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Bonnie Prince Fetlar: The Story of a Pony and His Friends

<h2>CHAPTER XVII A MYSTERIOUS LAMB</h2> Of course Guardie and I made up our little difference. Before he took his pigs back on Deer Trail the next morning he came bounding toward me and apologised handsomely. "I've thought the matter over," he said. "Selfishness doesn't pay in dog or man—I'll keep an ear open at night, and Girlie will, too, and we'll be on the lookout for strange scents. Of course we dogs don't depend much on our eyes." "I was disagreeable, too," I said frankly. "Ponies have nerves, and I was tired." "Barklo ought to come home" said Guardie. "Who is Barklo?" I asked curiously. "Children's dog—I haven't time to tell—ask someone else—pigs are wandering from trail," and off he dashed. "Who is Barklo?" I repeated. It was very early in the morning, and away up on the hillside where I was standing there wasn't a creature in sight, but Lammie-noo, who was lying down and eating grass in a sideways fashion. His leg was better, but he still put on great airs, for he liked the children to wait on him and pity him. "Ba, ba," he said in his silly way, "Barklo's a dog—a Hairdale." [Pg 211] "Not Hairdale," I said, "Airedale." "Just as you like," he replied amiably; "he's very hairy. He's visiting now." "Was he the watch-dog?" I asked. "Yes, Pony Prince. Barklo lay on the children's beds, and if a stranger didn't went, he barked high." "Not 'went,'" I corrected; "'Go,' Lammie-noo." "All right, but what difference does it make?" he asked languidly. "You know what I mean." "Even a lamb should talk properly," I replied. "You're a snob," responded Lammie sweetly. "Every animal about the place says so." I was stung to the quick, for I pride myself on my brotherhood to all creatures. "My grandfather was a prize ram and mingled in the best society," babbled Lammie. "Now who's the snob?" I asked. "And I always go in the woodshed when it rains," pursued Lammie-noo. "I can't help it. The sheep say I'm stuck up, but I'm not. I was brought up that way. My mamma never cared to wet her fleece—and I can't associate with that whole flock all the time. I have favourites—I don't deny it. I admire to eat beside Roxy and Woxy and Daffy-Down-Dilly. Persimmon and Emma and Maximilian I detest, but they're always crowding up to me. Are you troubled with bores?" "Very much," I said, glaring at him. "I see one before me at this present moment. You don't impress me at all. I think you're silly, eating in[Pg 212] that nibbling way, and sticking your far from beautiful head on one side. Also your ideas are as crude as your mode of expressing yourself." "Don't go, my Prince," he said anxiously. "I really am pining for your acquaintance, but you have never noticed me since that day on Deer Trail when your darling young master looked so sweet. What eyes! What a manner—quite a young prince!" I began to laugh. "Oh! Lammie-noo, what a goose was spoiled in you, but really I'm quite flattered that you wish to make my acquaintance. Have I snubbed you?" "Very much," bleated Lammie touchingly, "and you know you are the leader in animal society on this farm." "Am I?" I exclaimed. "I didn't know it." "Quite easily Princeps," he said in a languishing way. "Princeps! What's that?" I asked. "I don't know, sir. It's foreign. I heard Mr. Devering use it—'Silly Princeps,' he said. I would guess that it is some elegance." I tossed my head, then I said, "Lammie-noo, you remind me of young Pony Pale-Face I knew in years gone by. He used to stand leaning against walls and looking up at the sky. We never could make out whether he was a fool pony or a wise one—Now please tell me about Barklo." "Well! Barklo's a nice kind dog, and he's lent to a nice kind widow woman." "Lent," I repeated. "What do you mean?" [Pg 213] "Just loaned for a season, not guv away." "Given," I said, "but why send a good dog from home?" <div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <div>"Widow's lonely</div> <div>Son's away</div> <div>Barklo goes there</div> <div>Just to play."