himself the leader of the latter; every morning he would lead them
down to a pond at the bottom of the fields, a distance of about a
quarter of a mile; and every evening he would summon them round him
and lead them home. At his cry the ducks and drakes would come
waddling up to him with loud quacks; he used always to march in the
most stately manner about two yards ahead of them. Of the cocks and
hens Gully deigned to take no notice. On two occasions he made an
exception to this rule of conduct. On the first, he and a hen had a
dispute over the possession of a worm. This dispute led to a fight of
which Gully was getting the best when the combatants were separated.
On the second occasion Gully was accused of decapitating a hen. No one
saw him do it, but it looked only too like his work. He had a neat
clean style.
One day he led his ducks to the pond as usual, but in the evening they
returned by themselves. We came to the conclusion that the poor old
bird must be dead. We quite gave him up for lost, and had mourned him
for two or three weeks, when what should we see one day but Mr. Gully
leading his ducks as usual to his favourite pond, as if he had never
been away.
Where he had spent all the time he was absent remains a mystery to
this day. After this he remained with us some time, during which he
performed no new feat of valour with the exception of one fight which
he had with a cat. In this fight he had some feathers pulled out, but
ultimately succeeded in driving her off after giving her leg such a
bite that she was lame for many a long day.
Since then he has again disappeared. Will he ever return? Mysterious
was his coming and mysterious his going.
_STORIES FROM PLINY_
HOW DOGS LOVE
Now there was living at Rome, under the Emperors Vespasian and Titus
(A.D. 69-81) a man called Pliny, who gave up his life to the study of
animals and plants. He not only watched their habits for himself, but
he listened eagerly to all that travellers would tell him, and
sometimes happened to believe too much, and wrote in his book things
that were not true. Still there were a great many facts which he had
found out for himself, and the stories he tells about animals are of
interest to every one, partly because it seems strange to think that
dogs and horses and other creatures were just the same then as they
are now.
The dogs that Pliny writes about lived in all parts of the Roman
Empire, and were as faithful and devoted to their masters as our dogs
are to us. One dog called Hyrcanus, belonging to King Lysimachus, one
of the successors of Alexander the Great, jumped on to the funeral
pyre on which lay burning the dead body of his master. And so did
another dog at the burial of Hiero of Syracuse. But during the
lifetime of Pliny himself, a dog's devotion in the heart of Rome had
touched even the Roman citizens, ashamed though they generally were of
showing their feelings. It had happened that a plot against the life
of Nero had been discovered, and the chief conspirator, Titus Sabinus
by name, was put to death, together with some of his servants. One of
these men had a dog of which he was very fond, and from the moment
the man was thrown into prison, the dog could not be persuaded to move
away from the door. At last there came a day when the man suffered the
cruel death common in Rome for such offences, and was thrown down a
steep flight of stairs, where he broke his neck. A crowd of Romans had
gathered round the place of execution, in order to see the sight, and
in the midst of them all the dog managed to reach his master's side,
and lay there, howling piteously. Then one of the crowd, moved with
pity, threw the dog a piece of meat, but he only took it, and laid it
across his master's mouth. By-and-bye, the men came for the body in
order to throw it into the river Tiber, and even then the dog followed
and swam after it, and held it up and tried to bring it to land, till
the people came out in multitudes from the houses round about, to see
what it was to be faithful unto death--and beyond it.
_THE STRANGE HISTORY OF CAGNOTTE_
_Menagerie Intime._
In the early part of this century, a little boy of three years old,
named Theophile Gautier, travelled with his parents from Tarbes, in
the south of France, to Paris. He was so small that he could not speak
any proper French, but talked like the country people; and he divided
the world into those who spoke like him and were his friends, and
those who did not, and were strangers.
But though he was only three, and a great baby in many ways, he loved
his home dearly, and everything about it, and it nearly broke his
heart to come away. His parents tried to comfort him by giving him the
most beautiful chocolates and little cakes, and when that failed they
tried what drums and trumpets would do. But drums and trumpets
succeeded no better than cakes and chocolates, for the greater part of
poor Theophile's tears were shed for the 'dog he had left behind him,'
called Cagnotte, which his father had given away to a friend, as he
did not think that any dog who had been accustomed to run along the
hills and valleys above Tarbes, could ever make himself happy in
Paris.
