Photograph by Messrs. Kissack

“The Incredible Blue.”

THE SOUL OF A CAT
AND OTHER STORIES

BY
MARGARET BENSON

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HENRIETTA
RONNER AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1901

DEDICATION TO THOSE DESCRIBED IN THIS BOOK

Once on a time I used to dream

Strange spirits moved about my way,

And I might catch a vagrant gleam,

A glint of pixy or of fay;

Their lives were mingled with my own,

So far they roamed, so near they drew;

And when I from a child had grown,

I woke—and found my dream was true.

For one is clad in coat of fur,

And one is decked with feathers gay;

Another, wiser, will prefer

A sober suit of Quaker grey;

This one’s your servant from his birth,

And that a Princess you must please,

And this one loves to wake your mirth,

And that one likes to share your ease.

O gracious creatures, tiny souls!

You seem so near, so far away,

Yet while the cloudland round us rolls

We love you better every day.

οὐχὶ πάντες εἰσὶν λειτουργικὰ πνεύματα;[1]

[1] Greek—transliteration: ouchi pantes eisin leitourgika pneumata?

Translation: “Are they not all ministering spirits?” (Hebrews 1:14)—Transcriber.

PREFACE

Prejudice is at first a Guide to Knowledge, but afterwards a Gaoler of Thought.

The average Englishman prefers to have his knowledge well formulated and well classified in what one may call a portable and handy form. To such an one it seems desirable to have certain general propositions about the animal creation which, regardless of small subtleties and differences, he may use as a guide for practical action. As, for instance, “that man is governed by reason but the brutes by instinct”; “that the cat, though eminently domestic, is selfish, egotistic, and luxurious; whereas the dog is generous, affectionate, and faithful”; that “cats care for places and not for people.”

Many more such maxims may be mentioned, some of which imply a certain amount of observation, as, for instance, that the parrot possesses an imitative instinct.

Those who have this guide to knowledge will tell you that they like or do not like “the character of the cat,” and will ask if you like cats or dogs best.

So some one once asked me whether I liked poetry, and when I asked “whose poetry?” instanced that of the Marquis of Lorne.

But in the first case, too, it would seem to be a relevant point to ask which dog and which cat; and to those who profess not to like “the character” of the cat one might put first the counter-question as to whether they like “the character” of the human being.

As it is well from time to time to compare the best established maxims and formulæ with the results of recent experience and observation; so, although the foregoing principles are extensive enough and fundamental enough to satisfy the greediest grasp after truth, it may not be amiss to compare them with observation of individuals; to compare the general propositions concerning the character of the cat with observations on certain individual cats; the common contempt of birds-wits with observation of individual birds; and to find out the essential point which makes us so certain that similar processes in the man and the brute are in one case the work of reason and in the other case of instinct.

Perhaps we might even come to think that man has some share of instinct, and the brute some dawnings of reason.

Let us face this result boldly, even if it leads us to stammer a little over the irrefragable proposition that, since animals have no souls, this present life contains not only all that they must suffer, but all that they may enjoy; even if it should make us doubt the perfectness of our scientific grasp of spiritual things, and should seem to lead back to such old doctrines as Peter’s belief in the restitution of all things, and St. Paul’s hope of the deliverance of the suffering creature into the glorious liberty of children of God.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Portraits:

IN THE TEXT

Sketches of Cats and Kittens by Madame Ronner

THE SOUL OF A CAT

“If you choose to put up with such sufferings as these, I have the power to help you.... But bethink you well,” said the witch, “if once you obtain a human form you can never be a mermaid again!”

Persis was a dainty lady, pure Persian, blue and white, silky haired. When this story opens she was in middle age, the crisis of her life had passed. She had had kittens, she had seen them grow up, and as they grew she had grown to hate them, with a hatred founded on jealousy and love. She was a cat of extreme sensibility, of passionate temper, of a character attractive and lovable from its very intensity. We had been forced to face Persis’ difficulty with her and make our choice—should we let her go about with a sullen face to the world, green eyes glooming wretchedly upon it, an intensity of wretchedness, jealousy and hate consuming her little cat’s heart, or would we follow Persis’ wishes about the kittens, and give them up, when they grew to be a burden on her mind and heart? For while they were young she loved them much. She chose favourites among them, usually the one most like herself, lavished a wealth of care, with anxiety in a small, troubled, motherly face, on their manners, their appearance, their amusements.

Photograph by S. A. McDowall

“Persis was a dainty lady.”

I remember one pathetic scene on a rainy evening in late summer, when the kittens of the time were playing about the room, and Persis came in wet and draggled with something in her mouth. We thought it was a dead bird, and though regretting the fact, did not hinder her when she deposited it before her favourite kitten, a shy, grey creature, and retired to the lap of a forbearing friend to make her toilet. But while she was thus engaged we saw that the thing she had brought in was a shivering little bird, a belated fledgling, alive and unhurt. The grey kitten had not touched it, but with paws tucked under him was regarding it with a cold, steady gaze. He was quite unmoved when we took it away and restored it to a profitless liberty, with a few scathing remarks on the cruelty of cats. It is so nice and affectionate of a father to initiate his little son into the pleasures of sport and show him how to play a fish, but quite another thing for a brutal cat to show her kitten how to play with a live bird—a cat, indeed, from whom we should have expected a sympathetic imagination!

When Persis had washed and combed herself she came down to see how her son was enjoying his first attempt at sport; but no affectionate father sympathising with his boy for losing his fish would have been half as much distressed as Persis to find her kitten robbed of his game. She ran round the room crying as she went, searched for the bird under chairs and tables, sprang on the knees of her friends to seek it, and wailed for the loss of her present to her son.

Again, there was no danger that she would not face in defence of her kittens. My brother had a wire-haired terrier of horrid reputation as a cat-killer. The name of the terrier, for an occult and complicated reason, was Two-Timothy-Three-Ten, but it was generally abbreviated. Tim, large and formidable even to those who had not heard of his exploits, slipped into the room once where a placid domestic scene was in process. Without a moment’s pause the cat was on him like a wild beast. I caught Timothy and held him up, but the cat had dug her claws so firmly into his foot that she, too, was lifted off the ground.

But as the kittens grew older maternal tenderness and delights faded, maternal cares ceased, and a dull, jealous misery settled down over Persis. She had been left down in the country with a kitten once—alas! a tabby kitten—which was growing old enough to leave her when I came over for the day and went to see her. The kitten, unconscious of his unfortunate appearance, was as happy as most kittens; he walked round the cat and did not mind an occasional growl or cuff. But she, not responding at all to my caresses, sat staring out before her with such black, immovable despair on her face that I shall not easily forget it.

Thus the cat’s life was a series of violent changes of mood. While her kittens were young she was blissful with them, trustful to all human beings; as they grew older she became sullen, suspicious, and filled with jealous gloom. When they were gone she again became affectionate and gentle; she decked herself with faded graces, was busied with secret errands, and intent on æsthetic pleasure—the smell of fresh air, each particular scent of ivy leaves round the trunk of the cedar.

She caught influenza once in an interval of peace and came near dying, and, they said, received attention seriously and gratefully like a sick person; I was not surprised to hear that her friend sacrificed a pet bantam to tempt the returning appetite of the invalid.

While we were homeless for a year or more, Persis was lodged at the old home farm, and lorded it over the animals. Two cats were there: one the revered and hideous Tom, with whose white hair Persis had bestrewn a room in a fit of passion. He had left the house at once for the farm and wisely refused to return. Now he was a prop of the establishment. He killed the rats, he sat serene in the sun, was able to ignore the village dogs and cuff the boisterous collie puppies of the farm. So he met Persis on secure and dignified terms. It was well, for he had formed a tender attachment to her daughter; they drank milk out of a saucer together, looking like the Princess and the Ploughboy; and when the Ploughboy went out hunting (for he must vary his diet a little—unmitigated rat is monotonous) he invariably brought back the hind legs of the rabbit for the Princess.

Strange to say, the Princess was the only one of the grown-up kittens with whom Persis entered into terms of friendship; so while the Princess ate the rabbits of the Ploughboy, Persis ate the sparrows provided by the Princess, and they were all at peace.

