The next remarkable incident was on a railway journey, on the way to
Ye-U. The guard had charge of them, and kept them in their basket in
his own van, where he "could have an eye upon them." This would have
been enough if they had been common wild bears, newly caught; but
these were civilised animals, and while the guard kept an eye upon
them, they kept two pairs of eyes on the guard.
It was a single line of railway, and there were long pauses at every
station, during which the guard was on the platform. In one of these
intervals, the bears made a united effort, "with a pull, and a push,
and a push altogether," and then the shrieks of a stampeding crowd
drew the eyes of the guard and the station-master and everybody else
to the unusual sight of two fine young bears enjoying a walk on the
station platform.
The panic was not unreasonable. If they had been wild young things,
their own terror would have made them dangerous. Fear is the cause of
cruelty, as Sir Charles Elliot (_Odysseus_) has aptly remarked, in
explaining the reciprocal atrocities of Greeks and Turks. But the
bright little bears of this history had never known fear, secluded as
they were in a happy home. They only wanted to stretch their legs, as
other passengers were doing. When that was seen, the shrieks of terror
turned to shrieks of laughter; and people made reverent way for them,
and followed them with admiring looks, crowding respectfully, without
pressing close upon them, as if they had been royalties or popular
idols. The railway officials were not teased by any more impatient
questions as to when that train would start. It must have been more
than a quarter of an hour after the starting signals had been given,
before anyone thought of showing the bears and their admirers the need
of resuming their places and continuing the journey.
The rest of the life of the bigger of the two, the leader in this
adventure, was short, and like the records of common humanity, where
"to be born and die, of rich and poor makes all the history." He was
wandering about with his chain loose, in his master's garden, and went
up a tree. The chain became entangled round his neck; and, when next
he was seen, it was the dead body of a half-grown bear that was
hanging from the end of his chain. Nobody saw how it happened; but
there the beast was--dead!