"POOR TOPSY."

BY "PATHFINDER."

T was the first day of my Christmas holidays—don't ask me how many years ago when, after hurrying through breakfast, I repaired to the stable-yard to meet that all-important personage "Billy," our gamekeeper, who was to attend my hedge-popping expeditions for the next five weeks and three days— bar Sundays. Fresh from deep, not to say surreptitious study of the works of Fenimore Cooper, was I not about to perform in my small way many a "doughty deed" of "derring-do" (whatever that may be) in the happy hunting-grounds of the paternal acres? Oh, bliss of expectation! Had I not many a time "last half," in visionary anticipation, stalked the wily rook, even as the crafty Huron approaches his dusky enemy the Comanche ? Had I not with untiring patience dogged the "hops" of the enticing blackbird, till, in desperation, it flew out screaming close to me, but, of course, the wrong side of the hedge? Ah! and many another sporting dream had I woven which I hoped to consummate in that approaching Christmas holiday. My first brilliant "bag" shall be accounted for in the following short story :

"Well, Billy! Here we are again; have you got the gun in good order?"

"Aw! yes, zur; she's in caäpital order; leastwise 'Joe' mostly looks arter her."

Now "Joe" was the family coachman, to whose care was entrusted my "single barrel" during my absence at school. He kept the same stowed away in a cupboard in the saddle-room containing his "things," a most miscellaneous and odoriferous "lot ;" and, I have reason to believe, won wagers at "snuffing candles" with it, from strange "coachies" on dinner-party nights, when he entertained a select circle in his "sanctum."

So we repair to the saddle-room, where I look over my favourite weapon as keenly as any mother would her infant after a five months' absence, no chance of scratch or rust-spot escaping my scrutiny, resulting in a proportionate cross-questioning of "Joe," who inevitably proves the saddle-room cat to be the culprit.

"Well, Billy, which way shall we go to-day?"

The two "beats" which I worked with alternate and relentless severity were either "The Hill," where rabbits were plentiful but generally underground, or "down below," where "fur" was scarcer ; but by diligently "follerin' up" the hedgerows, on the Micawber principle, something in the "feather" line worthy of my lead used generally to "turn up." What dodgings after blackbirds did the orchards afford! What breathless stalks after flocks of rooks, redwings, starlings, or throstle cocks!—not to mention occasional unlicensed "bangs" at wild covies or "pot-shots" at "pussy." I think "down below" was my favourite resort; it certainly "had the call" on this eventful day.

Mr. Billy having stowed away the "munch" in his capacious pockets, and I the various ammunitions in mine, I shouldered the ‘single” and marched out of the back-yard as full of expectation as only a long-legged, keen, gun-bitten schoolboy can be on the first day of his holidays.

6

Quoth Billy, as we were passing the kennel, "Twouldn't be much harm to take out Topsy' wi' us; she's a caäpital good un to stan' a moorhen or a rabbut for the matter o' that, and a run 'ull do her good."

To which I replied, somewhat doubtfully at heart, that I supposed my father would not mind-that it couldn't do her any harm; so perhaps we might as well take her with us.

My father happened to be away from home for a few days; he generally kept a brace or leash of pointers, and at the time I am speaking of possessed a brace of own sisters, "Dolly" and "Topsy" by name, who, for beauty and performance, were well known to every sportsman in the neighbourhood. I need hardly say that he was extremely proud of them, and was very particular about any person hunting them in his absence. However, he was from home, and perhaps now I was six months older than last holidays-he would not object to my taking them out; anyhow there could be no harm in taking one out; so the kennel door was unfastened, and "Dolly" being repulsed, forth sprang "Topsy," as jet black and shining a beauty as her original namesake.

And now we are off down the lane to the first rough grass-field, where we propose to begin operations. We scramble over the hedge and strike across it. "Hold up, Topsy!" And away she races, head up and her stern lashing her flanks; "Right about!" as she comes to the hedge, and again she sweeps by us, evoking an admiring question from Billy: "Daun't she just about get auver the ground?" Mark! there go some birds! How wild the beggars are! Let's see whether

she will wind them next time she crosses! Ah! did you see her swing round? There she stands, a picture of elegance in ebony that a sportsman would tramp five miles to look at! Too late, old girl; they're gone! which fact she soon ascertains for herself; for she draws on, potters for a moment where they rose, and is off again at score to seek for a fresh quarry. Here we are in a large field, through which circulates the brook that found me in piscatorial amusement in those days for the whole summer holidays. (In these degenerate days I can't stand an average of a trout and a half per diem under a July sun.) Also, in winter did it afford me sport with the moorhens.

"Thur's the bitch a-stood again, zur, by the river! That's a moorhen, I'll warrant," says Billy. With cocked gun and palpitating heart I advanced to the edge of the stream. That wretched bird, instead of flying off in a respectable fashion when it was poked out of a bush on the bank, must needs pop into the water and swim and dive in various directions; whereupon Billy (like most of his tribe, utterly regardless of a dog's "form" when master isn't by) by many halloo-ins and other canine encouragements induced poor Topsy to change her vocation for that of a water spaniel. Between them they eventually induced the bird to seek safety in flight, and it came "scattering" up the stream towards me. I was standing a few yards back from the edge of the brook, which ran between rather high banks. I took aim at the bird as it flew along, just above the bank ; when, just as I had pressed the trigger beyond recall (all sportsmen know the sensation), to my horror poor Topsy clambered up out of the brook between me and the bird.