She rejoined us again when we settled in a country town. The house was backed by a walled garden; exits and entrances were easier than in the larger houses where Persis had lived with us before. She loved to get up by the wistaria, climb across the conservatory roof, and get in and out through bedroom windows. She found a black grandson already established, it is true, but in a strictly subordinate position. Justice was cast to the—cats, and they fought it out between them; and when Persis threw herself into the fray there could be but one end. Ra liked comfort, but his sensibilities were undeveloped. If he could get the food he desired (and he invariably entered the room with fish or pheasant) he did not care how or where it was given him; a plate of fish-bones in the conservatory would be more grateful than a stalled ox under his grandmother’s eye. But to the old cat the attention was everything; she took the food not so much because she cared for it as because it was offered individually to her. If Ra managed to establish himself on the arm of a chair he would remind the owner of his desires by the tap of a black paw, or by gently intercepting a fork. But Persis’ sole desire was that she might be desired; the invitation was the great point, not the feast; she lay purring with soft, intelligent eyes, which grew hard and angry if the form of her dusky grandson appeared in the open door. She would get down from the lap on which she was lying, strike at the hand which tried to detain her, and—but by this time Ra had been removed and peace restored.

Her most blissful moments were when she could find her mistress in bed, and curl up beside her, pouring out a volume of soft sound; or when she was shown to company. Then she walked with dainty steps and waving tail as in the old days, with something of the same grace, though not with the old beauty, trampling a visitor’s dress with rhythmically moving paws, and the graciously modest air of one who confers an honour. It came near to pathos to see her play the great lady and the petted kitten before the vet, who came to prescribe for her. Now she was all gratitude for attentions, and whereas when she was young she would not come to a call out of doors, but coquetted with us just beyond our reach, now she would come running in from the garden when I called her, loved to be taken up and lie with chin and paws resting on my shoulder, looking down from it like a child. The old nurse carried her on one arm like a baby, and the cat stretched out paws on each side round her waist.

She had more confidence in human dealings, too. I had to punish her once, to her great surprise. She ran a few steps and waited for me with such confidence that it was difficult to follow up the punishment, more especially as Taffy watched exultant, and came up smiling to insist on the fact that he was a good dog.

Taffy’s relationship with the cat was anything but cordial. It was her fault, for he had well learnt the household maxim “cats first and pleasure afterwards.” But Persis can hardly be said to have treated him like a lady; she did not actually show fight, but vented ill-temper by pushing rudely in front of him with a disagreeable remark as she passed.

All this time Persis was growing old and small. Her coat was thick, but shorter than of old; her tail waved far less wealth of hair. She jumped into the fountain one day by mistake, and as she stood still with clinging hair under the double shock of the water and the laughter one noticed what a little shrunken cat she had become; only her face was young and vivid with conflicting passions.

Then the last change of her life came. We went to a place which was a paradise for cats, but a paradise ringed with death; a rambling Elizabethan house, where mice ran and rattled behind the panels; a garden with bushes to creep behind and strange country creatures stirring in the grass; barns which were a preserve for rats and mice; and finally the three most important elements of happiness, entire freedom, no smuts, and no grandson.

Persis was overwhelmed with pressure of affairs; one saw her crouching near the farm in early morning; met her later on the stairs carrying home game, and was greeted only by a quick look as of one intent on business.

The one drawback to this place was that it was surrounded by woods, carefully preserved.

By this time I had come to two clear resolves; the first, that I would never again develop the sensibilities of an animal beyond certain limits; for one creates claims that one has no power to satisfy. The feelings of a sensitive animal are beyond our control, and beyond its own also.

And the second was this; since it is impossible to let an animal when it is old and ill live among human beings as it may when it is healthy; since it can by no possibility understand why sympathy is denied it and demonstrations of affection checked; I would myself, as soon as such signs of broken intercourse occurred, give Persis the lethal water. I had been haunted by the pathos in the face of a dog who had been and indeed still was a family pet; but he was deaf. Even when he was fondled an indescribable depression hung about him; he had fallen into silence, he knew not how or why. Dogs respond to nothing more quickly than the tones of the human voice, but now no voice came through the stillness. Despairingly he put himself, as they told us, in the way of those who passed, lay on steps or in the doorways. Since we cannot find means to alleviate such sufferings we can at least end them.

But I never needed to put this determination into effect. The last time I saw Persis was once when she came to greet me at the door, and lifting her I noticed how light she was; and again I saw her coming downstairs on some business of her own, with an air at once furtive and arrogant, quaint in so small a creature.

Then Persis vanished.

She had been absent before for days at a time; had once disappeared for three weeks and returned thin and exhausted. So at first we did not trouble; then we called her in the garden, in the fields and the coverts, wrote to find out if she had returned to some old home, and offered a reward for her finding; but all was fruitless. I do not know now whether she had gone away as some creatures do, to die alone, for the signs of age were on her; or if she had met a speedy death at the hands of a gamekeeper while she was following up some wild romance of the woods.

So vanished secretly from life that strange, troubled little soul of a cat—a troubled soul, for it was not the animal loves and hates which were too much for her—these she had ample spirit and courage to endure, but she knew a jealous love for beings beyond her dim power of comprehension, a passionate desire for praise and admiration from creatures whom she did not understand, and these waked a strange conflict and turmoil in the vivid and limited nature, troubling her relations with her kind, filling her now with black despairs, and painful passions, and now with serene, half understood content.

Who shall say whether a creature like this can ever utterly perish? How shall we who know so little of their nature profess to know so much of their future?

JOEY AND MATILDA; OR, INTELLECT AND EMOTION

“A thousand little shafts of flame

Were shivered in my narrow frame.”

“But what a tongue, and O what brains

Were in that parrot’s head;

It took two men to understand

One half the things she said.”

The two princesses in the story of Riquet with the Tuft were not more unlike than Joey and Matilda.

The appearance of Matilda is Quakerish, and even shabby. She has an eye like a piece of dull green marble. She is affectionate and polite, but cold and passionless. To judge by the perfect and consistent propriety of her demeanour she might have been a favourite pupil of Mrs. General. Even if she swears or blows her nose she does it with an air of such intense superiority that it seems like an answer in the Catechism.

It is small wonder that Matilda feels superior, for her intellect is supreme. She is not proud of this, for she is too well-bred to wish to dazzle strangers with her brilliance, and her chief flow of conversation is reserved for the circle of her intimates. She came to pay me a visit the other day and was very reticent. “She is too much of a lady to talk to us,” my old nurse said; but though she would not hastily confide, she tried to keep up our spirits by a little innocent amusement; and after bleating like a lamb for a quarter of an hour on end, she gave us A flat on the tuning-fork till tea time.

Now, Joey is all green and gold to the eye. He recollects the Valley of the Amazon, and “bright and fierce and fickle is the south.” His topaz iris waxes and wanes as the pupil grows large and onyx-like or dwindles to a mere pin’s head. He loves passionately, and his hate, deep as the Black Sea, is vindictive and remorseless. Music works in him a frenzy of delight; the sight of friend or foe fills him with an emotion which chokes utterance. Jealousy runs like swift poison in his veins, swiftest and most poisonous when he thinks of Matilda, finished, feminine, and intellectual, a perfect lady.

Photograph by S. A. McDowall

“The appearance of Matilda is Quakerish and even shabby.”

Once, in time long past, there were passages between Joey and Matilda. They were placed side by side, and as Joey looked on that demure Quakeress, her dove colour unrelieved except by two plumes of sober crimson; as he gazed on that marble eye while Matilda huskily and rapidly repeated the name of the kitchen-maid, Joey was aware of an emotion beautiful and strange. Self-control is a foreigner to that hot southern nature, and without a pause for thought he extended a claw—it was all he could do—to the lady.

In a moment Matilda stooped and bit it; and as he screamed with pain and anger she dropped it and burst into a hoarse fit of laughter.

Joey never offended in this way again, but this repulse is the reason of his deep, revengeful jealousy of Matilda.

