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\title{Evergreens, by Jerome K. Jerome}

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\title{Evergreens}


\author{Jerome K. Jerome}

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\noindent This public-domain (U.S.) text was scanned and proofed by
Ron Burkey and Amy Thomte. The Project Gutenberg edition ({}``jjevg10'')
was subsequently converted to \LaTeX{} by \textbf{GutenMark} software
and re-edited to correct formatting. Report problems to info@sandroid.org.
Revision B1 differs from B in that {}``----'' has everywhere been
replaced by {}``---''.

\noindent \begin{center}Revision: B1\\
Date: 02/02/2008\end{center}

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\chapter*{\protect\raggedright EVERGREENS.}

\markboth{Jerome K. Jerome}{Evergreens}

They look so dull and dowdy in the spring weather, when the snow drops
and the crocuses are putting on their dainty frocks of white and mauve
and yellow, and the baby-buds from every branch are peeping with bright
eyes out on the world, and stretching forth soft little leaves toward
the coming gladness of their lives. They stand apart, so cold and
hard amid the stirring hope and joy that are throbbing all around
them.

And in the deep full summer-time, when all the rest of nature dons
its richest garb of green, and the roses clamber round the porch,
and the grass waves waist-high in the meadow, and the fields are gay
with \mbox{flowers\mbox{---}}they seem duller and dowdier than
ever then, wearing their faded winter's dress, looking so dingy and
old and worn.

In the mellow days of autumn, when the trees, like dames no longer
young, seek to forget their aged looks under gorgeous bright-toned
robes of gold and brown and purple, and the grain is yellow in the
fields, and the ruddy fruit hangs clustering from the drooping boughs,
and the wooded hills in their thousand hues stretched like leafy rainbows
above the vale\mbox{---}ah!\ surely they look their dullest and
dowdiest then. The gathered glory of the dying year is all around
them. They seem so out of place among it, in their somber, everlasting
green, like poor relations at a rich man's feast. It is such a weather-beaten
old green dress. So many summers' suns have blistered it, so many
winters' rains have beat upon it\mbox{---}such a shabby, mean, old
dress; it is the only one they have!

They do not look quite so bad when the weary winter weather is come,
when the flowers are dead, and the hedgerows are bare, and the trees
stand out leafless against the gray sky, and the birds are all silent,
and the fields are brown, and the vine clings round the cottages with
skinny, fleshless arms, and they alone of all things are unchanged,
they alone of all the forest are green, they alone of all the verdant
host stand firm to front the cruel winter.

They are not very beautiful, only strong and stanch and steadfast\mbox{---}the
same in all times, through all seasons\mbox{---}ever the same, ever
green. The spring cannot brighten them, the summer cannot scorch them,
the autumn cannot wither them, the winter cannot kill them.

There are evergreen men and women in the world, praise be to God!
Not many of them, but a few. They are not the showy folk; they are
not the clever, attractive folk.\  (Nature is an old-fashioned shopkeeper;
she never puts her best goods in the window.) They are only the quiet,
strong folk; they are stronger than the world, stronger than life
or death, stronger than Fate. The storms of life sweep over them,
and the rains beat down upon them, and the biting frosts creep round
them; but the winds and the rains and the frosts pass away, and they
are still standing, green and straight. They love the sunshine of
life in their undemonstrative way\mbox{---}its pleasures, its joys.
But calamity cannot bow them, sorrow and affliction bring not despair
to their serene faces, only a little tightening of the lips; the sun
of our prosperity makes the green of their friendship no brighter,
the frost of our adversity kills not the leaves of their affection.

Let us lay hold of such men and women; let us grapple them to us with
hooks of steel; let us cling to them as we would to rocks in a tossing
sea. We do not think very much of them in the summertime of life.
They do not flatter us or gush over us. They do not always agree with
us. They are not always the most delightful society, by any means.
They are not good talkers, nor\mbox{---}which would do just as well,
perhaps better\mbox{---}do they make enraptured listeners. They have
awkward manners, and very little tact. They do not shine to advantage
beside our society friends. They do not dress well; they look altogether
somewhat dowdy and commonplace. We almost hope they will not see us
when we meet them just outside the club. They are not the sort of
people we want to ostentatiously greet in crowded places. It is not
till the days of our need that we learn to love and know them. It
is not till the winter that the birds see the wisdom of building their
nests in the evergreen trees.