Theophile, however, did not understand this, but cried for Cagnotte
all day long; and one morning he could bear it no longer. His nurse
had put out all his tin soldiers neatly on the table, with a little
German village surrounded by stiff green trees just in front of them,
hoping Theophile might play at a battle or a siege, and she had also
placed his fiddle (which was painted bright scarlet) quite handy, so
that he might play the triumphal march of the victor. Nothing was of
any use. As soon as Josephine's back was turned Theophile threw
soldiers and village and fiddle out of the window, and then prepared
to jump after them, so that he might take the shortest way back to
Tarbes and Cagnotte. Luckily, just as his foot was on the sill,
Josephine came back from the next room, and saw what he was about. She
rushed after him and caught him by the jacket, and then took him on
her knee, and asked him why he was going to do anything so naughty and
dangerous. When Theophile explained that it was Cagnotte whom he
wanted and must have, and that nobody else mattered at all, Josephine
was so afraid he would try to run away again, that she told him that
if he would only have patience and wait a little Cagnotte would come
to him.
All day long Theophile gave Josephine no peace. Every few minutes he
came running to his nurse to know if Cagnotte had arrived, and he was
only quieted when Josephine went out and returned carrying a little
dog, which in some ways was very like his beloved Cagnotte. Theophile
was not quite satisfied at first, till he remembered that Cagnotte had
travelled a long, long way, and it was not to be expected that he
should look the same dog as when he started; so he put aside his
doubts, and knelt down to give Cagnotte a great hug of welcome. The
new Cagnotte, like the old, was a lovely black poodle, and had
excellent manners, besides being full of fun. He licked Theophile on
both cheeks, and was altogether so friendly that he was ready to eat
bread and butter off the same plate as his little master.
The two got on beautifully, and were perfectly happy for some time,
and then gradually Cagnotte began to lose his spirits, and instead of
jumping and running about the world, he moved slowly, as if he was in
pain. He breathed shortly and heavily, and refused to eat anything,
and even Theophile could see he was feeling ill. One day Cagnotte was
lying stretched out on his master's lap, and Theophile was softly
stroking his skin, when suddenly his hand caught in what seemed to be
string, or strong thread. In great surprise, Josephine was at once
called, to explain the strange matter. She stooped down, and peered
closely at the dog's skin, then took her scissors and cut the thread.
Cagnotte stretched himself, gave a shake, and jumped down from
Theophile's lap, leaving a sort of black sheep-skin behind him.
[Illustration: CAGNOTTE COMES OUT OF HIS SKIN]
Some wicked men had sewn him up in this coat, so that they might get
more money for him; and without it he was not a poodle at all, but
just an ugly little street dog, without beauty of any kind.
After helping to eat Theophile's bread and butter and soup for some
weeks, Cagnotte began to grow fatter, and his outside skin became too
tight for him, and he was nearly suffocated. Once delivered from it,
he shook his ears for joy, and danced a waltz of his own round the
room, not caring a straw how ugly he might be as long as he was
comfortable. A very few weeks spent in the society of Cagnotte made
the memory of Tarbes and its mountains grow dim in the mind of
Theophile. He learnt French, and forgot the way the country people
talked, and soon he had become, thanks to Cagnotte, such a thorough
little Parisian, that he would not have understood what his old
friends said, if one of them had spoken to him.
_STILL WATERS RUN DEEP; OR THE DANCING DOG_
_Menagerie Intime._
When Little Theophile became Big Theophile, he was as fond as ever of
dogs and cats, and he knew more about them than anybody else. After
the death of a large white spaniel called Luther, he filled the vacant
place on his rug by another of the same breed, to whom he gave the
name of Zamore. Zamore was a little dog, as black as ink, except for
two yellow patches over his eyes, and a stray patch on his chest. He
was not in the least handsome, and no stranger would ever have given
him a second thought. But when you came to know him, you found Zamore
was not a common dog at all. He despised all women, and absolutely
refused to obey them or to follow them, and neither Theophile's mother
nor his sisters could get the smallest sign of friendship from him. If
they offered him cakes or sugar, he would accept them in a dignified
manner, but never dreamed of saying 'thank you,' still less of wagging
his tail on the floor, or giving little yaps of delight and gratitude,
as well-brought-up dogs should do. Even to Theophile's father, whom he
liked better than anyone else, he was cold and respectful, though he
followed him everywhere, and never left his master's heels when they
took a walk. And when they were fishing together, Zamore would sit
silent on the bank for hours together, and only allowed himself one
bark when the fish was safely hooked.