Another simple scene recurs to my mind. Joey was in the drawing-room, Matilda in a room just above; the doors of both were open. Joey could therefore hear when a passing friend engaged Matilda in conversation. His angry excitement burst all bounds at last, and “Pop goes the Weasel,” sung with agonised fervour, came floating up the stairs. Matilda listened with her head on one side, and then sang slowly and impressively a few bars of a species of Gregorian chant. Silence fell below.

Now when they sit side by side they are leagues apart. Joey is viciously watching for any mark of preference given to Matilda, more ready than usual to drive his beak like a sledge-hammer at the finger of the unwary. And Matilda is calmly occupied in observing Joey. Some time in the course of the next seventy years or so she will begin to reproduce Joey; to indicate the way in which he spreads his tail like a fan and grubs in seed and sand, uttering half-audible exhortations to himself, which a stranger would take for imprecations on things in general. How satisfying it would be to an angry man if he could say, “Come on, Joey” in such a tone.

But they do not often sit side by side, for, though you would not think it, Matilda occupies a lower social station than Joey. While his home is in the drawing-room Matilda is the life and soul of the kitchen. Does this humble Matilda? On the contrary; she knows that the true gentlewoman is at home everywhere. If she is brought into the drawing-room she is neither embarrassed nor elate; only a pleasant and discreet reserve takes the place of a free flow of conversation. When she returns to the kitchen she talks rapidly for a long time, and is believed to be describing the things she has seen and commenting on the conversation.[2]

[2] It must not be imagined that Matilda always confines herself to generalities. She asked a housemaid kindly, “When are you going for your holidays?” And on a rapid entrance and exit of the cook inquired so politely, “And who was that?” that her companion immediately replied, “That was Mrs. ——.”

Alas for the sterner sex! When Joey undergoes an enforced eclipse in the pantry he abandons himself to the situation. He may be heard whistling “Pop goes the Weasel” line by line with his attendant. But this is no honest geniality; for if he is carried back to the drawing-room, and finds waiting for him a friend of higher social station, he turns and bites, if he can, the hand that late has fed him. Perhaps it is Matilda’s intellectual interests that preserve her from such vulgarity. She devotes herself to observation for the education of her mind, and when she is not observing she is recording the results of observation. The reproduction of simple sounds comes quickly, for she is a slave to realism. The screams of the peacock, the failing note of the cuckoo, cuck-cuck-oo, the angry mew of the cat, are rapidly and all too accurately reproduced. So, too, the kitchen-maid, before she had served her apprenticeship, was wont to hear her own sad name in corners cried in tones of growing exasperation. We were then living in a town; Matilda’s apartment gave on the street, and the errand boys helped her out with the performance.

But, according to the law of her kind, this was a little precipitate of Matilda. She should have let the kitchen-maid grow into a cook; she should have let her live a long and honoured life, and should then have tenderly renewed memories of old days when her name would echo upstairs and down to hurry laggard steps. I cannot decide if this is a want of tact or a supreme instance of tact in Matilda. It cannot, at any rate, be a want of memory, for Matilda has just begun swearing; and as she has been with us for some years, and none of us habitually swear, this must be a sudden revival of memory. It is said to be a very clear and life-like revival.

Probably as for Lovelace, so for Matilda, stone walls would not a prison make, for iron bars do not make any thing like a cage. She drags the door upwards with her beak, and holds it with her claw while she squeezes through like an egg sucked through a bottle-neck. This performance drives Joey to the verge of mania. He, too, pulls up his door, but he does not know how to hold it, and it bangs down again and leaves him voiceless with rage, while Matilda is running about as gay as a lark.

But the other day I found Matilda securely imprisoned. Her door was bound with red tape. As mere knots can present no difficulty to an intellect like hers, it was certainly the symbolism which she respected.

Yet with all these qualities of mind and character, there are one or two points in which Joey excels. Joey wets his sugar. He deliberately dips first one end and then the other into his drinking-trough, and when it is half dissolved he eats it. He tried to soften a piece of wood in the same way the other day—how fruitlessly Matilda knows. Joey has a perch made out of the branch of a tree, and from his perch his toys depend on pieces of string and tape; he owns a cardboard matchbox, and an old tin pencil, and such-like treasures. One by one he ruthlessly destroys these, so some strings are always hanging empty. But sitting above them, Joey can test which are empty by their weight, and pulls up only the heavy strings. It is not, however, in practical matters that Joey is seen to the best advantage. His is the artist’s temperament; he has a soul for music. Given a braying harmonium and Joey loose, his foes are scattered; but the piano is, so to speak, his forte. “I am convinced,” as Lady Catherine de Burgh says, that Joey would have been a delightful performer had his health allowed him to apply. As it is, he attends chiefly to the cultivation of the voice. He seats himself on the shoulder of the meanest performer, or marches up and down from shoulder to wrist; he spreads his tail like a fan; he swells to twice his usual size; his eye goes in and out like the magic-lantern star which sends happy little children to bed with the nightmare. Then the performer plays a weird Scotch air, such as the “Lyke-wake dirge” (one of Joey’s favourite pieces), whistling the while, and Joey bursts into song. He does not whistle as when he is performing “Pop goes the Weasel,” but he sings with a piercing, strident voice, high and low, pitching with singular skill somewhere near the note, grace notes thrown in according to taste. After Scotch songs give him Wagner hot and loud. In the middle of a performance of the Preislied a stranger once called; but he was happily a reticent man....

Photograph by S. A. McDowall

“Joey has a perch made out of the branch of a tree.”

But above all there is this: Joey has a heart. It is not a very admirable heart. Its fickleness is beyond description; he hates more hotly than he loves; but the heart is there. He will hear his friend’s voice in the house and get mad with anticipation, piping broken fragments of indescribable song. He will follow such an one with low, skimming flight, and will bite any hand except the dearest that tries to bring him back. He is easily deceived—a lovable fault—and a deep voice or a rough sleeve will make him tolerate a woman under the impression that homespun means a man. But where his heart is concerned pretence is vain, and I can imagine Joey dying of a broken heart, though I can imagine him more easily still dying of a bad temper. But Matilda’s heart is warranted unbreakable, and is as cold and hard as her marble eye. And I sometimes fear that Matilda is growing a little coarse: a new cook came the other day, and was taken to the cage because the parrot “generally has something to say to a stranger.” She burst into a long harangue, of which the only word that could be distinguished was “forget” (it is thought she was declaring her unalterable devotion to the predecessor); but she ended all too plainly, “I don’t care for you.” Her new hostess firmly replied, “And I don’t care for you,” upon which Matilda screamed loudly.

If there is any truth in re-incarnation, it must be that cynics revisit this world as parrots. The punishment would be horribly appropriate. The man who has disbelieved in the reality of the higher emotions shall have these emotions, but be able to express them only in broad farce. An artist, ardent, vindictive, and cynical has been travestied with the form of Joey. He is animated with the passion which made him plunge his stiletto into an enemy’s heart, as in his re-incarnation he tries to drive his beak into a hand. He is met by iron bars and a mocking laugh. Dusk gathers over the sky, that mysterious, familiar beauty stirs his heart; forgetting and forgiving, and he hopes forgiven, he would say good-night to his friends. But the whisper comes in cockney intonation, “Jowey, well, Jowey.” He hears the voice of a friend, and would hail him, but “Pop goes the Weasel” rises to his beak. He is kindled as of old by the Pilgrim’s March, and bursts into song. But the voice comes hoarse and comic, and laughter greets the kindling eye. All the highest, the best, the strongest feelings of his nature turn in expression into broad comedy, and the reason is that when he was a man he felt these emotions and profaned them by cynicism.

I once met a decrepit old woman who lived on 7s. 6d. a week. She took a rapid review of the Universe and Life, and closed it by telling me that “things was just about coming to a Grand Pitch.” She will never be a parrot.

THE TORPID AND THE ILL-BRED CAT

“Cold eyes, sleek skin, and velvet paws,

You win my indolent applause,

You cannot win my heart.”

They “divided the time into small alternate allotments of eating and sleeping.”