And we, in our spring-time folly of youth, pass them by with a sneer,
the uninteresting, colorless evergreens, and, like silly children
with nothing but eyes in their heads, stretch out our hands and cry
for the pretty flowers. We will make our little garden of life such
a charming, fairy-like spot, the envy of every passer-by! There shall
nothing grow in it but lilies and roses, and the cottage we will cover
all over with Virginia-creeper. And, oh, how sweet it will look, under
the dancing summer sun-light, when the soft west breeze is blowing!

And, oh, how we shall stand and shiver there when the rain and the
east wind come!

Oh, you foolish, foolish little maidens, with your dainty heads so
full of unwisdom!\ how often\mbox{---}oh!\ how often, are you to
be warned that it is not always the sweetest thing in lovers that
is the best material to make a good-wearing husband out of? {}``The
lover sighing like a furnace'' will not go on sighing like a furnace
forever. That furnace will go out. He will become the husband, {}``full
of strange oaths\mbox{---}jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,''
and grow {}``into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon.'' How will he
wear? There will be no changing him if he does not suit, no sending
him back to be altered, no having him let out a bit where he is too
tight and hurts you, no having him taken in where he is too loose,
no laying him by when the cold comes, to wrap yourself up in something
warmer. As he is when you select him, so he will have to last you
all your life\mbox{---}through all changes, through all seasons.

Yes, he looks very pretty now\mbox{---}handsome pattern, if the colors
are fast and it does not fade\mbox{---}feels soft and warm to the
touch. How will he stand the world's rough weather? How will he stand
life's wear and tear?

He looks so manly and brave. His hair curls so divinely. He dresses
so well (I wonder if the tailor's bill is paid?) He kisses your hand
so gracefully. He calls you such pretty names. His arm feels so strong
a round you. His fine eyes are so full of tenderness as they gaze
down into yours.

Will he kiss your hand when it is wrinkled and old? Will he call you
pretty names when the baby is crying in the night, and you cannot
keep it quiet\mbox{---}or, better still, will he sit up and take
a turn with it? Will his arm be strong around you in the days of trouble?
Will his eyes shine above you full of tenderness when yours are growing
dim?

And you boys, you silly boys!\ what materials for a wife do you think
you will get out of the empty-headed coquettes you are raving and
tearing your hair about. Oh!\ yes, she is very handsome, and she
dresses with exquisite taste (the result of devoting the whole of
her heart, mind and soul to the subject, and never allowing her thoughts
to be distracted from it by any other mundane or celestial object
whatsoever); and she is very agreeable and entertaining and fascinating;
and she will go on looking handsome, and dressing exquisitely, and
being agreeable and entertaining and fascinating just as much after
you have married her as before\mbox{---}more so, if anything.

But \textit{you} will not get the benefit of it. Husbands will be
charmed and fascinated by her in plenty, but \textit{you} will not
be among them. You will run the show, you will pay all the expenses,
do all the work. Your performing lady will be most affable and enchanting
to the crowd. They will stare at her, and admire her, and talk to
her, and flirt with her. And you will be able to feel that you are
quite a benefactor to your fellow-men and women\mbox{---}to your
fellow-men especially\mbox{---}in providing such delightful amusement
for them, free. But \textit{you} will not get any of the fun yourself.

You will not get the handsome looks.\  \textit{You} will get the
jaded face, and the dull, lusterless eyes, and the untidy hair with
the dye showing on it. You will not get the exquisite dresses.\ 
\textit{You} will get dirty, shabby frocks and slommicking dressing-gowns,
such as your cook would be ashamed to wear.\  \textit{You} will not
get the charm and fascination.\  \textit{You} will get the after-headaches,
the complainings and grumblings, the silence and sulkiness, the weariness
and lassitude and ill-temper that comes as such a relief after working
hard all day at being pleasant!

It is not the people who shine in society, but the people who brighten
up the back parlor; not the people who are charming when they are
out, but the people who are charming when they are in, that are good
to \textit{live} with. It is not the brilliant men and women, but
the simple, strong, restful men and women, that make the best traveling
companions for the road of life. The men and women who will only laugh
as they put up the umbrella when the rain begins to fall, who will
trudge along cheerfully through the mud and over the stony places\mbox{---}the
comrades who will lay their firm hand on ours and strengthen us when
the way is dark and we are growing weak\mbox{---}the evergreen men
and women, who, like the holly, are at their brightest and best when
the blast blows chilliest\mbox{---}the stanch men and women!

