One cool, sharp afternoon, when the second summer of our stay in the country was drawing to a close, I found myself all alone over at Gringo’s house. All the dogs were away somewhere, so finding no one in the orchard to gossip with me, I made up my mind to run down to the village and call on Mrs. Waverlee.
It was just about five o’clock, and she had a nice English fashion of always having afternoon tea. When the maid brought in the tea things, there was always a blue bowl for Patsie’s tea, and a pink one for any caller he might have. There was quite a nipping wind that afternoon, and the thought of that pink bowl nearly full of weak tea, with four lumps of sugar, and plenty of cream in it, just warmed the cockles of my heart, so off I trotted for the village.
Mrs. Waverlee was at home sitting by the fire, and looking very sweet and pretty but rather tired, for she taught away a good deal of strength every morning. Her whole soul was in her work for the children.
She patted me very kindly, when I ran into her dainty drawing-room, and invited me to lie down on the rug before the fire.
Then she leaned back—not in her rocking-chair, forshe hadn’t one in her house—but in a big chintz-covered arm-chair that fairly swallowed up her slender figure. She was gazing intently at a large oil painting that stood in the almost loving embrace of another big chair, placed in a good light from a window. Paper and wrapping stuff lay on the floor, and I guessed that the picture had just arrived.
While she sat staring at it, her little maid ushered in another caller. This time it was Mr. Bonstone. He spoke nicely to her in his short manner, said “Hello! Boy,” to me, then stood leaning against the mantel, watching her pour out a cup of tea for him. As he approached the little table to take it from her, his eye fell on the painting.
He didn’t say anything, but his look said, “Ah! she has been getting a family picture from England.”
I have already remarked that Mrs. Waverlee was a bit of a clairvoyante. She saw he was interested, and she said in her distinct, delicate way, “It is my father, taken with my boy when we were last in England.”
Mr. Bonstone was slowly wiggling his spoon back and forth in his cup to dissolve the sugar. As she spoke, his eye kindled. Something in the portrait aroused his attention. Then his hand stopped moving the spoon.
“Your father,” he said slowly.
“Yes,” she repeated simply, “my dear father.”
Most American women would have vouchsafed some more information, seeing that his curiosity was aroused, but she was a regular Englishwoman, and could talk sweetly for hours, and tell you nothing.
At last, Mr. Bonstone took the initiative, and said, “May I ask his name?”
“Medlington,” she said, “Sir Edward Medlington.”
He said nothing. He was as reticent as she was, but both their eyes spoke. I saw there was something underneath his interest.
He drank his tea, ate an English muffin, drew some papers from his pocket, and talked over some business with her about Neighbourhood Hall; then he took up his hat. Before he said good-bye, he went over and stood silently before the big picture.
Mrs. Waverlee began to speak. She had become very friendly with him and his wife, and she did not wish to appear ungracious. Then I think underneath it all, was a feminine desire to know why he was interested in this picture.
“My father was in the army,” she said, “as a young man. During an Egyptian campaign, he lost a leg. A change came over him during hospital life, and he left the army and entered the church.”
Mr. Bonstone looked spellbound, and murmured something about noticing that the tall man in the painting, holding the little boy by the hand, had on clerical dress.
“My mother died when I was a baby,” Mrs. Waverlee continued, “and my father brought me up, and has always been very, very dear to me. I expect him here shortly to visit me.”
“Your father was not an only son, was he?” asked Mr. Bonstone.
“No, he had a younger brother who came to America.”
“He is not living, is he?” asked Mr. Bonstone in an almost inaudible voice.
“No,” she said with a side glance at him. “He died some years ago. We don’t know whether he left any children.”
“Good-bye,” said Mr. Bonstone, and he held out his hand.
“Good-bye,” she said calmly, but their eyes met, and he grew a furious red.
“My love to Stanna,” she said, following him as he hurried to the door. “Thank you for all your kindness to me. If you had belonged to my own family, you could not have been kinder.”
He made some sort of an inarticulate reply, and she came back to the painting. Then she repeated Mr. Bonstone’s questions. “Your father is not an only son,” and “He is not living, is he?”
“Why negatively,” she said, “unless he knew the answers? He is the son of my uncle who quarrelled with his father, and ran away to America with his barmaid wife. I feel the relationship, and I also recognise family traits.” Her face grew a beautiful pink. “A good man, and my own cousin. Now I am not without relatives in this new country. Thank God! It will be a good thing for my boy. But I must not acknowledge this relationship, until it will be welcome to this odd man.”
