A Rough Shaking

The men busy about the caravans and wagons, caught sight of him coming, and in the first moment of terror at a beast to which they were not accustomed, bolted for refuge behind or upon them: they would sooner have encountered their tiger broke loose. The same moment, with astounding shock, the head of the bull went crack against the near hind-wheel of the caravan in whose shafts stood the elephant, patiently waiting orders. The bull had not caught sight of the elephant, or he would doubtless have “gone for” him, not the caravan. His ear, finer than Clare’s, must have distinguished whence the roar proceeded: in that caravan, sure enough, was the lion, with the rest of the great cats. He answered the blow of the bull’s head with a roar thunderously different from his late sleepy leonine sigh. It roused every creature in the menagerie. From the greatest to the smallest each took up its cry. Out burst a tornado of terrific sound, filling with horror the quiet noontide. The roaring and yelling of lion, tiger, and leopard, the laughter of hyena, the howling of jackal, and the snarling of bear, mingled in hideous dissonance with the cries of monkeys and parrots; while certain strange gurgles made Clare’s heart, lover of animals though he was, quiver, and his blood creep. The same instant, however, he woke to the sense that he might do something: he ran to the caravans.

By this time the men, master and all, fully roused to the far worse that might follow the attack of the bull, had caught up what weapons were at hand, and rushed to repel the animal For more than one or two of them it might have proved a fatal encounter, but that the enraged beast had entangled his horns in the spokes and rim of the wheel. In terror of what might be approaching him from behind, he was struggling wildly to extricate them. Peril upon peril! What if in the contortions of his mighty muscles he pulled off the wheel, and the carriage toppled over, every cage in it so twisted and wrenched that the bearings of its iron bars gave way! The results were too terrible to ponder! This way and that, and every way at once, he was writhing and pushing and prising and dragging. The elephant turned the shafts slowly round to see what was the matter behind. If the bull and the elephant yoked to the caravan came to loggerheads, ruin was inevitable. The master thought whether he had not better loose the elephant while the bull was yet entangled by the horns. With one blow of his trunk he would break the ruffian’s back and end the affray! It were good even, if one knew how, to loose the wicked-looking horns: the brute’s struggles to free them were more dangerous far than could be the horns themselves!

While he hesitated, Clare came running up, with Abdiel at his heels ready as any hornet to fly at bull or elephant, let his master only speak the word. But the moment Clare saw how the bull’s horns were mixed up with the spokes and fellies of the wheel, a glad suspicion flashed across him: that was old Nimrod’s way! could it be Nimrod himself? If it were, the trouble was as good as over! The suspicion became a certainty the instant it woke. But never could Clare altogether forgive himself for not at first sight recognizing his old friend. I believe myself that hunger was to blame, and not Clare.

The men stood about the animal, uncertain what to do, as he struggled with his horns, and heaved and tore at the wheel to get them out of it, the roars and howls and inarticulate curses going on all the time. The elephant must have been tired, to stand so and do nothing! For a moment Clare could not get near enough. He was afraid to call him while the bull could not see him: Nimrod might but struggle the more, in order to get to him!

Up rushed a fellow, white with rage and running, bang into the middle of the spectators, and shook the knot of them asunder. It was one of the two men from whom Nimrod had broken. He had a pitchfork in his hands which he proceeded to level. Clare flung his weight against him, threw up his fork, shoved him aside, and got close to the maddened animal. It was his past come again! How often had he not interfered to protect Nimrod—and his would-be masters also! With instinctive, unconscious authority, he held up his hand to the little crowd.

“Leave him alone,” he cried. “I know him; I can manage him! Please do not interfere. He is an old friend of mine.”

They saw that the bull was already still: he had recognized the boy’s voice! They kept his furious attendant back, and looked on in anxious hope while Clare went up to the animal.

“Nimrod!” he whispered, laying a hand on one of the creature’s horns, and his cheek against his neck.

Nimrod stood like a bull in bronze.

“I’m going to get your horns out, Nimrod,” murmured Clare, and laid hold of the other with a firm grasp. “You must let me do as I like, you know, Nimrod!”

His voice evidently soothed the bull.

By the horns Clare turned his head now one way, now another, Nimrod not once resisting push or pull. In a moment more he would have them clear, for one of them was already free. Holding on to the latter, Clare turned to the bystanders.

