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.ca GOLDEN EAGLE [Photo by C. Reid]
.pb
.nf c
THE HEART OF THE WILD
NATURE STUDIES FROM NEAR AND FAR
BY
S. L. BENSUSAN
AUTHOR OF “A COUNTRYSIDE CHRONICLE,” “WILD LIFE STORIES,”
“MOROCCO,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH
ACTUAL WILD LIFE PHOTOGRAPHS
LONDON: JOHN MILNE
1908
.nf-
.pb
.pn v
.ce
PREFACE
.nf c
To Sir Robert Hay Drummond-Hay, C.M.G.,
etc., etc.
.nf-
Dear Sir Robert,
I have but one regret in offering to you
and to some small section of lovers of wild life
this bundle of stories, a regret that for the most
part they end with the violent death of the
bird or beast whose life-story is set out. One
of my friendliest and most charming critics,
whom I would not willingly hurt or offend,
told me lately that she will read no more
of my stories of bird and beast unless I
promise to make them end happily. I quoted
Omar the Tentmaker in extenuation, and
pointed out that if we could shatter the sorry
.pn +1
scheme of things and remould it “nearer to
the hearts desire” the lion and the lamb
would lie down side by side and the big game
shooter would confine his skill to the target.
Then I added that for the time being the
battle is to the strong, and the explosive bullet
and the hammerless ejector are to the sportsman,
but from the depth of a twelve year
knowledge of the world and a deep love of the
life that is entrusted to our care, she turned
away declaring in great distress that I am
“very horrid”. Certainly I was greatly
abashed, even though I could not wish her
to read this book.
You, no unworthy son of one who was a
mighty hunter before the Lord, know that
these stories are true in substance if not in
form, and that such cruelty as is set out
in its proper place is of the kind that man
has dealt in some way or another to the
brute creation since the dim far-off days
when first he learned to fashion hatchet and
.pn +1
spear and knife. His excuse has passed, but
the old-time savagery lingers. I have done
no more than set down what I have seen,
though I have gifted bird and beast with an
intelligence they are not allowed to possess.
You at least will grant that there is some
foundation for my lapse from the grace in
which serious naturalists thrive even to the
second and third edition of volumes that
become works of reference to those who refuse
to admit imagination to their councils. You
have seen much of the strange camaraderie
that exists in the African forest and on the
heather-clad hills of your native land, and you
know that the philosophy of the orthodox
professor has not yet fashioned even in dreams
all the wonders of life in the heavens above
and on the earth beneath and in the waters
under the earth. I am presumptuous enough
to think that those of us who have camped
out under the canopy of the stars in the
world’s waste places, and have followed the
.pn +1
track for days and nights together, not
without privation, have caught glimpses of
an order and union in the wild life around
us that will some day be recognised and
investigated by those who speak and write
with more authority than I have even the
ambition to command. I must even confess,
with all due humility, that I am beyond the
reach of rebuke for my attitude towards bird
and beast so long as it does not come from
those, like yourself, whose experience of the
fauna and avi-fauna of North Africa, Southern
Europe and the Scottish Highlands is greater
than my own.
.rj
S. L. BENSUSAN.
.nf l
Great Easton,
Dunmow,
October, 1908.
.nf-
.pb
.ce
CONTENTS
.nf b
#The Golden Eagle:stA#
#The Badger:stB#
#The Camel:stC#
#The Red Grouse:stD#
#The Roebuck:stE#
#The Water-Rat:stF#
#The Flamingo:stG#
#Hob, the Ferret:stH#
#The Fighting Bull:stI#
#The Cuckoo:stJ#
#The Seal:stK#
#The Giraffe:stL#
#The White Stork:stM#
#The Wild Boar:stN#
#The Story of a Slave:stO#
.nf-
.pb
.ce
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
.nf b
#Golden Eagle:ilA#
#Badger:ilB#
#Red Grouse:ilC#
#Water-Rat:ilD#
#Ferret:ilE#
#Young Cuckoo:ilF#
#A Two Days’ Old Cuckoo Ejecting a Young Titlark from its Nest:ilG#
#Wild Boar:ilH#
.nf-
.pb
.pn 1
.pi
.h1 nobreak
THE HEART OF THE WILD
.sp 4
.h2 id=stA nobreak
THE GOLDEN EAGLE
.sp 2
It is not easy to explain how the Red Fox and the
Golden Eagle came to be friends. Perhaps there
were hours in the months of his extreme loneliness
when the great bird was pleased to unbend, and the
fox was the only living creature that was neither to be
eaten nor feared. Then they were near neighbours.
From the rocky ledge upon which the eagle’s eyrie
was set you could throw a stone to the fox earth.
The Golden Eagle, king of the air and monarch of
all the wild life he surveyed, could well afford to
feel generously disposed to the fox in this wild highland
country, for poor Reynard by no means cut the
gallant figure of his brethren in Leicestershire and
other homes of grass land. He went dejected and
lived poorly, liable to be shot on sight, no more than
vermin in the eyes of gamekeepers and foresters.
It was early morning, from his vantage-ground
.pn +1
the King of the Air surveyed his splendid hunting
grounds. All round as far as the eye could see there
were hills, the heather that covered their lower sides
glowed faintly in the morning light. The air had
a nipping freshness that dwellers in town cannot
imagine. Even the fox appreciated it, though he
had been on the prowl all night. He was preparing
to sleep, and only kept one eye open to watch his
patron.
The golden eagle stood erect, his keen eyes piercing
the distance from Ben Hope to Ben Hiel and south to
the valleys that ended with Ben Loyal. It was his
territory, bird and beast paid him tribute over all the
land his far-seeing eye could reach, even to the distant
sea. Then the joy of morning and of power
came to him. He flapped his wings and screamed,
the sound of his triumph echoed among the hills.
“Good-morning, my lord,” said the fox obsequiously.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” replied the eagle with good-natured
contempt. “Don’t you wish you could fly
on a morning like this?” Once again he flapped
his wings that must have measured six feet from tip
to tip, and the rising light caught the orange-coloured
feathers that lay sharp and pointed along his neck,
.pn +1
gilded the yellow cere at the base of bill, and set
the gold iris of his deep-set eyes aflame. Even the
fox found his fear mingled with admiration when he
looked from the black claws to the bill that was
straight at base and hooked at the point, a weapon
that could tear life out of any wild thing that lived
in the Highlands.
In the sun the deep brown feathers of the eagle’s
body were turned to purple, the muscles stood out
like whipcord on the yellow legs feathered to the
toes. Those talons, nearly three inches long, could
catch and kill any game bird in the Highlands, from
the capercailzie that lives among the dark woods
upon the shoots of the larch and pine, down to the
ptarmigan of the barren hill-tops, or his red cousin
of the heather and ling.
“It is so fine that I must enjoy the view before I
start,” continued the eagle. “I suppose you supped
late?”
“Yes, my lord,” replied the fox nervously, “I
found a couple of dead——”
“Faugh!” interrupted the eagle in great disgust.
“Carrion: I can’t enjoy anything that I haven’t
struck down for myself. Sometimes, when the snow
is on the ground, and I have flown some hundreds
.pn +1
of miles in search of a dinner, I may have to content
myself with a stillborn lamb, or even with frozen
birds, but I couldn’t make a rule of it, or ever thrive
on such fare.”
“Do you fly for hundreds of miles literally and
truly?” asked the astonished fox. “Why, if I go
over ten miles of ground, in the spring for example,
I expect my vixen to say quite a number of flattering
things; and in the winter, when I’m living
solitary, I would never think of going so far as that
unless I were starving.”
“My speed is about one hundred miles an hour,”
said the eagle solemnly, “and I can increase it for
a short distance. And now I’ll bid you good-morning.”
He gave another wild exultant cry and
flung himself into space. Before the fox could open
the other eye, the bird was a speck of brown without
definite shape, rapidly disappearing.
“Well, well,” soliloquised the fox, “if I can’t fly, I
don’t have to travel hundreds of miles to find a
meal.” So saying, he retired to his earth.
But the Golden Eagle had not far to fly on this
occasion. For the first few moments he soared
higher and higher, rejoicing in the vast spaces of
the sky, in the illimitable freedom of life, in the
.pn +1
caress of the morning. Only when the ecstasy had
passed did he look below, far below, where men and
beasts live cribbed, cabined and confined to the surface
of mother earth. Below the hill-tops, where
the ptarmigan in their winter garb were invisible
even to his keen eyes amid the surrounding snow,
past long ranges of moor where fur and feather lay
low amid the heather in an agony of apprehension,
he saw a great blackcock sunning himself on a rock
by the side of a plantation of Scotch firs. The guns
had all gone south, the artful bird had baffled them
time and again, though some of his brothers, and his
sister the grey hen, had gone to bag. Now, careless
of danger, the bronze-plumaged bird sat sunning
himself in the sunlight, spreading his handsome
white tail feathers and thinking of the days that
were not far away when he would do battle with his
brethren for the grey hens. Around him fur and
feather crouched low and shut eyes; little birds that
had come down from the high lying moors checked
their song, a shadow seemed to drop across the
wintry sun. Too late the blackcock looked up, saw
his terrible enemy literally dropping upon him, saw
the huge wings and the tail feathers open like a fan
to break the impending fall, was conscious of a
.pn +1
sudden blow—and knew no more. In a moment the
Golden Eagle’s talons had pierced the blackcock to
the heart, and all that remained on the rock was a
handful of bronze feathers, as the captor rose with a
shrill cry of triumph. He made straight for a bare
rock some mile or more away, and then with one foot
upon the dead bird he plucked it rapidly with
his beak, scattering the feathers on all sides. This
done, he tore the skin open and feasted ravenously
on the still warm flesh.
His meal over, he preened himself, and with sudden
movement rose from the rock and resumed his
flight, still hungry. This time he went in the direction
of the moorland, and instead of floating over
it at a great height travelled low, as though he had
been an owl. The place was solitary at all times,
undrained and seldom shot, and he knew it for a
place where white hares might be found. Nor was he
disappointed, for he started one unfortunate puss, and
laughing at her feverish attempts to escape, dropped
heavily upon her. In that moment the poor hare
screamed and died. The terrible talons had gone
right through her lungs, and at the same instant the
curved beak delivered a stunning blow upon her head.
Looking hastily round, the eagle saw a piece of high
.pn +1
flat ground by the side of a wood, and rose in flight
towards it, carrying his prey in his talons without
any apparent effort. But as he lifted it, and before
he had put the dead hare in the best position for his
attack, two ravens came suddenly from a neighbouring
corrie and flew screaming towards him, calling
him all manner of insulting names for daring to
poach on their preserves. Without waiting to argue
with them, he gripped the hare again and flew away,
followed for a long distance by the black, angry
birds, whose language will not bear repetition.
Finally they tired of pursuit, or perhaps remembered
that he might lose command of his temper and turn
upon them. But to do that with any effect he must
have dropped the hare, and they knew well enough
that he would be by no means anxious to do that.
So they abused him until they were tired, and then
returned to their corrie, feeling certain that their reputation
would be enhanced by what had taken place.
Then the Golden Eagle sought another rock, and
devoured the hare at his leisure—very angrily withal,
for he hated being made ridiculous by contemptible
eaters of carrion like ravens. But the rich repast
comforted him, and when he left the rock and
ascended high in air, it was to seek a river or loch.
.pn +1
That was soon found, and he dropped slowly by its
edge, with more grace and less force than he had
used when falling upon the blackcock. His wings
and tail were spread sooner than before, and he came
to anchor as a fine sailing yacht might come to rest
with all her canvas fluttering down. By the edge of
the loch he washed with great care, removing the
bloodstains from talons, beak and cere, but he did
not drink. Thirst seldom troubled him.
His hunger satiated at last, and there being no
little ones to provide for, the Golden Eagle rose
high, and sailed in leisurely fashion for miles, keeping
a watchful eye on the earth, where he saw fear-stricken
birds and beasts seeking what shelter the land
afforded. But he was not hungry enough to take
anything that offered, and preferred to wait until
some dainty morsel was put directly in his way.
And it happened that a red grouse, hit in the wing
during the last drive of the season, was to be seen
fluttering vainly over the moorland, and the eagle
fell on this unfortunate, bringing the gift of instant
death. Perhaps he was unintentionally kind.
Not being hungry, he was content to eat the dainty
parts that pleased him best, and leave the rest for
fox or stoat, or any vermin that might come along.
.pn +1
Once again he washed with scrupulous care, and
then, rising high, turned in the direction of home.
He was many miles away, but before the widespread
sweep of his wings miles disappeared, and the thirty
or forty that he had covered took less than half an
hour to race through. With his familiar scream of
triumph he lighted on his home rock, surveyed the
world, and knew that it was good.
The fox had had a very long nap. He, too, had
washed in his own half-hearted fashion, and was
preparing for his evening prowl.
“I hope you have had a good day, my lord,” he
said rather anxiously. He had a vague fear that
the hour might come when a succession of bad days
would make the great bird too careless or too hungry
to regard foxes with his present indifference.
“I’ve done very well, thank you,” replied the
Golden Eagle with the graciousness born of a full
meal. “Good luck to your hunting.” So saying he
stretched himself to his fullest extent, then gradually
drew his feathers closely together, allowed the bright
eyes that had never winked at December’s sun to
close, and the alert, vigorous head to sink slowly
down. And so he slept.
He had but one care. His mate, who had built
.pn +1
and lived with him for five long years, had disappeared
a month before, and he could find no trace of her. In
vain he had travelled as far as Caithness on the east,
and to Foula among the Shetlands in the north, and
down south as far as Perthshire, screaming the old
love-cry as he went that she might hear and answer
him. She had left the eyrie as usual one morning;
they never hunted together, and he had not seen her
again. Nor would he, for she had failed to find food
and had been tempted by carrion. The carrion—a
dead chicken—covered a steel fox-trap, and though,
in her frenzied fight for liberty, she had torn the
controlling staple from the ground, a keeper had
passed within shot before she could get clear of the
wood, and now her skin was being stuffed by a Perth
taxidermist, and she would presently appear under
a glass case in the hall of the shooting lodge by the
loch side.
One day differed only from another by reason of
the success or failure of its hunting. If rabbits and
grouse—red, black, or white—were plentiful, the
Golden Eagle sought no other food and returned to
his eyrie at peace with all the world. But there
were days in the winter season when nothing was to
be found, or more often still when the quarry got to
.pn +1
cover, and then the eagle would come home screaming
with rage, and the red fox would slink to his earth
and remain until he was well assured that the great
bird was asleep.
Towards January’s end the Golden Eagle fasted
for two days, and on the third rose in the air, feeling
strangely weak and ill at ease. Happily the mist,
that had been lying all over the land and had helped
to keep him hungry, was growing thin and yielding
altogether in places where the sun struck boldly at
it. So the bird winged his way to one of the wildest
forests in Sutherlandshire, a place seldom disturbed for
nine months out of the twelve. The last stalker had
left with October, the monarchs of the herd had long
ceased from “belling” and had been forced to the
lowlands and the root-crop fields by the stress of
severe weather. With keen eyes, and a rage born of
hunger in his heart, the Golden Eagle saw a small
herd of young stags and hinds disappear into a wood
where he could not hope to follow them, and then
he skirted a few corries and came to a wild glen
where rocks lay strewn haphazard as though there
had been a battle of giants there in the days of old.