The torpid cat is really a kitten, but it is of enormous size, and a lively orange in colour. If it lies on the largest footstool it completely covers it, if it occupies an armchair it occupies the whole of it, if it honours the lap of a friend its head must be supported by one arm, while its tail hangs down on the other side, otherwise the centre of gravity could not be preserved and the torpid cat would slide slowly on to the floor and fall like a soft and heavy sofa cushion. It has been lying on a green velvet armchair all afternoon; being temporarily displaced at tea time it fell asleep with its head on the fender; when the chair was relinquished it went back on to it, and it will lie there now till nightfall.

If you catch the torpid cat awake you will find that it has pleasant and intelligent hazel eyes, and a rose-coloured mouth carried half open to be ready for a yawn, as you carry a gun at half-cock waiting for a shot. If you stroke the torpid cat it stretches quietly, but not too far, for fear of waking up.

The ill-bred cat is a small neat English tabby, regularly marked. We made its acquaintance first when it was about six inches long and had come to take charge of the farm. It was sitting on a heap of coals cheerlessly surveying the prospect; when it saw us it sped towards us, crying loud for sympathy and companionship. Then it spied Taffy and went back to the fence to sharpen its claws.

The torpid cat, who was at that time a lively young kitten, and the ill-bred cat made great friends.

In the evening the tabby kitten left the farm to take care of itself, and came up to play with the yellow kitten. They played at being tigers in a jungle. The tabby kitten hid between the asparagus bed and the yew hedge; the yellow kitten sat by the scullery door and pretended that he wasn’t looking. Then he began a swaggering walk towards the asparagus bed; the walk quickened as he got nearer, until he was suddenly clawed by the tabby kitten, and the shock of surprise sent him flying into the air like a rocket. Then in the twilight they fled about the garden, crouched in the rough grass beyond the lawn, rushed up the cherry-tree and peered down, all with light, agile movements, until as the light died you could hardly catch the quick rippling of the tabby’s stripes, and the yellow coat of the other grew wan.

One morning the tabby came limping and crying from the farm holding out a wounded, swollen paw. She was taken into the house and doctored, but when the paw was well she refused to go home. The two were inconveniently fond of human companionship—the yellow kitten for its own sake, the tabby for a variety of reasons. She grew more emphatically affectionate at meal times.

The yellow kitten used to accompany his mistress to feed the hens; she thought he had an eye for young chickens, but found she slandered him. He was not looking at the chickens; his ear was open for the rustle of mice in the grass, and from time to time he dashed in and despatched one. He took special pleasure in doing this in company; it was always open to him to hunt in the garden, but he used his privilege when some one was taking the air and inhaling the breath of flowers. He seemed to think it added a point to evening meditation to hear the squeak of the dying shrew or to see an innocent field-mouse untimely cut off while it was peacefully nibbling a blade of grass.

Just so both kittens, with the real self-consciousness of cats, played their games in public; they seemed to have no thought of anything but the mock combat, but the scene of the combat shifted so as to be always under the eye of a spectator. The explanation is simple: the life of a cat is a continuous drama, whether actual or imagined; and what actor will play to an empty house? The cat hunts not for food, but for sport, and the torpid cat, who refused yesterday to look at a mouse let out from the trap, spent the whole of this morning waiting behind the piano with his ear bent to listen to sundry little scratchings.

The cat eats the mouse, it is true; and the sportsman eats venison, but he does not stalk for food.

“Animals,” says Mr. Balfour,[3] “as a rule, trouble themselves little about anything unless they want either to eat it or to run away from it. Interest in and wonder at the works of nature and the doings of man are products of civilisation.”

[3] “Essays and Addresses.”

But does this explain why the yellow kitten, as it followed me about the garden, spent some minutes in quarrelling with a pansy? The pansy lifted an inane, purple face towards the sky, and its head waggled helplessly on its stalk. The yellow kitten sat down beside it, and regarded it severely for awhile. Then he slapped its silly face.

A change fell upon the kittens as they grew older. The root of the difficulty was that one had no ancestors at all, and the other only half the proper number. Their voices were too loud, their manners were bad. The yellow cat never mewed, but his purr was like a thrashing-machine; the other was clamorous in pleasure and complaint, her appetite unquenchable, her demands for affection, for comfort, for food, insistent and unabashed. She would try to drink from the milk-jug while her saucer was being filled; she would run her claws into a hand to get firm hold while she ate the scraps offered her.

If you put her out of the door she reappeared like a conjuring trick through the window; she would jump again and again on the lap of some one who did not want her; she would never take offence. One tithe of the rebuffs she met with would have sent a well-bred cat stalking with dignity from the room; the first of the refusals would have made him turn his back on the company and fall into deep and abstracted meditation. But when her desire was accomplished and the hand weary of hurling her on to the floor, there was something disarming in the bliss on the little impudent face as she nestled in utter confidence and licked the hand that had rebuffed her.

The yellow kitten was less pressing; he had just so much refinement of spirit as to make him refuse to stay in any place where he was forcibly put. He kept his muscles tense, like a coiled spring, and so soon as the grasp slackened quite slowly and deliberately he carried out his first intention.

The two began steadily to deteriorate. Now that the pressure of necessity was removed they were fast losing the stamina of the working cat; and having no sensibilities, natural or cultivated, luxury would never make them aristocratic; they had no education and little discipline, and they gave themselves up to revel in ungraceful comfort greedily and confidently demanded.

Yet their affection for each other, their utter confidence in human nature, lends them a certain grace. You may come into the drawing-room and find the farm cat and the kitchen cat (for such are their real positions) settled in the best armchair. He is lying at luxurious length, sunk in deep slumber. Behind him, squeezed into a corner, sits the tabby; her anxious eyes peer out over his head, her soft little body is crushed by his weight, one tabby paw is round his orange neck. You rouse them and he half awakes; a long paw goes up to draw down the kitten’s face to his own; and his rosy tongue comes out and licks her from nose to forehead, then he subsides again into slumber, and her eyes beam out blissful and honoured with the somewhat uncomfortable attention.

Or the little cat has been turned out of the dining-room because of her unceasing demands, and looks in forlornly through the window. Sandy awakes, sees her, gets on the window sill and kisses her through the glass.

Both kittens are entirely fearless with Taffy. Sandy’s is a mere absence of fear, greatly due to sleep, and Taffy may wag a tail in his face, just as a friend may flap a handkerchief in it, and yet only induce a flutter of an eyelid. The little cat, on the other hand, is a friend of his, will rub against his paws, and force him to take an ashamed interest in her.

But these are surface tendernesses; the position is fundamentally untenable. A cat must either have beauty and breeding, or it must have a profession.

If it is well-bred it will take a hint; it cannot be disciplined, for a cat is a wild animal, but its very aptness to take offence will bring to it a certain self-control; if it is a working cat it has its own profession, which occupies it very closely, it has its proper sphere and its own apartments.

There is no help for it. Kindly but firmly the tabby kitten must be induced to return to the farm: kindly, for the mistake is ours. We turned its head, we set it among temptations which its nature could not meet, and we gave it no early discipline. Therefore it must be, like the Cornish nation, led and not driven back. At this age, to coerce is to terrify; and there is something truly heartrending in looking at the shrinking, furtive air that punishments produce, and thinking of the happy, courageous little beast who sharpened its claws for an attack on Taffy, and gave itself up to the human being in blissful confidence of kind dealing.

Sandy is more of an enigma. One could tell his possibilities better if he would wake up. As he sleeps he grows larger and larger, though few have seen him eat, and he never asks for food. When a teaspoonful of cream is offered him his nose has to be buried in it before he can be roused to drink. He never scratches, he is never angry; when his hazel eyes open he looks with kindness on the company and falls to sleep again. There is only one time in the day when one can be sure of seeing him awake, and that is at prayers. The presence of so many quiet people makes him feel it a good opportunity of amusing them by a little lively play with the bell-rope. If he is put out of the room he seeks an open door or window, and finds a chance of making a fine dramatic rush across the scene, accompanied by the stable cat. Prayers over, his vivacity subsides.

He has a name waiting for him when he wakes, for Sandy is to be glorified into Alexander. But what is the good of naming a cat who cannot hear you through his dreams?