“You mustn’t touch him,” he said, “or I won’t answer for him. And you mustn’t let either of those men there”—for the second of Nimrod’s attendants had by this time come up—“interfere with him or me. They let him go because they couldn’t manage him. He can’t bear them; and if he were to break loose from them again, it might be quite another affair! Then he might distrust me!”

The menagerie men turned, and looking saw that the man with the pitchfork had revenge in his heart. They gave him to understand that he must mind what he was about, or it would be the worse for him. The man scowled and said nothing.

Clare gently released the other horn, but kept his hold of the first, moving the creature’s head by it, this way and that. A moment more and he turned his face to the company, which had scattered a little. When the inflamed eyes of Nimrod came into view, they scattered wider. Clare still made the bull feel his hand on his horn, and kept speaking to him gently and lovingly. Nimrod eyed his enemies, for such plainly he counted them, as if he wished he were a lion that he might eat as well as kill them. At the same time he seemed to regard them with triumph, saying in his big heart, “Ha! ha! you did not know what a friend I had! Here he is, come in the nick of time! I thought he would!” Clare proceeded to untie the ropes from the ring in his nose. The man with the pitchfork interfered.

“That wonnot do!” he said, and laid his hand on Clare’s arm. “Would you send him ramping over the country, and never a hold to have on him?”

“It wasn’t much good when you had a hold on him—was it now?” returned the boy. “Where do you want to take him?”

“That’s my business,” answered the man sulkily.

“I fancy you’ll find it’s mine!” returned Clare. “But there he is! Take him.”

The man hesitated.

“Then leave me to manage him,” said Clare.

A murmur of approbation arose. The caravan people felt he knew what he was saying. They believed he had power with the bull.

While yet he was untying the first of the ropes from the animal’s bleeding nostrils, Clare’s fingers all at once refused further obedience, his eyes grew dim, and he fell senseless at the bull’s feet.

“Don’t tell Nimrod!” he murmured as he fell.

“Oh, that explains it!” cried the man with the pitchfork to his mate. “He knows the cursed brute!” For Clare had hitherto spoken his name to the bull as if it were a secret between them.

Neither had the sense to perceive that the explanation lay in the bull’s knowing Clare, not in Clare’s knowing the bull. They made haste to lay hold of the ropes. Nimrod stood motionless, looking down on his friend, now and then snuffing at the pale face, which the thorough-bred mongrel, Abdiel, kept licking continuously. Noses of bull and dog met without offence on the loved human countenance. But had the men let the bull feel the ropes, that moment he would have been raging like a demon.

The men of the caravan, admiring both Clare’s influence over the animal and his management of him, grateful also for what he had done for them, hastened to his help. When they had got him to take a little brandy, he sat up with a wan smile, but presently fell sideways on his elbow, and so to the ground again.

“It’s nothing,” he murmured; “it’s only I’m rather hungry.”

“Poor boy!” said a woman, who had followed her brandy from the house-caravan, afraid it might disappear in occult directions, “when did you have your last feed?”

She stood looking down on the white face, almost between the fore-feet of the bull.

“I had a piece of bread yesterday afternoon, ma’am,” faltered Clare, trying to look up at her.

“Bless my soul!” she cried, “who’s been a murderin’ of you, child?”

She thought he was in company with the two men; and they had been ill-treating him.

“I can’t get any work, ma’am, so I don’t want much to eat. Now I think of it, I believe it was the gladness of seeing an old friend again, and not the hunger, that made me feel so queer all at once.”

“Where’s your friend?” she asked, looking round the assembly.

“There he is!” answered Clare, putting up his hand, and stroking the big nose that was right over his face.

“Couldn’t you rise now?” said the woman, after a moment’s silent regard of him.

“I’ll try, ma’am; I don’t feel quite sure.”

“I want you to come into the house, and have a good square meal.”

“If you would be so kind, ma’am, as let me have a bit of bread here! Nimrod would not like me to leave him. He loves me, ma’am, and if I went away, he might be troublesome. Those men will never do anything with him: he doesn’t like them! They’ve been rough to him, I don’t doubt. Not that I wonder at that, for he is a terrible beast to most people. They used to say he never was good with anybody but me. I suppose he knew I cared for him!”