But the eagle only saw one rock—a high one standing
at the brow of the glen and bathed in sudden
.pn +1
sunshine. A young fawn not a year old had left its
herd and was basking in the light. With a scream
of triumph the Golden Eagle swooped down upon
the luckless little animal, drove the cruel talons deep
into its back, and buffeted its head with his heavy
wings. Dazed by the suddenness of the attack and
blinded by the blows from the bird’s strong pinions,
the poor fawn staggered to the edge of the rock, the
eagle released his grip, and his victim fell headlong
on to a rock below, striking it with a force that broke
its neck and ended its sufferings.
The dead body was too heavy for the bird to
carry off, so he stayed by its side and tore and ate
ravenously, until all the hunger that troubled him
was forgotten. It was a very difficult task to rise
from the heavy meal, but he made way at once to
the nearest stream in order to wash in the icy water,
and only then turned heavily towards home, feeling
very little inclined after the long fast and the heavy
meal to move in any but leisurely fashion. But he
had to forget his inclinations. Two large peregrine
falcons spied their rival a long way off, and seeing
that he was not in a fit state to face their onslaught,
made a furious attack upon him. Could he have
reached either of them it would have gone hard with
.pn +1
the one caught; but he was like a merchantman
pursued by a couple of fast cruisers, and while they
could turn and twist and use their wings in any
direction they fancied, he had to follow a steady
course, and content himself with uttering threats of
what he would do if he caught one of them then or
thereafter. When at last, having done all it was safe
to do without getting quite within reach of the terrible
beak or talons, the falcons flew screaming to their
homes, the eagle was left with a very bad indigestion.
Had he been carrying his food in his talons he must
have dropped it, and the swift enemies would have
caught it in the air and made off beyond hope of
recovery, for they could cover three miles to his
two.
Doubtless the crows and other eaters of carrion
would soon leave nothing of the carcase from which
he had torn his meal.
Shortly after this day, a touch of mildness that
seemed a forerunner of spring came to the Highlands,
and the Golden Eagle took a sudden flight to
the north-east. He passed beyond the limits of the
land and the home of the sea eagles, and moved
swiftly in the direction of the desolate island of
Foula, beyond the larger group of the Shetlands.
.pn +1
And on the following day he turned to the south
again, but not alone, his new mate came with him, a
beautiful creature, larger, heavier and even more
fierce than he. She had come from Norway to
Foula Island, and consented gladly enough to share
his home in the wild hills of Sutherlandshire.
Through the slowly lengthening days of February
the two eagles, while hunting independently,
worked together to restore the nest on the rock. It
was a very big and rough affair, six feet across at the
base, built of sticks taken from the Scotch fir and
the larch and the thick twigs of heather. Inside it
was soft with grass and fern and mosses, and when
it was complete the mother eagle laid three eggs,
each three inches long and nearly as big round the
broader end. They were purple, with red-brown
blotches and streaks of yellow and black. It was
March before the first egg was laid, and as the
other two came at intervals of several days, the first
nestling came before the other eggs were hatched.
He was an ugly little fellow with big mouth, staring
eyes, and grey down in place of feathers.
Then the other two nestlings made their appearance,
and the fox, whose vixen had given him a
litter of cubs, was more uneasy than ever. It was
.pn +1
apparently impossible to satisfy the appetite of the
eaglets. The father and mother birds thought less
for the time being of their own wants than of the requirements
of their babies. For miles round all the
weaklings and cripples among the game birds were
destroyed, and one afternoon the mother eagle
came to the eyrie with a young lamb in her claws.
She had snatched the new-born creature from the
hill-side, and would have been delighted to feed
regularly on lamb, but the shepherd had seen her,
and when she paid her next visit to the hills on the
following morning he was waiting with a shot-gun.
Anxiety made him fire too soon, a handful of
feathers came fluttering down, and the mother eagle
received a couple of pellets in her side and several
through the outer edge of the primaries of one
wing. Thereafter she left the lambs alone. Her
alarm was the greater because she had never heard
a gun before, and the shock of the charge, though
well-nigh spent before it reached her, was very
severe.
“What fools these men are,” said the Golden
Eagle angrily to the Red Fox some days after the
accident to his mate, “they grudge us the food for
our little ones. And yet if they had but the wit to
.pn +1
understand, we serve their purposes as well as our
own. The strong birds and beasts that are useful
in the world can get away from us, the weak ones
are taken. But if they were not taken they would
soon spoil the race. Why, I have taken hundreds
of crippled birds from these moors and valleys since
men began to shoot in these parts.”
“Do you remember the place before shooting
began?” asked the fox in great wonderment.
“Not perhaps before the gun began to be used,”
replied the eagle, “but my memory goes back to
times when there was very little shooting indeed.
The moors were all undrained, the forests were sheep
farms for the most part, and the deer were not preserved.
The Highland boys used to load their old
guns with slugs and black powder pushed in with a
ramrod, and would wait at the springs for the deer,
and if they shot one would salt it for winter eating.
Then the lairds were poor men, and shared their
deer with the poachers. I was a young bird in those
days, though I shall never be old. The eagle renews
his youth, and I expect to record a hundred years.
Now I must be off, here comes my mate.”
The mother bird was a black speck in the distance,
but her mate’s loving eye could find her out,
.pn +1
and he sailed away to meet her as she came heavily
towards the nest, a young pig in her claws. She
found a farmhouse, and dropped on to the pig-sty,
where mother sow had presented her owners with a
litter of seven. Six had managed to get within
cover, the seventh, a weakly little animal, had paid
the penalty, and was already pork. The farmer’s
wife had seen the outrage, but her husband and sons
were working on another part of the land and could
not be reached. So the eaglets had a splendid meal of
sucking-pig, and there was enough for the parents too.
In a few weeks the down on the eaglets’ bodies
had turned to feathers, and they were completely
fledged, handsome birds, like their parents in all respects
save that they had a white ring on the tail
feathers. One morning after they had learned to
fly and were beginning to enjoy the exercise, the
Golden Eagle addressed them seriously.
He and his mate had just come from the farmhouse
where they had surprised a couple of hens.
“Look here, my children,” he said as he plucked
one dead fowl with wonderful rapidity, “eat well to-day,
for from to-morrow you will have yourselves to
look after.” His children eyed him curiously, so did
the Red Fox who sat solemnly outside his lair. “I
.pn +1
mean it,” continued the Golden Eagle seriously.
“You will hunt for yourselves after to-day, and if
you come poaching on the hunting-grounds of your
mother and myself there will be trouble and you will
be in the midst of it. Down to now we have raised
and fed you, your wants have been our worry, but
now that time is up, and after to-day you are no
more to us than if you didn’t exist. We don’t want
to see you again, and if you are wise you will take
care that we don’t.” And on the following morning
the young eaglets departed, flew some way together,
and then chose their respective kingdoms.
They did not thrive, and of the three only one
reached maturity. The first lighted on a stoat in a
ditch and could not strike it with the sharp talons
before the angry little beast had jumped at its throat
and bitten through the external jugular vein. Another,
not heeding his parents’ warnings, set out for
the farm whence the sucking-pig had come and was
shot. But the parent birds remained together in
their eyrie and knew no trouble save when storms
were brewing. They could see storms rising out of
the Atlantic, and when one was on the way to their
beloved hills they would grow nervous and restless
and fill the air with their screams.
.pn +1
August came round and the Golden Eagle’s joy
of life knew no bounds. Never had the moors been
so full of delicious red grouse, never before in all his
long life had he fed so well.
One afternoon he sat on a rock at the head of a
wild corrie. Below him went the stalker and his
master, two hundred yards away and quite invisible.
“A fine day, Donald,” said the sportsman; “my
best achievement since I came to the Highlands.”
To be sure he was only a Sassenach, but he had
shot a grouse, and caught a salmon in the morning,
and an hour ago, after a long stalk, he had grassed
a ten-pointer that was on its way to the lodge strapped
to a pony’s back.
“Best kill that de’il yonder,” grumbled Donald,
taking a huge pinch of snuff preparatory to launching
into a long account of the Golden Eagle’s misdeeds.
Some unaccountable impulse brought the eagle to
his wings. Ignorant of his danger, he floated lazily
down the valley until the barrel of a mannlicher rifle
gleaming from below caught his quick eye. He
seemed to see right into it. As though conscious of
imminent danger, he screamed defiance and rose
higher with loud flapping of his heavy wings. The
rifle cracked....
.pn +1
“How terribly the Mother Eagle has been screaming,”
said the Red Fox to himself as he made
cautious way down the hill that night. “Thank
goodness she has gone to sleep at last. My nerves
were giving out.”
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stB
THE BADGER
.sp 2
Even the residents hardly knew the part of the
forest that the badger called his own, the tourists
and callers from the nearest seaside town had never
seen it. From June to September there were visitors
in plenty; they came along the white dusty roads in
coaches, carriages and motor-cars; they walked, or
rode on bicycles, held picnics in the shadow of beech
and oak trees, and often left assortments of glass
bottles and paper to mark the spot they had delighted
to honour. Sometimes on his nightly rounds
Brock would pass one of these places, and would
make haste to get away from the neighbourhood,
for his scent was exceedingly keen, and he knew the
number of the visitors as certainly as though he had
been out during the daytime. The fear of man
had come to him quite naturally, it was part of his
life to dread and avoid this relentless enemy, just as
it was his rule to range the woods by night and
to retire to his earth when the sun came out of
.pn +1
the east heralded by the pageant of the morning
twilight.
He had few friends; only the brown owl sometimes
paused in her work to pass the time of night,
or the fox, whose earth was close at hand amid the
thick-growing gorse, would hold a little converse
after a good hunting expedition that had closed before
dawn woke the rest of the woodland. Then in
the moment when sleepy birds were trying their
earliest notes and wondering why those strange
visitors the cuckoo and nightingale would sing all
the night through, when the wood-pigeons were
tumbling heavily from their perches, and the shy
kingfisher was standing by the edge of his home in
the bank of the stream, the brown owl would seek his
hollow tree, and badger and fox would seek their
homes. The badger’s abode was quite palatial.
Just where the gorse ended and the trees asserted
themselves again, the soil was very light, and there
were patches of broom and bushes of pink thorn and
hazel. Clear of the roots, the first passage began,
with a rather steep slope to a well-cleared chamber
in which the badger slept. Beyond this apartment
there was an upward slope from which two or three
tracks branched to the right, and at the end of the
.pn +1
slope was another chamber used as a storeroom
only a few feet below ground. To the right of this
was another dip that went to the open air, or offered
a road by yet another gallery to a point just above
the sleeping-chamber. In times of stress the grandparents
and more remote ancestors of the badger
had been accustomed to use the chamber that was
nearest the second entrance, for they could then hear
the lightest human footfall. But in the old bad
days even this precaution had availed them nothing.
Dogs and tongs had been employed by their pursuers,
and they had been butchered to give idle folk
a few hours’ amusement.
When the badger had found the earth in the
autumn following his birth, he did not know that it
should have been the home of his house. He had
wandered across miles of country when his family
broke up. His parents had separated, his two
sisters had chosen their own road, and the earth in
which he was born remained in the sole possession
of his father. Once he had assured himself that he
would enjoy undisputed occupation, the badger explored
and renovated all the tunnelled passages,
stopped up all entrances save one by raising sandy
mounds with his feet, and prepared to enjoy a
.pn +1
solitary existence. Thoughtful, sober and introspective
he had no desire for companionship just
then.
“I had as fine a family of cubs as you could wish
to see,” said father fox, when they had known one
another for a few weeks, “but the hunt drew the
gorse and two of them were killed. The others
have gone away, so has my vixen, and if the hunt
comes again I’ll go too.”
The badger stirred uneasily, and traversed all his
passages again to make sure that every possible precautions
had been taken. Though he had stopped
the bolt holes, it was only by way of hiding them
from prying eyes; a few minutes’ work would suffice
him to open them again in time of need. Even
when he went out at night he would cover his point
of exit in the most careful fashion, using hind and
fore-feet with equal ease. Only when the hole was
screened would he set out in search of what the wood
might yield. Sometimes he would go down to the
marshy ground by the river and take toll of frogs and
insects, he would even stray into the nearest
orchards and eat the fallen apples, pears and plums.
Failing these he would root up plants and fungi
and carry away what he did not want, for storing;
.pn +1
but whether he ate in the wildest part of the wood
or comparatively near the haunts of man the enemy,
he never forgot the need for guarding against surprise.
Like Agag of old he walked delicately, and
his hearing, like that of the wild boar, was only suspended
when his jaws were actually working. So
he would pause with a mouthful of food, or stop
half-way in the work of grubbing up a root to scent
the breeze, though the forest held no foe within its
ample boundaries.
In the early autumn, after his arrival, the young
badger cleared away the bed of dry fern and grasses
in the sleeping-chamber. His methods were
peculiar, for he collected what he could in his forepaws
and then shuffled out of the earth backwards.
Many journeys were necessary to accomplish this
task which was pursued by night, after a meal had
been taken; and when the work was ended, he
moved to certain parts of the wood where he had
torn up ferns and grasses which were now dry. He
took these to the sleeping-chamber in the awkward
fashion already described, and though much was
lost in transit he had a warm and pleasant bed at
last. Feeling at his ease he ranged the woods in
search of wounded game, making many a hearty
.pn +1
meal off fur and feather that should have been retrieved.
Later on, the wind and the rain entered the
wood together and removed all traces that marked
the badger’s journey to and fro, while the badger,
finding his bed warm and his house free from
draughts, set up a barrier by the entrance and went
to sleep. Like the porcupine and squirrel he refused
to face the severe weather, though it is more
than likely that he responded to warm spells and
came out on certain winter nights in search of roots,
or the wasp-nests that were in the river bank. But
his capacity for sleep robbed winter of half its
terrors and kept him in good condition. The food
stores supported him if he woke in time of snow, the
troubles that proved fatal to so much of the woodland’s
life never reached him, and when he resumed
his normal activity in March he was no worse for
the protracted rest.
The new life that stirred the forest could not rouse
him to any great ecstasy. The season did no more
than endow him with a funny little grunt and an
unwonted measure of playfulness. He loved to stand
on his hind-legs and sharpen his fore-paws against
the rough oak tree-trunks, and in April evenings he
would sometimes be astir before his usual time,
.pn +1
generally after light showers of rain. He often went
lumbering through the wood with a curious swaying
movement, and sometimes walking backward as
though by way of expressing his playful humour.
There was great joy in the uncouth body, but he
had none to share it with him. Even the fox found
a vixen; their loving cries resounded through the
woods as they hunted together by night, and in the
heart of the earth there were four little cubs that
would sometimes come to the edge of the gorse and
play with the rabbits.
Brock was now to be ranked among the adults;
he had shed his four premolar teeth, and from tip of
tail to tip of nose must have been very nearly three
feet long. He stood about a foot high and the rough
skin lay loosely on his body. His jaws were uncommonly
strong—no other animal of equal size
could boast such a pair—and no dog that had not
been trained to bait badgers could have attacked him
with impunity. For the present, however, he had no
enemies to face, and his lines were cast in pleasant
places, among the birds’ nests that were scattered in
profusion through the wood. Where the nests were
built low the badger would not be denied—the eggs
of partridge, thrush, blackbird and wild pheasant
.pn +1
supplied him with many a meal, and sometimes he
was quick enough to add the parent bird to his
meal. The animal that could rob wild bees of their
honey had nothing to fear from birds, and even the
stoats, weasels and snakes that pursued birds’ nests
would not wait to argue their claims with Brock.
He soon learned that some birds deprived of one
clutch will even lay another, and was delighted to
observe their industry, and profit by it in due season.
