Chapter LIV.
The Kitchen.
Clare went into the kitchen, and sat down. The housemaid came in, and
stood for a moment looking at him. Then she asked him what he wanted
there.
"Cook told me to wait here," he answered.
"Wait for what?"
"Till she came to me. She's gone to speak to Miss Tempest."
"I won't have that dog here."
"When I had a home," remarked Clare, "our servant said the cook was
queen of the kitchen: I don't want to be rude, ma'am, but I must do as
she told me."
"She never told you to bring that mangy animal in here!"
"She knew he would follow me, and she said nothing about him. But he's
not mangy. He hasn't enough to eat to be mangy. He's as lean as a
dried fish!"
The housemaid, being fat, was inclined to think the remark personal;
but Clare looked up at her with such clear, honest, simple eyes, that
she forgot the notion, and thought what a wonderfully nice boy he
looked.
"He's shamefully poor, though! His clothes ain't even decent!" she
remarked to herself.
And certainly the white skin did look through in several places.
"You won't let him put his nose in anything, will you?" she said quite
gently, returning his smile with a very pleasant one of her own.
"Abdiel is too much of a gentleman to do it," he answered.
"A dog a gentleman!" rejoined the housemaid with a merry laugh,
willing to draw him out.
"Abdiel can be hungry and not greedy," answered Clare, and the young
woman was silent.
Miss Tempest and Mrs. Mereweather had all this time been turning over
the question of what was to be done with the strange boy. They agreed
it was too bad that anyone willing to work should be prevented from
earning even a day's victuals by the bad temper of a gardener. But his
mistress did not want to send the man away. She had found him
scrupulously honest, as is many a bad-tempered man, and she did not
like changes. The cook on her part had taken such a fancy to Clare
that she did not want him set to garden-work; she would have him at
once into the house, and begin training him for a page. Now Miss
Tempest was greatly desiring the same thing, but in dread of what the
cook would say, and was delighted, therefore, when the first
suggestion of it came from Mrs. Mereweather herself. The only obstacle
in the cook's eyes was that same long, spectral dog. The boy could not
be such a fool, however,--she said, not being a lover of animals--as
let a wretched beast like that come betwixt him and a good situation!
"It's all right, Clare," said Mrs. Mereweather, entering her queendom
so radiant within that she could not repress the outshine of her
pleasure. "Mis'ess an' me, we've arranged it all. You're to help me in
the kitchen; an' if you can do what you're told, an' are willin' to
learn, we'll soon get you out of your troubles. There's but one thing
in the way."
"What is it, please?" asked Clare.
"The dog, of course! You must part with the dog."
"That I cannot do," returned Clare quietly, but with countenance
fallen and sorrowful. "--Come, Abdiel!"
The dog started up, every hair of him full of electric vitality.
"You don't mean you're going to walk yourself off in such a beastly
ungrateful fashion--an' all for a miserable cur!" exclaimed the cook.
"The lady has been most kind to us, and we're grateful to her, and
ready to work for her if she will let us;--ain't we, Abdiel? But
Abdiel has done far more for me than Miss Tempest! To part with
Abdiel, and leave him to starve, or get into bad company, would be
sheer ingratitude. I should be a creature such as Miss Tempest ought
to have nothing to do with: I might serve her as that young butler I
told her of! It's just as bad to be ungrateful to a dog as to any
other person. Besides, he wouldn't leave me. He would be always
hanging about."
"John would soon knock him on the head."
"Would he, Abdiel?" said Clare.
The dog looked up in his master's face with such a comical answer in
his own, that the cook burst out laughing, and began to like Abdiel.
"But you don't really mean to say," she persisted, "that you'd go off
again on the tramp, to be as cold and hungry again to-morrow as you
were yesterday--and all for the sake of a dog? A dog ain't a
Christian!"
"Abdiel's more of a Christian than some I know," answered Clare: "he
does what his master tells him."
"There's something in that!" said the cook.
"If I parted with Abdiel, I could never hold up my head among the
angels," insisted Clare. "Think what harm it might do him! He could
trust nobody after, his goodness might give way! He might grow worse
than Tommy!--No; I've got to take care of Abdiel, and Abdiel's got to
take care of me!--'Ain't you, Abby?"
"We can't have him here in the kitchen nohow!" said the cook in
relenting tone.
"Poor fellow!" said the housemaid kindly.
The dog turned to her and wagged his tail
"What wouldn't I give for a lover like that!" said the housemaid--but
whether of Clare or the dog I cannot say.
"I know what I shall do!" cried Clare, in sudden resolve. "I will ask
Miss Tempest to have him up-stairs with her, and when she is tired of
either of us, we will go away together."
"A probable thing!" returned the cook. "A lady like Miss Tempest with
a dog like that about her! She'd be eaten up alive with fleas! In ten
minutes she would!"
"No fear of that!" rejoined Clare. "Abdiel catches all his _own_
fleas!--Don't you, Abby?"
The dog instantly began to burrow in his fell of hair--an answer which
might be taken either of two ways: it might indicate comprehension and
corroboration of his master, or the necessity for a fresh hunt. The
women laughed, much amused.
"Look here!" said Clare. "Let me have a tub of water--warm, if you
please--he likes that: I tried him once, passing a factory, where a
lot of it was running to waste. Then, with the help of a bit of soap,
I'll show you a body of hair to astonish you."
"What breed is he?" asked the housemaid.
"He's all the true breeds under the sun, I fancy," returned his
master; "but the most of him seems of the sky-blue terrier sort."
The more they talked with Clare, the better the women liked him. They
got him a tub and plenty of warm water. Abdiel was nothing loath to be
plunged in, and Clare washed him thoroughly. Taken out and dried, he
seemed no more for a lady's chamber unmeet.
"Now," said Clare, "will you please ask Miss Tempest if I may bring
him on to the lawn, and show her some of his tricks?"
The good lady was much pleased with the cleverness and instant
obedience of the little animal. Clare proposed that she should keep
him by her.
"But will he stay with me? and will he do what _I_ tell him?" she
asked.
Clare took the dog aside, and talked to him. He told him what he was
going to do, and what he expected of him. How much Abdiel understood,
who can tell! but when his master laid him down at Miss Tempest's
feet, there he lay; and when Clare went with the cook, he did not
move, though he cast many a wistful glance after the lord of his
heart. When his new mistress went into the house, he followed her
submissively, his head hanging, and his tail motionless. He soon
recovered his cheerfulness, however, and seemed to know that his
friend had not abandoned him.