It is a grand thing this stanchness. It is the difference between
a dog and a sheep\mbox{---}between a man and an oyster.

Women, as a rule, are stancher than men. There are women that you
feel you could rely upon to the death. But very few men indeed have
this dog-like virtue. Men, taking them generally, are more like cats.
You may live with them and call them yours for twenty years, but you
can never feel \textit{quite} sure of them. You never know exactly
what they are thinking of. You never feel easy in your mind as to
the result of the next-door neighbor's laying down a Brussels carpet
in his kitchen.

We have no school for the turning-out of stanch men in this nineteenth
century. In the old, earnest times, war made men stanch and true to
each other. We have learned up a good many glib phrases about the
wickedness of war, and we thank God that we live in these peaceful,
trading times, wherein we can\mbox{---}and do\mbox{---}devote the
whole of our thoughts and energies to robbing and cheating and swindling
one another\mbox{---}to {}``doing'' our friends, and overcoming
our enemies by trickery and lies\mbox{---}wherein, undisturbed by
the wicked ways of fighting-men, we can cultivate to better perfection
the {}``smartness,'' the craft, and the cunning, and all the other
{}``business-like'' virtues on which we so pride ourselves, and
which were so neglected and treated with so little respect in the
bad old age of violence, when men chose lions and eagles for their
symbols rather than foxes.

There is a good deal to be said against war. I am not prepared to
maintain that war did not bring with it disadvantages, but there can
be no doubt that, for the noblest work of Nature\mbox{---}the making
of men\mbox{---}it was a splendid manufactory. It taught men courage.
It trained them in promptness and determination, in strength of brain
and strength of hand. From its stern lessons they learned fortitude
in suffering, coolness in danger, cheerfulness under reverses. Chivalry,
Reverence, and Loyalty are the beautiful children of ugly War. But,
above all gifts, the greatest gift it gave to men was stanchness.

It first taught men to be true to one another; to be true to their
duty, true to their post; to be in all things faithful, even unto
death.

The martyrs that died at the stake; the explorers that fought with
Nature and opened up the world for us; the reformers (they had to
do something more than talk in those days) who won for us our liberties;
the men who gave their lives to science and art, when science and
art brought, not as now, fame and fortune, but shame and penury\mbox{---}they
sprang from the loins of the rugged men who had learned, on many a
grim battlefield, to laugh at pain and death, who had had it hammered
into them, with many a hard blow, that the whole duty of a man in
this world is to be true to his trust, and fear not.

Do you remember the story of the old Viking who had been converted
to Christianity, and who, just as they were about, with much joy,
to baptize him, paused and asked: {}``But what\mbox{---}if this,
as you tell me, is the only way to the true Valhalla\mbox{---}what
has become of my comrades, my friends who are dead, who died in the
old faith\mbox{---}where are they?''

The priests, confused, replied there could be no doubt those unfortunate
folk had gone to a place they would rather not mention.

{}``Then,'' said the old warrior, stepping back, {}``I will not
be baptized. I will go along with my own people.''

He had lived with them, fought beside them; they were his people.
He would stand by them to the end\mbox{---}of eternity. Most assuredly,
a very shocking old Viking! But I think it might be worth while giving
up our civilization and our culture to get back to the days when they
made men like that.

The only reminder of such times that we have left us now, is the bull-dog;
and he is fast dying out\mbox{---}the pity of it! What a splendid
old dog he is!\ so grim, so silent, so stanch; so terrible, when
he has got his idea, of his duty clear before him; so absurdly meek,
when it is only himself that is concerned.

He is the gentlest, too, and the most lovable of all dogs. He does
not look it. The sweetness of his disposition would not strike the
casual observer at first glance. He resembles the gentleman spoken
of in the oft-quoted stanza: \begin{flushleft} \begin{verse} \small

'E's all right when yer knows 'im. \\*

But yer've got to know 'im fust.