At the same time it must be remarked that he did
very little real harm. His neighbour the fox was
pursuing an active campaign against all the outlying
poultry-yards with so much success that he could
afford to leave the rabbits in peace; the badger did
no more than help to reduce the overwhelming
number of common birds. Since game preserving
had been practised on the estates that joined the
wood, ceaseless war had been waged against hawks,
falcons and other birds; ignorant keepers had dealt
with the kestrel and the owl as severely as with the
carrion crow, and the tendency of birds like blackbirds
and thrushes was to justify Mr. Malthus by
increasing beyond the capacity of the food supply.
In helping to counteract this tendency the badger
was doing good work; it was better for the eggs
.pn +1
to be eaten than for the young birds to be born
and starved.
Summer waned, and at the time when the stags
in Highland forests were seeking the hinds, Brock
found the trail of one of his own species and felt
the pangs of love. He grunted and yelped as
though the spring had come again, and followed the
track of the loved one for miles, night after night.
Perhaps the unknown, whose scent would have been
equally keen, knew that she was pursued and
assumed the virtue of shyness; perhaps she was really
shy. In either case she was hard to find, and on
many a morning the badger was forced to beat a
very hurried retreat to his home, hungry, footsore
and disappointed, compelled to draw upon his
winter stores of roots and grasses for a meal. At
last he found his love. She had stayed to hunt
for frogs in the river bed, and in rather grudging
fashion accepted his attentions. Between wooing and
winning a great gulf was fixed, but after nights of
pleasant companionship, the well-beloved one agreed
to become Mrs. Brock. Had there been other
males in the neighbourhood, a fight for supremacy
might have been necessary, but the nearest badgers
were many miles away and this pair had the
.pn +1
district to themselves. Until the storms came they
roamed the woods together, finding in addition to
roots and berries, wounded game and an occasional
nest of wasps or wild bees, which they would root out
and eat as it stood, comb, honey, insects and grubs.
With the first break up of the weather each retired
to its home. She lived across the river but swimming
presented no difficulty to either.
When the winter waned, and the first warm dry
days called the woodland to renewed life, the badger
was early astir. Once again his bed was scattered to
the winds, and a fresh one was made in the fashion
already described; once again he tested the entrance
and exits and made what effort he could to obliterate
his own tracks. Then he swam across the river
and, returning with his lady-love, conducted her to
her new home where she was quite happy. For
awhile they travelled together, then he walked alone,
and in his clumsy fashion brought some fresh roots
and bulbs down to the warm earth where three blind
baby badgers shared the fern leaf couch with his
mate. They were quite blind and helpless, but while
they were awake their mother was with them, and
while they slept she foraged for herself. As long as
he was in the neighbourhood of the earth her lord
.pn +1
would hunt with her, but when he wished to go far
afield he went alone, she would not travel a long
way from her little ones.
Later, Brock would lead the baby badgers on their
first rambles, in the days when they were learning
to look after themselves. He showed them how
and where food must be sought, warned them of the
sound and scents that portended danger, and taught
them their share of forest lore. This was his duty
now that their mother had gone back to her own
quarters across the river and the little ones must
face the world alone. With the coming of autumn
he sought his mate once more, but she had gone,
and for all his efforts he never found her again.
But, ranging a part of the wood to which he
had never penetrated before, he met a badger
philosopher, an old fellow who had seen six or
seven summers and grown grey with accumulated
wisdom.
This philosopher, whose search for a mate had
been equally unavailing, declared that the contemplative
life was best of all, remarked that the old
badger run he tenanted was not far removed from
an unoccupied earth and suggested that they should
hunt together. The younger one accepted the
.pn +1
suggestion, and started making a bed in the new earth
without delay.
It was about this time that he was called upon
to give battle. Without knowing it he had moved
into a district that was favoured by one or two
daring poachers. Stray pheasants from a neighbouring
estate were tempted into open spaces by
judicious display of raisins, hares and rabbits were
plentiful, and the main road was less than a mile
away. One poacher had a valuable lurcher that
would start off into the wood at a given signal and
never return without a rabbit. Coming down a
glade at top speed in hot pursuit of a hare the
lurcher saw the badger, and forgetful of his safer
quarry turned to the attack. It was quite a short
contest. To be sure, the dog secured a good grip,
but he had forgotten or never known the extraordinary
elasticity of the badger’s skin. He only
realised it when the animal he had attacked so unceremoniously
had fastened on his throat with a
grip nothing could relax. In little more time than
is required to set the statement down the lurcher
lay dead and terribly mangled by the badger whose
terror had given place to rage.
All in vain the poacher called and called, until
.pn +1
the coming of the morning light warned him to
make his way home and return, without the impedimenta
of his calling, to go through the wood in the
guise of a peaceful pedestrian. To one whose
knowledge of woodcraft was so complete it was no
hard task to find the spot where the lurcher lay,
and a very brief examination of the shattered head
indicated clearly enough the author of the deed.
Only the badger’s merciless jaws could have bitten
through the lurcher’s skull as though it had been a
wooden match-box.
The poacher was a dull fellow, an idle loafer who
knew the county gaol intimately, ill-treated his wife
and gave long hours to the ale-house. And yet for
all his unprepossessing ways he was not without
some measure of affection, and it had been given to
the dead lurcher. Never Arab loved his well-tried
horse better than this wastrel loved his dog—it had
possessed an intelligence that was almost human,
and had been the one living thing that loved him
without change of mood. In the silence of the wood
the poacher cried like a little child, hid his friend
under the ferns until he could return and bury him,
and then turned on the badger’s track.
Men who have been long brought up in the
.pn +1
woodland and learned all the tricks of the poacher’s
trade are hard to baffle. As the poacher moved
along all his gifts so long latent, stimulated by grief
and rage, he became for the time one with the
wood and its denizens. He heard the ceaseless
under-song, and could analyse it as the skilled critic
of music can analyse the component parts of a symphony;
almost instinctively he knew the shy fearful
birds that were peeping at him through many a
screen of leaves, the grass snake and adder that
were gliding away from him. In those hours of
wrath and exaltation his eyes were opened; without
haste on the one hand or delay on the other he
found the badger’s earth, never losing for long the
track of the five toes and the sharp nails.
Down in the darkness where his bed was strewn,
Brock realised the coming of his enemy; the horror
of man so long dormant in him was revived. He
stood up noiselessly and heard the unseen feet move
deliberately in search of the entrance to the earth.
Against this man who, in clear-headed hours, could
read Nature’s stories as though they were set in
printed page before him, a badger must fight hard
for life. It would be a contest of wits.
The footsteps passed; the hidden animal heard the
.pn +1
slow and regular decline; the normal sounds of the
woodland were resumed. By night, he thought, he
would creep away and leave the place, he would go
back to his old haunts below the river where there
was safety. The afternoon turned towards sunset,
and then Brock, who was in a passage close to the
ground, heard the tramp, tramp that had startled
him in the morning. The man was coming back,
was moving from one part of the ground to the other,
sounding the entrance and the bolt holes. Already
he seemed to know them all. What was he doing?
Presently the dull thud of a spade was heard by
the mouth of the run, and the purpose of the poacher
was clear. He had blocked each entrance and was
going to dig until he had found the destroyer of his
companion. Had he stayed till the following day
the quarry would have passed. He knew this well
enough so he had brought gun and food, trenching-spade,
lantern and tobacco, and was about to dig
down foot by foot to the badger’s lair.
Quite undismayed now that the risk of invasion
had yielded to certainty, the hunted animal prepared
to defend himself. At the foot of the first slope he
started to pile the loose earth using his hind-feet as
readily as the others, and before the poacher was
.pn +1
half-way down the barrier was strong enough to have
kept a dog at bay. But the man was depending
upon his own exertions, he had no dog, and when
his spade encountered the defence it was speedily
broken down.
By this time the badger had retreated past his bedroom
into one of the deepest passages, the one that
commanded a double route. He had already gone
to two of the exits that were intended for emergency,
but the human taint was strong at each, and he feared
to let the issue of the contest depend upon a chance
flight. Perhaps it was as well, for the strongly pegged
netting that was ranged round each hole must have
given him a pause that would have sufficed the
poacher.
The lantern was lighted now and the pipe was
out; the poacher, flabby and out of condition, was
deaf to the call of his tired limbs. Passion sustained
him in the pursuit of a task that few sane
men would have attempted. The task would have
been relatively easy if additional assistance had been
to hand, but the poacher had no friends. He had
reached the bedroom now, the soil had responded to
the sharp spade edge, and with savage glee he broke
up the soft couch of ferns and grass, and then set the
.pn +1
lantern down and mopped his forehead and thought
deeply. Two passages led from this chamber, without
counting the one he had followed; he piled
the dry bed by one of them and set it alight, in
hope that the smoke might enter and make the
fugitive bolt. But though the material was dry
and burnt well the air was windless and the fumes
ascended.
“Curse you,” he cried, as though he knew Brock
was in hearing and thought he could follow his
words. “I’ll dig till I find you, if I dig up the
whole earth.”
Once again the spade work was resumed, the eerie
silence of the night was broken by the recurrent
thud. The poacher was drunk with passion; the
impenetrable dignity of the night and the silence of
his foe seemed to set his blood on fire. All sense of
fatigue had gone; he hardly knew how his temples
were throbbing or realised that his breath was coming
in short painful gasps until, after another frenzied
spell of work, he turned to survey the long trench
that marked his progress, and shout out a gibe at
the unseen badger.
At that moment his light was extinguished, the
candle had burnt itself out, the darkness enveloped
.pn +1
him almost with a sense of physical force. By the
junction of the two paths some ten feet away Brock
heard the sound of a heavy fall, the following silence
was long and deep. For some quarter of an hour
the badger did not move, then he moved cautiously
to the right along a seldom-used passage and came
to a forgotten crossway. Down one side of it a
current of air came clean and pure. He followed
it, along a track he had not used before until he
reached an opening under a bank. All seemed safe.
His sharp ears could not catch the sound of human
breath, there was no taint of humanity by the bush
that hid the entrance. The night was still profoundly
dark. He slipped noiselessly into the
shadows.
.il id=ilB fn=illus055.jpg w=525px
.ca BADGER [Photo by C. Reid]
The old snake-catcher passing down the woodland
clearing in the morning found the poacher lying at
peace, his spade gripped tightly in one hand. A
coroner’s jury was told by the doctor that sudden
and unaccustomed exertion had brought about a
failure of the heart’s action and a painless death.
And twelve good men and true wondered greatly
that the deceased should have exerted himself so
greatly. Trained terriers had been put into the
earth under the various nets and had returned quite
silently to their owners. “He must have been insane,”
said the enlightened jurymen.
But the snake-catcher, who believed in fairies,
knew better. “He tried to dig a badger by night,”
he said, “and that disturbed the little people. So
they killed him.”
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stC
THE STORY OF A CAMEL
.sp 2
When Abdullah, the slave dealer, led the long file
of loaded camels towards the desert on the bright
April morning, only one of his animals remained
in the fandak. Within a week she had a companion,
her little baby camel who came into the world as
though to give her his company during the long, hot
months of summer when, at the sun’s bidding, the
caravan that had just set out would cease from its
labours and rest in the far-off city of Timbuctoo.
The fandak was a large rectangular enclosure open
to the sky everywhere save in the cloisters round the
inside walls. It was filthily dirty, and full of flies
and insects, but Basha the baby camel noted none
of these things. He passed his early days wandering
round the cloisters to look at the half-starved mules
and donkeys that were brought in there for their
much needed rest, and when the heat was greatest
and the flies most insistent, he would lie contentedly
by his mother’s side. For all the fandak’s limitations
.pn +1
Basha had been born in fortunate hour. His
mother’s services were not required in field or city,
heavy spring rains had made food plentiful and
cheap, so that she was well fed, and the little one, who
by the way was two feet odd inches high when he was
born, enjoyed an unfailing supply of milk. Had he
come into the world at another time or place, his
mother might have been put to work hard before he
was three months old, her milk might have been required
for cheese, and he would have pined and died
as so many baby camels do. Even when the summer
waned and the autumn rains starred the fields with
flowers of bewildering beauty, Basha stayed with
his mother on a farm outside the city gates. The
caravan came back in the season of cool weather and
in place of the merchandise they had taken to the
South, the camels brought slaves for the Sok el Abeed,
but they could not go out again. Between them
and the Soudan the fierce veiled Touaregs of the
desert were in arms, and in the direction of the
coast the chief camel road was held by the braves
of a tribe that was in open revolt against Morocco’s
Sultan.
So, while Abdullah swore strange oaths by the
Prophet’s beard, and declared that the men of the
.pn +1
desert were descended from devils and the men of the
western province from apes, little Basha grew strong
and unshapely, and life was an affair of sunshine and
good milk. Day by day the farmer spread his
mother’s food before her on a cloth; dried beans,
crushed date stones and a very small measure of
corn and chopped hay, and Basha would sniff at it
with very little interest. If the farmer himself was
absent the cloth might be forgotten, and then
Mother Camel would make an angry noise in her
throat and refuse to eat, and little Basha would suffer
accordingly.
“Why must you have a cloth to eat from?” he
asked her one day, when she was gurgling indignantly
while the rats made merry at her expense,
and she made no attempt to check their depredations.
“It is Camel Law,” replied his mother. “If we
were to eat our food from the bare ground we should
take all manner of dirt into our mouths, and in a
little while it would make us ill, perhaps fatally.
Our inside arrangements are very delicate and complicated.
In the fandak two camels and no more
will feed from one mat or cloth, and it is right that
there should be precedence at meal-times. The
.pn +1
most important camels should be fed first. That is
etiquette, and we set a great store by it. Indeed, if
this consideration is overlooked we let our masters
know about it.”
“But when you leave your food, I get less milk,”
remonstrated Basha.
“You can’t begin too early,” explained the
Mother Camel, “to understand that all camels
must suffer. It is part of our life to work hard, to
endure ill-treatment and to be deprived of our fair
share of good things. Down to the present your
good luck has been astonishing. Your brother and
sister, one born seven years ago and the other four,
died of starvation before they had lived through
one summer. I myself was born in the country of
the black men south of the Atlas mountains, and
had to come here with my mother across the desert
before I was six months old.”
Basha took small account of these warnings. He
could do no more than judge life as he found it, and
do credit to his environment by growing to be a fine
specimen of his race. When at length he was taken
from his mother he was fully a year old, and he enjoyed
some idle months on the farm land, living for
the most part upon green herbage, and straying far
.pn +1
and wide in search of camel thorn, r’tam, tamarisk
and mimosa. When he had found his favourite
bush, he would run his upper lip over the leaves as
though to assure himself that they were what he
sought, but if he knew what he liked he did not
know what was good for him. A wandering
Bedouin shepherd came upon him one morning just
as he was beginning to sniff with appreciation at some
leaves that would have finished his career at once,
and thereafter Basha’s liberty was curtailed and he
had his first experience of the manacles. They
were made of steel and fitted round each fore-leg
above the ankle. This was a most effective device,
for a camel walks moving both legs on the same
side simultaneously, and the steel was capable of arresting
the walk altogether. He had to endure
many long and painful hours in this confinement.
As he was quite unconscious of having done anything
to deserve such treatment, and knew nothing
of his own stupidity, Basha was full of indignation
and kicked with his hind-legs at all passers, exhibiting
early signs of bad temper. Then the first
evil days came to him, and in the picturesque
language of his master he “ate the stick” until he
knew fear and understood the virtue of docility.
