virtue; strange, as civilisation shows us what an unprogressive virtue
it is. The lame and the blind were “hated of David’s soul”; animals
and savages and men of early civilisation agree with David. Now and
then you find a dog which will bring a broken-legged friend to the
hospital, a cat which brings its half-starved neighbour to eat its own
dinner,--souls of philanthropists on pilgrimage, dead or yet to be;
but the stag’s instinct of goring the sickly ones, and the wolf’s of
tearing the wounded, are the ruling instincts. The lady budgerrygar
took David’s side in the matter. She did not wish to bite her spouse,
or peck him, or pull his feathers out, but he began to be hated of her
soul.
[Illustration]
One day she would not let him sit by her on the perch; he could
hardly get up to it, yet he would have done so for the sake of sitting
close to her, for the sake of putting a stray feather straight in her
ladyship’s top-knot, of feeling the little pearl-grey bill travelling
softly over his head with a croon of affection; but she would not have
it, she drove him away from her. So he sat on the lower perch, or on
the bottom of the cage; he did not scream or croon, he just puffed his
feathers out and panted. Did David repent in respect of the blind and
lame when he said, “My lovers and friends hast thou put away from me”?
What strange rebellion against fate moved in the soul of the little
budgerrygar, what necessity of finding a lonely place to die in, what
sad desire of escaping from the mate who would no longer care for him?
It is all very well to talk of “instinct” and dismiss the case, but
how do you suppose the abstract idea of loneliness in death nerved
the failing wings and feet to seek the door of the cage, made him
squeeze through the door, such a little way open; how did it attract
him across the room and through the half-open door,--away--away--as
far as he could go from his faithless love? Did this abstract idea act
on the little budgerrygar like a machine, and move and nerve the wings
for such a flight? Or was there distress in the heart, and anguish in
the little animal soul, when he found himself ill at ease and ailing,
deserted and repulsed?
It is a work of skill and time to induce a healthy budgerrygar to leave
its cage; but this quixotic spirit found his way out of the cage for
himself, and found his way out of the room, and he must have flown
until he dropped dead. For we found a little heap of gay green and
yellow feathers in the passage,--stone-cold and stiff;--he had been
dead some hours.
Budgerrygars are very sociable birds, they cannot live alone. The
little dead bird could not. So we got a new mate for the lady, whom she
received warmly, and the pair lived quite happily ever after.
But I should like to know, in the whole scheme of things, what is the
recompense for the little deserted lover.
VI
JACK
Few people know how different one bird is from another of the same
kind. Of course we can see when one canary is green and one yellow
and one crested; but few people know that some canaries have blue
eyes, some brown, and some grey; or how different one canary is in
intelligence and character from another.
Jack was a remarkably intelligent canary; one always felt him to
be immensely superior to oneself. When he consented to sit on his
swing and allow me to swing him, he always seemed to say, “This is a
very childish game, but it appears to amuse you, and I am by nature
indulgent.” He was often very angry with me and pecked me, but I was
sure I deserved it. The only blemish I ever found in him was that
he was rather unscrupulous and ill-tempered, but then he was so
exceedingly superior that he had to find fault with the canaries and me
sometimes.
Jack was very bright yellow, with a slim, trim figure. When he was
about two years old a little wife was given to him. She was almost
white, and they looked very pretty together. Her name was Thyrsis.
We tried to call them Corydon and Thyrsis, but “Jack” suited him so
well that we were not able to change it, so they remained rather
inharmoniously “Jack and Thyrsis” to the end of their lives.
I always used to turn Jack and Thyrsis out of their cage when I was
cleaning it. One morning I did not see that the window of the room
opposite was open. They flew round the room together, then coming to
the open door they darted out of it, into the next room and straight
to the window. One instant they rested on the window-sill, then like a
flash of sunlight and moonlight they were out into the sunny garden and
trees beyond. All that day I haunted the garden, too anxious to cry,
carrying their cages about, in the vain hope that they might be hungry
or thirsty and want to come back; once I thought I saw a flash of gold,
but night fell and still the birds were out. The next day we sent the
town-crier round shouting out a reward of five shillings for them, and
the day following Thyrsis was brought back to me in a paper bag, much
exhausted but not materially worse.