\end{verse} \end{flushleft}

The first time I ever met a bull-dog\mbox{---}to speak to, that is\mbox{---}was
many years ago. We were lodging down in the country, an orphan friend
of mine named George, and myself, and one night, coming home late
from some dissolving views we found the family had gone to bed. They
had left a light in our room, however, and we went in and sat down,
and began to take off our boots.

And then, for the first time, we noticed on the hearthrug a bull-dog.
A dog with a more thoughtfully ferocious expression\mbox{---}a dog
with, apparently, a heart more dead to all ennobling and civilizing
sentiments\mbox{---}I have never seen. As George said, he looked
more like some heathen idol than a happy English dog.

He appeared to have been waiting for us; and he rose up and greeted
us with a ghastly grin, and got between us and the door.

We smiled at him\mbox{---}a sickly, propitiatory smile. We said,
{}``Good dog\mbox{---}poor fellow!''\ and we asked him, in tones
implying that the question could admit of no negative, if he was not
a {}``nice old chap.'' We did not really think so. We had our own
private opinion concerning him, and it was unfavorable. But we did
not express it. We would not have hurt his feelings for the world.
He was a visitor, our guest, so to speak\mbox{---}and, as well-brought-up
young men, we felt that the right thing to do was for us to prevent
his gaining any hint that we were not glad to see him, and to make
him feel as little as possible the awkwardness of his position.

I think we succeeded. He was singularly unembarrassed, and far more
at his ease than even we were. He took but little notice of our flattering
remarks, but was much drawn toward George's legs. George used to be,
I remember, rather proud of his legs. I could never see enough in
them myself to excuse George's vanity; indeed, they always struck
me as lumpy. It is only fair to acknowledge, however, that they quite
fascinated that bull-dog. He walked over and criticized them with
the air of a long-baffled connoisseur who had at last found his ideal.
At the termination of his inspection he distinctly smiled.

George, who at that time was modest and bashful, blushed and drew
them up on to the chair. On the dog's displaying a desire to follow
them, George moved up on to the table, and squatted there in the middle,
nursing his knees. George's legs being lost to him, the dog appeared
inclined to console himself with mine. I went and sat beside George
on the table.

Sitting with your feet drawn up in front of you, on a small and rickety
one-legged table, is a most trying exercise, especially if you are
not used to it. George and I both felt our position keenly. We did
not like to call out for help, and bring the family down. We were
proud young men, and we feared lest, to the unsympathetic eye of the
comparative stranger, the spectacle we should present might not prove
imposing.

We sat on in silence for about half an hour, the dog keeping a reproachful
eye upon us from the nearest chair, and displaying elephantine delight
whenever we made any movement suggestive of climbing down.

At the end of the half hour we discussed the advisability of {}``chancing
it,'' but decided not to. {}``We should never,'' George said, {}``confound
foolhardiness with courage.''

{}``Courage,'' he continued\mbox{---}George had quite a gift for
maxims\mbox{---}{}``courage is the wisdom of manhood; foolhardiness,
the folly of youth.''

He said that to get down from the table while that dog remained in
the room, would clearly prove us to be possessed of the latter quality;
so we restrained ourselves, and sat on.

We sat on for over an hour, by which time, having both grown careless
of life and indifferent to the voice of Wisdom, we did {}``chance
it;'' and throwing the table-cloth over our would-be murderer, charged
for the door and got out.

The next morning we complained to our landlady of her carelessness
in leaving wild beasts about the place, and we gave her a brief if
not exactly truthful, history of the business.

Instead of the tender womanly sympathy we had expected, the old lady
sat down in the easy chair and burst out laughing.

{}``What!\ old Boozer,'' she exclaimed, {}``you was afraid of
old Boozer! Why, bless you, he wouldn't hurt a worm! He ain't got
a tooth in his head, he ain't; we has to feed him with a spoon; and
I'm sure the way the cat chivies him about must be enough to make
his life a burden to him. I expect he wanted you to nurse him; he's
used to being nursed.''

And that was the brute that had kept us sitting on a table, with our
boots off, for over an hour on a chilly night!

Another bull-dog exhibition that occurs to me was one given by my
uncle. He had had a bulldog\mbox{---}a young one\mbox{---}given
to him by a friend. It was a grand dog, so his friend had told him;
all it wanted was training\mbox{---}it had not been properly trained.
My uncle did not profess to know much about the training of bull-dogs;
but it seemed a simple enough matter, so he thanked the man, and took
his prize home at the end of a rope.