.pn +1
But in after days when he was goaded beyond
endurance he always kicked out with his hind-legs,
and he learned that many camels do the same when
they are angry, although their fore limbs are much
stronger than the hind ones. Perhaps the early use
of the shackles accounts for this tendency, which is
common to the most of African camels.
If his training in those early days was cruel, Basha
was no worse off than his fellows. He had to learn to
endure the saddle and the pack, to kneel at word of
command, and to go with the other camels on short
journeys carrying some light load in preparation for
the trying days to come. He grew very slowly but
managed to preserve a good condition, clearly to be
seen in the rising hump and in the well-covered skin.
Camels that were overworked or underfed lost their
hump, and if they had any serious illness, their skin
looked like a moth-eaten fur.
In his fifth year when he was reckoned fit for the
full measure of work Basha was a very finely developed
beast, even though his ugliness was undeniable.
His long, thick upper lip was divided in
two, and this peculiarity accounted in part for his
perpetual sneer; his eyes, the one redeeming
feature of his head, were shaded by heavy brow
.pn +1
and coarse eyelashes; his ears were very small and
round and he acquired the curious power of compressing
his nostrils that was to be so serviceable in
days to come. His legs were long and thin, and the
great shapeless feet in which they terminated looked
very absurd; his walk was little better than an
awkward flat-footed shuffle. His tail was short and
stumpy, and his mode of resting had brought well-defined
hard growths to his chest and knees. He
could travel without fatigue over endless miles of
level ground, but hills tired him at once; and he could
swim sturdily though nothing but the most severe
thirst would make him drink of running water. His
early-day nervousness had gone though he was still
restive when taken from his companions. He seldom
called as he had been in the habit of doing when he
was young, but with manhood, if the term be permissible,
he had developed a violent temper, and
there were seasons of the year when only Abdullah
dare approach him. At these times he would grow
very excited, he would repeat the horrid gurgling
noise that his mother had made, and would go about
with a hideous pink bladder hanging from one side
of his mouth. At the first sign of this state among
his male camels Abdullah would seek to reduce
.pn +1
their rage by bloodletting. The camels would be
hobbled in turn and told to sit down, and after a cord
had been tied tightly round the neck two small
incisions would be made just below the cord. This
was an effective cure for ferocity, but was not always
a possible remedy when the camels were on the
march, for it left them very weak.
In the first year of his complete strength Basha
was hired with two other camels by a Moor who
traded between the Atlantic coast and Marrakesh,
the far southern capital of the Moorish Empire.
The work was hard and the loads were heavy, but
the Moor did not spare himself. The start from
coast or capital would be made in the very early
morning hours. The camels would be loaded in
skilful fashion, the weight being put as high on the
ribs as possible, because the hind limbs were so
much weaker than the others. If there was any
mistake or the weight was unfairly heavy, the
camels would gurgle angrily and refuse to rise.
Then some fresh adjustment was necessary for Abd
el Karim knew better than to waste his time in
trying to force an ill-loaded or over-strained animal
to his feet. Once a camel had risen and started
he would go until he dropped, but no animal would
.pn +1
rise before being satisfied that he was being fairly
handled. In those early hours the beasts would be
fed with cakes made of crushed grain and dates,
mixed for choice with camel milk or, failing that,
with water. The meal over, the little procession
would start out well in advance of sunrise, and when
the first halt was called it would be to avoid the
midday sun and give the weary men a little time to
repose. When the journey was resumed it would be
kept up until night was falling and it was no longer
safe to be found on any one of the broad tracks that
served the southern countries for a road. Then Abd
el Karim would seek an ensala, a piece of bare
ground next some village, fenced round with cactus
thorn and prickly pear. He would pay the equivalent
of a few pence for admission, and once there
the headman of the village would be responsible to
the nearest country governor for the safety of the
little company. The camels would be unloaded,
watered and fed, three or four pounds of grain being
the maximum supply for each beast, and they would
enjoy some six hours’ rest. But as soon as the false
dawn appeared in the sky and Abd el Karim had
said the early morning prayer that is called the
fejer, and comes with the third cock-crow, loads
.pn +1
would be replaced and the journey resumed. Basha
plodded along with seeming content, but in his heart
he hated his new master. It was not that he had
any special unkindness to complain about, the ill-treatment
was quite impartial, he hated all humans,
and Abd el Karim stood for him as the type of the
tyrants who inflicted such base servitude upon the
camel world. He had no pet grievance, and would
most certainly have resented any special act of
kindness as an impertinence. Whatever kindly
feelings he might have had were kept under so
severely that his face had but two expressions. He
looked upon the world with indignation and contempt
in turn. When he walked through the narrow
streets of Marrakesh carrying a pack that weighed
between three and four hundred pounds upon his
shoulders, he would turn neither to the right nor to
the left; horses, mules and pedestrians had perforce
to make way for him. Not only was he prepared
to walk over anything that stood in his way, he
was ready to turn round and bite any passer who
came within reach of his mouth. From nose to tail
he could not have been less than eight feet long in
those days, and he stood more than six feet high
from hump to ground. In brief, Basha was an ill-natured,
.pn +1
sulky beast, but his powers of endurance
gave him a value for which all his little failings
were forgiven.
In the camel fandak at Marrakesh where he had
first seen the daylight he would join the rest of Abdullah’s
animals from time to time and hear of their
adventurous journeys to the Soudan. His mother
was still at work among them and had lost another
son since Basha was born. She was ageing now
under the combined influences of hard work and insufficient
food, and the sight of her condition roused
her son to a state of anger in which pity took no
part. He had no affection for her, but her state increased
the bitterness of his feelings against the
enemy man. From time to time he noted the disappearance
of animals he had known and asked
about them.
“He fell,” replied his mother once, referring to a
camel of his own age, “and then you know the old
cry.”
“I don’t,” confessed Basha, “what do you mean?”
“It has passed into the proverbs of our masters,”
said his mother slowly. “‘When the camel falls,’
runs their adage, ‘out with your knives.’ It is a recognition
of our undying pluck. So long as we can
.pn +1
endure we keep up and when we fall we are beaten
and done for. No rest can cure us. Our masters
know that, and when we fall in our tracks their knives
are out—sometimes before we are dead.”
Basha turned away, sick with anger. This then
was the end of things, to labour through the heat of
day, to toil until the last store of strength was exhausted,
and then die a dishonourable death under
the curved daggers of brutal masters. How he hated
them, one and all.
It was on account of his recent losses that Abdullah
decided to include Basha in the next caravan
that left Marrakesh for the South, and so it happened
that he made one of a string of fifty beasts that filed
out of the city by way of the Dukala Gate on a fine
September morning. For some weeks past the
camels had rested and had been tended with an approach
to care. Before a final selection was made
each animal was examined with care and a few were
rejected on account of ailments that were plain to
the practical eyes of Abdullah and his assistants.
Chief of these disqualifying symptoms was a foot
disease brought on by overwork, and the fate of
Basha’s mother hung in the balance for she was beginning
to show signs of the unending labour
.pn +1
imposed upon her. But there was a fair sporting chance
for her, and Abdullah took it. The unaccustomed
rest of the past three weeks and the regular food had
almost restored her strength.
Although he was now in his tenth year Basha had
not crossed the Sahara. He had not finished growing
but was immensely strong, and the journey had
no terrors for him. For the first few days the land
was one vast oasis and the camels went unwatered,
feeding in the very early morning before the dew
was off the autumn greenery, and so storing enough
moisture to last them through the day. They were
well fed at night, and Basha began to think that
the difficulties of which his companions spoke after
supper when they sat in a great group, had been exaggerated.
Then the caravan reached the real desert
beyond the Draa country, and he understood. The
sun was like molten copper above, and the sands
seemed white-hot underneath. Vegetation ceased.
No man spoke, and at night the hours of respite from
the heat seemed to fly. A reserve stock of water
was carried in goat-skin barrels on some of the
camels, but Abdullah made a detour in order to reach
the oases that lay scattered here and there. And
when the wells at one of these oases were found to
.pn +1
be dry, the real troubles of the journey commenced.
Supplies were reduced all round as they moved towards
the next oasis, and on the second morning
following the reduction the desert was swept by a
dust-storm.
Long before Abdullah and his companions could
note its approach, the leading camels saw the
advancing columns of the storm, and with one accord
they dropped to their knees and crouched with their
long necks stretched out and their nostrils firmly
closed to face the coming trouble. The men
shrouded themselves in their haiks and crouched on
the ground, taking refuge with Allah from Satan
and his legions, for they knew well that the sand
columns were really djinoon, who went about the
desert seeking whom they might devour. When the
legions of the storm had passed, and men and beasts
arose to continue the journey, the terror of the desert
lay heavily upon one and all.
The caravan had a mournful appearance as it
laboured across the desert in the tracks of the storm.
Camels shuffled along with the hopeless, listless
energy of creatures attuned to suffering in its every
form; the men, riding or walking, seemed to have
yielded to the depression that the Sahara knows so
.pn +1
well. Shifting sand and raging wind had hidden
the tracks, but Abdullah and Abd el Karim, who was
acting as his lieutenant, had rare eyes, and they
corrected their bearings by the stars at night. For
perhaps the first time in his life Basha realised the
cunning economy of his body. His stomach had
four compartments, to say nothing of cells, that served
for the preservation of the water-supply, and he
could regulate the flow of food and water in manner
that took the keen edge from his sufferings. Men
suffered more than beasts, but they had the consolation
of their faith. “Mektub,” they muttered,
when Abdullah pointed out the need for diminished
rations lest the next oasis should fail them, “it is
written”. If their safe arrival in the far-off Abaradiou
of Timbuctoo was decreed, no dust storm
would avail to stay them; if they were to be one
of the caravans that the pitiless Sahara swallows up,
no complaint would avail to avert the evil decree.
At night when the packs were removed and the
men smoked the forbidden haschish over their scanty
supper, or took council with the star Sohail that
served to guide them to the South, the camels held
converse after their own fashion.
“The end is upon me,” cried Basha’s mother one
.pn +1
evening, “My feet are worn away. It is not for
me to see the Niger’s bank or to eat the camel thorn
in the woods beyond the Mosque of Sankoréh”.
“It is well, mother,” said the camel crouched by
her side; “you will rest at least. We shall go on,
and your load will be added to ours. Rejoice then
in the end of the day’s work.” And late on the
following afternoon, at the hour when the sun first
appeared to relent of his pitiless severity, Basha saw
his mother stoop slowly to the earth.
“A camel falls,” cried Abd el Karim, who walked
by his side, “out with your knives.” He leapt forward,
Basha saw the red stain in the white sand,
and then passed on with averted eyes. A few
camels gurgled to express sympathy or indignation,
three or four were stopped by Abdullah’s orders and
the burden of the dead beast was divided among
them. Then the march was resumed, and in the
evening an oasis was reached where there were date
palms in plenty, and a well untouched by drought.
Far into the night the water was poured into the
puddled troughs from the goat-skin bucket that
served the well, each of the camels receiving ten or
twelve gallons—enough to quench their raging thirst
and give them a store for two or even three days.
.pn +1
Half of the party remained at the oasis, the other
half under Abdullah’s guidance turned aside to El
Djouf, the desert city where the merchandise of the
camels would be exchanged for the great blocks of
salt that were worth their weight in gold, and slaves
in far-off villages beyond Timbuctoo. Basha was
one of the camels that remained behind, and he sat
through the night with sleepless eyes seeing ever
before him the dead body of his mother, and hearing
Abd el Karim’s horrid cry. It was anger with the
living rather than pity for the dead that fed his
growing wrath. A light breeze stirred the palm
leaves, he heard the far-off cry of a jackal and then
the patter of little feet. This last sound came nearer
until a company of desert antelope ran in view.
Undisturbed by the camels they ranged in search of
green food, and drank of the water remaining in the
puddled troughs as though indifferent to the proximity
of the sleeping men.
One, who seemed to be the leader of the deer,
paused by Basha’s side.
“Little master,” said the camel, “whence come
you, and what have you seen?”
“We range the sands,” replied the stranger, “from
the oasis that is tended by man even to the far-off
.pn +1
spring that only the gazelles have seen. And to-night
we fly from El Kebeer, the great jackal, who
has brought his pack in search of meat.”
“Where is he now?” asked Basha, shuddering.
“All are together now,” said the gazelle. “They
have found the body of an old mother camel fallen
by the way. Until the morning comes they will
hardly leave the spot, and ere then we shall be
miles from here. We shall seek green places that
the desert hides from all save us, we shall rejoice in
our freedom and our peaceful lives. Farewell.”
He slipped noiselessly into the shadows and was
gone. But Basha sat wakeful and watchful through
the night.
With the break of day the most of the camels in
the oasis rose to search for the young green growths
that held the dew, but Basha sat silent.
“Fool,” cried Abd el Karim, staggering from his
tent, the haschish dreams still clouding his brain;
“art thou too among the sick? Shall I kill thee,
or wilt thou eat, O thrice cursed beast?”
“Leave me while there is time,” growled Basha,
but Abd el Karim heard no more than the usual
angry gurgle, and drawing off one of his slippers he
struck Basha across the mouth.
.pn +1
With a curious cry like a trumpet-call Basha
shuffled to his feet, and Abd el Karim, realising that
some awful change had come to his charge, turned
and ran.
In long slanting strides, with outstretched neck,
lowered head and open mouth, Basha pursued noisily.
The other camels were feeding behind the palm
grove, their guardians with them, Abd el Karim had
run towards the desert. But the drug he favoured
had made his feet unsteady; in the hour of his direst
need he slipped and fell. Basha’s teeth closed on
the white haik that enveloped his master, and then
he came down slowly to a sitting position and thrust
the man, senseless now from fright, between the
smooth rock and the bony ridge of his chest.
When he rose and ran towards the open desert he
was mad, doomed to run until he dropped and died.
But the man he had left prone on the rock that had
tripped him would never, never rise again.
.tb
Many days later, in the great fandak of the Abaradiou
beyond the gates of Timbuctoo, Abdullah told
his friend the slave-merchant of the journey. “We
had two anxious days,” he said, “but the grace of
Allah was upon all save Abd el Karim. One of the
.pn +1
camels that had never known the desert broke down
and went mad. Perhaps the man had ill-treated him,
perhaps even strove to stop him. Who shall say
more than that Abd el Karim’s hour had come?
May Allah have pardoned him.”
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stD
THE RED GROUSE
.sp 2
When he woke to being, and left the warm shelter
of his mother’s feathers to take a look at the world
around him, the sun was smiling upon the purple
heather, and a light wind was stirring the leaves of
birch and mountain-ash in the plantation below.
He was no more than a tiny ball of yellow fluff
with some dark-brown marks on back and sides,
and a chestnut patch on his head, and there were
eight brothers and sisters exactly like each other,
waiting for him by the side of the heather tuft under
which his mother had been hatching her eggs.
His father sat on another tuft a few yards away,
spreading his plumage in the sunlight, and the little
grouse thought he was fortunate in having such a
handsome parent. The head, neck, breast and sides
of Father Grouse were of a very bright chestnut
colour, with black lines across, his lower feathers
were darker, but tipped with white, to show his
pure Highland breeding.
.pn +1
“Kok-kok,” said Father Grouse. “What a fine
family I have to be sure. The stupid gamekeeper
put his foot in our first nest and we had to make
another one. So you are all very late. June is
already here, the other birds on the moor can fly by
now. Kok-kok.”