I did not hear of Jack for five months.
Then a boy who lived near and kept canaries heard for the first time of
my loss, and he sent me a canary which some months ago had come through
the open window and settled on his own bird’s cage. Of course it was
Jack. He had not forgotten his way of coming towards me with wings
outspread, uttering the funny scolding noise from which he got his name.
Now by this time Jack and Thyrsis were come to years of discretion, and
it was thought that they ought to build and have young. So they were
provided plentifully with horsehair and cottonwool, and given a small
round basket in one of the cages, and we put their two cages together,
opening the door between.
They were very much delighted with the wool, and played with it a great
deal, but they seemed to have no idea of the proper use of it; if we
put it into the nest for them, they merely pulled it out again.
This became so hopeless, and I was so anxious to try to rear little
canaries, that a friend promised me another hen. She, however, forgot
what our circumstances were, and sent us a pair, who were promptly
named Jock and Mummy. I would not have Jack defrauded of his wife after
all, so Mummy was taken away from Jock and given to Jack instead. There
is not much to tell about poor Jock. He was a middle-aged gentleman,
subject to chronic asthma, and could never in that state of health have
undertaken the cares and responsibility of a young family. His cage
was always hung up near the fire, and when he was worse than usual I
gave him a tiny drop of sal-volatile in his water. He was a contented,
cheerful bird, and lived as long as with his age and asthma one could
expect.
Mummy was a crested bird, pale yellow with a green crest, rather
pretty, but in mind utterly vulgar. Of course she was far more
effective than the refined Thyrsis had ever been. She knew all about
nest building, and began at once; while the cynical and gentlemanly
Jack looked on. The pair always reminded one of an aristocratic
philosopher who had married his cook.
But one must give Mummy the whole credit of the nest; she put the moss
and hair and wool into it, she squatted herself down in it, turned
round, fluffed herself out to make it hard and round and compact; and
at intervals went to keep up her strength by taking her “dishing-up
beer” in the shape of hempseed.
Then she laid eggs quite satisfactorily, and they came out quite
satisfactorily, and one by one all the nestlings died--_not_
satisfactorily. On examining the little corpses, we found that they had
died of starvation. Jack was found guilty at the inquest, for a first
principle of domestic life among canaries is that the father feeds the
birds while they are very young. What was the reason, then, that he had
so disgracefully neglected his duty of feeding them, while his devoted
wife sat on the nest to keep them warm? There must be something more
than grandeur and cynicism to make a gentleman allow his children to
die of starvation.
At last we found out the reason--Jack was flirting with his first
love! Thyrsis’ cage was hung in Jack’s sight, and instead of feeding
his infant children, or attending to them in any way, he clung to the
corner of his cage all day and serenaded Thyrsis. We put Thyrsis out of
his sight; Mummy laid a second set of eggs, and Jack attended to them
as if he had done it all his life. It is true that he threw the eldest
out of the nest on to the floor of the cage, but there is great excuse
for that; a gentleman of refined and fastidious feelings must have had
a dreadful shock when he first saw an unfledged canary and realised
that that repulsive creature was his progeny. With all his cynicism,
he could never have imagined that anything so loathsome existed. I
don’t see what else he could have done,--I should have done it myself
in his place. From whatever point you look at them, unfledged canaries
are altogether and absolutely hideous; their brownish-pink skin is
scantily covered with hairs, little bits of flesh wave helplessly about
where their wings and legs are going to be, they have two large dark
swellings where their eyes are going to be, and the only thing that
is defined about them is a huge mouth which is almost always open and
yelling. I had to pick the canary up from the bottom of the cage, and I
still owe Jack a grudge for it, though I cannot in justice blame him.
Little canaries, when they are fledged, are as pretty as before they
are frightful. These three little birds, when they were fledged, were
all different and all beautiful. One was like her mother, yellow and
green and crested; one like his father, all yellow; and one a sort
of mixture, green and yellow and without a crest. Now a curious thing
happened: the father chiefly devoted himself to feeding the little hen,
who was like her mother; the mother (who begins to feed the birds when
they are getting fledged and do not need warmth so much) fed the little
cock like the father; and I have sometimes seen these two of their
superfluity feeding their neglected brother. He throve well on the
little attention he got.