All this was intensely interesting to me, and I too turned a fresh attention to the painting. It was notdifficult to recognise little Egbert as he had appeared a few years ago. The tall old man was handsome and commanding in appearance, and yet his face was the essence of gentleness as he held the boy’s two small hands. “Won’t Gringo be excited,” I thought, and I was just about to whine for the door to be opened so I could run away to him, when my dear mistress appeared.
“Well, Boy, you too are here,” she said kindly as she came in, then she began talking to Mrs. Waverlee about the latest news, which was something that affected me deeply and painfully.
“There is to be a new kind of a dog-show in New York,” she said, “a dog-hero show. All dogs exhibited must have done something noteworthy, or they cannot be entered. You, Boy, are to go on account of the service you rendered our hostess. Gringo will be there, also King Harry and Walter Scott.”
“Is it to be a show for thoroughbreds alone?” asked Mrs. Waverlee.
“No, breeding has nothing to do with it. It is all inner worth—dogs who have saved persons from burning or carried messages, or who have shown great intelligence. In fact, I believe the mongrels will predominate.”
“When does it begin?” enquired Mrs. Waverlee.
“Next week.”
My heart sank within me. Oh! how I dreaded a dog-show. When I was a young dog, I had been exhibited several times, and every time I suffered tortures. It was not so bad in the day time, when myowners were about, and everybody was watching the men who took care of the dogs; but at night it was terrible. All the dog-owners went home, and the men who were left in charge, invariably drank and either quarrelled, played cards or slept, and dogs would get caught in their chains and nearly strangle. Oh! that wretched drink—how much misery it causes. Then the men would tell lies about watering and feeding us, and many a dog suffered the tortures of hunger and thirst. There were a few conscientious attendants, but very few.
I dreaded intensely going through this again—indeed my sufferings at a dog-show were responsible for my wandering life, for it was after being exhibited seven times in one spring, that I ran away from my first home with a dog-fancier.
Another thing I dreaded in connection with the forthcoming dog-show was, that everybody would find out how valuable I was, and attention would be drawn to me as a desirable dog to steal. Mr. Granton knew that my points were good, but he had never chanced to meet any one who could tell him just how good they were. He didn’t know a very doggy set of men.
Well, the day came, and I was entered at the show, and the thing itself was not half as bad as I thought it would be. These dogs were all very much beloved by their owners, and were not held on account of their value as dogs, but as heroes and dog friends to mankind. I was uneasy, for I hated being taken from my nice home and being deprived of my liberty, but I underwent no actual suffering. For there was nodrink there, and Louis, who was very fond of King Harry, slept both nights the show lasted, curled up in the straw in the big box-place our good bloodhound occupied. So we did not suffer.
Gringo was furious at having to go. He hated notoriety, and he hated being taken away from Mr. Bonstone; and Mr. Bonstone was just as upset as he was, but there was no help for it. The show was for charity, and to acquaint New York with the actual value of the dog heroes of the country—dogs who had risked their lives to save human beings from harm.
The dog who took first prize was a little mongrel who had so little thoroughbred in him, that nobody could tell in which class of dogs his ancestors had started. He had saved five hundred hotel guests from death by fire. The hotel was a regular fire-trap, and he had barked and raged when he smelt the smoke, till he drew attention to the dreadful danger, and every one got out while the hotel burnt to the ground.
Gringo got third prize. I was surprised to hear how many events the modest old dog had been in. He was chained next to me, and his remarks on the show were killing. He loathed vain dogs—these fellows who adore shows, and when the travelling boxes are brought out, bark with excitement, and on arriving, bask all day long in popular approval.
I had honourable mention. Gringo thought I would get a prize, but when I looked round the show, I said, “Some of these fellows here will ride rough-shod over me. It’s amazing what a sum of fidelity to the human race they represent.”
The event of the show to me was, as I had anticipated, the finding out of my value. I was adjudged the best dog of all breeds shown, and my value was placed at seven thousand dollars. How I regretted this. Coarse, sporty looking men, who bestowed not a glance on the noble animals who had saved precious lives, came and stood before me with their beefy faces alight with interest. Most unfortunately, however, it was not the sporting class that took the keenest interest in me. Those men were rough but honest. Two young men of the white-faced, putty-looking class that master and Mr. Bonstone dread so much to handle, made me tremble.
They did not come up and stand before me, to admire me and ask questions. They stood a long way off, and they got a boy to go and ask an attendant particularly where I lived. I knew I should have trouble with them some time in the future, and I vowed that they would be pretty clever to catch me napping. Both days I was at the show, they came several times to stare at me surreptitiously, and the second day, they brought another fellow of their own class with them.