Then he and his wife broke off the tiny fresh tops
of the heather, and the little bird, having been fed
with his brothers and sisters, ran about in the sun till
it went down, and then crept back to the nest where
the shells of broken eggs had been lying, pale cream
shells covered with heavy blotches of red. The
little grouse, warm under his mother’s feathers and
above the moss that lined the nest, slept quite
happily, dreaming of the days when he would be
able to fly over the moor. He woke with a start
hearing his father crying:—
“Who goes there? Who goes there? my sword,
my sword.”
“Don’t be frightened,” said Mother Grouse reassuringly,
as the little ones nestle closer to her,
“he says that every morning.”
The newcomer soon became accustomed to be
called at daybreak by this startling cry, and he
learned as soon to hide from the buzzard, the
.pn +1
peregrine falcon and the carrion crows that, between
them, eventually managed to secure all his brothers,
because they would not listen to their father’s warning.
Mrs. Grouse had decided at last that the last
big egg, which was as broad at one end as at the
other, held no son or daughter, and as soon as she
had made up her mind about that she put on her
summer dress; it was buff-coloured and marked with
irregular bars of black. When the family had admired
it they flew together across the heather.
Father Grouse had no summer dress; he did not
change his costume before autumn.
The family kept to the moor, where they met many
very pleasant relatives with children quite grown up,
so much like their mothers that it was hard to tell
the difference, and while they were together Father
Grouse gave his only son a lot of useful information.
“We keep to the heather,” he said. “It is our
own. On the hills beyond,” and he pointed to the
mountain behind the moor, “you find our cousins,
the ptarmigan. In the plantation below the hills
where there are birch, hazel, ash and juniper trees
and where the roebuck hides in the ferns, you have
another cousin, the blackcock. He feeds with us
.pn +1
sometimes. We have not much to do with either
of them, though we are not unfriendly. Kok-kok.”
It was a very fine summer, the heather was fresh
and sweet to eat, and very warm to lie on. The little
grouse soon lost the yellow down that had covered
him, and his plumage became very much like his
mother’s. The family would fly about in a group,
father and mother leading, and they often went off
the heather to eat the grass and early berries.
“I have lived more than one whole year,” said
Father Grouse, “but I was born in a very bad season.
The heather was bitten by the frost, the rain was unceasing,
we could not get enough food, and it was
terribly cold on the wet ground. Hundreds died—but
lie down, somebody is coming.”
The family crouched low in the heather and saw
the landlord’s factor walking up the hill-side with a
stout gentleman who wore an unbecoming coat and
a waistcoat with a heavy watch chain across it. The
stout gentleman passed a handkerchief across his forehead.
“It is a fine view,” he gasped, “and what are
the limits of the bag?”
“Eight hundred brace of grouse may be shot
and forty stags but the laird is not a hard man
and might make it a thousand brace and fifty
.pn +1
stags,” said the factor, who had forgotten how to
blush.
“Now,” whispered Father Grouse, and uttering a
challenge, he rose within three yards of the stout
gentleman, closely followed by wife and family.
“You see,” said the factor, “the moor is packed
with birds, you can almost walk over them.”
“Why did you show yourself like that, my dear?”
said Mother Grouse, when they had settled after a
long easy flight.
“Ah,” replied her husband, “you leave me to attend
to my own business. I like to see men like
that on the moor, they do no harm. It is the
young, slender men who are never tired and are
always shooting that I object to. You can’t get
away from them, Kok-kok.”
“Did you hear the factor,” continued Father
Grouse, after as near an approach to a chuckle as a
red grouse can achieve. “He said the bag was
limited to eight hundred brace, though the laird
might make the limit up to a thousand. Now there
are not two hundred and fifty brace on the moor.
As for the stags, fancy a man like that trying to
stalk them; well, let us go and eat some heather-tops—such
talk makes me feel weak.”
.pn +1
They were glorious days that led to the middle of
August. The young grouse was becoming quite
big; he could take long flights without fatigue, could
accomplish a small call, was an adept at finding
good food and soft sleeping places, and he never
allowed his attentions to stray from his feathered
enemies.
He had some narrow escapes; on one occasion
the peregrine falcon struck down one of his sisters
as she was flying by his side; on another the great
Golden Eagle, coming from his eyrie on the mountain
top, was circling over him, but suddenly saw a
young deer calf on a rock not far away. The rock
looked over the bare hill-side, and the eagle, lighting
on the poor calf’s back, buffeted its face so heavily
with his wings that it fell off the rock and, tumbling
down, was killed on the hill-side. The Golden
Eagle made his meal, the fox and the carrion crow
took what was left. It was a sad sight, and the
Golden Eagle was more unpopular than ever on the
moor and in the forest.
The young grouse made the acquaintance of the
biggest deer on the hill, a king of stags, with brow,
bay and tray antlers, who explained that he was a
stag royal. This acquaintance was made one
.pn +1
afternoon in early August when the grouse family were
feeding on some succulent grasses by the side of the
burn where the stag came to drink.
“I am more than pleased to meet you again,”
said the stag. “I wish you and your family as sure
an escape from the shot gun as I hope to get from
the rifle.” So saying he trotted off, and Father
Grouse spread his feathers just as though he had
been a blackcock in a juniper tree, and challenged
as loudly as he could.
“Last September,” he said, turning to his wondering
son, “after my parents had met with misfortune
passing over the butts, I found myself on some high
ground near the big corrie. The royal stag you
saw just now was resting there with his family, and
he had been seen by the stalker. I was sitting on
a heather tuft thinking that now I had lost my
parents I should have to join the grouse pack, when
I saw the stalker and the man who shoots the stags,
crawling along the ground in my direction. They
wanted to get behind the stag and shoot him as he
sat head to wind.
“I can see them now—the stalker very cool, and
the shooter very tired. As I looked I thought I
recognised him as the man who had shot my parents.
.pn +1
I did not hesitate, but rose up when they were almost
near enough to touch me, flew within hearing
of the stag and called out:—
“Who goes there? The gun, the gun.”
“The royal stag and all his family scattered, the
stalker put down his gun and took up his whisky-flask;
the man who had shot my parents used language
no respectable grouse could listen to without
feeling ashamed. They went to the wood for their
lunch and my cousin, the grey hen, heard the stalker
say he thought they had walked twelve miles after
that stag. Kok-kok.”
It was good to be alive in those August days, to
wake up when the sun started work, look out for
food in the morning and late afternoon, and lie close
through the heat of the day. The southerner had
taken the shooting on lease and spent one or two
days looking over the land, to the great delight of
Father Grouse, who declared that no bird need suffer
uneasiness on his account.
“All old men,” said Father Grouse, “would fire
into a pack without hurting anything.” This was
on the night of the 11th August which happened to
fall on Saturday. Sunday, the 12th, brought no
guns to the moor, and Father Grouse was first
.pn +1
puzzled and then delighted. “I have it,” he said at last;
“there will be no grouse shot this year, that stout
man knows he will have no chance against us. He
will try to shoot stags because they are bigger.
Kok-kok.”
Monday, the 13th of August, found the grouse
family up betimes; they fed heartily, as was their
custom, and then retired to shelter from the heat.
Father Grouse, Mother Grouse, three daughters and
the one son, comprised the family now. Once or
twice Mother Grouse stirred uneasily and said she
heard men, but her husband remonstrated with her.
“You are very nervous, my dear,” he said,
“haven’t I told you there will be no shooting this
year? They will be cutting the corn in the lower
fields soon, and we’ll go down there to feed on the
stooks. You want a change of diet to strengthen
your nerves. I know well enough you have no
occasion for uneasiness.”
.tb
“It’s no good starting too early,” the head keeper
had said at the lodge on the previous evening, “give
the birds time to eat and time to settle down, and
then you’ll do all right.”
And on the morning of the 13th he had declared
.pn +1
that the breeze was just what was wanted, and that
everything pointed to a successful day. The party,
four guns and two keepers, with retrievers, had gone
steadily from the low ground where the lodge stood,
across the fresh-cut fields, over the hill-side and on
to the moor. The heather was short and pointers
were not used on it.
The old gentleman who took the moor did not
shoot, but his three sons and nephew were first-class
shots. While Father Grouse was saying his last
words, he had seen them, and had realised that the
men with the guns were young and sturdy, just the
sort he had learned to fear. In that trying moment
he realised how he had deceived himself and family,
and how the gunners, by coming up the wind, had
made it impossible for him to scent them in time.
“Rise quickly with me,” he whispered bravely to
the Mother Grouse, “we’ll go for a safer place, my
dear, and you follow us,” he added to his children.
With these words he rose, and the others followed
so quickly that the six birds seemed to take wing
together.
“Bang, bang, bang, bang,” said the guns, and
Father and Mother Grouse sank down into the
heather that had been their home so long, with never
.pn +1
a feather of their fine plumage ruffled. They were
shot dead so cleanly that they knew no pain, and
with them two of their children fell, not to die so
easily. The white spot at the base of the beak of
Father Grouse had a bright drop of blood on it,
Mother Grouse did not even show as much.
“Mark down the others,” cried the man who had
shot the parent birds, and opened the season with a
successful “right and left”.
“Isn’t worth while,” said his friend who had shot
one of the younger birds, “they are only cheepers.”
Then the birds being retrieved, the party continued
to shoot its way over the moor, meeting with fair
success, for the wind kept the birds from hearing the
approach, and they had fed so well during the fine
weather that they were not at all wild. Twenty
odd brace had gone to the bag by two o’clock.
The young cock grouse never knew how he got
away, nor what became of his family. He heard
the guns cracking at the back of him, the hissing of
shot through the air, and he flew wildly until he
felt he had reached safety, then sank down into
the heather, not daring to stir. He heard the guns
again; once the remnant of a broken covey passed
over the heather where he crouched, but he did not
.pn +1
move until feeding-time came, and then, after a brief
meal, returned to shelter.
For the next two weeks the moor was quite unsafe,
the four guns sounded every morning and afternoon;
on one or another of the five beats the birds
fell in all directions. One day the guns came upon
the young grouse suddenly, when he had no idea
of their proximity and, crouched in the heather, he
remained quite still. It was a hot day, no breath
of air stirred the leaves; the ground was hard as
iron and there was no scent. A dog passed within
a yard of him without betraying his presence; the
gunners moved away to the right; he was safe.
He met single birds on the moor, and all told
the same doleful tale of disaster, and when with the
last day of the month the weather changed and the
wind rose, word passed from bird to bird that it was
time to pack. So he joined one or two others and
they joined some more, and when they were fifty
strong they joined another band as large, and their
addition went on until the pack numbered hundreds
if not thousands. This was not on the old moor where
he had been born, but on another one not far away,
where the guns had only stayed for a day or two
before going on to the high forest lands some mile
.pn +1
or more away in pursuit of the stags. The young
grouse and his companions had become very keen
of sight and hearing; they were alarmed by the least
sound, and gunners who tried to walk after them
never arrived within firing distance.
One afternoon when the pack was feeding, the
young grouse came upon his friend the royal stag
by the side of the burn that ran through the heart
of the heather. The great beast had been wounded
by an ill-aimed bullet and had found his way to the
water alone, for his hinds had scattered. He lay
crouched amid the moss and water grasses.
“I have been here for two days,” he said to the
grouse, “and if I’m left alone for two more I’ll be
healed of my wounds and I’ll baffle the stalkers
yet. They nearly tracked me, but had no dog, or I
must have fought for it.”
“We’re staying here awhile,” said the grouse, “and
I’ll do what I can for you in the way of warning.”
The red grouse fed and rested in that quarter for
several days, and the stag went back to the forest on
the third evening. “I am well enough to go to
sanctuary now,” he said, “to the wood in the centre
of the forest where the stalkers may not follow us.
Good-bye, good luck, take care of the butts.” So
.pn +1
saying, he trotted off bravely, before the young grouse
could ask what the butts might be.
He was not left long in doubt. On the morning
following the stag’s departure, he and his companions
were alarmed to see a body of men armed with
white flags approaching from the distance. With
one accord the birds rose and went en masse in the
direction indicated by the wind, right over some
little banks of turf they had seen many times before
on the moor. There were several of these banks
on various moors, they were in a line, one being
seventy yards or more from the other and were quite
harmless as a rule.
This morning, however, as the birds passed over,
the cry of the guns was heard, shot after shot was
fired, bird after bird fell, for every little enclosure
held one or two men. Some birds tried swerving, but
it only carried them from one earth to another; it
was a frightful experience and one that was destined
to be repeated, for the birds followed the wind
whenever they fled from the beaters and were caught
again and again.
If the walkers had shot their tens, the drivers
secured their hundreds in the next week or two,
until the weather changed again for the worse and
.pn +1
the packs took to a wilder and higher flight than
they had ever attempted before. Then the gunners
went off the moors and returned to the lower lands
to shoot partridges.
To his last day the young grouse never knew how
he survived the driving. The constant alarms, the
headlong flights through the air, the hiss of the expanding
shot that struck down near neighbours, these
experiences filled him with a strange unreasoning
fear, and he was not to escape scot free, for a couple
of stray pellets cut off two of the toes of his left leg
and another skinned the feathers above the left eye
so that they never grew again.
On one occasion in his mad flight from the moor,
he would have been killed against the telegraph wires
of the Highland Railway, had not the singing of the
“protectors” warned him just in time to dive below
the wires. He felt little pain and inconvenience
from his wounds and soon learned to go on short allowance
of toes, but his fear increased until the least
sound sent him into flight. Long after the moor
had ceased to echo with the sound of guns, he
trembled at every noise. The stags roared in the
forest, and he fled in fear; a bird of prey screamed
in the air—he dashed off again.
.il fn=illus095.jpg w=525px id=ilC
.ca RED GROUSE [Photo by C. Reid]
“Have no more fear,” said the royal stag one day
in later October, “the guns have gone for the year,
the shooting season is over and I go about the forest
as I like. Until my horns have fallen and grown
again they will not return.”
This assurance comforted the grouse and he
changed his clothes for a black and buff combination
that yielded in a little while to the splendid chestnut
with white tipped lower feathers that he remembered
his father wearing. He still travelled with the pack,
but they ate less heather than they had eaten before,
and depended more upon late autumn berries, grass
and corn left on unploughed fields. He grew strong
and indifferent to the storms that swept the moors
and made the forest bare.
No sportsman came near, and at the end of
December the pack separated, and our friend was
left so near to his own moor that he lighted on it,
and there he met a young lady grouse in her charming
winter gown with its bars of red and buff and
spots at the tips of the feathers. He asked her if
she would fly with him, explaining that he had, he
feared, lost his family and friends. She feared that
hers was a similar plight and said she would be glad
of a protector. So they went out together and found
.pn +1
the scattered remains of their friends, and for two or
three months enjoyed a pleasant courtship.
Then when the stale winter heather was about to
yield to a new crop, one bird brought news of a district
where all the old growth had been burnt by the
proprietors of the land a few years earlier and the
new shoots were plentiful and sweet. The grouse
and his lady flew to that spot, and found a little unoccupied
hollow under a heather tuft. He helped her
to line it with grass and moss, and she filled it with
ten eggs. It was now the end of March, and during
the first part of April he stood on sentry duty a little
way from the nest, and uttered his war cry in Gaelic
as his father had done before him. Happily the
weather was fine once more and ten little babies were
his before April turned to May. He was a proud
grouse on the day when the last bird had come from
its shell.
Other birds had been carelessly content to nest in
the old uneatable heather, or on parts of the moorland
where the ground was damp and undrained;
the mortality among them had been very great, for
they caught pneumonia and other troubles which are
peculiar to the grouse. But this grouse flourished,
and so did his wife and family, and by rare good
.pn +1
luck no birds of prey secured the little ones; the
food supply did not fail, and the weather was never
cold enough to kill the children in days when their
down had not changed to feathers.