[Illustration]
I brought up several nests-ful. We had Tweedledum and
Tweedledee,--Tweedledee’s name was subsequently changed to “Jewel” by
a little cousin to whom I gave it, and who considered it a priceless
treasure,--and Daffodil, the neglected nondescript, and Vicary, and
Roumenik, called after the Wallachian country-place of some friends
of ours; and others whose names I forget. Roumenik was the only one I
kept, he was the last hatched, and was called “the Baby” until he died
at the mature age of eight years.
There was one wonderful chicken who did not live to have a name. He
was very precocious, and died young. This was how it happened: the
misguided Mummy laid an egg in January, and in consequence, as I have
always believed, of the weather being so much too cold when it was
hatched, the bird could never get fledged; when it had already begun
to be active and of a roving disposition, it still had no feathers on.
Even sprouting wing-feathers might have broken its fall a little, on
the many occasions when it tried to get out of the nest and fell on its
back on the bottom of the cage. One day it had a fall more serious than
usual, and till evening it sat on the edge of its waterglass with its
head hanging down and its neck apparently dislocated. In the morning
I found it dead in the waterglass. So I do not know to this day which
accident it died of.
But meanwhile a sudden stirring of domestic instincts came to Thyrsis,
and she was stimulated to rival Mummy’s nest-building. I gave her a
little basket and materials for a nest, and she set to work and built
a very good nest, and sat in it for six weeks, till her claws grew long
and her legs grew weak, and there was of course no sign of an egg.
Then I took it away from her, for I was afraid she would be ill with
sitting, and it would never be the least use. Poor Thyrsis! under other
circumstances she might have proved herself, if less vulgar, quite as
effective as Mummy in building and breeding. When I had had her about
seven or eight years she died quite suddenly. Was it of a broken heart?
Had Jack’s too late attentions stirred in her the emotion of love, as
he clung to the corner of his cage, singing to her and leaving his
babies to starve?
There is just one more canary I must mention, for it had a curious name
and history. It was called after one of my relations “Uncle Arthur”;
that is to say, it was called so by myself and my brothers; for it was
supposed to be called “Arthur” by my mother and “Mr. Sidgwick” by the
outside world.
Uncle Arthur was Jack’s brother, but Jack had a monopoly of the
intelligence of the family. Uncle Arthur had been half starved when
he first came to me, and it had affected his intellect. Perhaps I had
better mention that it was not from any supposed similarity in this
respect that he was named after my uncle. He was idiotic in strange
ways; for instance, I have known him try to bathe in a draught, from
which he got inflammation of the lungs. For a long time, also, I
found it was quite safe to take him out of doors without clipping his
wings, for he was too foolish to know how to fly. One day, however,
he astonished me by suddenly flying up into the top of a tree, which
proved that his apparent powerlessness was the result of idiocy; for
when he happened, as thus at intervals, to hit upon the right way of
using his wings, he could fly quite well, though in a rather curious
manner and with a pigeon-like noise. He never seemed to want to build
nests, he never even serenaded any of the hen-birds of Jack’s family.
He had a very happy, limited life. When he was already getting old
I gave him away. I am sorry to say that his death was compassed
accidentally by his new mistress; she was so much disgusted with him
because he would not wash [he had probably forgotten how to], that she
washed him one day herself with soap and flannel. Uncle Arthur died of
it.
[Illustration]
Jack outlived all the rest. Towards the end of Mummy’s life all
illusion about her passed away; he got irritated and used to pull
feathers out of her, though he tried to make up by much affection
between times. But it was not Mummy’s fault. She was frankly vulgar
from the beginning, and Jack, with his keen perception of character,
ought to have known it.
VII
A REGULAR FLIRT
Gypsy was so called because he was bought off a gypsy-cart. A friend of
mine was attracted by his wonderful voice, and gave a half-crown for
him. Others were attracted by his voice too, with results more fatal.
He was in his first year when I had him, and it was not until the
second year that his feathers and his fascination attained their full
proportions. Gypsy was a mule, a cross between a goldfinch and canary.