{}``Have we got to live in the house with \textit{this?}''\ asked
my aunt, indignantly, coming in to the room about an hour after the
dog's advent, followed by the quadruped himself, wearing an idiotically
self-satisfied air.

{}``That!''\ exclaimed my uncle, in astonishment; {}``why, it's
a splendid dog. His father was honorably mentioned only last year
at the Aquarium.''

{}``Ah, well, all I can say is, that his son isn't going the way
to get honorably mentioned in this neighborhood,'' replied my aunt,
with bitterness; {}``he's just finished killing poor Mrs.\ McSlanger's
cat, if you want to know what he has been doing. And a pretty row
there'll be about it, too!''

{}``Can't we hush it up?''\ said my uncle.

{}``Hush it up?''\ retorted my aunt. {}``If you'd heard the row,
you wouldn't sit there and talk like a fool. And if you'll take my
advice,'' added my aunt, {}``you'll set to work on this `training,'
or whatever it is, that has got to be done to the dog, before any
human life is lost.''

My uncle was too busy to devote any time to the dog for the next day
or so, and all that could be done was to keep the animal carefully
confined to the house.

And a nice time we had with him! It was not that the animal was bad-hearted.
He meant well\mbox{---}he tried to do his duty. What was wrong with
him was that he was too hard-working. He wanted to do too much. He
started with an exaggerated and totally erroneous notion of his duties
and responsibilities. His idea was that he had been brought into the
house for the purpose of preventing any living human soul from coming
near it and of preventing any person who might by chance have managed
to slip in from ever again leaving it.

We endeavored to induce him to take a less exalted view of his position,
but in vain. That was the conception he had formed in his own mind
concerning his earthly task, and that conception he insisted on living
up to with, what appeared to us to be, unnecessary conscientiousness.

He so effectually frightened away all the trades people, that they
at last refused to enter the gate. All that they would do was to bring
their goods and drop them over the fence into the front garden, from
where we had to go and fetch them as we wanted them.

{}``I wish you'd run into the garden,'' my aunt would say to me\mbox{---}I
was stopping with them at the time\mbox{---}{}``and see if you can
find any sugar; I think there's some under the big rose-bush. If not,
you'd better go to Jones' and order some.''

And on the cook's inquiring what she should get ready for lunch, my
aunt would say:

{}``Well, I'm sure, Jane, I hardly know. What have we? Are there
any chops in the garden, or was it a bit of steak that I noticed on
the lawn?''

On the second afternoon the plumbers came to do a little job to the
kitchen boiler. The dog, being engaged at the time in the front of
the house, driving away the postman, did not notice their arrival.
He was broken-hearted at finding them there when he got downstairs,
and evidently blamed himself most bitterly. Still, there they were,
all owing to his carelessness, and the only thing to be done now was
to see that they did not escape.

There were three plumbers (it always takes three plumbers to do a
job; the first man comes on ahead to tell you that the second man
will be there soon, the second man comes to say that he can't stop,
and the third man follows to ask if the first man has been there);
and that faithful, dumb animal kept them pinned up in the kitchen\mbox{---}fancy
wanting to keep plumbers in a house longer than is absolutely necessary!\mbox{---}for
five hours, until my uncle came home; and the bill ran: {}``Self
and two men engaged six hours, repairing boiler-tap, 18s.; material,
2d.; total 18s.\ 2d.''

He took a dislike to the cook from the very first. We did not blame
him for this. She was a disagreeable old woman, and we did not think
much of her ourselves. But when it came to keeping her out of the
kitchen, so that she could not do her work, and my aunt and uncle
had to cook the dinner themselves, assisted by the housemaid\mbox{---}a
willing-enough girl, but necessarily inexperienced\mbox{---}we felt
that the woman was being subject to persecution.

My uncle, after this, decided that the dog's training must be no longer
neglected. The man next door but one always talked as if he knew a
lot about sporting matters, and to him my uncle went for advice as
to how to set about it.

{}``Oh, yes,'' said the man, cheerfully, {}``very simple thing,
training a bull-dog. Wants patience, that's all.''

{}``Oh, that will be all right,'' said my uncle; {}``it can't want
much more than living in the same house with him before he's trained
does. How do you start?''