His eyes closed again. The woman made haste to get him something. In a few minutes she returned with a basin of broth. He took it eagerly, but with a look of gratitude that went to her heart Before he tasted it, however, he set it on the ground, broke in half the great piece of bread she had brought with it, and gave the larger part to his dog. Then he ate the other with his broth, and felt better than for many a day. Some of the men said he could not be very hungry to give a cur like that so much of his dinner; but the evil thought did not enter the mind of the woman.

“You’d better be taking your beast away,” said the woman, who by this time understood the affair, to the two men.

They were silent, evidently disinclined for such another tussle.

“You’d better be going,” she said again. “If anything should happen with that animal of yours, and one of ours was to get loose, the devil would be to pay, and who’d do it?”

“They’d better wait for me, ma’am,” said Clare, rising. “I’m just ready!—They won’t tell me where they want to take him, but it’s all one, so long as I’m with him. He’s my friend!—Ain’t you, Nimrod? We’ll go together—won’t we, Nimrod?”

While he spoke, he undid the ropes from the ring in the bull’s nose. Gathering them up, he handed them politely to one of the men, and the next moment sprang upon the bull’s back, just behind his shoulders, and leaning forward, stroked his horns and neck.

“Give me up the dog, please,” he said.

The owner of the menagerie himself did as Clare requested. All stood and stared, half expecting to see him flung from the creature’s back, and trampled under his hoofs. Even Nimrod, however, would not easily have unseated Clare, who could ride anything he had ever tried, and had tried everything strong enough to carry him, from a pig upward. But Nimrod was far from wishing to unseat his friend, who with hands and legs began to send him toward the road.

“Are you going that way?” he asked, pointing. The men answered him with a nod, sulky still.

“Don’t go with those men,” said the woman, coming up to the side of the bull, and speaking in a low voice. “I don’t like the look of them.”

“Nimrod will be on my side, ma’am,” answered Clare. “They would never have got him home without me. They don’t understand their fellow-creatures.”

“I’m afraid you understand your fellow-creatures, as you call them, better than you do your own kind!”

“I think they are my own kind, ma’am. That is how they know me, and do what I want them to do.”

“Stay with us,” said the woman coaxingly, still speaking low. “You’ll have plenty of your fellow-creatures about you then!”

“Thank you, ma’am, a thousand times!” answered Clare, his face beaming; “but I couldn’t leave poor Nimrod to do those men a mischief, and be killed for it!”

“You’d have plenty to eat and drink, and som’at for your pocket!” persisted the woman.

“I know I should have everything I wanted!” answered Clare, “and I’m very thankful to you, ma’am. But you see there’s always something, somehow, that’s got to be done before the other thing!”

Here the master came up. He had himself been thinking the boy would be a great acquisition, and guessed what his wife was about; but he was afraid she might promise too much for services that ought to be had cheap. Few scruple to take advantage of the misfortune of another to get his service cheap. It is the economy of hell.

“I sha’n’t feel safe till that bull of yours is a mile off!” he said.

“Come along, Nimrod!” answered Clare, always ready with the responsive deed.

Away went Nimrod, gentle as a lamb.

Chapter XLIII. Across country

The two men came after at their ease. No sooner was Nimrod on the road, however, than he began to quicken his pace. He quickened it fast, and within a minute or so was trotting swiftly along. The men ran panting and shouting behind. The more they shouted, the faster Nimrod went. Ere long he was out of their sight, though Clare could hear them cursing and calling for a time.

He had endeavoured to stop Nimrod, but the bull seemed to have made up his mind that he had obeyed enough for one day. He did not heed a word Clare said to him, but kept on and on at a swinging trot. Clare would have jumped off had he been sure the proceeding would stop him; but, now that he would not obey him, he feared lest, in doing so, he might let him loose on the country, when there was no saying what mischief he might not work. On the other hand, he felt sure that he could restrain him from violence, though he might not prevent his frolicking. He must therefore keep his seat.

For a few miles Nimrod was content with the highway, now trotting beautifully, now breaking into a canter. But all at once he turned at right angles in the middle of the road, cleared the skirting fence like a hunter, and took a bee-line across the fields. Compelled sometimes to abandon it, he showed great judgment in choosing the place at which to get out of the enclosure, or cross the natural obstruction. On and on he went, over hedge after hedge, through field after field, until Clare began to wonder where all the people in the world had got to. Then a strange feeling gradually came over him. Surely at some time or other he had seen the meadow he was crossing! Was he asleep, and dreaming the jolly ride he was having on Nimrod’s back? What a strong creature Nimrod was! Would he never be tired? How oddly he felt! Were his senses going from him? It was like the strangest mixture of a bad dream and a good!