Sometimes I see visions of the future for the two. The first vision is peaceful and prosaic: the tabby is instructing a rustic brood in the art of mouse-catching. She thinks no more of velvet armchairs, of porridge for breakfast and pheasant bones for lunch. Spruce and well-favoured, the very type of an English cat, guardian of the granary and terror of the mice, she licks her kittens’ faces and brings them up to an honest, industrial career.

But there is something nightmare-like in the other vision: Alexander grown to panther size suddenly waking from sleep; his coat is a tigerish orange, his tail like a magnified fox’s brush. What will he do? Is it torpor only that restrained the heavy paw from striking, and sleep that made the hazel eyes seem kindly? I find myself looking with a troubled wonder at Alexander as he fills the largest armchair. He is but eight months old—a kitten still.

Postscript.

Alas for Alexander of the pleasant hazel eyes; for he, too, has fallen a victim to the signors of the night. He was never known to poach, he never brought in a rabbit even, but it is spring, and pheasants are young, and keepers cruel.

So silently Alexander, too, has vanished away, and there is no redress.

VANITY OF VANITIES

“Kind hearts are more than coronets.”

I have no clue at all to what the real grievance of the peacock is, though his history, so far as one can piece together fragmentary records, contains all the materials of a tragedy.

Down in the orchard is a great cage made of galvanised wire; a high perch runs across it, and it stands in a sunny, sheltered corner, where it was prepared for the peacock and his hen. Now the galvanised wire is rusty and torn, the woodwork is broken, the cage is patched up now and again to seclude a nesting hen or scratching brood of chickens, or to give temporary lodging to a dainty pair of bantams, and a vegetable marrow ripens its striped gourds in the sunshine. But all alone the peacock, lame on one foot, limps through the farmyard, and haunts the pigeon tower on the hill; while tradition tells of a day when he alighted on the engine of a moving train, and rumour hints at dark deeds in the past, the scared and blighted life of pea-hen, and a holocaust of young pheasants.

Yet he seems harmless enough, this limping fellow, harmless but embittered. Sometimes evening after evening he will follow me to the fowl-yard and wait for his own portion, drumming out an odd hard note, like the tap of a wooden mallet. Again he disappears, and for days we do not see him. Sometimes he comes to be fed under the windows or at the kitchen door, and will take food even from our hands, but with the distrustful air of one over-persuaded by raisins and lemon-peel.

Sometimes he seems but a mean, faint-hearted creature, running from us with the doubly mincing motion of the lame foot and the horizontal tail, as each separate feather beats upon the air; and again he appears, as when I first saw him, posed for a Japanese picture, high in a flowering cherry with his train, bronze, emerald and indigo, flowing down out of fairy-like clusters of flowers.

But to a peacock “all the world’s a stage.” If he does but sit meditating at evening on the low garden wall, the flowers below, the dark shrub to the left, the hedgerow elms beyond, with the slope of a field against a primrose sky, all these at once become a fitting background to the crested head and trailing tail. As he stands so, the silhouetted outline shows curves strangely like those of some great cat. Just so Ra’s head erects itself; so slope his neck and back, and so the tail lies out in a free curve over the hind leg stretched back. Is there such a thing as a protective outline, and does the silly peacock owe his safety partly to this?

If his very pose is dramatic, much more so is his sudden entrance on the scene. All round the house in summer nights comes the whirring of the owls. Now there seems to be a heavy sleeper under one’s very window, now the sound purrs out from the walnut tree across the lawn, now from the bell tower or the ivy on the chimney stack.

So one night we went exploring in the moonlight. Shadows of elms flecked the road where the White Lady is said to ride on November nights. A fir tree stood up in dark masses; thick shadows lay on the grass under the walnut tree. Round the side of the farm buildings an unexpected pool flashed into whiteness; the imagination was on the stretch to see an old owl flap out from under the eaves, and shoot by with silent wing; when suddenly from overhead came a flutter and crash of branches, and a great creature swooped down and fled by with train streaming behind.

It is but seldom he can cause so much sensation; and for the most part he walks alone behind the hedge, peering through at the barn-door fowls, as an anxious exhibitor at a fair peers out from his van to count the sordid crowd collecting.

Photograph by S. A. McDowall

“For the most part he walks alone.”

Towards feeding time, when the fowls begin to gather, the peacock, if he can, pens a few hens into a corner by the woodshed and begins to posture before them, making a harmony of green and gold against the greening lichened wood behind. And the dance, Il Pavone[4], is a stately affair. He lifts the tail, separating each layer of feathers from the next; each feather of each layer from its neighbour, and the whole train flashes sapphire and emerald. Then with another sibilant shake, feather striking against feather, it is raised upright; the wings showing chocolate wing feathers are drooped almost to the ground, raised and drooped two or three times with a quick flutter, and he begins to turn, conscious that he has an audience behind as well as before. As he turns full face the beauty of outline of the eyeless feathers is made clear; one is apt to think when one finds them, that these are eyed-feathers spoilt; but now they are seen to fringe the entire tail, each ending like a shallow crescent with the horns outwards, so that, instead of the scalloped edging which the eyed patterns would give, these show a fine outline, airy and regular. So raised, too, the fringe up each feather is copper-coloured, the eyes stand out separately in long curved rows, the tail falls away from each side below him in convex curve, and it is here that the feathers with metallic green fringe grow, forming completely a shining curve away from the body. The tail is raised so high that the definite scales of the emerald feathers on the back flow into it; in the front view the wings are hidden. As a single note to a melody, so is the beauty of a peacock’s feather to the beauty of a peacock’s tail.

[4] It appears that the author is making a play on words. La Pavane was a slow processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century. Pavone is Italian for Peacock.—Transcriber.

Then he turns again towards the fowls, showing to us behind his drooping wings and the skeleton white rays of the feathers on the back. He curves this over his head until it looks like an umbrella turned inside out, and advances upon them with dainty steps; but the fowls dully preen their feathers and run away.

What we call the tail is only the tail covert, and the back view shows the real tail is of stiff feathers, arranged, when these are spread, in an inverted heart shape. Then comes a sudden noise like a loud sneeze, repeated again and again before one can see that it is caused by the sharp striking of the tail feathers against each other and the tail covert—and again he turns and paces.

He made a long solitary parade the other day on the grass, and finally crept through the hedge and into the poultry yard, where we followed him to discover that the whole elaborate proceeding had been carried on for the sake of one dull black hen, in a flurry about the egg she had left behind her.

He was waiting for these fowls the other day while, pending dinner, they had come to dig up a tulip bed. They were routed with ignominy and rushed home past him, indifferent to his presence; and as the pursuer turned he sent out after her an angry, discordant, mocking scream.

The bird is but a false prophet. He screams like a cheap trumpet out of tune when the dog barks, or children shout; and when all is still he fills the air with shrieks, till the superstitious tremble and the scientific say there will be rain to-morrow.

But the morrow rises with cloudless sky and fortunes, and the bird is again discredited. We impute his mistake to the fact that he revels in pessimism.

All of which shows the peacock seen sub specie humanitatis and brings us not a whit nearer to what he is thinking, or rather is not thinking, in the small emptiness of his coroneted head. After all, there is very little head, and the tale of a peacock is mainly the story of his tail.

TAFFY

“The flower of collie aristocracy,

Yet, from his traits, how absent that reserve,

That stillness on a base of power, which marks

In men and mastiffs the selectly sprung.”

I
HIS EDUCATION

Taffy has had an education as many sided as that of a Jesuit. If he was to be sent for at once to Windsor Castle we should not have a qualm about his behaviour, unless, indeed, he should fall, like Guy Heavystone, into “the old reckless mood,” in which case he would loaf about the Royal stables when he should be in attendance on the Sovereign.

Taffy entered on the scene as an absurd speckled puppy of three months old. His hair was like tow, and of so strange a hue that when we presented only his back to a stranger he was rarely guessed to be a dog. Some said a rabbit and some a cat; some suggested a lemur, as no one knew what that was like; and some darkly hinted that we were harbouring a young hyæna.

Taffy was brought up in the stables, and early exhibited a lively intelligence. In the gates of the stable-yard there was a little door which opened with a push from the outside. With a spring and a scramble Taffy could get over the gates and would push the little door open for a less agile companion.