{}``Well, I'll tell you,'' said next-door-but-one. {}``You take
him up into a room where there's not much furniture, and you shut
the door and bolt it.''

{}``I see,'' said my uncle.

{}``Then you place him on the floor in the middle of the room, and
you go down on your knees in front of him, and begin to irritate him.''

{}``Oh!''

{}``Yes\mbox{---}and you go on irritating him until you have made
him quite savage.''

{}``Which, from what I know of the dog, won't take long,'' observed
my uncle thoughtfully.

{}``So much the better. The moment he gets savage he will fly at
you.''

My uncle agreed that the idea seemed plausible.

{}``He will fly at your throat,'' continued the next-door-but-one
man, {}``and this is where you will have to be careful.\  \textit{As}
he springs toward you, and \textit{before} he gets hold of you, you
must hit him a fair straight blow on his nose, and knock him down.''

{}``Yes, I see what you mean.''

{}``Quite so\mbox{---}well, the moment you have knocked him down,
he will jump up and go for you again. You must knock him down again;
and you must keep on doing this, until the dog is thoroughly cowed
and exhausted. Once he is thoroughly cowed, the thing's done\mbox{---}dog's
as gentle as a lamb after that.''

{}``Oh!''\ says my uncle, rising from his chair, {}``you think
that a good way, do you?''

{}``Certainly,'' replied the next-door-but-one man; {}``it never
fails.''

{}``Oh! I wasn't doubting it,'' said my uncle; {}``only it's just
occurred to me that as you understand the knack of these things, perhaps
\textit{you'd} like to come in and try \textit{your} hand on the dog?
We can give you a room quite to yourselves; and I'll undertake that
nobody comes near to interfere with you. And if\mbox{---}if,'' continued
my uncle, with that kindly thoughtfulness which ever distinguished
his treatment of others, {}``\textit{if}, by any chance, you should
miss hitting the dog at the proper critical moment, or, if \textit{you}
should get cowed and exhausted first, instead of the dog\mbox{---}why,
I shall only be too pleased to take the whole burden of the funeral
expenses on my own shoulders; and I hope you know me well enough to
feel sure that the arrangements will be tasteful, and, at the same
time, unostentatious!''

And out my uncle walked.

We next consulted the butcher, who agreed that the prize-ring method
was absurd, especially when recommended to a short-winded, elderly
family man, and who recommended, instead, plenty of out-door exercise
for the dog, under my uncle's strict supervision and control.

{}``Get a fairly long chain for him,'' said the butcher, {}``and
take him out for a good stiff run every evening. Never let him get
away from you; make him mind you, and bring him home always thoroughly
exhausted. You stick to that for a month or two, regular, and you'll
have him like a little child.''

{}``Um!\mbox{---}seems to me that I'm going to get more training
over his job than anybody else,'' muttered my uncle, as he thanked
the man and left the shop; {}``but I suppose it's got to be done.
Wish I'd never had the d\mbox{-----} dog now!''

So, religiously, every evening, my uncle would fasten a long chain
to that poor dog, and drag him away from his happy home with the idea
of exhausting him; and the dog would come back as fresh as paint,
my uncle behind him, panting and clamoring for brandy.

My uncle said he should never have dreamed there could have been such
stirring times in this prosaic nineteenth century as he had, training
that dog.

Oh, the wild, wild scamperings over the breezy common\mbox{---}the
dog trying to catch a swallow, and my uncle, unable to hold him back,
following at the other end of the chain!

Oh, the merry frolics in the fields, when the dog wanted to kill a
cow, and the cow wanted to kill the dog, and they each dodged round
my uncle, trying to do it!

And, oh, the pleasant chats with the old ladies when the dog wound
the chain into a knot around their legs, and upset them, and my uncle
had to sit down in the road beside them, and untie them before they
could get up again!