I tried not to worry, and repeated to myself something that master often murmurs when he is putting on his shoes to go down town. “Where are the worries I had this time last year? Gone with the snows of winter, and the roses of summer. Therefore, why worry over the worries of to-day?”
The pleasantest thing about the show was, of course, the twice-a-day visits of our owners. The second day, Mr. Bonstone approached our bench accompanied byMrs. Waverlee, Egbert and a tall old gentleman who limped quite a bit.
“Wooden leg,” muttered Gringo. “It’s the boy’s grandfather.”
I had told Gringo of his master’s interest in the portrait of the old baronet. He was as keenly interested as I was, and with me, concluded that Mrs. Waverlee was correct. Mr. Bonstone was her cousin.
“Why don’t they out with it?” said the old dog—“I hate secrets.”
Well, they did out with it this day. A dog-show seemed a strange place for a recognition between a noble Englishman and his long-lost nephew, but stranger things than that have happened.
Sir Edward had arrived two days before, and Mr. Bonstone had not seen him until he met him coming into the show with Mrs. Waverlee and Egbert.
Gringo and I stared at them. “My poor boss,” said the old dog, “his eyes are eager. He’d like to have relatives like other folks.”
Mrs. Waverlee was sweetly self-possessed. No one would have guessed that she was very much excited, and was watching her father and Mr. Bonstone surreptitiously.
I have forgotten to say that Walter Scott was chained the other side of Gringo and King Harry, and the three grown-up persons and the boy were fondling us alternately.
Mr. Bonstone was delighted that he would be able to take Gringo away that evening. “Only a few hours more, kid,” he said in a low voice as he softly rubbedhis hand over Gringo’s rose ears. A seal ring, his only ornament, for he hated even a breast pin, caught the old baronet’s eye. Now he had evidently noticed no familiar resemblance in this man, but he could not help recognising the ring on which was engraved the family crest.
He didn’t say anything. He was a very well set-up, self-possessed old gentleman, and very English. He simply turned a little pale, and said, “May I look at that ring?”
Mr. Bonstone nodded, and taking it off, handed it to him.
“This old man’s father was a tartar,” Gringo whispered to me. “It’s rough on him to remember how he and the young brother who had pluck enough to run away were bullyragged.”
Mr. Bonstone stood fondling Gringo’s head, and looking calmly at his relative.
“Good blood,” muttered Gringo. “Do you notice, Boy, that the quality don’t shriek and tear their hair over great events. They’re quiet as the grave.”
I didn’t say anything, but I imagined the panorama passing before the eyes of the fine-looking old man turning the ring round and round in his hand. Having been in England, I could call up a picture of the old country house, the pleasant life, the gentle mother, the domineering old father, the submission of the elder son, the rebellion of the younger—and now the younger son was dead, but his son lived and would slip into the place of his father in this old man’s heart.
“Your Christian names?” asked Sir Edward in a low voice as he returned the ring.
“Edward Norman Mannering.”
Sir Edward’s eyes clouded. He dropped his head on his breast for a few seconds. His dead brother had given his own dear brother’s name to his son.
Then he spoke again, “Why Bonstone?”
“My mother’s name,” said Mr. Bonstone shortly.
Sir Edward glanced at Mrs. Waverlee who had moved away a few paces, while the two men were talking. She smiled brightly. She understood.
Then he said in a low but a beautiful, affectionate voice, “You have your father’s eyes. Give me your arm, my boy.”
“Gringo,” I said, “isn’t that a perfectly touching sight, to see that dear old man going about leaning on those two young people?”
Gringo spoke very gruffly. He pretended he didn’t care, but I could see he was deeply moved.
“Now my kind master’s got some folks,” he said. “There’s not a line of worry about him. We’ll see something very fancy in his life now.”
And we did, for it appeared that the possession of relatives of his own had been the one thing lacking to round out Mr. Bonstone’s beautiful life.
His devotion to his uncle was superb. He was down at Mrs. Waverlee’s constantly, and when he was not there Sir Edward was at Green Hill.
There was a great excitement all over this place, and in New York too, when it was announced that Mr. Bonstone was related to the distinguished Englisharmy officer and present clergyman—Sir Edward Medlington, and was a cousin of the aristocratic Mrs. Waverlee. Nobody seemed jealous. Everybody was glad.
Mrs. Resterton basked in reflected light. She dragged in the title whenever she could with propriety, and the way she mouthed the “Sir Edward” was lovely to hear.
Gringo grinned whenever he heard her. “Never before heard of two words giving a woman such satisfaction,” he said.
