“Ah, Dickie, would you dare?” Mrs Mack would cry; for she dearly loved the roses.
“Well, then,” Dick would appear to answer, “give me some more dumpling.”
Even at breakfast-time, if the window were open, Dick would pop his head in, and apparently ask: “Is there any of that dumpling left? I don’t mind taking it cold.”
So there is no great wonder that the pony came to be called “Dickie Dumpling,” and finally, for short, Dumps.
Poor old Dumps, he was such a favourite; and no wonder either that the children all loved him so, for they had grown up with him; the eldest girl, Muriel, was seventeen, and Dumps was at the parsonage when she was a baby.
Dumps had been grey, when in his prime—a charming grey, almost a blue in point of fact; but, alas! he was white enough now, and there were hollows in his temples that, feed him as he would, his master never could fill up. Sometimes, too, Dumps’ lower lip would hang a bit, and shake in a nervous kind of way; and as to his teeth! well, the less said about them the better; they could still scoop out a turnip or bite a bit of carrot, but as for his oats, Dumps had a decided preference for them bruised.
These, of course, were all signs of advancing age; but age had some advantages, for the older Dumps grew, the wiser he got. There was very little that concerned him that Dumps didn’t know, and very little that concerned his master either.
The Rev. Mr Mack was one of the most tenderhearted men I ever knew. Many and many an old pauper blessed and prayed for him. Yes, and he for them; but I am bound in honesty to say that Mr Mack’s blessings often took a very substantial and visible form. There was a large box under the seat of the old-fashioned gig, that the parson used to drive, and Dumps used to drag; and, nearly always, after he had prayed with, read, and talked a bit to some poor afflicted pauper, Mr Mack would go to the door, and stretch his arm in under the seat, and haul something out: it might be a loaf of bread, it might be a bit of cheese, a pot of jam—Mrs Mack was a wonder at making jams and jellies—it might be merely the remains of yesterday’s pie, or it might be—whisper, please—a tiny morsel of tobacco, or a pinch or two of snuff in a paper.
“Don’t go away, Dumps,” the parson would say to the pony, as he returned into the house.
Dumps would give a fond, foolish little nicker, that sounded like a laugh.