Now no one could possibly have guessed that a dog of such very quiet
and reserved manners was at heart as gay and cheerful as the silliest
kitten that ever was born, but so he was, and this was how his family
found it out.
One day he was walking as seriously as usual through a broad square in
the outskirts of Paris, when he was surprised at meeting a large grey
donkey, with two panniers on its back, and in the panniers a troop of
dogs, some dressed as Swiss shepherdesses, some as Turks, some in full
court costume. The owner of the animals stopped the donkey close to
where Zamore was standing, and bade the dogs jump down. Then he
cracked his whip; the fife and drum struck up a merry tune, the dogs
steadied themselves on their hind legs, and the dance began.
Zamore looked on as if he had been turned into stone. The sight of
these dogs, dressed in bright colours, this one with his head covered
by a feathered hat, and that one by a turban, but all moving about in
time to the music, and making pirouettes and little bows; were they
really _dogs_ he was watching or some new kind of men? Anyway he had
never seen anything so enchanting or so beautiful, and if it was true
that they were only dogs--well, _he_ was a dog too!
With that thought, all that had lain hidden in Zamore's soul burst
forth, and when the dancers filed gracefully before him, he raised
himself on his hind legs, and in spite of staggering a little,
prepared to join the ring, to the great amusement of the spectators.
The dog-owner, however, whose name was Monsieur Corri, did not see
matters in the same light. He raised his whip a second time, and
brought it down with a crack on the sides of Zamore, who ran out of
the ring, and with his tail between his legs and an air of deep
thought, he returned home.
[Illustration: 'AND WHAT DO YOU THINK SHE SAW?']
All that day Zamore was more serious and more gloomy than ever.
Nothing would tempt him out, hardly even his favourite dinner, and it
was quite plain that he was turning over something in his mind. But
during the night his two young mistresses were awakened by a strange
noise that seemed to come from an empty room next theirs, where Zamore
usually slept. They both lay awake and listened, and thought it was
like a measured stamping, and that the mice might be giving a ball.
But could little mice feet tread so heavily as that? Supposing a thief
had got in? So the bravest of the two girls got up, and stealing to
the door softly opened it and looked into the room. And what do you
think she saw? Why, Zamore, on his hind legs, his paws in the air,
practising carefully the steps that he had been watching that morning!
This was not, as one might have expected, a mere fancy of the moment,
which would be quite forgotten the next day. Zamore was too serious a
dog for that, and by dint of hard study he became in time a beautiful
dancer. As often as the fife and drum were heard in the streets,
Zamore rushed out of the house, glided softly between the spectators,
and watched with absorbed attention the dancing dogs who were doing
their steps: but remembering the blow he had had from the whip, he
took care not to join them. He noted their positions, the figures, and
the way they held their bodies, and in the night he copied them,
though by day he was just as solemn as ever. Soon he was not contented
with merely copying what he saw, he invented for himself, and it is
only just to say that, in stateliness of step, few dogs could come up
to him. Often his dances were witnessed (unknown to himself) by
Theophile and his sisters, who watched him through the crack of the
door; and so earnest was he, that at length, worn out by dancing, he
would drink up the whole of a large basin of water, which stood in the
corner of the room.
When Zamore felt himself the equal of the best of the dancing dogs, he
began to wish that like them he might have an audience.
Now in France the houses are not always built in a row as they are in
England, but sometimes have a square court-yard in front, and in the
house where Zamore lived, this court was shut in on one side by an
iron railing, which was wide enough to let dogs of a slim figure
squeeze through.