His back was dark green, he had a yellowish breast with dark splashes
on it, black wing feathers, and two patches on his cheeks the colour
of gooseberry fool; and he had a reddish golden crest, which he could
raise a little when he was excited.
The next summer was beautiful weather at Oxford, and I took Gypsy there
when I went to College, though I cannot say that he aided study. If I
read, he got up a quarrel with the leaves of the book, and flew at them
as I turned them over. If I wrote, he fell into a passion with my pen,
and ran across the wet ink on my paper to peck it. And his love-affairs
were very distracting.
Gypsy’s cage used to be put all day on the window-sill; and I began
after a time to be aware that he was liable to be seized by sudden
agitations, when he fluttered backwards and forwards in his cage, with
a quick, excited note. A few days more and the cause of this agitation
became apparent; for a little goldfinch, a hen goldfinch I suppose,
came and sat upon the window-sill.
The intimacy rapidly improved; the goldfinch would come into the room
and sit on Gypsy’s cage; it made friends with a siskin and a bullfinch
in the next room, and would roost in an empty cage there at night.
Gypsy’s wing-feathers were clipped, so that I could let him walk
about out of doors. When I took him into the garden he called to his
friend, and the goldfinch dropped down by his side to take a walk with
him. Other goldfinches came sometimes, but only one constantly and
fearlessly when I was there. One day I remember Gypsy walking down the
path in front of me accompanied by three friends.
But it was not long before there was a signal of danger. The house we
were in was having some rooms added on to it, and there were workmen
about. One day when I was sitting in my room and Gypsy was having an At
Home, there was a little sound outside, and a limed stick was gently
shoved towards my window-sill. Of course I remonstrated, and of course
I was told by the workmen that they had done it entirely for my sake,
because they thought that I should like to have the bird in a cage,--I
could have caught the bird ten times over if I had wished it.
But this, I fear, must after all have been the end of the love-lorn
bird; for it disappeared suddenly, and I never saw it again.
For a long time Gypsy had no society but mine and the canaries. He did
not care for canaries, and he was mostly in a passion with me. But
after some time a pair of goldfinches was given to us, much attached to
each other and otherwise uninteresting. One day I put Gypsy in their
cage to see what would happen. In three minutes a complete change had
been worked in that happy home. Gypsy was sitting with the little
lady on her perch, whispering sweet nothings into her ear, while her
disconsolate spouse sat by himself on the perch below, meditating
pistols for two and coffee for one.
[Illustration]
I will do Gypsy the justice to say that he admired himself quite as
much as anyone else admired him. When he was held to the looking-glass
he did not fight his reflection as some animals do, he fell deeply in
love with it, and whispered to it in a tiny, sweet, wooing voice, until
it was obscured by a little circle of damp breath on the glass.
Some one may ask why, if Gypsy was so universally attractive and so
extremely susceptible, I did not provide him with a wife to himself.
Simply because it would have been no good; Gypsy was a mere flirt; he
never would have had nests and eggs and brought up families like other
birds; he was a mule-bird, and they cannot be domestic.
Gypsy had one last flickering of flirtation. I took his cage out one
day into a London garden, and sat with him under a tree, and he sang
loud; suddenly I heard a sound very unfamiliar in London, the voice
of a bird which was hopping about on the tree above. I looked up, and
through the leaves I could see that it was a little goldfinch; but it
was shy and flew away.
These mule-birds die generally very suddenly; and Gypsy died without
apparent sign of illness at about the age of ten years.
VIII
A FAITHFUL FRIEND
[Illustration]
We were called into my mother’s room one day, and shown a hamper
which had just arrived. The hamper was strangely agitated, like that
hasty-pudding in which Tom Thumb sheltered, and when it was opened out
rolled a puppy! It was a collie puppy, long haired, black, with tan
cheeks, a white tip to his tail, white collar and paws, and wholly
fascinating.
It was really a charming puppy; at present too young to sin; too young
to do anything but roll about and be petted.
He was named Watch, “for,” said the friend who gave him, “he is a sheep
dog, and you are a pastoral family”--a very pretty reason, but I think
she was also influenced by the _horlogerie_ of our namesake.