There seemed at length no further room for doubt or mistake. Everything was in its place! It was plain why Nimrod was so obstinate! The dear old fellow was carrying him back to where they had been together so many happy days! They were nigh Mr. Goodenough’s farm, and making straight for it! How strange it was! he had felt himself a measureless distance from it! But in his wandering he had taken many turns he did not heed, and Nimrod had come the shortest way. Delight filled his heart at the thought of seeing once more the places where his father and mother seemed yet to live. But instantly came the thought of Maly, and drowned the other thought in bitterness. Then he felt how worthless place is, when those who made it dear are gone. Father and mother are home—not the house we were born in!

They were soon upon the farm where once he had abundance of labour, abundance to eat, and abundance of lowly friendship. Nimrod was making for his old stable. He was weary now, and breathing heavily, though not at all spent. Was he dreaming of a golden age, in which Clare should be ever at his beck and call?

Clare had little inclination to encounter any of the people of the farm. He would indeed have been glad, from a little way off, to get a sight of his once friend and master, the farmer himself; and very gladly would he have gone into the stable in the hope of a greeting from old Jonathan; but he would not willingly meet “the mistress!” Nimrod should take him to his old stall; there he would tie him up, and flee from the place! The evening was now come, and in the dusk he would escape unseen.

When they reached Nimrod’s door, they found it closed; and Clare, stiff enough by this time, slipped off to open it. Nimrod began to paw the stones, and blow angry puffs from his wounded nose. When Clare got the door open, he saw, to his confusion, a vague dark bulk, another bull, in Nimrod’s stall! The roar that simultaneously burst from each was ferocious, and down went Nimrod’s head to charge. It was a terrible moment for Clare: the new bull was fast by the head, and, unable to turn it to his adversary, would be gored to death almost in a moment! He could not let Nimrod be guilty of such unfairness! And the mistress would think he had brought him back for the very purpose! He all but jumped on the horns of his friend, making him yield just ground enough for the shutting of the door. He knew well, however, that not three such doors in one would keep Nimrod from an enemy. With his back to it he stood facing him and talking to him, and all the while they heard the bull inside struggling to get free. He stood between two horned rages, only a chain and a plank betwixt him and the one at his back, with which he had no influence. A coward would have escaped, and left the two bullies to settle between them which had the better right to the stall—not without blood, almost as certainly not without loss of life, perhaps human as well as bovine. But Clare was made of other stuff.

Before he could get Nimrod away, the bellowing brought out the farmer. All his men had gone to the village; only himself and his wife were at home.

“What’s got the brute?” he cried on the threshold, but instantly began to run, for he saw through the gathering darkness a darker shape he knew, roaring and pawing at the door of his old quarters, and a boy standing between him and it, with marvellous courage in mortal danger. He understood at once that Nimrod had broken loose and come back. But when he came near enough to recognize Clare, astonishment, and something more sacred than astonishment, held him dumb. Ever since the unjust blow that sent the boy from him, his heart had been aware of a little hollow of remorse in it. Now all his former relations with him while his adoptive father yet lived, came back upon him. He remembered him dressed like the little gentleman he always was—and there he stood, the same gentle fearless creature, in absolute rags! If his wife saw him! The farmer had no fear of Nimrod in his worst rages, but he feared his wife in her gentlest moods. Happily for both, a critical moment in the cooking of the supper had arrived.

“Clare!” he stammered.

“Yes, sir,” returned Clare, and laid hold of Nimrod’s horn. The animal yielded, and turned away with him. The farmer came nearer, and put his arm round the boy’s neck. The boy rubbed his cheek against the arm.

“I’m sorry I struck you, Clare!” faltered the big man.

“Oh, never mind, sir! That was long ago!” answered the boy.

“Tell me how you’ve been getting on.”

“Pretty well, sir! But I want to tell you first how it is I’m here with Nimrod. Only it would be better to put him somewhere before I begin.”

“It would,” agreed the farmer; and between them, with the enticements of a pail of water and some fresh-cut grass, they got him into a shed, where they hoped he would forget the proximity of the usurper, and, with the soothing help of his supper, go to sleep.

