had the help and
powerful sympathy of our friend Dr McTougall and his family; also of
_his_ friend Dobson, the City man, who was a strong man in more ways
than one, and a zealous champion of righteousness--or "rightness," as he
was fond of calling it, in contradistinction to wrongness.
I meant to let fall the curtain at this point but something which I
cannot explain induces me to keep it up a few minutes longer, in order
to tell you that the little McTougalls grew up to be splendid men and
women; that dear old granny is still alive and well, insomuch that she
bids fair to become a serene centenarian; that my sweet Edie is now
"fair, fat, and forty;" that I am grey and hearty; that Dumps is greyer,
and so fat, as well as stiff, that he wags his ridiculous tail with the
utmost difficulty; that Brassey and the Slogger have gone into
partnership in the green-grocery line round the corner; and that Robin
Slidder is no longer a boy, but has become a man and a butler. He is
still in our service, and declares that he will never leave it. My firm
conviction is that he will keep his word as long as he can.
So now, amiable reader, with regret and the best of wishes, we make our
final bow-"wow"--and:
Bid you good-bye,
My doggie and I.