By this time all remembrance of the autumn had
passed from the grouse and his wife. It was no
more to them than a dream. They thought of
nothing but love and domesticity. Spring, which
had restored all its beauty to the Highland country,
had effaced recollection of autumn and winter and
all the woes they bore. Summer deepened the remembrance
of the spring and the joy of life; as Mrs.
Grouse remarked to her husband, there was not a
pair on the moors that led a finer covey of little
ones.
June passed in days that seemed to be twenty
hours long, there was no night—only a prolonged
twilight; July was so fine that the burns dwindled
down to little threads, and the farmers on the lowlands
were crying for the water of which in nine years
out of ten they had too much. August found the
heather full of fragrance and the grouse forward, and
strong on the wing. “They are exactly like you,
my dear,” said Father Grouse to his wife, who had
put on her summer dress with the irregular black
.pn +1
bars across buff feathers, as they skimmed over the
heather side by side. The parent birds were like
her, very fat and very lazy, for the heather-tops had
been young and plentiful in their part and they had
rather overeaten themselves.
.tb
“That was a fine covey,” said the first gun to his
neighbour at ten o’clock on the morning of the 12th.
“A dozen in all, and we got six. How odd; last
year you bagged the leader with your first shot just
as you’ve done now. What is it, Donald? Yes,
that’s odd, this old cock bird must have been hit
twice last season. Two toes gone from left leg and
mark of shot above left eye. Well, put them in.
If we go on like this we will have a good bag.”
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stE
THE ROEBUCK
.sp 2
With the beginning of June, full leaf came to the
plantation, but never a human foot disturbed the
fresh thick undergrowth, and save for the subdued
note of birds the silence was complete. Above the
woodland the pines towered along the side of rising
ground that led to the more abrupt hills in whose
corries the red deer were to be found; below the
woodland the arable lands began, and stretched in
rich and plenteous growth to the inhabited districts.
The corn was young and green, and the farmers
had no work to do within its area. So the doe that
had left her mate and the little party with which she
travelled, in the third week of May, felt happily secure
in the hiding-place she had chosen, a secluded
spot amid thick bracken, and very early in June two
little fawns were born to her. They were pretty
babies with coats lighter than their mother’s summer
dress, and marked with white spots that did not
remain very long. Their mother watched over them
.pn +1
with most anxious and affectionate care, and until
they were weaned could not bear them out of her
sight for a moment. In the days of their utter helplessness
she did not leave the wood at all, and the
first walks abroad seemed to fill her with anxiety.
At the beginning of July, when the fawns were
able to frisk about in prettiest fashion, happily ignorant
of the element in life called danger, Donald’s
retriever pup, making a little journey of discovery,
came quite by chance into the wood. It was quite
a puppy, without any definite ideas of a proper
function in life, and no desire to do more than play
with strange animals, but the mother of the little
ones was very frightened, and could not fathom its
intentions. She called upon her babies to lie down in
the thick fern, and then made her way to the puppy.
Had she possessed horns it might have gone ill
with the intruder, as it was she managed to kick
him very severely, and he fled from the wood howling.
After this alarm the doe redoubled her precautions,
and very often would stop feeding to stand
with one fore-leg raised and listen intently to some
sound coming from far away. Towards the end of
the month the return of her errant husband lightened
her anxieties.
.pn +1
The Roebuck came jauntily into the wood and offered
no excuse or explanation for his two months’
absence. He was quite a handsome fellow with
about nine inches of antlers bearing the backward
and forward tine that mark the complete development
of what our forefathers called the “fair roebuck”.
From the shoulder he stood about two feet
two inches, from nose to the end of his short tail he
was about four feet long; his head was short, his eyes
were large, and there were black and white markings
on his lips. His coat was the light reddish-brown
of summer, and his conspicuous white patch gave an
effective contrast to it. He was very well pleased
with the children his wife had brought him, and expressed
his satisfaction in a series of short, sharp
barks.
The family stayed in the wood for a brief time,
living on grasses and ivy and the fresh growth of
young trees, to which the fawns soon learned to
help themselves, as they cared more for leaves than
grass; but the pleasure of the season was quite spoilt
by the flies. The wood was full of them, and they
bit and worried the fawns until life became a burden.
“We must go up into the hills,” said the Roebuck
.pn +1
decisively; “it is our only chance of escape from this
trouble. Midges can’t climb so far.”
“But what about the babies?” said the doe
anxiously; “don’t forget the great big stags with
long horns that live up there.”
“It is quite safe,” explained the Roebuck; “we
are good friends. Next to the red grouse, there is
no bird or beast that does so much for the red deer
as we do. At the first sign of danger we give the
alarm, and send the red herd scampering over the
hills out of harm’s way. Often when the stalkers
are abroad we spoil their day’s work by coming between
them and the quarry. So you have nothing
to fear from our big cousins.”
Reassured, the doe and her fawns accompanied
the roebuck to the high hills, choosing night-time
for the journey, with the fear of mankind before
them. Food was less plentiful in the high grounds,
but there were sufficient grasses to keep serious
trouble away, and the cool shade was free from the
worries that went with it below.
From their new home they could see right across
the pinewood, over the plantation of birch, alder,
juniper and Scotch fir, and thence across the low-lying
fields of ripening corn. And when they sat
.pn +1
head to wind no danger could come their way.
Change of residence had made the doe, at least, very
suspicious of unaccustomed sights and sounds; the
buck was bolder and more assured.
August found the horns of the red deer fully
grown and nearly free from velvet, and it brought
the stalkers to the forest. The sharp crack of the
rifle passed so quickly that it left little terror behind,
the greater cause for alarm was the stalker himself.
Did the Roebuck wind one he would bark defiantly,
and his cry was as significant as the crow of the red
grouse, who also hated intruders. It was well for
the stalkers that the roedeer had another interest in
middle August—it was the season of their lovemaking,
and then they were less careful about questions
of concealment.
The buck and the doe were more than ever devoted
to one another now, and the fawns were left
to their own devices. They courted and played, and
were happy as though the month were April instead
of August, and when one fine morning another roebuck
wished to intrude, there was a terrible battle.
The two fawns watched it from a distance. As soon
as their father saw the intruder for the first time, he
rushed at him with lowered head; the newcomer
.pn +1
lowered his to receive the charge, and the horns of
both seemed to be locked together. They separated,
but drew off only to rush at one another again, and
as each wished to avoid the other’s shock the charge
was ineffective. Then they kicked with their forelegs
and stood up, and in that position the parent
roebuck managed to get in a thrust that ripped the
intruder’s flank badly. This ended the struggle, the
stranger retreated, leaving a little trail of blood to
mark his trail. Mother doe had watched the combatants
from a safe distance, and as soon as the
fight was over she called in her own subdued fashion,
and her mate, forgetful of his bruises, rushed headlong
to her side. It had been an anxious time for
the doe, for, according to the forest laws, she must
have followed the stranger had he proved a victor.
On the afternoon of the same day the parents
were still together, and the fawns had rambled to
some rocks at the head of the corrie. They saw no
danger below, and all around the place was deserted.
But far away in the blue depths above the Golden
Eagle hung for a moment quite motionless, wondering
where his supper would come from. The little
doe-fawn, suspecting no evil, had advanced to the
edge of the high rock overlooking the valley; she
.pn +1
was clearly to be seen from the eagle’s post of observation.
With quick, fierce swoop the great bird
shot through space, and stuck his cruel talons deep
into the fawn’s shoulders. As he did so he buffeted
her fiercely with his heavy wings, and she fell headlong
on to the rock below—dead. Assured by one
rapid circling flight that no danger was to be feared
the eagle followed, tore from the half-formed body
the parts that pleased him best, and then rose with
a hoarse scream of triumph to wash red beak and
claws in the nearest water.
The parents did not seem to notice their loss as
they would have done in the earlier year, but the
little roebuck had seen the tragedy as he lay crouched
in the adjacent heather, pressed as closely to the
ground as the hare in her form. He at least knew
now that danger came from every side. And, as
though to enforce recollection of the fact, it chanced
that he was feeding in cover by a hill-side track one
evening a week later, when the sound of footsteps
made him crouch very low.
The sounds came nearer, he was afraid to move,
and presently a pony came down the narrow track
with a gillie by its side. Tied on to the pony’s back
was a red deer—dead, a gaping wound in its throat.
.pn +1
The little roebuck knew the victim for a royal stag,
one of the monarchs of the forest, whose antlers were
the admiration of every hind in the district. Yes, a
rifle had cracked twice in the late afternoon in the
direction of a corrie that the great stag favoured, and,
doubtless, a bullet had found its billet. The fawn
crept back to his mother’s side, he did not care to
ramble any more.
A great chill came to the forest, and there were
morning and evening mists that made feeding difficult.
“We will return to the plantation,” said the father
roebuck; “it will be pleasant down there now.”
So they made their way back to the first home in
the plantation, and all three began to change their
coat, losing the red covering the parents had worn
since May, and the young one had worn since the
last white patches had left him. By October,
when the great red deer were roaring on the high
hills, and the stalker had laid his rifle down, roebuck,
doe and fawn wore the thicker livery that would be
theirs till spring returned.
It had not come before it was required, for the
brief season of good weather had passed. Now the
clouds hid the high hills, the red grouse had packed,
.pn +1
the ptarmigan was putting on his white dress, and
the blue hare of the hills was following his wise example.
With the winter dress the appearance of the elder
roedeer improved considerably. They began to grow
fat, and found an abundance of food. The tops of
young trees, ivy and rowan berries served the doe
and fawn, but the Roebuck was not averse from a raid
on the turnip fields below the plantation, and enjoyed
many a meal of corn until the last stooks were
carried.
Owing to his night-prowling habits, his extreme
quickness of eye and ear, and inconspicuous colouring,
he could travel unobserved and with comparative
impunity over to the farm lands. Doe and fawn were
less venturesome, and preferred to accept the restricted
diet of the plantation, rather than wander
far afield. The Roebuck’s favourite movement was a
canter that became a gallop when alarmed; he never
trotted, but was always ready to jump, and could
accomplish great feats if hard pressed.
With the end of December the Roebuck’s antlers,
which had been growing very loose, dropped off altogether,
and for the next six or seven weeks the
new ones remained undeveloped. At last they were
.pn +1
complete, and their proud owner rubbed off the last
shreds of velvet against one of the trees in the
plantation. By this time the fawn had put out two
little points, his first year’s horn, and he was so
proud of them that he damaged many saplings in
order to test their efficiency.
To such a young roebuck the points were not an
unmixed blessing. Sometimes when he ran out of
the plantation into the pine-wood the wire fencing
would catch and hurt them, and the damage done
in the months when his head was very tender quite
spoilt its shape, and made his horns grow awry all
the days of his life. Though he had his fair share
of vanity, this mischance did not trouble him greatly,
for when he went abroad after he had grown up,
there were few roebuck better off than he.
In his first winter another family joined his
parents—a buck, a doe, and a little doe-fawn about
his own age. They moved and fed together right
into the spring; does and fawns keeping well within
the precincts of the wood, while the roebuck ventured
afield. They were constantly on the look-out for
food, but had their stated hours for eating it. Early
morning, noon and sunset seemed to be their meal-times,
and then they would feed very delicately and
.pn +1
within quite a small space, ready to take alarm if a
branch cracked at the far end of the wood, or a dog
barked beyond the border of the arable land, or the
breeze that faced them as they fed carried on its
wings the scent of man the enemy.
In May the two families separated, and the does
retired to the most secluded corners they could find.
The Young Roebuck was now left to his own devices,
and celebrated the change by putting on the summer
suit of ruddy brown, that shone when he ventured
into the light. Nearly a month was occupied by
the change, and during that time he felt sick and
out of condition; but as soon as the transformation
was complete his spirits revived, and he was ready
for any adventure. Throughout July he indulged
in the roughest play with young bucks of his own
age, but his single points kept the fighting from becoming
dangerous, and he could not bark as his
elders did in that season. He went up to the hills
alone one night, following the tracks of the past year
for it was his rule always to choose a path he knew,
and to travel in darkness, or between the lights.
Depending upon his own exertions for supplies,
he lived in comfort until the month of August woke
the stalkers into life, and then, with the nervousness
.pn +1
common to his years, he thought that every gun was
directed against his life. His keen hearing, fine
sight and prompt action often gave the alarm to
less wary red deer; and, if half the stalkers’ curses
had taken effect, his tenure of life would have been
brief. As it was, he went back to the plantation at
the end of September full of the belief that his life
was threatened, and this thought inspiring all his
movements, doubtless lengthened his days.
For once there was a keen hunter of roedeer in
the district; a man who had shot game in the
wonderful country lying between the Zambesi river
and the Uganda Protectorate and was anxious to
try his hand at the deer of his native land. Already
he had secured fine heads of the larger deer, and
now he was bent upon following the roe, and studying
the habits of the ground game. Throughout the
plantation roedeer changed their coats to the brown
and yellow livery of the colder season; and it became
hard for the experienced eye to follow their movements.
They glided through the wood’s most
shadowy places, lightly as the sun across a meadow
in June; never a leaf stirred or a branch cracked
beneath their tread, for the paths of their going and
coming were marked.
.pn +1
Children making an excursion to the wood saw the
circling tracks of the roedeer, and thought that they
were fairy rings made by Queen Mab for her nightly
revels. But the fairies were only the little deer who
could see the children and yet remain unseen, and
were never seriously disturbed by their stray visits.
In May and June children were not allowed to enter
the wood, for the does were with their babies then,
and might have done an injury to intruders.
Through the heat of summer the deer were in the
high hills, and in the autumn they were very shy.
The hunter noticed these things. He loved the
country, time was his own, and he chose a corner of
the land from which he could mark some of the
comings and goings of the roedeer, with the help of
his strong glass. Then he waited all night among
the corn stooks, enduring the cold and the mist with
complete indifference; and as the dawn was breaking
he surprised the roedeer’s father. The old buck
gave two leaps and was off at a gallop. The hunter
remained perfectly cool, his keen eye told him what
allowance he must make for the pace; and when he
fired the buck gave one last despairing jump into
the air and fell dead. By the edge of the corn land
the Young Roebuck, who had seen everything, lay
.pn +1
low on the ground in an agony of terror, just as he
crouched when the golden eagle of the mountain
seized his sister in the previous year.
It was late November and the roedeer were growing
very fat; they had grain, turnip roots and
rowan berries, as well as the tender parts of trees
and grasses to feed upon, and perhaps the quality
of the food supply kept them to their old home, in
spite of the danger that surrounded it. Now, the
hunter knew the numbers and sizes of the wood’s
inhabitants, and he secured two more bucks of first
head before they lost their horns. And in January
and February he shot several fat does, matching his
cunning against theirs, and having no help save that
of a well-trained dog.
He might have shot the Young Roebuck had he
cared to, but the new horns had nothing more than
the forward tine that shoots out in the second year,
about two-thirds of the way from the base, and the
hunter had no use for so small a head. With the
end of February he left Scotland, and three summers
had come to the land before he returned.
In his absence the wood remained undisturbed.
A few roedeer were shot by farmers among the corn
lands; in one very severe winter several were killed
.pn +1
by poachers, but the young roebuck had escaped all
trouble.
In his third year the backward tine had come between
the forward one and the end of the point, and
thereafter he was completely armed. He had
learned to bark quite loudly, had fought for a doe and
won her from her former master; he was a parent
though without responsibilities, and was reckoned
one of the most cunning deer of the woodland.
