Have I ever mentioned that Palestrina is engaged to be married? If I
have not done so, it is because it seems an obvious fact that all
Palestrinas are engaged to be married. Her _fiance_, who is called
Thomas, is stationed with his regiment in Ireland. A few weeks ago he
sent her, as a token of his affection, a yellow dog with long hair.
Palestrina does not like dogs, but she is trying to love Down-Jock for
Thomas's sake. She says his name is Jock. The dog is a curious
creature, with a passion for hurling himself at those who wear clean
flannel trousers or light skirts. Thomas says he is full of
intelligence. He appears to be quite a young animal, but he can affect
the airs of extreme old age, sleeping in a basket a great part of the
day, or standing on the doorstep to bark at visitors in an asthmatical
manner, as though he would say, "I am too old and too feeble to give
chase, but while I am alive this house shall not lack a defender." At
other times he is wildly juvenile, and rolls himself over and over in
an exuberance of youthful fun. This is chiefly on Sundays, when (his
best joke) he pretends he wants to come to church with us. Sunday is
Down-Jock's happiest day in all the week. No Christian in the land
loves it more than he does. He begins his religious exercises early in
the morning by barking outside the doors of all those people who have
determined to take an extra half-hour's rest, and he continues barking
without ceasing until the sleeper awakes and gets out of bed to open
the door for him. He bustles in and wags his tail cheerfully, saying
as plainly as a dog can say it, "I am an early riser, you see--and a
teetotaler," he adds, trotting across the room to the water-jug, and
lapping full red tonguefuls of its contents. Then he stands in the
middle of the room and barks at you; runs to the door and barks at it;
barks at the servants as they go downstairs, promising--the little
tell-tale!--that their lateness shall be reported in the proper
quarter. Finally, he climbs on to the bed, and goes to sleep upon your
feet.
During breakfast he is attentive to every one, and sits on the skirts
of those ladies who most dislike dogs, and pulls them down
uncomfortably from the waist. He watches every mouthful of food that
is eaten, and grudges it to the eater; and his eyes are saying all the
time, "How can you be so greedy?" After breakfast his most boisterous
juvenile mood begins. He jumps on every one, or rolls himself over and
over under every one's feet. He wags his tail, barks in a piercing
manner--the bark of the gay young dog--and madly rushes after imaginary
rats. All gloves and shoes become his playthings, and he frolics
blithely with the hat-brush.
On weekdays he pleads old age as an excuse, and refuses to come
anywhere with us; but on the Sabbath morning who so ready as Down-Jock
to take his walks abroad? He flies after us to the gate, his long hair
streaming in the wind, and his short legs racing like a clockwork dog.
Palestrina says: "Oh dear, what shall we do? Down-Jock! down, sir!
Oh, he has spoilt my dress! Good doggie, mustn't go to church! Go
home! go home! Oh, Jock, do get down!--Look, he is following us still,
and the church door is always open; he is sure to come in in the middle
of the service, and trot up to us in our pew. Do you think Thomas
would mind if I were to look as if he didn't belong to us?"
Jock flies back with an old bone in his mouth and deposits it at
Palestrina's feet, dares her to touch it, and makes flying snatches at
her shoes when she kicks the treasure aside.
"I must take him back," says Palestrina. "It will make me late of
course, but I must go and shut him up."
"He won't follow you," I say. "He is quite determined to go to church."
Palestrina lifts the heavy beast in her arms, and in an exuberance of
joy Down-Jock makes a doormat of her dress, and rubs his paws
affectionately against it and licks her hand.
Of course he escapes presently and runs after us; that is his best and
most killing joke. Inwardly one feels he is in a state of
hardly-suppressed laughter as he tears down the road again, barking
with glee. And then he gets a sober fit, walks demurely in front of us
in the narrow field-path, changes his mind suddenly about going to
church, stops dead short, and trips us up; thinks after all he ought to
go to the morning service as an example to the servants; toddles on
again, and stops to say (with the air of extreme old age again assumed)
that, after all, he is not up to the exertion, and would have to sit
down at the Psalms, so perhaps it really would be better to stay
quietly at home. Another stop. A rapid toilet performed by scratching
his head with his hind-leg, "just in case I meet any one coming out of
church whom I know;" and then Down-Jock meets a boy friend strolling
off to the fields, and running up to him, says: "One must conform to
conventionalities, but between you and me I never had the remotest
intention of going to church."