The nice old lady’s only regret was that the title passed to Egbert as the son of the eldest son, rather than to Mr. Bonstone as the son of the younger.
I heard Mrs. Bonstone one day enlightening her. “Grandmamma,” she said, “don’t you understand Norman well enough to know that if he had inherited a whole bushel of titles, he would reject them all? As it is, he often shocks his uncle by his democratic ways. No—Norman is a plain American. He has thrown off his English traditions.”
“Sir Norman has a very pleasant sound,” said the old lady plaintively.
How Mrs. Bonstone laughed. “And Lady Bonstone or Lady Medlington,” she said—“wouldn’t that be charming!—imagine a milkmaid and a poultry-woman with a title. That is all I aspire to be.”
The dogs, too, were very fond of talking about the baronet, and great discussions took place up in the orchard about his title, and his artificial leg, and his nice simple ways, and his clear manner of speaking.
Some of the dogs held that it was a great pity that a baronet should have a wooden or a cork leg—we couldn’t find out which it was, for his man-servant never talked, and Patsie, the fox-terrier, was no gossip.
“Why not a baronet?” said Gringo. “He’s just the one to afford time to go limping about.”
The dogs also could not understand his being a clergyman and rector of a church.
“Yeggie thought he’d wear a pink coat, and go round looking for foxes to hunt,” said the little cur, jumping up and down, “but he never kills anything but fish, and he bangs them on the head as soon as they’re caught so they won’t suffer—I heard him say so the other day.”
“I thought he’d get drunk every night,” said King Harry. “I once knew an English earl down in Virginia, and his valet had to sit up till one o’clock to undress him.”
This put the old country dogs on their mettle. Gringo, Walter Scott, and Cannie snapped at good King Harry, and told him that the English aristocracy were as sober as any class of people.
“And if our people had any faults,” added Walter Scott, “the war has taken them all away.”
“Where is the nobleman to-day?” I asked one chill November afternoon of the assembled dogs.
“Down the river,” said Yeggie. “I saw him going Walt Dixon’s way.”
It seemed strange that there should be any connection between this fine old English gentleman and a poor miserable lad from New York, but there was onestrong bond of union. They were both ardent fishermen.
Now last spring my master had taken great pains to interest Walt in some form of out-door exercise. He was so lazy that fishing was the only sport he could be induced to undertake, but as time went on, he became an enthusiast, and no one in the whole country round about knew as well as he just which fishing pools to visit to get a bite.
There were several small rivers near us, and Walt knew them all. Sir Edward, finding out that Walt would be of more use to him than any one in the neighbourhood, cultivated him assiduously. My master was delighted. This association was of inestimable benefit to the boy he was trying to befriend.
Yeggie came dancing up to Gringo one day and asked why the distinguished stranger was finding out about fishing in this cold autumn weather.
“Don’t you know, pup?” said Gringo with a wink at me, “that folks hang round what their mouths water for? Give me the name of the dog that lingers long round the kitchen windows, when the good, hot smell of meat is wafted out.”
Yeggie hung his little head.
“The noble baronet is laying out the land for next spring, when he’s coming back to see us all,” Gringo continued. “He’s got to get home soon to his church. He’s a good man—he works. Some folks and some dogs are lazy—they don’t earn their salt.”
“Good-bye,” said Yeggie abruptly. “Yeggie’s going to call on the hens,” and he diddled away.
Gringo laughed heartily, as he disappeared round the corner of the barn. “I like that little fool kid dog,” he said.
“Sir Edward has been gone ever since lunch,” I remarked. “I know, because he lunched at our house to-day, and soon afterward went for a walk up the Lalabee River road.”
“He ought to be back soon,” said Gringo, “the dark is coming on.”
How well I remember that afternoon. Nobody was anxious about Sir Edward, but in half an hour, when it had become quite dark and he had not returned, there was great excitement. A man with an artificial leg who takes long walks is something of a marvel, but he cannot go on indefinitely, and he never had stayed out as long as this before. There was really painful anxiety at last. I, suspecting nothing wrong, had gone home, and was playing with George Washington in the nursery when Bessie the nurse came in, and called Mrs. Granton to the telephone.
I followed her, and heard enough to assure me that everybody was out looking for Sir Edward, and they had decided to ask for King Harry to trail him.
Mrs. Granton was in great trouble. “Oh! Norman,” she said to Mr. Bonstone who was telephoning, “there was a child lost in Torbellon this morning, and an hour ago some men came in a car and got King Harry to track her—Have you tried Walt Dixon?”