With this intelligence Taffy developed an unpleasant temper. “Strange fits of passion” has he known. The first time he saw a bicycle it was being ridden by a harmless little boy. Without hesitation, Taffy knocked down the bicycle and bit the bicyclist.

We all know that intelligence is developed by education, and character controlled by discipline, so Taffy was sent for schooling to a shepherd and coupled with an old, discreet dog. And with regard to this a pleasanter side of his character came to the fore. He had no vulgar pride; for if in later days when he was running with his own horse and carriage he met his monitor, he greeted him with genuine pleasure and respect, and without a touch of patronage. Taffy is a prig, but he is not a snob.

He came home from school, having laid the foundation of his education and learnt to keep his temper. A certain superstructure of cultivation was built upon this, and having (probably) known the pains of the stick, he was now initiated into its pleasures. He learnt to fetch and carry, and retrieve; and such enthusiasm did he show that he began to break branches off trees and uproot tender saplings in the shrubberies.

The next great landmark of Taffy’s life was a round of visits. In strict accuracy the round consisted of two visits, and the first visit lasted for eight months; but this acted as a finishing school for Taffy’s manners and the turning point of his career. For in this first visit he was taken into the house, and took part in family life. It was a real, independent visit, and Taffy was practically alone, for although Matilda was staying in the same house she was in the kitchen, and could not from the height of her gentility keep a watchful eye on him.

Taffy was so frank and free, so anxious to please and to be pleased, that he was beloved from attic to basement. There was a little boy of his own age for him to play with, and the friends he stayed with knew well how to make a dog feel at home. Indeed, it must be confessed that he still awakes a certain jealousy in the bosoms of his own family by the ear-piercing welcome with which he greets these friends. He still considers their house a preserve of his own; when he went there subsequently with his mistress he gave her a cordial welcome at the front door, and there was something blatant in the way he showed himself at home. He considered it all too literally as a preserve of his own; for, though he was never pressed to join a shooting party, he brought back his bag.

At the next house Taffy rejoined his family, who were proud and pleased to mark the improvement in his manners and deportment. He had fine social qualities, for finding a Dandie Dinmont in jealous possession, he endeavoured to make friends by helping him to the afternoon tea, which had been left on the lawn. Dandie was not tall enough to reach the table, so Taffy handed down a few jam sandwiches on to the grass. This pleasant little incident did not hinder Taffy from knocking down the terrier when he grew quarrelsome, but, having done so, he stood four-square above him, and smiled over the grizzled head snapping helplessly between his feet.

II
HIS COMING-OUT

In the words of the felicitous marriage ode, we may say that for Taffy—

“Youth’s romance was done and over,

Hail the dawn of serious life!”

But we know that education can never truly be considered as finished, and that when a young lady dismisses her governess she must devote half an hour in the morning to reading Motley’s “Dutch Republics,” and Mrs. Jamieson’s “Italian Painters.” Even so when we settled down at last it was unanimously agreed that Taffy must not be allowed to consider his education complete, but must come in every evening to share dessert and enjoy the cultivation of his mind.

Photograph by S. A. McDowall

“Taffy.”

As Taffy has “come out,” it is time surely to attempt something of a personal description. He may be described as distinguished in the true sense of the word, for England and Wales have combined to produce a somewhat remarkable blend of colour; luckily they have not quarrelled about the eyes, which are both of the same pleasant brown. His grey, curly back is blotched with black, his legs, cheeks, and eyebrows are a yellow tan. But however opinion may differ about this hyæna-like colouring, all collie lovers would be agreed in admiring his excellent figure, his lithe, agile action, and his well-bred, intelligent head. His family swell with pride as they hear passing remarks on his appearance in the street; they were, in fact, a little disturbed by the glances cast at the rear of their party until they realised that in all the district there was no dog the least like Taffy.

But Taffy is taught to preserve a modest demeanour; he is well snubbed if in excitement over a piece of paper he postures too much, like a dog in a chromo-lithograph—crouching forepaws, a plumy tail wagging, ears raised, and mouth open to show a healthy crimson tongue.

Although Taffy had come out, a strict eye had to be kept on his manners for a time. It was all very well to object to the dustman entering at the garden door. I do not altogether wonder at his entertaining such suspicions of an honest mechanic, who was mending the bells, that he had to be provided with an escort across the garden; it was perhaps even pardonable to give “what for” to a guest who had peevishly declared that he hated dogs. But it was not right to bite our landlord, nor to growl at a perfectly amiable visitor at afternoon tea; it was not fair to smell people’s boots merely because they were timid, nor proper to close his teeth on the leg of my brother’s best friend simply because he had not seen him before. A dog should not growl at housemaids because they want to sweep under the mat he is sitting on, nor should he take offence at being asked to leave the room while furniture is arranged.

But all these things are long past, and it is not well to recall them. Let us only remember that Taffy was always pleasant to ladies, and that if he had to receive a caller he often thought of bringing a pebble from the garden, or a lump of coal from the scuttle to amuse her while she waited. Guests who were staying in the house he would keep happy for hours together by letting them throw sticks for him.

There are a few blacker shadows in Taffy’s life, and it will not do to blink them.

It was only the natural, impulsive haste of youth which made him jump through the cucumber frame in pursuit of the sandy cat; but it was a more deliberate indiscretion, a more sinister motive, that moved him to jump in through the garden-room window when he thought no one was indoors.

The old cat had meals served in her own apartment, opening out of the garden-room. This apartment, in which she also slept, was in appearance like a large cupboard, with an easy latch. The garden-room windows were open all the day, and it was not infrequently observed that the cat’s plate was polished as by a large wet tongue. Taffy was more than once caught springing lightly into the room; he assumed a surprised and guilty expression if he found any one there, and hastily withdrew. He was also marked from time to time coming down the passage with the same air of secret satisfaction, mingled with slight apprehension, as on the day when he stole the coachman’s beefsteak. So far we could only register suspicious circumstances.

But one evening at lesson time he was missing. We called him all over the house, and heard no strangled whine or scratching paw. At last I went to the cat’s cupboard, where a thrilling silence seemed to weigh upon the air. I turned the handle, and, as if shot from a gun, cat and dog burst out together. Oh, the tension of those hours since they had got shut up, and the miracle by which they had both kept their heads! No doubt Taffy, curling through the door with a sinuous, guilty motion, had pulled it after him, and the easy latch had shut, and there they were together, with nerves strained and tense. Taffy, however, to do him justice, had kept cool enough to clean the plate.

Let us turn to a lighter, brighter side.

Taffy, as I said, had no vulgar pride, but he had to be taught the subtleties of social relations. If he had had a truer instinct on this point he would have saved us from the indignity of seeing him prefer to follow an empty cab with which he was acquainted, to continuing his walk in our company. But he soon learnt discrimination; and though he was very fond of the cab itself, and attached to both horse and driver, he found it better to preserve a certain standard in these matters. Thus with all those whom he did not suspect of base ulterior motives Taffy soon became a mighty favourite. He was known and welcomed on the golf links, at least until his presence became, with his growing ease of manner, a slight embarrassment; he was known in the school, and hailed Sunday with delight, when “Winchester men” came to lunch in order to throw sticks for him and give him catalogues to tear up. He was known in the street, where he would wait outside shops if he were particularly asked to do so; if he was not informed of our intention, he either entered the shop rather rudely or went home. Once he came into the Cathedral, and was so terrified by the vast spaces, the gloom, and the silence, that when his agitated mistress rose from her seat to expel him he fled abruptly to the door and never again entered. For the future he lounged about the Close when we went in, and congratulated us when we emerged from the mysterious, gloomy emptiness.

Once a policeman had to ring his own front-door bell for him; we, cheerfully lunching inside, had not missed him, and did not understand at first why he came in in such a wild bustle of self-importance, crying out, in a high voice, apology and congratulation. He was like a little boy who felt that he had had quite an adventure. It may have been the ready comprehension of this man which gave Taffy so strong an affection for the force. I had to wait at the gaol once when he managed, by repeated blandishments, to scrape acquaintance with the constable on duty. Out of the corner of an eye I watched him laying small offerings of pebbles and sticks at the policeman’s feet. As these could not tempt, he sought out a small battered tin toy, which the policeman solemnly picked up and laid aside. Finally Taffy rummaged in the bushes and returned triumphant, bearing an offering that could not fail to please—a tramp’s boot. The man was utterly melted, and with a furtive foot jerked pebbles out of the gravel for the dog to fetch.