But a crisis came at last. It was a Saturday afternoon\mbox{---}uncle
being exercised by dog in usual way\mbox{---}nervous children playing
in road, see dog, scream, and run\mbox{---}playful young dog thinks
it a game, jerks chain out of uncle's grasp, and flies after \mbox{them\mbox{---}}uncle
flies after dog, calling it names\mbox{---}fond parent in front garden,
seeing beloved children chased by savage dog, followed by careless
owner, flies after uncle, calling \textit{him} names\mbox{---}householders
come to doors and cry, {}``Shame!''---also throw things at dog\mbox{---}things
don't hit dog, hit uncle\mbox{---}things that don't hit uncle, hit
fond parent\mbox{---}through the village and up the hill, over the
bridge and round by the green\mbox{---}grand run, mile and a half
without a break! Children sink exhausted\mbox{---}dog gambols up
among them\mbox{---}children go into fits\mbox{---}fond parent and
uncle come up together, both breathless.

{}``Why don't you call your dog off, you wicked old man?''

{}``Because I can't recollect his name, you old fool, you!''

Fond parent accuses uncle of having set dog on\mbox{---}uncle, indignant,
reviles fond parent\mbox{---}exasperated fond parent attacks uncle\mbox{---}uncle
retaliates with umbrella\mbox{---}faithful dog comes to assistance
of uncle, and inflicts great injury on fond parent\mbox{---}arrival
of police\mbox{---}dog attacks police\mbox{---}uncle and fond parent
both taken into custody\mbox{---}uncle fined five pounds and costs
for keeping a ferocious dog at large\mbox{---}uncle fined five pounds
and costs for assault on fond \mbox{parent\mbox{---}}uncle fined
five pounds and cost for assault on police!

My uncle gave the dog away soon after that. He did not waste him.
He gave him as a wedding-present to a near relation.

But the saddest story I ever heard in connection with a bull-dog,
was one told by my aunt herself.

Now you can rely upon this story, because it is not one of mine, it
is one of my aunt's, and she would scorn to tell a lie. This is a
story you could tell to the heathen, and feel that you were teaching
them the truth and doing them good. They give this story out at all
the Sunday-schools in our part of the country, and draw moral lessons
from it. It is a story that a little child can believe.

It happened in the old crinoline days. My aunt, who was then living
in a country-town, had gone out shopping one morning, and was standing
in the High Street, talking to a lady friend, a Mrs.\ Gumworthy,
the doctor's wife. She (my aunt) had on a new crinoline that morning,
in which, to use her own expression, she rather fancied herself. It
was a tremendously big one, as stiff as a wire-fence; and it {}``set''
beautifully.

They were standing in front of Jenkins', the draper's; and my aunt
thinks that it\mbox{---}the crinoline\mbox{---}must have got caught
up in something, and an opening thus left between it and the ground.
However this may be, certain it is that an absurdly large and powerful
bull-dog, who was fooling round about there at the time, managed,
somehow or other, to squirm in under my aunt's crinoline, and effectually
imprison himself beneath it.

Finding himself suddenly in a dark and gloomy chamber, the dog, naturally
enough, got frightened, and made frantic rushes to get out. But whichever
way he charged; there was the crinoline in front of him. As he flew,
he, of course, carried it before him, and with the crinoline, of course,
went my aunt.

But nobody knew the explanation. My aunt herself did not know what
had happened. Nobody had seen the dog creep inside the crinoline.
All that the people did see was a staid and eminently respectable
middle-aged lady suddenly, and without any apparent reason, throw
her umbrella down in the road, fly up the High Street at the rate
of ten miles an hour, rush across it at the imminent risk of her life,
dart down it again on the other side, rush sideways, like an excited
crab, into a grocer's shop, run three times round the shop, upsetting
the whole stock-in-trade, come out of the shop backward and knock
down a postman, dash into the roadway and spin round twice, hover
for a moment, undecided, on the curb, and then away up the hill again,
as if she had only just started, all the while screaming out at the
top of her voice for somebody to stop her!

Of course, everybody thought she was mad. The people flew before her
like chaff before the wind. In less than five seconds the High Street
was a desert. The townsfolk scampered into their shops and houses
and barricaded the doors. Brave men dashed out and caught up little
children and bore them to places of safety amid cheers. Carts and
carriages were abandoned, while the drivers climbed up lamp-posts!

What would have happened had the affair gone on much longer\mbox{---}whether
my aunt would have been shot, or the fire-engine brought into requisition
against her\mbox{---}it is impossible, having regard to the terrified
state of the crowd, to say. Fortunately for her, she became exhausted.
With one despairing shriek she gave way, and sat down on the dog;
and peace reigned once again in that sweet rural town.
\end{document}