One fine morning there met in this court-yard fifteen or twenty dogs,
friends of Zamore, to whom the night before he had sent letters of
invitation. The object of the party was to see Zamore make his _debut_
in dancing, and the ball-room was to be the court-yard, which Zamore
had carefully swept with his tail. The dance began, and the spectators
were so delighted, that they could not wait for the end to applaud, as
people ought always to do, but uttered loud cries of 'Ouah, ouah,'
that reminded you of the noises you hear at a theatre. Except one old
water spaniel who was filled with envy at Zamore's talents, and
declared that no decent dog would ever make an exhibition of himself
like that, they all vowed that Zamore was the king of dancers, and
that nothing had ever been seen to equal his minuet, jig, and waltz
for grace and beauty.
It was only during his dancing moments that Zamore unbent. At all
other times he was as gloomy as ever, and never cared to stir from the
rug unless he saw his old master take up his hat and stick for a walk.
Of course, if he had chosen, he might have joined Monsieur Corri's
_troupe_, of which he would have made the brightest ornament; but the
love of his master proved greater than his love of his art, and he
remained unknown, except of his family. In the end he fell a victim to
his passion for dancing, and he died of brain fever, which is supposed
to have been caused by the fatigue of learning the schottische, the
fashionable dance of the day.
_THEO AND HIS HORSES; JANE, BETSY, AND BLANCHE_
From _Menagerie Intime_.
After Theophile grew to be a man, he wrote a great many books, which
are all delightful to read, and everybody bought them, and Theophile
got rich and thought he might give himself a little carriage with two
horses to draw it.
And first he fell in love with two dear little Shetland ponies who
were so shaggy and hairy that they seemed all mane and tail, and whose
eyes looked so affectionately at him, that he felt as if he should
like to bring them into the drawing-room instead of sending them to
the stable. They were charming little creatures, not a bit shy, and
they would come and poke their noses into Theophile's pockets in
search for sugar, which was always there. Indeed their only fault was,
that they were so very, very small, and that, after all, was _not_
their fault. Still, they looked more suited to an English child of
eight years old, or to Tom Thumb, than to a French gentleman of forty,
not so thin as he once was, and as they all passed through the
streets, everybody laughed, and drew pictures of them, and declared
that Theophile could easily have carried a pony on each arm, and the
carriage on his back.
Now Theophile did not mind being laughed at, but still he did not
always want to be stared at all through the streets, whenever he went
out. So he sold his ponies and began to look out for something nearer
his own size. After a short search he found two of a dapple grey
colour, stout and strong, and as like each other as two peas, and he
called them Jane and Betsy. But although, to look at, no one could
ever tell one from the other, their characters were totally different,
as Jane was very bold and spirited, and Betsy was terribly lazy. While
Jane did all the pulling, Betsy was quite contented just to run by her
side, without troubling herself in the least, and, as was only
natural, Jane did not think this at all fair, and took a great dislike
to Betsy, which Betsy heartily returned. At last matters became so bad
that, in their efforts to get at each other, they half kicked the
stable to pieces, and would even rear themselves upon their hind legs
in order to bite each other's faces. Theophile did all he could to
make them friends, but nothing was of any use, and at last he was
forced to sell Betsy. The horse he found to replace her was a shade
lighter in colour, and therefore not quite so good a match, but
luckily Jane took to her at once, and lost no time in doing the
honours of the stable. Every day the affection between the two became
greater: Jane would lay her head on Blanche's shoulder--she had been
called Blanche because of her fair skin--and when they were turned out
into the stable-yard, after being rubbed down, they played together
like two kittens. If one was taken out alone, the other became sad and
gloomy, till the well-known tread of its friend's hoofs was heard from
afar, when it would give a joyful neigh, which was instantly answered.
Never once was it necessary for the coachman to complain of any
difficulty in harnessing them. They walked themselves into their
proper places, and behaved in all ways as if they were well brought
up, and ready to be friendly with everybody. They had all kinds of
pretty little ways, and if they thought there was a chance of getting
bread or sugar or melon rind, which they both loved, they would make
themselves as caressing as a dog.