The progress of Taffy’s lessons was beset with few drawbacks. He learnt the English “Shake-hand” in one lesson, and will give the other paw, or both together, when required. No dog likes to be asked to die for any cause whatever, but Taffy consented to do it, with a sidelong eye and much protest. He jumped with only too much vigour, and was seized with wild desire to lick one’s face in passing. He liked to shut the door and sit in a chair, but his energetic performance scratched them both so much that he had to stop. He could hold a piece of ginger-bread in his mouth till he was assured it was paid for, when he swallowed it whole, with a deep sigh and snore. But his supreme performance, requiring an exhausting amount of concentration, is to distinguish between played for and prayed for and paved for and paid for. It is at this last only that he eats it, but paved for makes him turn his head until he distinguishes the “v.” No change of tone affects this; trust may be whispered, paid for threatened. It requires merely an undivided attention and an unprejudiced mind. If he makes up his mind that paid for is coming fourth in the list he stares with stupid eyes at the sound of it; or he eats it gaily at prayed for if he is not attending. If people laugh he thinks it funny to eat it at “parochial” or “pantechnicon.” But if he looks at the ground, so as not to catch the eye of light-minded friends; if he turns away his head so as not to be disturbed by the delights of ginger-bread, and if he listens very attentively, he can think.

This is the great value of tricks to the dog, as of mathematics to the man. And Taffy does think; he pauses at an emergency and carries out a plan, simple no doubt, but sufficiently intelligent.

Taffy had a stick too long for convenient throwing, tough and hard. His companion tried to break it, putting her foot upon it and bending it up. When she was tired Taffy pounced upon it, put his paw on it in the same manner, and bent it likewise. Thus they took turns at it till the stick broke. Another long stick was thrown across a gate; he tried to go through the gate holding the stick horizontally, but the bars prevented it; so he took it by one end and dragged it through.

He was accustomed to drop on the ground sticks that were to be thrown for him; but finding that a bicyclist could not reach them, held them of his own accord high up, so that they could be taken from him.

Once in swimming across a stream he was carried down some way by the current before he could land on the opposite bank. He was called back but was afraid to attempt recrossing, and after a pause for thought darted away and crossed a bridge quite out of sight, which his companion had forgotten. Once we had been rolling a ball for him in the conservatory, and it lodged under the plant stands where the tiers were too low to let him through. After trying unsuccessfully to get it he lay down, but when every one else had forgotten the matter, got up quietly and going to a place where the tiers were broken away, walked round under them until he could reach the ball. It is amusing to watch his triumph at having discovered a short cut, hidden from sight, across a loop of road; or his pride in carrying out such a simple stratagem as the following: In the town there lived a gang of five dogs, against whom, of course, no single dog had any chance. We met them while we were driving one day. Taffy saw them first, and, knowing them of old, paused a moment to think. Then he turned and ran, apparently homewards, all five dogs in full cry after him. But it was a gate a little way behind he was making for; he crossed it first and headed off across a field at right angles to the road; he was the fastest runner, and the dogs panted and fell back. When one terrier only remained he turned again, made a long line to catch us up, squeezing through a gap which it would have been madness to attempt with the pack behind him, and rejoined us with cocked tail, looking for applause.

It is this quick intelligence of Taffy’s which renders daily intercourse so easy and so pleasant. If he knows you drive daily, the sound of the front door bell at the accustomed time will bring him to the door, to lie gently whining till it is opened. If you have no habit of driving, but tell him the carriage is there, he rushes off to find it; or you explain to him that it is coming after a time, and he haunts you till the promise is fulfilled. You tell him that he cannot come to church, and he remains behind with downcast, puzzled face; or you tell him to fetch his hat for a walk (the term has quite reconciled him to his muzzle), and he runs to bring it. It is true that if the muzzle is not in place he may bring any small handy object instead—some one else’s hat, the clothes brush, a Bible, or a hand bag, for he seems to regard the action as symbolic. If you feel dull, Taffy will turn out the waste-paper basket and find you a crumpled envelope; if you are inclined for affection he overwhelms you with demonstration.

In almost every mood or occupation Taffy is delighted to bear you company. There are only two things he cannot stand—one is golf and one is gardening.

III
AN ATTACK OF CYNICISM

Now we took Taffy away from his club life, his beloved cabs, his large circle of friends who threw sticks and catalogues on Sunday, his large circle of enemies with whom he exchanged stimulating defiances in the streets; and we buried him in the country.

He enjoyed the journey, because he knows so well how to behave in the train; he keeps an eye fixed on his mistress, and stays in the carriage or gets out as he is told; he is open to blandishments from respectable strangers, and will lie obligingly on their dresses or rest his head on a knee; he keeps close to one’s side on the platform, and gets into a cab as obediently as a child. He liked the new house, too, for the front door was always open, and he needed no kind policeman to ring the bell.

Thus it was a few days before he began to realise the disadvantages. His family was arranging the house, and when he lay genially in the middle of a room he was instantly asked to move. He took offence and went away by himself, but no one had time to call him and rally him on his bad temper. Then he found there were few dogs in the benighted place, and three despicable cats.

But worst of all, an inexplicable change came over the habits of his family; they did not go for drives, and comparatively seldom for walks; but they did foolish things in the garden with rakes, and they fed idiotic hens. They would not even allow him to go into the hen-house to see what was talking so loud inside; worst of all, they played croquet, and his greatest friend putted in the garden.

Taffy loathed the sight of a hoe, of a rake, of a mallet, and of a golf club.

He allowed no ambiguity about the situation; if he saw any one begin to play croquet he turned his back on them and lay down; he refused to go out with a golf club; and if his mistress took the turn towards the poultry yard he went back to the house and lay with a sickened expression outside the front door.

A bored expression began to be characteristic of Taffy. He lay sulkily in front of the house, accompanying for a few steps every one who went out, and turning back as they went straight to some detested occupation.

He got up a fine quarrel with the milkman’s dog, but this had only the effect of curtailing his walk, for when two parasols had been fruitlessly broken over the backs of the combatants after morning church, every one felt a little shy of taking him where he might meet the milkman’s dog.

The cats were a fresh insult. Two of them were kittens, and not in the least afraid of Taffy, and it seemed to amuse his family to see them rout him; to ask him to look at them, which he could not do for fear of catching their eye; to ask him to kiss them, which he would have scorned to do even if their claws had been less sharp and their tempers more serene.

With these new occupations Taffy’s lessons ran risk of being forgotten, so he did not come to the dining-room for dessert. Demonstrations of affection lessened, and Taffy restrained his own outpourings of emotion; in fact he was in danger of becoming a reckless loafer of a dog.

When his family suddenly woke up to the existence of these tendencies in him they tried to mend matters. They paid more attention to his feelings and poured out upon him expressions of affection. Taffy responded with fervour; lessons were begun again, and Taffy presented himself nightly at the dining-room door, singing in a loud, excited tone, greeting the family as if they were a circle of long-lost friends, jerking his head under each arm so as to make it fall round his neck. His best friend took Taffy to sleep in his room, which made Taffy very happy, and he slept nine hours every night and snored most of the time. When the room was unoccupied he slept on the bed and did his best to make it comfortable.

Then a delightful event took the sting from the glorious memory of cabs. Two horses came to the stable, and Taffy could again run down to meet the carriage and place himself underneath, so close to the heels of the horse that he ran considerable risk of having his brains kicked out. There were even advantages in the new arrangement: carriages seemed to go faster than cabs, and there was a stall for him to lounge about. No longer need he repair when he was muddy to a dreary hole, peopled with empty bottles, but to a stall full of crackling straw, to refresh himself by a little horsey society after the insults of the kittens.

And with this change and refreshment of spirits he found himself able to take an interest even in the little tabby cat; he has been seen to lick her face and smell her in a patronising manner. These blandishments generally take place in the garden, and he is embarrassed if they are noticed.