</div> </div></div> </div> "Oh! is he with that nice old widow who lives beyond the Talkers?" "Yes—that's her." "You should say, 'That's she,' Lammie-noo." "Very well—that's she. I'd like to talk real elegant like you, Prince." "Are you an American lamb?" I asked quickly. "It's hard to say what I am," he replied mysteriously. "They call me the Wandering Lamb." "Why 'Wandering'?" "'Cause I wander, wander. Legs wander, mind wanders, and sometimes I feel so old. The ancient ram," and he nodded toward the crown of the hill where Silver Hoof, King of Muskoka, stood calmly contemplating the landscape, "first called me that." "Perhaps," I said, "you have lived before." "I think I have," he replied in a dreamy voice, "'cause sometimes I get up on my hind legs and try to walk. Perhaps I was a boy of some kind—maybe a prince." "What do you dream about?" I asked. "Oh! fighting, always fighting. I give dreadful whacks, but not with my noble brow." [Pg 214] "Then you don't fight the sheep way?" "No, sir—I don't like the forehead way. It gives me a headache. Now just see those two foolish ewes." We both looked up the hill where two sheep having a difference about something were standing off from each other, then running and banging their heads together. "So you dream about fighting," I went on. "Oh! yes—horrible battles. The dead are piled high around me." "What kind of dead?" "Wolves mostly—sometimes bears and foxes." "I wonder whether that will be your heaven?" I said musingly. "No—it couldn't be, for in a future life, you will lie down with the bears and wolves." "I shall never sleep with a wolf," said Lammie-noo, decidedly. "Never!" "Don't say you'll never do a thing," I replied. "I've heard many an animal say that, and the thing he'll never do is the thing he does do. You just have to give in sometime during your life." "I shall never sleep with a wolf," said Lammie-noo, "never, never," and he said this so many times, and in such an imbecile fashion that I left him, and ran up to speak to the ram who was now cropping short grass most industriously. Silver-Hoof was a beauty—calm, sure of himself, no fighter, yet able to cope with any difficulty among the ewes, or to meet any other ram who tried to impose on him. "Good morning," I said. "I often see you at a[Pg 215] distance, but we don't seem to have much to say to each other." "Ba-a-a-a!" he replied in his deep voice. "You are busy with your young master. I am occupied with my ewes and lambs. To each his duty, ram or pony." "I've been talking to that pet down below," I said with a toss of my head toward the languishing Lammie-noo. "What do you make of him?" The ram looked thoughtful. "I don't just know," he said. "Sometimes he acts like a foolish creature, sometimes like a wise one. He is a lamb with a past, but he can't recall it. Now my great-grandfather told my great-aunt's mother that——" and he went on with such a long story about old sheep who used to see things in the heaven and on the earth, and who acted strangely and waggled their heads, that I became most extremely bored. I backed and backed, and he kept on talking and staring out at the lake and not looking at me, until I finally got behind a clump of alders. Then I went discreetly toward the house, and he wandered on till he put himself to sleep and sank on the ground. My young master had just waked up. I watched him running down to the lake with the other children. He did not seem to mind the cool air now. He was getting hardened. How much better this was for him than the great heat of some summer places I had been in. Bingi was up in the kitchen garden pulling carrots, so I trotted up beside him and stepping [Pg 216]carefully between the rows of vegetables took little carrots by the top, shook the earth off and dropped them in his basket. This pleased him so much that I ventured to draw one between my teeth instead of putting it in the basket. This pleased him still more, and he laughed so heartily that Chippie Sore-Feet came hobbling over the ground, and sitting on his hind legs begged for one, too. "Of need of it, thou hast not," said Bingi. "Merely jealous art thou." "What a pretty picture!" called someone. "Bingi and Chippie and Bonnie Prince Fetlar bathing in this glorious August sunlight, and all looking so happy." We all turned round, and there was Mrs. Devering with a pile of white linen that she was going to hang out to dry. The Jap got up and bowed respectfully. "Good morning to Mistress of mansion, stoutful and strongful as a man, and in no wise fearsome of work." Mrs. Devering smiled kindly, and turned to young Dovey, who had not gone