Though he travelled far and wide no trouble came
his way, hooks and nets failed to snare him. Angry
farmers, stalkers and owners of the young plantations
to which he did so much harm could not reach
him with their vengeance; he seemed to bear a
charmed life. Even when he rested there was some
avenue by which tidings of danger could find way
to his brain and restore his full consciousness on the
instant. His winter weight was over fifty pounds,
and his antlers were over nine inches, though their
shape had been spoiled in the days when they were
no more than simple points.
The hunter came back to the Highlands in late
August and pursued the red deer until they began
to roar and seek the hinds. Then he went South, to
return in January when the snow was on the ground,
.pn +1
when the Highland world seemed given over to
storms, and the roebuck had lost their horns. He
sought his accustomed corner and waited to see the
roedeer feeding. Very soon the glass revealed all
things to him. He saw the doe come from the wood
to enjoy the stock of roots that had been piled, by
his direction, at the edge of the arable land. Presently
a buck of the fourth year joined her—a fine
heavy beast.
In other parts of the woodland he saw other roedeer,
and he knew that severe weather had driven
some of the red deer down from the high hills above
him. But the first pair of deer always captivated
his attention. He could not have known that they
were old friends, and that he had spared that same
buck when his horns were hardly formed. Perhaps
he was attracted by the elaborate pains this buck
and doe took to avoid observation, by the way in
which the buck pushed his companion forward as an
advance guard, and disappeared at the first sign or
sound of danger, leaving her to follow undirected.
For days he endeavoured to get near them, using a
well-trained hound, watching in the neighbourhood
of their rings, even employing Donald to aid him in
the quest.
.pn +1
Four years of keen observation had made the Roebuck
more wary than ever, and, aided by his protective
colouring, he passed lightly from plantation
to pine-wood, unheard and unseen, while the doe was
equally successful in escaping pursuit. For days
together they would leave the hunter’s boundaries,
but they always returned when they thought the
place was quiet; and in the meantime the roebuck’s
antler’s grew, and the velvet stripped, and he was
becoming a splendid buck with haunch and head
alike at their best.
Many men would have been baffled, but the
hunter was unlike most people, and did not know
when he was beaten. His experience had been
gained in many countries, his store of woodcraft
was very large. He made a very careful study of
the tracks by which the roedeer left the plantation
for pine-wood and feeding grounds, and then, after
leaving the place quite quiet for several days, took
advantage of a strong wind, and stole up to a point
where Donald had dug a pit and put a screen of
heather. There were other dummy screens round
the sides of the plantation, and the roedeer had
ceased to fear them.
That evening the doe came out and made her
.pn +1
way to a small patch of sweet grass that the trees
had sheltered from the snow. She seemed very
suspicious and ill at ease, and many times stood for
a moment with head erect and fore-foot raised as
though to sniff the breeze. At last she was within
sixty yards of the pit, and broadside on, and even
as the hunter pressed the trigger that sent the
notched bullet speeding to her brain, he knew that
his aim was true. Quickly as possible he carried
off the spoil, glad at heart, for he knew that her mate
must soon be his.
For two days and nights the snow fell, and then
on a clear afternoon he sallied forth again, taking
advantage of wind and cover to reach his pit unobserved.
The woodland was desolate and still, no
sound of life was to be heard. He laid his rifle
gently down and took from his pocket the little call
given to him by an old deer-stalker of the Austrian
highlands. He put it to his mouth.
In the heart of the plantation the Roebuck, who
walked now with clean horns of splendid growth,
heard the music that the doe makes in the most
pleasant season of his life. True to his predominant
instinct he forgot the claims of caution, and rushed
headlong in the direction of the sound. It came
.pn +1
from behind a little mound of snow, where the
heather patch had stood. The separating distance
became eighty, sixty, forty yards, and then a long
barrel peeped out towards him, and with a mighty
effort he checked his gallop and prepared to turn.
In that brief moment of change the rifle spoke,
and he tumbled dead in his tracks.
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stF
THE WATER-RAT
.sp 2
Many people know the river in and round the
market-town that stands upon its banks, but very
few have seen the parent stream where it passes
rippling for some hundreds of yards between narrow
banks in the shadow of old willow trees, for here it
is on private ground. You could not wish to see
more beautiful country. There are high hills
crowned with woods and level meadows where grass
is always green, and the willows share with the
poplars the custody of the water. Tiny little tributaries
enter the main stream here and there, but
Jock the water-rat looked upon these with some contempt,
as though he thought they were suburban.
He had his home in the roots under an old willow
tree. You saw one hole in the bank just above the
water, but there were others under the water, and in
the meadow.
When the summer day was fine and long, Jock
would sit at the edge of the hole that was made
.pn +1
in the bank, and would survey the world with a
cautious eye and a contented expression. He was
no longer a young water-rat, and he had not passed
through his life without learning that he had
enemies, but in this part of the river the trout were
few and of small size—far too small indeed to trouble
water-rats, and the eels that collected lower down
by the mill seldom came in his direction, the feeding
was not good enough. Of great coarse fish like pike
there was little need for fear, the water was too
shallow to tempt them to come so far up. If we
except the old heron who was no longer as smart as
he had been in the days of his youth, and now stood
on one leg as often as he did on two, and missed his
stroke as often as he made it, Jock had no enemies
in the water, and this is as it should have been, for
there never was a more harmless little animal.
He wore a brown coat well oiled, and carried a
black tail with a white tip, of which he was absurdly
proud, for such a decoration in water-rat land denotes
that the wearer is of good family, and Jock
had cousins and distant relatives by the score who
could not boast such an adornment. He was proud
of the many doored home he had made for himself,
and still more proud of the river which, he believed,
.pn +1
had been put there for his benefit. He would sit
for hours where the light could just reach him and
listen attentively to the soft song of the water, and
the louder note of larks that sang in the sky above
him.
From time to time he would look with a patronising
eye upon Mrs. Moorhen who often brought her
little black babies past the door of his house when
the mantle of summer was spread over the land. In
her early days Mrs. Moorhen had quite mistrusted
him, she thought he was like the big brown rats
that lived about the barns and sometimes came to
the water side, and did what harm they could from
the time when their eyes opened until the fatal day
came when the keeper brought his terriers and his
ferrets to the home farm and killed them in their
hundreds.
“I assure you, Madam,” said Jock, upon the day
when he cleared his character, “I would not harm
you if I could, and I could not harm you if I would.
I have nothing at all to do with the brown rats of
the barn, my skin is darker than theirs, and my tail
is altogether different. Why, the white tip ought to
have told you as much, even if the length had not.
Then too, my legs are shorter, and I have yellow
.pn +1
claws, and yellow colouring on my fur. Those
fellows who live up by the barns are merely brown.
They will eat anything or anybody, and the dirtier
their food is the better they like it, but I have
delicate tastes and am altogether a clean liver.”
“Will you give me your word of honour,” said
Mrs. Moorhen, “that you have never eaten an
egg?”
“Quite readily,” he replied. “My food consists
entirely of roots and flowers and water weeds. I’ve
never tasted an egg in my life.”
Perhaps Mrs. Moorhen was not altogether satisfied
at first, for she watched very carefully from
among the rushes and roots to see when and where
Jock fed. The sight reassured her. After sitting
very quietly for an hour or so enjoying the view
and the music, he would let himself down easily
into the water, and swim to some plant that seemed
to tempt his appetite. He would bite it from root
or stem, swim back again to his doorway, and then
squat upon his hind-legs and eat with great deliberation.
When he had finished he would remove
all the débris very carefully, and wash himself like
the clean little animal he was. Sometimes he
would carry his food on to the bank, or even seek it
.pn +1
on the bank and eat quite away from his burrow,
but his movements were all so simple and so harmless
that Mrs. Moorhen could but be reassured,
and she soon came to the conclusion that it was a
good thing to have a friend in a world that was so
full of enemies.
“I haven’t seen you here for long,” she explained,
“and when I saw you first you were
running on the land, and that made me suspicious.
You were not in these parts when I came to them
in the autumn.”
“The truth is,” he explained, “that I have only
just come back to my home for the summer.
During the winter months I could not face the
water for long, and I could not sit at the door of
my burrow because the river had risen so high, so
I was forced to go inland when I was not asleep.
“You may not know,” he went on, seeing that his
companion looked rather puzzled, “that during the
very cold weather I sleep as long as I can, sometimes
for days together. Then I wake up very
hungry and must go in search of food, and as I
cannot find much to eat in the water it is sometimes
necessary to go to the fields to find a meal in
the roots.”
.pn +1
“Are they not all cleared away by the time the
very bad weather comes?” inquired Mrs. Moorhen.
“They have been taken up,” he replied, “but
there is generally enough left to yield more than I
could possibly eat if I started at the end of the
summer and never went to sleep until the spring.
Sometimes I store roots and grasses in my burrow,
but last year two land rats came to it. I was
frightened and would not return. I have no trouble
at all about the food supply; my only care is to
avoid the creatures that one sometimes meets on
the fields in early morning or at dusk.”
“I know,” said the bird with a little shiver.
“You mean great big men with guns and dogs. I
knew a mallard who came to live here in the rushes
with his wife, and we became very friendly. He
had the most beautiful green feathers I have ever
seen in birdland. One morning in January when
there was a hard frost and my friends were lying
low in the rushes, a big dog came up to them, and
they jumped up to fly away. They went head to
wind to keep their feathers in the proper place for
the breeze was strong. Before they had gone as far
as the bridge there was a hideous noise, and then
.pn +1
another hideous noise, and one fell dead on the land,
and the other fell dead in the water, and the dog
went after them and picked them up, and I buried
myself in the water up to the tip of my nose and
felt terribly afraid.”
“I have heard those noises,” said Jock, “but I
don’t think men would harm you or me; we do no
hurt to anybody, and they don’t need us for their
food. My enemies are the stoats and the weasels
that run along the hedgerows and kill rabbits and
anything else they can get their teeth into. Many
of my family have suffered death at their hands,
and I am always afraid when I go on the land lest
they should see my beautiful tail. If they did it
would be all up with me, for they can walk faster
than I can run. On my bank I am safe for I can
drop into the water, and the weasel or stoat that
can follow me there may have all he can get. I
don’t mind men, they never seek to hurt me. I
don’t like boys because some have thrown stones at
me, and I don’t like women because one passed last
summer when I sat washing myself by my door,
and she said: ‘Oh, there’s a horrid rat!’ and ran
away.”
In those late spring days there was not much
.pn +1
opportunity for conversation. Mr. and Mrs. Moorhen
had built a nest in the roots of a willow tree, so
close to the water that had it risen an inch or two
the eggs must have been destroyed; and Mrs.
Water-rat had retired to a nest at the far end of the
burrow well above the water line, a nest of weeds
and grass that had been bitten into tiny pieces and
shaped rather like a cup. Jock in those days had
less time for sunning and washing himself than he
thought he needed, and was constantly in the water
searching for dainties for his wife, or looking out
for attractive pieces of grass or weed that he
thought were needed to make the nest still more
beautiful. Sometimes his wife would come from
the nest for a brief wash and return immediately.
Before May had passed, and at a time when the
river banks were loaded with an abundance of food
that must have gladdened any water-rat’s heart,
Jock was the father of six little blind baby water-rats,
and Mrs. Moorhen was the mother of eight
tiny little babies, that looked like balls of soot, so
round and so black were they. It was a busy time,
but yet Jock found hours through which it was possible
to listen to the lark, or to watch the bats when
they gathered towards evening and fluttered through
.pn +1
the air in pursuit of the flies and insects that could
never get away. In all the land there were no
happier families than those of the harmless bird
that lived among the rushes, and the good water-rat
whose record defied reproach.
“If I could find nothing else to eat,” he said one
day when he had been explaining his rules of life
to his friends, who paused on the water just in front
of his burrow, with their little family playing round
them, “I might be tempted to eat some of those
young frogs. Some of my cousins do so, but they
have rather low tastes, and you wouldn’t find a white
tip to any tail among them. I hold that it’s wrong,
for there’s no excuse here to be anything but a
vegetarian.”
Doubtless the little frogs who had been tadpoles
so recently and now swarmed all over the grass,
were very pleased to hear the news, for they had
quite enough enemies already, the old heron being
the most determined of them all. Though he
sometimes missed his aim when he struck at a fish
now, he seldom made a mistake about a frog, and
as he too had domestic duties and a family to provide
for, he was terribly in earnest. Had he stayed
in the narrower part of the river, it might have gone
.pn +1
ill with Jock and his family, but he felt the need of
the biggest fish he could find, and preferred the
neighbourhood of the mill where there were eels in
abundance and he had a fair sporting chance of
capturing a young pike or two.
Jock and his wife had quite enough work to do in
the early summer days when their young were ready
to leave the snug nest at the end of the burrow. It
was not difficult to teach them to swim, when once
they could be coaxed into the water, for their natural
instinct aided them, and they took more readily to
the water than birds that are born in high trees
take to the air. But it was exceedingly difficult to
make them understand, in the first joy of their newly
discovered achievement, that the river held dangers
in its waters, that if the parent water-rats were too
big for the small fish, the little ones in those early
days were quite tempting morsels. Though the
father water-rat was quite a foot long from tip of
nose to tip of tail, his children could not claim more
than three inches.
Then too, the babies were inclined to scatter and
to be curious, and to go on voyages of discovery on
their own account when they had passed the period
of extreme helplessness that came to them at birth.
.pn +1
In the days when they first looked out upon the
water they had no liking for it, and were carried for
their swimming lesson in fashion rather similar to
that employed by the seal when she takes her little
one for the first time to the depths that are to serve
as home for the greater part of his life. When the
moment came to leave the baby water-rat alone, the
father or mother would swim away from it, and the
little one would find that it could not drown, and
that the water could not even soak its scanty covering.
The water-rat’s coat is full of oil that keeps
the water standing in a thousand little bubbles on
the points of its hair unless it stays for a very long
time under the water, and no water-rats do this
unless they are attracted by some roots that require
a lot of investigation. The young water-rats swam
with head and back right out of the water. At first
they knew no other way, for this was the method
that their parents practised, but they were soon to
learn that, in times of danger, the body must be
sunk altogether, and only the tip of the nose allowed
to show above the water. The moorhens dived
in similar fashion, and each thought that the one
imitated the other.
“I daresay you find our method of diving very
.pn +1
useful when you’re at all alarmed,” said Mr. Moorhen
to Mrs. Water-rat.
“I see you’ve learned to dive just as I do,” said
Jock to Mrs. Moorhen. “It’s the best way to get
about, and you’ve learned the trick perfectly.” It
would have been hard to make either believe that
the other had not copied his action.
As soon as the young family was fully grown it
scattered up and down the stream. Jock and his wife
were kindly parents enough, and would doubtless
have been well pleased to keep their youngsters by
their side, but the burrow was not big enough for a
family that numbered eight in all. There were splendid
positions for other burrows all along the banks,
and the young rats, knowing nothing of late autumn
and winter, were well assured that the supplies of
duckweed, water-lilies, young flags and tender roots
of every description would never come to an end.
To them at least that little bend of the river was
the world,—a world full of good things; so some went
north, and others went south to make new friends
and start independent housekeeping. The two that
went to the north, that is to say in the direction of
the river’s source, fared well. The four that went
down stream had no luck at all. Two fell victims
.pn +1
to the eels that lived by the mill pond, another was
found by a hungry pike, and the fourth, having
ventured on to the land, under the impression that he
had discovered it, was seen by an active weasel who
would not be denied. By that time, however,
August had come to an end. Mrs. Water-rat in her
snug little burrow that had had several leaves and
pieces of weeds added to it by the affectionate Jock
was the mother of another half-dozen babies. Mrs.