Finally, Taffy resolved to take his part in these restored relations and to try to sympathise with our pursuits. He joined us in a genial frame of mind when we were hoeing a garden path. Every time a weed came up Taffy smelt the place, until his nose was covered with gravel. Finally, when he saw he had grasped the idea of the thing he dug a nice large hole in the middle of the path. So we praised him very much for his kindness and intelligence.

There is no romance about Taffy, and no mystery; we know exactly what he is feeling, and his very secrets are above board. If he has been naughty, guilt is written on his countenance; if he is bored by us, he expresses it as clearly; if he has done well, he goes round the circle to collect applause. He lives his life in the full light of day—there are no “silent silver lights and darks undreamed of” about Taffy.

Of course he has his nerves like the rest of us: after a display of affection he seeks a relief from the strain of emotion and repairs quickly to the waste-paper basket; if he is ill it is death to pity him. He becomes unable to raise his head from the ground, unable to swallow; a profound woe is on his face. The wholesome tonic of a few tricks, cheerful conversation, and a little bustle is necessary to restore him. He is now beginning to listen to conversation even when it is not addressed to himself, but he prefers it to have a healthy, objective tone. Talk about good dogs and bad dogs will bring him, self-complacent or apologetic, to your side; but conversation about walks, about carriages and horses he finds far more stimulating. For he is a martyr to self-consciousness; if one tries to draw him he falls helplessly on one side, or moves uneasily, and finally reclines with his head under the sofa. His photographs, too, are apt to wear a deprecating, uneasy expression.

Such is Taffy, intelligent, responsive, lovable, ready to impart his joys and sorrows, thoroughly companionable, entering indeed far more into one’s life than is possible for any other kind of animal.

But with all this he is essentially dependent; he is but part of the Red King’s dream, and has no thread of existence which is not rooted and twined with human lives; his independent actions are isolated, and the memory of them makes him ashamed and guilty. It is well said that there is no forlorner thing than an ownerless dog; and no unwilling prisoner could love his freedom with such wholeness of spirit as Taffy loves his servitude.

THE ADOPTED FAMILY

“God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear,

To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.”

It was quite natural for the peacock to adopt us, for he had been left to his own resources at the farm; and he preferred bread and cake and poultry food to the pickings of the farmyard. He would come quite close for the bread or the Indian corn, but he would take cake from the hand, thus giving an exact estimate of the value of risk. He paid for these little attentions with his own tail, which he deposited in the course of three days close to the poultry yard.

It was very natural too that the farm kitten should adopt us, her reason being partly real sociable qualities and partly greed and luxury. She liked our company and our cat’s company; she also liked our armchairs and our cat’s meals.

But the adoption by the robins was on altogether a grander scale. They sacrificed family affection and personal safety for the honour and pleasure of domesticating a family of human beings.

We are apt to think of ourselves as occupying this unique position in creation that we alone have the power and inclination to annex other races of creatures for supplies, for service, and for pleasure. If this egotism is at all a matter of congratulation, at any rate we flatter ourselves falsely. The ant keeps its dairy establishment and its staff of domestic servants, or, as we invidiously choose to call them, its slaves. Pumas seem to show a distinct tendency to make pets of human beings, and I strongly suspect that cats take up the same position. We think we have domesticated the cat. What if the cat thinks it has tamed us? It induces us to give it board and lodging, and it surely thinks we look up to it with admiration and affection—as we do.

But, above all, robins have a perfect passion for taming mankind.

As far as we know, robins may have tried to tame other creatures. They may have paid court to cows and horses, but found that they could not catch the eye of a cart-horse, or arrest the attention of the bull. After repeated disappointments (like our own with the zebra) they may have learnt that the only animal really capable of domestication is man.

The decision of the point whether we were taming the robins or they us rests upon this: which side made the first advances.

There was no real question here—the robins began it all.

The robins had been brought up in the ivy of the garden wall. We had played croquet close to them, and gardened beneath them all the summer. They had escaped being raided by the prowling Persian or the orange Angora. Towards the end of the summer the great door into the hall stood open all day, and we used to pull chairs outside into the strip of shade. Then the robins began to take notice of us.

By this time they had grown up and pegged out their own “claims.” The baby robin, who had not yet changed his waistcoat, lived in the ivy and sat upon the left gate-post.

As we camped opposite in basket chairs he drew nearer, hoop by hoop, across the croquet ground. At last he hopped upon the back of the chair I sat in.

Then we thought it time to return his call, which was most effectively done by the distribution of breadcrumbs.

This caused immediately the descent of the second robin, who lived in a holly tree on the right hand of the door; and at once the feud began. While the baby robin’s disinterested attachment had been tolerated, no sooner did he begin to reap a reward than his father swooped on him. We gathered that it was the father, for he was full-fledged, an older bird, neat and smart.

There were altogether four of these robins, and as they adopted the Benson family, what is more natural than to call them by Mrs. Trimmer’s beloved names of Robin, Dicksy, Pecksy, and Flapsy. I am convinced that the baby resembled Dicksy; the smart formidable father shall be called Robin; Pecksy and Flapsy have still to emerge.

Now as Dicksy skimmed across the lawn, halted nervously, and advanced to pick up a breadcrumb, like a bolt from the blue Robin fell upon him from the holly tree. Dicksy fled back to shelter, but was received by Pecksy, who, emerging from the arbutus bush, chased him back with a few hard pecks. Pecksy also was half-fledged, and had a queer tuft of light feathers on her head. Although she lived in the arbutus bush, the right-hand gate-post was her watch-tower.

Now since Dicksy had been our first and earliest friend, and could alone be held disinterested, we threw crumbs after him; on these Robin and Pecksy descended; and a crumb happening to fall considerably to the left, out of the left-hand wall came shyly a fourth robin—evidently Flapsy.

The next day witnessed a gourd-like growth of intimacy with Robin. He was always in the near holly tree; he descended for crumbs and came nearer boldly; he even followed us into the house.

But meanwhile Dicksy’s life was being made a burden to him. He alone was not allowed to approach us. Pecksy drew nearer, half across the lawn; Flapsy settled on the croquet stump and took short flights towards us for crumbs; none interfered with Robin, but Dicksy’s appearance was like the trumpet for battle; each habitat became forthwith an ambush.

Dicksy reconnoitred on the left-hand gate-post—not a robin in sight. He ventured half across the lawn and not a wing stirred. He drew nearer to the tempting crumb, now he was close, and at that moment Robin swooped upon him. Dicksy swerved to the left trying to escape, and Flapsy received him with open beak; he headed off to the right and Pecksy flew out from her arbutus bush. Finally, he was driven back to cover under ivy leaves with an empty stomach and an unsatisfied heart.

Dicksy must somehow have offended against all codes and conventions of robins, but in what way we grosser mortals cannot conceive.

Later as the winter came on, when Robin came round to the lilac bush at the dining-room window, when he and Flapsy came in to inspect the tables before and after meals, when he entered the bedroom above to inquire after a late riser, and partook of light refreshment, Dicksy still seemed disconsolately to haunt his gate-post.

But now with the coming of spring, and all the new fashions, one cannot be sure of any one’s identity. Dicksy, I know, was changing his sombre waistcoat for scarlet; so I can but hope it may be he who is uttering the quaint little crack of a voice to announce his presence in the next room.

But I tremble for the prospects of next summer if we are going to prove so attractive a family. If Robin and Flapsy nest again in the ivied wall; if Dicksy brings a mate to the left hand gate-post; and Pecksy sets up an establishment in the arbutus bush, the war of the worlds will be nothing to the war of the robins.

And at this moment we have undergone a new adoption, for a milk white jackdaw without a tail flew into the garden yesterday, and the household was scattered, uttering endearments, among the cabbages, and scraps of raw meat adorned the lawn. Towards evening he was persuaded to enter the kitchen. Matilda was asked to lend her cage for a time, but when she saw a new centre of attraction she burst into screams so terrific that every one who was not already occupied in housing the jackdaw ran into the kitchen to see who was being murdered. So they provided temporary accommodation for Jack under a basket chair.