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 of these placards, written in sundry hands, and spelt in divers manners, as if all the household had been set to work.
“Oh, Mr. Kit,” he cried, for every one called me that; “there is the devil to pay, up to the ’All, and no mistake! And all of it blamed on me, as innocent as the babe unborn, and more so, for only obeying of my horders. What did I do, but just turn the brute out – for a brute he is and no mistake, though wholesome in his bite, because it is his nature to; and no one round these parts would be tough enough in the legs to come forrard with a view of making off with him – then I shut the door to, for his quarter hour airing, as laid down in written horders issued every night. And my hair stood on end when he never come back, the same as his does, when he flies at you.”
“But surely, Charles, some of you must have some suspicion?” I asked, with astonishment at my own vice, and wondering what I should come to, though not far enough gone as yet to look at him; “why should the dog go from such a good home?”
“Because he’ve had enough of it, or we of him at any rate. He ain’t been stolen, sir; the dog have that knowledge of the world, that all Seven Dials couldn’t lay a tack to him. And everybody knows what our Missus is. A guinea! Who’d steal a dog for a guinea? Let alone a dog who’ll make a pepper-caster of you. No, no, I always said Old Nick would come for ’un, some blessed morning; and I’m jiggered if he haven’t! But bless my soul, you mustn’t keep me loitering like this, sir. Mother Cutthumb wouldn’t have one, to stick up in her dirty old window, Lord knows why. Do’e take one, and stick on your Uncle’s wall; or a couple if you will, that’s a dear young man. There’ll be thirty more ready, by eleven o’clock.”
It occurred to me that some of them perhaps had been written by a certain lovely warm hand, which had the most delicious way with it that could ever be imagined of stealing in and out of muff or glove, and of coming near another hand (as coarse as a crumpet) in a sort of way that seemed to say – “Now wouldn’t you like to touch me?”
“Who on earth can have written all these?” I asked. “Mr. Charles, why you must have done most of them yourself.”
“Never a blessed one; Lord save you, I’ve a’ been on my poor legs, all the morning! Every maid that could fist a few was ordered in. But the young leddy fisted them four at the bottom.”
Making due allowance for his miscreant coarseness, I slipped away the lowest four, and two others; those two I stuck up on the outer face of Uncle Corny’s red-brick wall; but the other four never were exhibited to the public, nor even to myself, except as a very private view. And every one of them belongs to me at the present moment. The footman thanked me warmly for this lightening of his task, and hurried on towards Rasp the baker, and the linendraper.
So far as my memory serves, Uncle Corny got very little work out of me that day. I was up and down the village, till my conscience told me that my behaviour might appear suspicious; and I even beheld the great lady herself, driving as fast as her fat steeds could travel, to get her placards displayed all around in the villages towards London. Although she was not very popular, and the public seemed well pleased with her distress, I felt more than half inclined to take her dear love back, and release him at his own door after dark. But Tabby Tapscott said, and she had a right to speak, – “Don’t ’e be a vule now, Measter Kit. Carr’ the job droo, wanst ’a be about ’un.” And just before dark I met Mrs. Marker, and somebody with her, who made my heart jump. They had clearly been sent as a forlorn hope, to go the round of the shops where the bills had been posted. I contrived to ask tenderly whether the dog was found.
“Not he, and never will be,” replied the housekeeper. “There are so many people who owe the cur a grudge. Why, he even flies at me, if I dare to look at him. Miss Kitty, tell Mr. Kit what your opinion is.”
“I fear indeed that somebody must have shot him with an air-gun. I am very fond of dogs, when they are at all good dogs; but very few could praise poor Regulus, except – except as we praise mustard. And I heard of a case very like it in London.”
Her voice was so silvery sweet, and she dropped it (as I thought) so sadly at that last word, that I could not help saying, although I was frightened at my own tone while I said it, —
“Surely you are not going back to-morrow? Do say that you are not going to leave us all to-morrow.”
Before she could answer, the housekeeper said sharply – “She was to have gone to-morrow, Mr. Orchardson. But now Miss Coldpepper has made up her mind to send for Captain Fairthorn the first thing to-morrow, unless she recovers the dog meanwhile. Not that he knows anything about dogs, but he is so scientific that he is sure to find out something. Good night, sir! Come, Kitty, how late we are!”
Is it needful to say that Regulus indued a tunic of oak that night?
CHAPTER X.
AN UPWARD STROKE
The character of Captain Fairthorn – better known to the public now as Sir Humphrey Fairthorn, but he had not as yet conferred dignity upon Knighthood – will be understood easily by those who have the knowledge to understand it. But neither Uncle Corny, nor myself – although we were getting very clever now at Sunbury – could manage at all to make him out at first, though it must have been a great deal easier then, than when we came to dwell upon him afterwards. All that he said was so perfectly simple, and yet he was thinking of something else all the time; and everything he did was done as