I couldn’t hear Mr. Bonstone’s reply, but I knew by what Mrs. Granton said, he had thought the houndwould be quicker. However, failing the hound, he would try Walt.
I tore out through the front hall, and ran over to Green Hill. On the way I met Mr. Bonstone in an automobile hurrying down to the village for Walt. Afterward, we all heard the story of the rescue from Gringo who went with his master.
Walt told Mr. Bonstone which road Sir Edward had taken, and the two followed it in the car, and occasionally leaving it to plunge into the bushes by the river bank at places Walt thought might be visited by Sir Edward.
They had a lantern with them, for by this time it was quite dark. Mr. Bonstone at last became frightfully nervous, not outside, for he was not that kind, but internally nervous.
“Walt,” he said, “think hard. I heard you talking to Sir Edward yesterday. Did he say anything to make you think he might take some new road you’d never been over?”
Walt thought a moment; then he said, “I did tell him of a new pool high up in the river, that no one but me knows about. I got a dozen trout there one early morning last spring; but he couldn’t get there alone, I told him. It’s a rough road.”
“Just the one he’d try,” said Mr. Bonstone. “Jump in, and lead me to it.”
This time, when they left the car, they took a rocky path to the little river. “There’s a tiny islet in the middle of the river,” said Walt, “with stepping stones to it, but I guess he couldn’t make it.”
“I’ll wager he’s there,” Mr. Bonstone muttered. Then he lifted up his voice, and yelled, “Hello! Hello!” till Gringo says the woods by the river rang with the sound.
Then he listened, and at once came a husky peeping like a bird with a cold in its throat.
They were close to the islet, and Mr. Bonstone, swinging the lantern for the boy behind him, skipped over the stepping stones to it. There was a solitary tree rooted among the rocks, and there, hanging to a low-growing limb, was the poor baronet. His keen angler’s instinct had caused him to mount the limb to see if it would be a good place from which to throw a line; his wooden leg had caught in the crook of the limb, and there he hung, almost head down, until his strength had been exhausted.
Mr. Bonstone and Walt soon got him down, carried him to the car, and gave him a drink from a flask that Mrs. Bonstone had provided. Then they rushed him to the Green Hill house which was nearer than Mrs. Waverlee’s, and put him to bed.
All the family came to enquire about him. Mrs. Waverlee was very much troubled in her quiet way, and poor Egbert was trying hard not to cry. Master, who was almost as upset as Sir Edward’s own family, said to Mrs. Resterton, “Why in the name of common sense did that old man with a wooden leg try to climb a tree on a dark night?”
Mrs. Resterton was dreadfully flushed, and was fanning herself violently. “You have just come from town,” she said, “you don’t know that it was quitelight when Sir Edward started, and you don’t understand how crazy he is about fishing. He is always studying those books on angling in the library.”
“I’m not fond of fishing,” said master, “so I don’t share his enthusiasm, but what I do like about the affair is the part my poor boy Walt has played.”
“He certainly tracked Sir Edward,” said Mrs. Resterton, “but for him, Sir Edward might have died before Norman found him.”
“She got the baronet’s title in twice that time,” snickered Gringo who was lying beside me at Mrs. Resterton’s feet. Then he began to pant nervously, for the old dog’s sympathies had been aroused, and he had tramped fast all through the woods with his master and Walt.
“Well,” I said to him, “isn’t this a queer world? Seems as if when a dog or a man does a kind deed, he always gets his pay for it.”
Gringo stopped panting long enough to say, “Sure, and it’s my wonder that when folks are so keen for rewards, they don’t do more good. There’s big interest on being decent.”
“They’ll do something handsome for Walt,” I said
“You bet,” returned Gringo. “His nest won’t want for no feathers from this out.”
“Any feathers, Gringo,” I said gently.
“Oh, shut up,” he growled. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t wish other dogs to make game of you,” I said firmly.
“Bah! what’s grammar,” he said contemptuously.
“It isn’t grammar,” I said, “it’s good English.”
“I’m American now,” he growled. “I’ll talk as I like.”
“All right,” I replied, “I’ll never correct you again.”
“Yes, you will,” he said crossly. “You just dare to stop correcting me.”
“But you resent it,” I said.
“You make me mad, the way you rub it in,” he flared up. “Just correct me, and don’t gab.”
I couldn’t help laughing, and soon the good old fellow joined me. “Gringo,” I said, “we’re good friends—always and forever.”
“You bet!” he said.
I was going to correct him, then I reflected that “You bet” though slangy is decidedly English, and I ran away home after my master, who went to take the good news of Sir Edward’s return to his wife.