Then Clare told his story. Mr Goodenough afterward asseverated that, if he had not known him for a boy that would not lie, he would not have believed the half of it.

“Come, Abdiel!” said Clare, the moment he ended—and would have started at once.

“Won’t you have something after your long ride?” said the farmer.

Clare looked down at his clothes, and laughed. The farmer knew what he meant, and did not ask him into the house.

“When had you anything to eat?” he inquired.

“I shall do very well till to-morrow,” answered Clare.

“Then if you will go, I’m glad of the opportunity of paying you the wages I owed you,” said the farmer, putting his hand in his pocket.

“You gave me my food! That was all I was worth!” protested Clare.

“You were worth more than that! I knew the difference when I had another boy in your place! I wish I had you again!—But it wouldn’t do, you know! it wouldn’t do!” he added hastily.

With that he succeeded in pulling a sovereign from the depth of a trowser-pocket, and held it out to Clare. It was neither large wages nor a greatly generous gift, but it seemed to the boy wealth enormous. He could not help holding out his hand, but he was ashamed to open it. What the giver regarded as a debt, the receiver regarded as a gift. He stood with his hand out but clenched. There was a combat inside him.

“It’s too much!” he protested, looking at the sovereign almost with fear. “I never had so much money in my life!”

“You earned it well,” said the farmer magnanimously.

The moral cramp forsook his hand. He took the money with a hearty “Thank you, sir.” As he put it in his pocket, he felt its corners carefully, lest there should be a hole. But his pockets had not had half the wear of the clothes they inhabited.

“Where are you going?” asked the farmer.

Clare mentioned the small town in whose neighbourhood he had left the caravans, and said he thought the people of the menagerie would like him to help them with the beasts. The farmer shook his head.

“It’s not a respectable occupation!” he remarked.

Clare did not understand him.

“Do they cheat?” he asked.

“No; I don’t suppose they cheat worse than anybody else. But it ain’t respectable.”

Had he known a little more, Clare might have asserted that the men about the menagerie were at least as respectable as almost any farmer with a horse to sell. But he knew next to nothing of wickedness, whence many a man whose skull he had brains enough to fill three times, regarded him as a simpleton.

Clare thought everything honest honourable. When people said otherwise, he did not understand, and continued to act according as he understood. A thousand dishonourable things are done, and largely approved, which Clare would not have touched with one of his fingers: he could see nothing more dishonourable in having to do with wild beasts than in having to do with tame ones. If any boy wants to know the sort of thing I count in that thousand, I answer him—“The next thing you are asked to do, or are inclined to do—if you have any doubt about it, DON’T DO IT.” That is the way to know the honourable thing from the dishonourable.

Clare made no attempt to argue the question with the farmer. He inquired of him the nearest way to the town, and went—the quicker that he heard the voice of Mrs. Goodenough, calling her husband to supper.

Chapter XLIV. A third mother

Who ever had a sovereign for the first time in his life, and did not feel rich? Clare trudged along merrily, and Abdiel shared his joy. They had to sleep out of doors nevertheless; for by this time Clare knew that a boy, especially a boy in rags, must mind whom he asks to change a sovereign. In the lee of a hay-mow, on a little loose hay, they slept, Abdiel in Clare’s bosom, and slept well.

There was not much temptation to lie long after waking, and the companions were early on their way. It was yet morning when they came to the public house where Clare had his first and last half-pint of beer. The landlady stood at the newly opened door, with her fists in her sides, looking out on the fresh world, lost in some such thought as was possible to her. Clare pulled off his cap, and bade her good morning as he passed. Perhaps she knew she did not deserve politeness; anyhow she took Clare’s for impudence, and came swooping upon him. He stopped and waited her approach, perplexed as to the cause of it; and was so unprepared for the box on the ear she dealt him, that it almost threw him down. Her ankle was instantly in Abdiel’s sharp teeth. She gave a frightful screech, and Clare, coming to himself, though still stupid from her blow and his own surprise, called off the dog. The woman limped raging to the house, and Clare thought it prudent to go his way. He talked severely to Abdiel as they went; but though the dog could understand much, I doubt if he understood that lecture. For Abdiel was one of the few, even among dogs, with whom the defence of master or friend is an inborn, instinctive duty; and strong temptation even has but a poor chance against the sense of duty in a dog.