But she was not there - she had vanished
unaccountably; and by and by what was our astonishment and disgust to
hear that the old Scotch body was none other than our own Mr. Trigg!
That our needle-sharp eyes, concentrated for an hour on her face, had
failed to detect the master who was so painfully familiar to us seemed
like a miracle.
Mr. Trigg confessed that play-acting was one of the things he had done
before quitting his country; but it was only one of a dozen or twenty
vocations which he had taken up at various times, only to drop them
again as soon as he made the discovery that they one and all entailed
months and even years of hard work if he was ever to fulfil his
ambitious desire of doing and being something great in the world. As a
reader he certainly was great, and every evening, when the evenings
were long, he would give a two hours' reading to the household.
Dickens was then the most popular writer in the world, and he usually
read Dickens, to the delight of his listeners. Here he could display
his histrionic qualities to the full. He impersonated every character
in the book, endowing him with voice, gestures, manner, and expression
that fitted him perfectly. It was more like a play than a reading.
"What should we do without Mr. Trigg?" our elders were accustomed to
say; but we little ones, remembering that it would not be the
beneficent countenance of Mr. Pickwick that would look on us in the
schoolroom on the following morning, only wished that Mr. Trigg was
far, far away.
Perhaps they made too much of him: at all events he fell into the
habit of going away every Saturday morning and not returning until the
following Monday. His week-end visit was always to some English or
Scotch neighbour, a sheep-farmer, ten or fifteen or twenty miles
distant, where the bottle or demi-john of white Brazilian rum was
always on the table. It was the British exile's only substitute for
his dear lost whisky in that far country. At home there was only tea
and coffee to drink. From these outings he would return on Monday
morning, quite sober and almost too dignified in manner, but with
inflamed eyes and (in the schoolroom) the temper of a devil. On one of
these occasions, something - our stupidity perhaps, or an exceptionally
bad headache - tried him beyond endurance, and taking down his
_revenque_, or native horse-whip made of raw hide, from the wall,
he began laying about him with such extraordinary fury that the room
was quickly in an uproar. Then all at once my mother appeared on the
scene, and the tempest was stilled, though the master, with the whip
in his uplifted hand, still stood, glaring with rage at us. She stood
silent a moment or two, her face very white, then spoke: "Children,
you may go and play now. School is over;" then, lest the full purport
of her words should not be understood, she added, "Your schoolmaster
is going to leave us."
It was an unspeakable relief, a joyful moment; yet on that very day,
and on the next before he rode away, I, even I who had been unjustly
and cruelly struck with a horsewhip, felt my little heart heavy in me
when I saw the change in his face - the dark, still, brooding look, and
knew that the thought of his fall and the loss of his home was
exceedingly bitter to him. Doubtless my mother noticed it, too, and
shed a few compassionate tears for the poor man, once more homeless on
the great plain. But he could not be kept after that insane outbreak.
To strike their children was to my parents a crime; it changed their
nature and degraded them, and Mr. Trigg could not be forgiven.
Mr. Trigg, as I have said before, was a long time with us, and the
happy deliverance I have related did not occur until I was near the
end of my eighth year. At the present stage of my story I am not yet
six, and the incident related in the following chapter, in which Mr.
Trigg figures, occurred when I was within a couple of months of
completing my sixth year.
CHAPTER III
DEATH OF AN OLD DOG
The old dog Caesar - His powerful personality - Last days and end - The
old dog's burial - The fact of death is brought home to me - A child's
mental anguish - My mother comforts me - Limitations of the child's
mind - Fear of death - Witnessing the slaughter of cattle - A man in the
moat - Margarita, the nursery maid - Her beauty and lovableness - Her
death - I refuse to see her dead.
When recalling the impressions and experiences of that most eventful
sixth year, the one incident which looks biggest in memory, at all
events in the last half of that year, is the death of Caesar. There is
nothing in the past I can remember so well: it was indeed the most
important event of my childhood - the first thing in a young life which
brought the eternal note of sadness in.
It was in the early spring, about the middle of August, and I can even
remember that it was windy weather and bitterly cold for the time of
year, when the old dog was approaching his end.
Caesar was an old valued dog, although of no superior breed: he was
just an ordinary dog of the country, short-haired, with long legs and
a blunt muzzle. The ordinary dog or native cur was about the size of a
Scotch collie; Caesar was quite a third larger, and it was said of him
that he was as much above all other dogs of the house, numbering about
twelve or fourteen, in intelligence and courage as in size.
