to any other; and the dusk had stopped work – which was my only comfort – and I sat all alone that Wednesday evening trying to get through a little bread and cheese, but glancing more often from our old window at the gloomy rush of the river, which was still in high flood though some little abated. Uncle Corny was gone, to try to get some money from people who had thriven on his hard-won fruit, and Mrs. Tabby Tapscott had left the house early, upon some business of her own. The house-door was open, for we had not many rogues, till the railway came some years afterwards; and the evening was of those that smell of beehives, and cornstacks, and horses upon their way home. At last, when I had made up my mind to be forgotten by every one, in came Tabby, as bright as a bun.
“Oh fai, oh fai!” she cried; “whatever be ’e doing of? Atin’ no zupper, and zittin’ as if ’e was mazed a’most. Look ’e zee what the Lord hath zent ’e! I was vorced to go arl the way to Hampton for ’un, for year of they long tongues to Zunbury. If this wun’t vetch Measter Ragless, arl I can zay is her bain’t a dog. Putt ’un down in zellar, when I’ve larned ’e how to use ’un.”
From beneath her shawl she produced a little box, which she opened in triumph, and the room was filled at once with a very peculiar odour quite unknown to me. It was pungent rather than pleasant, and it made me sneeze as well as laugh.
“You be up there by vaive o’clock, when the daisies’ eyes be openin’, and goo to the zide door I tould ’e of” – Mrs. Tapscott knew all the household ways at Coldpepper Hall, through a niece of hers who was kitchen-maid, “and vang this by the coord out o’ heelin’, wi’out titchin’ of ’un with thy vingers, and drag ’un athort the grass and the pilm to backzide o’ the zhrubbery, and then you step out o’ zight in a lew cornder. Ould dog be put out at zix o’clock riglar, and ’tis liable he’ll hurn straight to ’e. Then let ’un ate a hummick, and kitch ’un up vittily, and pop ’un into barg, and carr ’un home here, and I’ll zhow ’e what to do with ’un. But mind as her don’t scammel ’e. Her be turble itemy.”
She gave me many other minute directions, and made me laugh so that my spirits rose, with the hope of an interesting little farce, to relieve the more tragic surroundings. I undertook briskly to play my part, looking on the matter as a harmless joke; though I came to think in course of time that the cruel theft I suffered from might partly be a just requital for this wicked robbery. And yet it was absurd and senseless, to make such comparison.
Without disturbing Uncle Corny, who slept very heavily, I was up before daylight on the Thursday morning, and set out with the box and bag on my felonious enterprise. Coldpepper Hall, or Manor, as it was called indifferently, stood back upon some rising ground at a distance from the river, and was sheltered well by growth of trees. There was nothing very grand about it, and it leaned on stucco more than stone; but there was plenty of room both within and without, and any one getting inside the doors might say to himself, with some comfort flowing into him – “I am sure that I need never be in any hurry here.”
The sun meant to get up a little later on, when I jumped the palings of this old demesne, at a place where of right there should have been a footpath, but the owner of the Manor had stopped it long ago, perceiving the superior claims of quietude. Nobody had cared to make a fuss about it, but enough of ancestral right remained to justify me in getting over. Every window of the house was still asleep, and I gazed at it with humble reverence, not as the citadel of the Coldpeppers, but as the shrine of my sacred love. Then I chose a place of ambush in a nest of hollies, and approaching the sallyport of Regulus, drew a slow trail from it across the dewy grass to my lurking-place, and there waited calmly.
Sweet visions of love from the ivory gate now favoured me with their attendance, partly perhaps because love had not allowed me to sleep out my sleep. Far as I am from any claim to the merits of a classical education, I had been for some years, off and on, as a day boy at Hampton Grammar-school, and could do a bit of Virgil pretty well, and an ode or two of Horace. Whenever Uncle Corny came across a Latin name he would call for me; and take it altogether, I had long been considered the most learned young man in Sunbury. Even now I remembered, though most of it was gone, the story of the Nymph who placed her son in ambuscade for Proteus, and the noble description of Regulus on parole, waving off the last kiss of his wife and babes. Grimly he set his manly visage on the ground; and my Regulus was doing the very same thing now.
Fat Charles had opened the door with a yawn, and sent forth that animal of Roman type, to snuff the morning air, and perform his toilet, and pay his orisons in general. Luxurious days had told their tale; it was too plain that Capua had corrupted Sabine simplicity. Regulus moved with a listless air, his desire to find whom he might bite lay dormant, and no sense of iniquity pricked his ears, or lifted the balance of his tail. “Let the world wag,” was the expression of his eyes, “I get whatever I want in it, and would wag to it also, if I were not too fat.” It appeared too certain that if I meant to catch him, I should have to go and bag him where he stood.
But suddenly down went his nose, and his bristles flew up, and every line of his system grew stiff as wire. He had lit on my trail near a narrow flower-border, and it presented itself with a double aspect. Was it the ever-fresh memory of a cat – not a cat of every-day life of course, but a civet-cat, a musk-cat, a cat of poetic, or even fabulous perfume? Or was it the long-drawn sweetness of a new ambrosial food, heaven-sent to tempt his once lively, but now vainly wept-for appetite? Whatever it might be, the line of duty was marked, and beyond evasion.
Those of our race who have made a study of dogs, for the sake of example, declare that the best and most noble of them follow quest with their noses well up in the air. Regulus failed in this test of merit; he spread his nostrils affably within an inch of where the worms lay, pricked his hairy ears, which were of divers colours, and with the stump of his tail as the loftiest point of his person, ran a bee-line towards me. In accordance with his fame, I made ready for a bite; but to my surprise he paused, when he came point-blank upon me, and seemed taken aback, as with some wholly new emotion. Regardful of the teaching of my Nymph, I offered him a portion of the magic sop, and while he was intent upon it slipped a stout potato-sack over his head, tumbled him in with a push in the rear, and shouldered him.
Taking the path across the fields, I got home without meeting any one, and found Tabby waiting for me near the root-house, which was simply the trunk of a grand old oak, with a slab of elm fitted as a door to it. No one was likely to visit this old storehouse at the present time of year, and the loudest wailing of the largest dog might be carried on in the strictest privacy. But I meant him to be happy there, and so he was – to some extent.
For he seemed to resign himself, as if recalling his early adventure in the barrel, and regarded his later prosperity as a dream; and probably the charm of the drug he had swallowed acted benignly upon his nerves. At any rate he allowed himself to be secured by a chain and a fold-pitcher, and even licked my hand instead of snarling and showing his teeth. Every arrangement was made for his comfort, and he lay down as happy as a lotus-eater.
After breakfast, I took a little turn in the village, and there had the pleasure of seeing fat Charles, the Coldpepper footman, nearly trying to run, and looking sadly out of breath. He carried a leading strap, with no dog to it, and under his arm was a bundle of papers. As I approached him with kind inquiries, he drew forth his roll and requested me to read, while he was recovering his breath a little. My face must have turned as red as his – for this was the first theft I ever committed, except of some apples from a rival grower, a curmudgeon who would not tell us what they were – and I felt very queer as I read the following, written in round hand and with many capitals.
“Reward of one guinea! – Lost, stolen, or strayed, a large brindled terrier, known as ‘Regulus,’ the property of Miss Coldpepper of Coldpepper Manor. He is very hard of hearing, and a little fond of snapping. Any person bringing him home will receive the above reward, and no questions asked. Any one detaining him will be prosecuted, with the utmost rigour of the law.”
Charles had a score perhaps