Bang! A red gash in her side, just behind the shoulder-a howl, a splash, and I ran forward with a cry of horror. The disturbed eddying water, with a large blood-stain in it, showed where she had sunk, stone-dead, in some four feet of water. I never saw her again.

Pity me, kind reader! I believe I burst into tears, and felt half inclined to throw myself in after her. How could I ever face my father? Oh! what a miserable day that was; never shall I forget it. We slunk away from the river. I did not dare to go home, for fear of exciting surprise and questions as to my unusually early return. Poor Billy was almost as "down" as I was. He foresaw the sack for a certainty, for taking out the dog without his master's leave. So we wandered about the fields in a purposeless way, exhausting the time in mutual explanations and recriminations till the short January day began to close in, when we edged away towards home. We passed the kennel again. I felt like a murderer. There was "Dolly"

perched on the coping-stone of the low kennel wall, wagging her tail and expectant of the sister who was never to sweep across the "stubs" with her again. I sneaked into the house by a private entrance, fearful of meeting any of the servants, who were sure to ask me what I had shot. Who could I go to in my misery but my mother? I found her in her bedroom dressing for dinner, and there I gulped out my story. Poor soul! she was terribly grieved about it: she said that she really believed my father cared almost as much about those dogs as he did about his children; and that only a week ago he had refused twenty guineas—a fabulous sum in those days for the very dog I had destroyed. However, she did her best to console me, as most mothers-bless their kind hearts !— always do when a fellow is in trouble. We agreed that we had better break the sad news to my father before he returned home; there would be just time for a letter to reach him before he started. So my mother wrote to him then and there, making out, no doubt, as strong a case as she could for her poor boy. How wretched I was during the two following days! I was ashamed to look anybody in the face; and what a state of "nerves" I was in as the hour of my father's return drew nigh. I watched him drive into the stable yard, and jump down from the dog-cart, as if in the best of spirits. I had determined to go down and meet him in a certain semi-obscure passage; so, when I heard his voice (how cheery it sounded!) in the servants' hall, I ran down the back stairs, and was about to blurt out a little speech I had prepared to mitigate his wrath, when he took the wind out of my sails by a great slap on my shoulder, a kiss on my forehead, and a hearty, "Well, Bob, my boy, how are you? How the boy's grown! Come along and let's have a look at you in the light.” A qualm shot through me. "He's never received mother's letter! Oh, how terrible! I shall have to tell him." I managed to shuffle off somehow, and ran up and broke my fears to my mother. She could give me but little consolation, but promised to ask him and let me know before dinner. Oh! what a relief did that little nod and half smile of hers afford me when I slipped into the drawing-room, just before dinner was announced.

"Yes, my dear, I got your letter! Please never to mention the poor dog's name to me again-or to Bob either." That was my father's answer to my mother's question.

For many years the subject of pointers was carefully avoided in our family circle; and, though at last my father broke the ice himself. when "yarning" to me about his old favourites, and forgave me over again in his look, yet to this day we all drop our voices to a respectful whisper when we make mention of "Poor Topsy."

LIFE IN LONDON.

III. A STORY FOR CHRISTMAS.

T is true, every word of it. I set it down for Christmas because the peculiar grace of the season seems appropriate to the incident. It is a story of modern heroism. Poets are apt to look upon the age of chivalry as a past and almost forgotten time. With their imaginary history of great deeds they mix Scandinavian myths and Teutonic folk-lore. For nobler themes I commend them to the modern history of coal-getting, to the newspaper records of the late gales on our unprotected coasts, to the biographies of inventors and travellers, to the everyday life of London, to the "simple annals of the poor." Though he is "born in sin and shapen in iniquity," there is more in man of the angel than the devil. His instincts are good, his impulses noble; given the choice of vice or virtue in the abstract, my belief is that he would invariably be found on the side of virtue. Some of the noblest acts of heroism occur among the lowest stratum of society. The poor is the poor man's friend. Missionaries in the wilds of East London could give you some startling illustrations of the truth of the proverb.

But this exordium on modern heroism is neither here nor there. It is always difficult to commence a story. When you have started an introduction and are fairly launched into theorising and moralising, it is far more difficult to stop than to go on. If you are courageous you will suddenly pull up the moment this thought crosses your mind, and go straight into your subject. Thus :

I called upon a journalist and dramatic writer the other day in St. John's Wood, on my way to town.

"If you will wait ten minutes," he said, "I will drive you as far as Bond Street; I am going to take the baby to B's, the oculist.” "Why?" I asked, "is anything the matter?"

"No, nothing very particular."

At this juncture the baby came romping into the room.

She was

a pretty, dark-eyed child, and had a long story to tell about Guy

Fawkes at the Zoo.

"Now you will go to Bertha and have

"Yes," said her father. your things put on for a drive."