[Illustration: BLANCHE TELLING GHOST STORIES TO JANE IN THE STABLE]
Nobody who has lived much with animals can doubt that they talk
together in a language that man is too stupid to understand; or, if
anyone _had_ doubted it, they would soon have been convinced of the
fact by the conduct of Jane and Blanche when in harness. When Jane
first made Blanche's acquaintance, she was afraid of nothing, but
after they had been together a few months, her character gradually
changed, and she had sudden panics and nervous fits, which puzzled her
master greatly. The reason of this was that Blanche, who was very
timid and easily frightened, passed most of the night in telling Jane
ghost stories, till poor Jane learnt to tremble at every sound. Often,
when they were driving in the lonely alleys of the Bois de Boulogne
after dark, Blanche would come to a dead stop or shy to one side as if
a ghost, which no one else could see, stood before her. She breathed
loudly, trembled all over with fear, and broke out into a cold
perspiration. No efforts of Jane, strong though she was, could drag
her along. The only way to move her was for the coachman to dismount,
and to lead her, with his hand over her eyes for a few steps, till the
vision seemed to have melted into air. In the end, these terrors
affected Jane just as if Blanche, on reaching the stable, had told her
some terrible story of what she had seen, and even her master had been
known to confess that when, driving by moonlight down some dark road,
where the trees cast strange shadows, Blanche would suddenly come to a
dead halt and begin to tremble, he did not half like it himself.
With this one drawback, never were animals so charming to drive. If
Theophile held the reins, it was really only for the look of the
thing, and not in the least because it was necessary. The smallest
click of the tongue was enough to direct them, to quicken them, to
make them go to the right or to the left, or even to stop them. They
were so clever that in a very short time they had learned all their
master's habits, and knew his daily haunts as well as he did himself.
They would go of their own accord to the newspaper office, to the
printing office, to the publisher's, to the Bois de Boulogne, to
certain houses where he dined on certain days in the week, so very
punctually that it was quite provoking; and if it ever happened that
Theophile spent longer than usual at any particular place, they never
failed to call his attention by loud neighs, or by pawing the ground,
sounds of which he quite well knew the meaning.
But alas, the time came when a Revolution broke out in Paris. People
had no time to buy books or to read them; they were far too busy in
building barricades across the streets, or in tearing up the paving
stones to throw at each other. The newspaper in which Theophile wrote,
and which paid him enough money to keep his horses, did not appear any
more, and sad though he was at parting, the poor man thought he was
lucky to find some one to buy horses, carriage, and harness, for a
fourth part of their worth. Tears stood in his eyes as they were led
away to their new stable; but he never forgot them, and they never
forgot him. Sometimes, as he sat writing at his table, he would hear
from afar a light quick step, and then a sudden stop under the
windows.
And their old master would look up and sigh and say to himself, 'Poor
Jane, poor Blanche, I hope they are happy.'
_MADAME THEOPHILE AND THE PARROT_
_Menagerie Intime._
After the death of Cagnotte, whose story you may have read, Theophile
was so unhappy that he would not have another dog, but instead,
determined to fill the empty place in his heart with cats. One of
those that he loved the best was a big yellowy-red puss, with a white
chest, a pink nose, and blue eyes, that went by the name of Madame
Theophile, because, when he was in the house, it never left his side
for a single instant. It slept on his bed, dreamed while sitting on
the arm of Theophile's chair while he was writing (for Theophile was
by this time almost a grown-up man), walked after him when he went
into the garden, sat by his side while he had his dinner, and
sometimes took, gently and politely, the food he was conveying to his
own mouth.
One day, a friend of Theophile's, who was leaving Paris for a few
days, brought a parrot, which he begged Theophile to take care of
while he was away. The bird not feeling at home in this strange place,
climbed up to the top of his cage and looked round him with his funny
eyes, that reminded you of the nails in a sofa. Now Madame Theophile
had never seen a parrot, and it was plain that this curious creature
gave her a shock. She sat quite still, staring quietly at the parrot,
and trying to think if she had ever seen anything like it among the
gardens and roofs of the houses, where she got all her ideas of the
world. At last she seemed to make up her mind:
'Of course, it must be a kind of green chicken.'
Having set the question at rest, Madame Theophile jumped down from the
table where she had been seated while she made her observations, and
walked quickly to the corner of the room, where she laid herself flat
down, with her head bent and her paws stretched out, like a panther
watching his prey.
The parrot followed all her movements with his round eyes, and felt
that they meant no good to him. He ruffled his feathers, pulled at his
chain, lifted one of his paws in a nervous way, and rubbed his beak up
and down his food tin. All the while the cat's blue eyes were talking
in a language the parrot clearly understood, and they said: 'Although
it is green, that fowl would make a nice dinner.'