in to bathe because she had cut her foot. "Dovey, dear, tell Bingi the nice surprise we have for him. I wish him to hear it from you, because you were the first to suggest it." Dear little Dovey, who was angelic when she was not naughty, came limping up to Bingi. "Once, long, long ago, about five months, I said[Pg 217] 'Daddy, Bingi has no little boy and no little girl, and I guess he's lonely.' Daddy said, 'Shouldn't wonder if he is,' and I said, 'He's got a little wifie in Vancouver—I know 'cause he showed me her picture—Daddy, send for the little wee wifie, please, to play with Bingi,' and Daddy he sent and she's coming next week, and you won't be lonely any more—and you're to live with her in that housie on the hill," and she pointed to a pretty green cottage that some carpenters were working at every day. The young Jap turned as pale as a ghost, and staring from her to her mother sank on the ground on his heels between the carrot rows. "It's true, Bingi," said Mrs. Devering. "Your young O-Mayo-San is really coming." The little man struggled to his feet, bowed and bowed again, tried to make one of his pretty speeches, failed, and hiding his face in his sleeve went trot, trotting in a funny way toward the kitchen, his carrots toppling from the basket as he ran. Mrs. Devering's face was bright and shining. "Girlie," she said, "when you grow up to be a woman, you will never wear more beautiful jewels than those tears glistening in that little man's eyes." The merry-eyed Dovey was very matter-of-fact. "Bingi's a good cook," she said. "I hope he's got something nice for breakfast—I'm starving. Can't we have it, Mummy? The kids are coming up from the water." [Pg 218] I stepped along to my young master's window. He was brushing his hair with his military brushes as if he would tear it all out, and singing as he did so, <div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <div>"Oh! the wild wild kiddies!</div> <div>Oh! the wild wild kiddies!</div> <div>They have made a wild boy of me!"</div> </div></div> </div> Then he danced along to the table on the veranda and set the electric toaster going, as that was his task. "When's Dad coming?" Champ asked his mother. "I hate Big Chief's carving. He doesn't give me half enough." So others saw this mean streak in the eldest boy, but no one had time to say a word, for young Sojer, who had as keen ears as a dog, gave a sudden shout, "The Fire-Bird." They all looked up at the hydro-plane which had come over the mountain and was whizzing and pounding above us. "A message, a message," called Cassowary. "Captain Johnson has his blue streamer out. Now watch sharp for it." Sure enough, a white package came dropping down right over the house as the plane flew by. It danced along the roof, and fell in the garden. Champ ran to pick it up, while young Sojer, who was a great pet of Captain Johnson's—the returned soldier who was in the Fire-Bird—said in a disappointed voice, "Not a single stunt—no nose dives, no spirals. I think he's mean." [Pg 219] "Oh! no, no," exclaimed Mrs. Devering, who was reading a letter from her husband. "Captain Johnson is taking a very sick man to a hospital in Toronto. He says there was an accident in Algonquin Park—a young man had his leg crushed and must be operated on immediately." "Just like me," groaned poor Drunkard, who was reposing on a big cushion on the veranda. "What a delicious way to go to a hospital," said Cassowary. "No bumps, no jolts." "Where's the letter from?" asked Big Chief. "Gull Lake." Then she turned to Dallas. "That is the air camp up north." Big Chief looked disappointed. He wanted his father back, and I was glad to see that the good feelings of the night before were still uppermost. "Have they caught the poachers?" asked Cassowary. "Yes, and have had them fined heavily. Your father says they are men who have no respect for law, and the lesson will do them good. We have some very heedless persons in Canada and——" Her sentence was never finished for young Sojer gave another shout. <div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <div>"By the pricking in my ears!</div> <div>I know I hear our pony dears!"</div> </div></div> </div> All the children leaped up and sat down again. <hr /> [Pg 220] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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