Down-Jock, in his moments of most restless activity, always reminds me
of a servant of ours who has occasional fits of the most intense
energy. It begins quite early in the morning, when she gets up some
hours before her usual time, and gives a sort of surprise party to the
rest of the household. These parties take place two or three times a
year, and we do not get over them for weeks afterwards. Every room in
the house is visited in turn, and delinquencies of a twelvemonth are
laid bare. During the morning cupboards are turned out in a
magisterial sort of way, and dusty corners are triumphantly displayed.
The most cherished rubbish is freely consigned to the waste-paper
baskets, and collections of all sorts are contemptuously swept away.
We hastily gather up books and precious oddments, and hurry off with
them to my den, where we take refuge till the whirlwind is past.
Curtains and tablecloths are shaken with a sort of vindictive energy at
the back-door; all windows are flung open, and rugs are rolled up,
making a sort of obstacle race in every passage and room. Down-Jock,
who never recognizes a superior in any one, is the only member of the
party who is not rendered an abject coward. He unrolls rugs, and runs
away with dusters, and snaps at the heels of the housemaid in a way
that provokes one's wonder at his temerity. My sister and I, having
locked away our most cherished possessions, generally contrive to be
out of the house as much as possible on one of these tempestuous days.
And following the line of reasoning, not of the highest order, which
suggests that if one cannot be happy one had better try and be good,
Palestrina always visits her old women at the workhouse on these days.
"I wish," she said to me, "that you would walk into the village and
meet me on my way home. I don't think anybody is coming up to see you
this afternoon, and the house is so uncomfortable when Janet is in one
of her whirlwind moods. Come as far as the corner, and go in and sit
down at old Pettifer's if you get tired."
"Shadrach Pettifer tells me," I said, "that his affection for you is
based on the fact that you are so like his poor old mother. Perhaps
while I am waiting at his cottage he may give me further interesting
facts about you."
Shadey is an old man with a bent back and curious bright eyes that
gleam under a heavy thatch of eyebrow. His wife is the very thinnest
old woman that I have ever seen; her cheeks have fallen in and are so
very wrinkled that they always remind me of a toy balloon that a child
has pricked with a pin. She is always ill and never complaining. Any
expression of sympathy seems foreign to her comprehension, and the
"Poor thing!" or "I am so sorry," so eagerly accepted by more fortunate
folk, is received by her with a certain air of independence. Last
winter Mrs. Pettifer was dangerously ill with internal gout, but
expressions of condolence were always met with the rather curious
reply, "Well, you see, sir, we must have something to bring us to our
end." There is a whole world of philosophy in this.
To-day the old couple spent the time while I waited for Palestrina in
their cottage in describing to me the last days in the life of their
tortoise, an old friend, and an animal of evidently strange and unusual
qualities. Towards the close of its life it was, on the testimony of
the Pettifers, taken with screaming fits, and, it even had to be held
down "when the high-strikes was wuss." Later it used to run round and
round as never was. And at last Shadey determined to release it from
this earthly tabernacle. He asked his friend Bridgeman, Anthony
Crawshay's head-keeper, to come round some evening and administer
poison to the unfortunate beast, and the effect of the dose was as
strange as it was unexpected. The poison was the first thing for weeks
that poor Toots the tortoise had seemed to enjoy. It seemed, to quote
again from the testimony of those most intimately acquainted with the
animal, to "put new life into Toots," and the more poison that was
administered the livelier did he become, "until he was that gay it
seemed as if he would ha' laughed at yer!" Finally, I understood that
when poison sufficient to kill two cart-horses had been given, the
afflicted animal yielded to treatment, and its shell now adorns the
kitchen dresser.
We returned home to find the house smelling of furniture polish, and
permeated with a certain cold primness which succeeds a tidying-up, and
which can only be dispelled by a glowing fire. One by one things were
brought back to the hall, and we felt like snails creeping out in the
evening after a day of rain. Banished property strewed the tables
again, and Palestrina opened the piano and spread it with music. It
was an act of defiance, but comfortable nevertheless, to collect the
cushions which had been dotted primly about in clean muslin covers, and
to pile them all on to the sofa before the fire. But Down-Jock, who
always goes one better than any one else, contributed still more
completely to the systematized disorganization of the house. He gaily
wiped his muddy feet on clean paint, and tore blithely round after
imaginary rats wherever order reigned. Finally, in an exuberance of
joy, he made a hearty supper of Palestrina's manuscript book of music,
and barked with glee.
And yet some people say that dogs are not intelligent!