Time passed, and Watch grew older and uglier. His neck lengthened,
until his ears looked like ridiculous ornaments on the top of it, his
legs grew long and lanky, his coat grew thin, and he grew naughty. He
did not indeed eat up slippers, which is the favourite employment of
story-book puppies, but he did pull most of a cold Sunday dinner on to
the lawn, lick the butter out of the dish, and leave joints of mutton
and beef on the grass. And he had another very original, reprehensible,
natural impulse--he wished to garden. His method of gardening was to
dig up saplings from a carefully-planted hedge of yews. He knew it
was wrong, but he could not help it. When he was seen thus employed,
he fled back and sheltered himself in his stable. He was just in that
state of mind and body which answers in human beings to the condition
of rapid growth and dissatisfied temper, when sleeves retreat up the
arms, and frocks and knickerbockers up the legs, and the family seems
to be in a conspiracy for making things disagreeable to you.
So it seemed best that he should be sent to a shepherd for training.
He went, and three months passed, and we looked daily for his return;
when one morning, I was sent for to the door, where I saw, held in a
strap, a beautiful, bashful, silky collie, small and well-proportioned,
with long tail and ruff, and silk-fringed legs, ready to hide his face
against the first friend with affection. I could hardly believe it was
Watch--he was full-blown, come out!
That he should sleep in a stable any longer was a manifest
impossibility. Watch was established as a house-dog.
He was wonderfully quick and obedient; he learnt to shut the door, play
the piano, shake hands, catch things from his nose, and lie dead, in
no time. He was so gentle that one could put little animals under his
charge; the canary would stand on his head, and a kitten run between
his paws. One of our blue-eyed white kittens, granddaughter of the
formidable cat Rector, attached herself warmly to him.
But there were one or two circumstances under which he was not docile.
Soon after he came home we took him for a walk in the fields near the
town. He followed quietly; when, suddenly, he spied a flock of sheep
feeding, and up went the white tufted tail like a banner; nothing could
hold him; no threats restrain him, until from hedge and ditch he had
collected the whole flock into marching order. Much severe treatment
was necessary before we could induce him to relinquish his profession.
Then often as we went through the fields, Watch following with an eager
eye, longing to be off after a scattered flock, an old north-country
shepherd would sidle up and “pass the time of day,” and gently turn the
conversation until he could say, “I suppose that dog of yours is not
for sale?” He was right, Watch was not for sale.
He could not, it is true, quite resist the instinct of the chase; and
often one saw him flying down the garden in pursuit of the white kitten
Midge, while her old-fashioned, under-bred, good-hearted tabby mother
followed to protect her. But nothing happened; he rolled over and over
with Midge, and Jenny jumped upon the soft heap, and dealt out boxes of
the ear when Watch’s head got uppermost. Then they all got amicably up
together, and went off quite good friends. Once, I am sorry to say, he
did break the leg of a rabbit, but he was more surprised than any one
else at it. I found him another time, having caught a blackbird; he was
very much surprised and delighted, but puzzled as to the right course
to adopt next; so he made short runs at it, and pretended to bite it,
and wagged his tail very much, and asked me to come up and look at it.
As for the goat, he was a most excellent good comrade with her. He
exercised all his sheep-driving skill to fetch her when she lagged
behind. And it takes as much skill to fetch one goat as fifty sheep.
When she behaved well, he consented to go in double harness with her.
The double harness was made out of tape dyed purple with Judson’s dyes.
There was an old madman who lived in a house opposite the field where I
generally drove them. He was very fond of watching the performance.
But now I come to a part of Watch’s character which I cannot present in
such a favourable light. He was jealous.
Of course we did not find it out at first. He was not brought into
comparison with other dogs, only with inferior animals, and he
would naturally not be jealous of them. We are not jealous of our
friend’s cat and dog, but of our friend’s friends. Watch was not
jealous of our cats and birds, and goats and guinea-pigs, but of our
dog-acquaintance. Occasionally he showed slight uneasiness when a horse
or a baby was much noticed; they were rather too high in the scale of
creation--nearly at the level of dogs.