Moorhen, who had endeavoured to raise another
brood some weeks earlier, was not so fortunate, for
her eggs were found by a land rat, one of the long-tailed,
sharp-nosed, lean ugly fellows that do so
much more harm than good. But that the unfortunate
mother was actually driven off her nest by
the intruder, and could see for herself what manner
of animal it was, she might have had doubts about
the earlier story that her friend of the burrow across
the bank had told her.
.il fn=illus135.jpg w=525px id=ilD
.ca WATER RAT [Photo by T. A. Metcalfe]
Before the autumn days had turned the greenery
of the land to gold a spell of bad weather set in, accompanied
by severe rains that raised the level of
the river considerably. The entries to the burrow
were flooded and, owing to a temporary obstruction
at the bend of the river, the water threatened to pierce
to the nest at the far end. On this account it was
impossible for the young water-rats to go to the river
as their brothers and sisters born in the earlier year
had done, and for a time their parents fed them upon
the land, carrying them to safety through the land
holes of the burrow to the meadow-side, and always
holding them in their mouths by the loose skin at
the back of the neck. From time to time one of the
parent animals would return to the water, plunging
off the bank, and generally coming up by the doorway
to see whether any change had occurred in the
level of the water. These constant visits to the river
were in a way a necessity to the animals, because
the oily secretion that kept their fur from feeling the
effects of the water, was not limited to the fur, but
extended to the face, and only frequent use of water
kept their eyes clear. With the very little ones this
was hardly the case at first; until they were fully
grown they could live with comparative comfort
upon the land for a much longer period than was
possible with their parents.
It was while returning to the river on one of these
occasions that Jock met with what might have
proved a fatal encounter. One of the young herons
born in the spring had strayed into the
.pn +1
neighbourhood in search of a fresh feeding ground, and spied
what he took to be an appetising morsel. He darted
a stroke at it that would have ended this story on
the spot had not his intended victim been a little too
quick, and dived. The bird remained watching for
any sign that would indicate the return to the surface,
knowing, by the instinct that serves every creature in
pursuit of its prey, that in the nature of things Jock
could not stay under the surface of the water for
very long. Had the river been quite clear the
water-rat might have been seen swimming close to
the river bed; as it was, the recent rains in swelling
the stream had made it muddy, and Jock was able
to move to a point where the water had collected and
left a mass of early fallen leaves. He travelled at
a great pace under the water and came up under
these so lightly that never a leaf was stirred, to remain
perfectly motionless with no more than the tip
of his head above water. A branch that had fallen
into the stream kept him from being swept away by
the force of the current, and he stayed there while the
heron moved up and down with a succession of awkward
strides, waiting patiently for what promised to
be worth working for. Exposed to the force of the
water which was running rather sharply past the
.pn +1
corner where the leaves were covering him, Jock’s
fur was speedily soaked, and for the first time in his
life the protection of oil did not avail to keep his skin
dry. Happily, the heron being young and foolish
soon gave up the search, and stalked solemnly up the
stream where water was more shallow, leaving his
intended prey to scramble up the bank with some
difficulty, and to lie still, wet and miserable and
helpless until the sun came out and dried his fur
and he was able by diligent combing and cleaning
to reduce it to something like its natural condition.
Owing to the peculiar formation of his feet Jock
was able to dress the whole of his fur as easily and
completely as a bat might, and by the following
morning he was in no way the worse for the mischance.
He lived in the same relation to land and
water that the bat lived in with regard to land and
the upper air.
As the weather did not improve the river burrow
was left altogether, and another was made in a field
some little distance off. The necessary work was
done by night and very early morning, and for the
greater part of the day the family remained hidden
in the burrow for the farm hands were at work upon
.pn +1
the land, and the confidence associated with the
water-side home had quite disappeared on the
land. But the old burrow was not deserted altogether.
In the early days of autumn the old
grasses of the nest were brought out and left on the
land, while a store of fresh clean roots was carried in
to serve the family during the winter months in case
of need.
By the time winter had gripped the country-side,
Jock’s second family had scattered, leaving him with
his wife in possession of the land-earth they had
selected for their winter home. Sometimes they
would travel as far as the stack yard of the home
farm in search of their food, and were quite devoted
in their attentions to the piles of root crop that were
gathered under straw at the end of the last field
waiting to be taken away in wheel-barrows and
chopped up for the cattle. Jock and his wife would
not have ventured so far from home had it not been
that the brown rats of barnland had been almost exterminated
some weeks before. When the last of
the roots had been taken away, and all the land on
which green corn was not rising had been ploughed,
dressed and, generally speaking, made unfit for the
water-rat’s attentions, Jock and his wife paid
.pn +1
occasional visits to their store at the burrow end. Sometimes
during spells of very cold weather they slept
there for days on end, celebrating their return to
wakefulness by a plunge into the river. Not even
the coldest weather could keep them from being
clean.
Spring came at last, and the two water-rats left
their home on the land, and returned to the burrow
upon the banks. The water had fallen, and though
it had left the burrow’s bank-side door choked with
débris, the clearance was an easy matter. Once
again the interior of the far end of the burrow was
cleaned, a new nest was made, and Mrs. Water-rat
began to prepare herself for domestic duties. Then it
was that Jock strayed out over the land for no particular
purpose save sheer joy of living, and while returning
saw his enemy the weasel afar off and ran for
his life. The weasel pursued, and Jock tumbled into
the water six or eight yards in front of his foe. Because
he knew less about the weasel’s capacities than
he thought he did, he was foolish enough to put his
head out of the water and address the weasel who
stood on the edge of the bank hesitating as to his
next movement. Jock, who was firmly persuaded
that no weasel could swim, attributed the hesitation
.pn +1
to the wrong cause, for as a matter of fact the weasel
was only debating whether it was worth while to get
wet for the mere sake of killing. He was not
hungry enough to need a meal.
“If you could only swim as well as you can run,”
remarked Jock, “I should be quite afraid of you, you
horrid little beast.”
“You don’t know everything,” replied the weasel,
preparing to take a header, “and if you swim no
better than you run, you haven’t much time left to
learn in.”
With these words he plunged in. Conscious that
something was wrong, Jock dived to the bottom and
swam as hard and quietly as he could, in search of
covert. But the weasel stuck to him, and was never
very far behind. In desperation, Jock rose under a
little mass of leaves that he had lifted from the bed
of the stream, for he knew that his powers of diving
were exhausted. Perhaps this little trick might have
availed to save him, for the weasel was momentarily
baffled, but his sharp eyes soon saw the leaves dispart,
he guessed the cause, and Jock fled as Hector
may have fled from Achilles round the Walls of
Troy. This time he made for his home, and entered
.pn +1
the burrow by the newly cleared door in the bank.
It was a fatal mistake, for once his feet were on the
land the weasel was master of the situation. He
caught Jock at the point where the passage opened
out by the nest, and killed him instantly with one
bite behind the neck. Then he killed Mrs. Water-rat
almost as quickly, and hurried away out of the
burrow and on to the land feeling very pleased with
himself, as he ran swiftly towards the rabbit burrows
where he intended to make a fresh kill. So elated
was he by the taste of blood, and the consciousness
that he had been too quick for his harmless victims,
that he ran carelessly in full view of the gamekeeper’s
son, who was taking his first shooting lessons with a
single-barrelled gun. The lad saw the weasel, and
took accurate aim, so that the ferocious little animal
did not survive his latest victims by more than five
minutes. The dead body was picked up and nailed
to the branch of the elm tree that served the gamekeeper
as his vermin larder, and everybody was
glad that the weasel’s career was ended.
But the larks that sang their hymns of praise to the
sun, and the moorhen that lived so quietly in the
reeds, and even the little bats that fluttered about at
.pn +1
dusk round the edges of the river mourned Jock’s
decease, and missed his cheerful presence when they
passed the little doorway in the bank, from which he
was accustomed to look out over the shining water
and greet his many friends.
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stG
THE FLAMINGO
.sp 2
Some subtle sense of approaching spring stirred in
the breast of the great mute Swan. He could not
call aloud, and the low tone in which he spoke to
his companion captives would not do justice to the
occasion. So he raised himself to his full height,
spread his immense wings, and darted across the
pond, half-running and half-flying, and creating
such a disturbance that the squirrels in the open-air
cage some distance off raced to the top of their dead
tree to see what was the matter.
On the pond the wigeon drake dived incontinently,
and of the pink flamingoes all, save one, sought the
banks, where they twisted their long necks into
the shape of corkscrews, just to show their indignation.
The remaining bird stood on one leg quite unconcerned,
his neck in the shape of a capital S. He
stared straight before him, and his glance seemed to
light upon the excited Swan, and pass through him
to some point behind the end of the world. The
Swan was annoyed.
.pn +1
“This isn’t the time for dreaming,” he said, “on a
fine April morning when the gardens are beginning
to look their best.”
“I’m thinking, not dreaming,” said the Flamingo
quietly.
“What a waste of time,” replied the Swan.
“When I have nothing to do I preen my feathers. I
never think. Isn’t this a pretty place; did you ever
see anything as charming?”
This was too much for the Flamingo’s gravity. He
turned his head, hid it in the feathers that covered
the middle of his spine, and smiled. Then he withdrew
his head, but feeling that some of the smile
still lingered, put it down to the ground parallel with
his foot.
The Swan looked on admiringly. “You’re a funny
fellow,” he said; “when I saw one of your family
for the first time I thought your body and your
head were fixed up on stilts. Now I realise that
you have a very special allowance of leg and neck.
Why?”
“I’m built on special lines in order to realise my
peculiar destiny,” said the Flamingo stiffly.
“Well, well,” replied the Swan, “don’t take things
so seriously. You’re a bit stiff in the leg, but you
.pn +1
have a flexible neck, and your tongue ought to match
it. Tell me your story, I’m a good listener, and you
don’t seem to have any friends here among your
own companions.”
“They are good enough in their way,” replied the
Flamingo, “but they are all European or American
birds. I come from Equatorial Africa, from the
land of great rivers, where the crocodiles bask in the
mud, and the hippopotamus lives under the water,
coming now and again to the surface to fill his lungs
with air. Mine is a land of marabous and vultures,
of lions and antelopes, of rhinoceros and giraffe.
The rarest and strangest creatures kept in the gardens
are in a way my companions, but the other
flamingoes on this pond can boast no such experiences
as mine.”
“How come you here, then?” asked the Swan.
“If you had a good time in Africa, why leave it?”
“A thing you call a sportsman is to blame,” replied
the Flamingo. “We were having one of our
state processions along the banks of the river, and
he came upon us. We had not seen a white man
before, and knew nothing of his intentions, but he
knew our habits, and crept up so quietly against the
wind that when we rose we were not more than thirty
.pn +1
yards away from him; he could not resist the
temptation of a shot, perhaps because he thought
we were good to eat. The flamingo he picked out
fell dead, another was hit hard, and I was pricked
in the wing by a stray pellet, and picked up before
I could run. The sportsman removed the pellet,
and clipped my wings, so that I could not fly, and
told one of his black boys to feed me well. Then
he brought me to his home over the seas, and here
I am. Excuse me a moment——”
With this abrupt apology the Flamingo lowered
his head and dug his flat upper mandible into the
mud below the surface of the water. He took a
mouthful of mud and ooze, and then filtered it with
the help of his tongue and the little ridges along
the edge of the lower mandible. Then he thrust
his neck up in curves that gave it the appearance
of a serpent’s body, and moved both mandibles
together as though to sample the flavour of the
mud.
“It isn’t really to my liking,” he said mournfully.
“Why, where I was born and bred I’d have had a
mouthful of worms, or little frogs, or other delicacies
for less than the trouble I’ve just taken.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” suggested the Swan,
.pn +1
“you are fed by the keepers, so you don’t go
hungry.”
“It matters a great deal,” persisted the Flamingo.
“What makes every creature in this place sick to
death? What makes so many die outright? Just
the fact that they will be fed at stated hours. There
isn’t any interest in the business, there isn’t any
search, there isn’t any travel. There have been
days when the flamingo army has travelled miles
and miles on the wing searching for new feeding
grounds, every bird with his eyes wide open, his
neck stretched out, his legs hanging straight out behind
him. Each one of us, even those in the centre
of the wedge, hopes at such a time to be the first to
sight a good camping ground. Then the appetite
following long hours of travel, the joy of the exercise,
and wonder of the sights that we see—strange
men, fierce animals, impenetrable forests, and lands
where the beasts of the field are rulers and man is of
no importance at all.
“What is there here to take the place of that life?
In the morning I stand on one leg, in the afternoon
I stand on the other. I put my head in the mud,
or at the far end of my back, or under my wing, or
round my foot. I make an attempt to twist my
.pn +1
neck on a new and original pattern, and I listen to
the ill-informed chatter of my European and American
cousins, and the strange folk who come here to
see us. And I’d give all the food that serves me
for three days for three hours’ wading, or swimming,
or flying in my own far country, under a sky that is
really warm. Doubtless you admire my feathers,
but I assure you they are very dim and dingy compared
with what I wore in the days of my freedom
under the sun of Africa.”
“I never see you swim here,” remarked the Swan.
He hadn’t seen Africa, and was not interested in it,
and he ignored the remarks about coloured plumes.
His own feathers were very dull.
“I can swim as well as you can,” the Flamingo assured
him. “But I much prefer to wade. Then I
can put my head in any direction that pleases me,
under my feet if I like, with the upper mandible on
the ground. The attitude is considered quaint, and
it sometimes helps one to snap up some unconsidered
trifle that went about thinking itself quite safe.”
“Have you many enemies?” asked the Swan.
“Can you tell me thrilling stories of escape from
danger?”
“We are too shy,” explained the Flamingo. “Except
.pn +1
upon rare occasions nothing can come near us,
and when we change our summer plumage we
choose a part of the country where man is seldom
or never seen. We go for choice to the banks of
some stream that is known only to the hippopotamus
and the marabou, and live there until our new
feathers are strong.”
“What about nesting time?” asked the Swan.
“That’s more sacred still,” replied the Flamingo.
“The wildest and most desolate stretch of marshy
land will serve best for that. We build together,
there are hundreds of nests side by side. I remember
my first view of the nesting colony quite well,
for I saw it when I came from the shell, ripe fruit
of the one egg of my nest. Most of the nests hold
two eggs, but when the family is doubled the young
cannot get the attention and instruction given to a
single one. They were great times.”
“Tell me all about them,” said the Swan; “begin
at the beginning.” And while the other flamingoes
walked indignantly across the grass plot, tying their
necks into knots because they felt they were ignored,
the Equatorial bird croaked harshly, in fashion peculiar
to flamingoes, rubbed one of his webbed feet
with his beak and renewed his story. The wigeon
.pn +1
drake came up quietly to join the audience, and
later a stray pochard joined the little group, but nobody
else was interested.
“When my mother set me from the egg by giving
it a little tap,” began the Flamingo, “I stood up in
the nest and had a good look round me. On all
sides, as far as my eye could see, there were nests
similar to the one that held me, just mounds of mud
and fibre, scraped up along the edge of the lake and
dried by the sun. Some held one, and others held
two, rounded eggs, quite white and rather rough.
Others held baby flamingoes, with no feathers to
speak of, nothing more than some stubbly down
that was dull white or brown. All had straight bills;
the beautiful curve that you see now belongs, like
the pink plumage, to maturer growth. The feathers
of the mother birds were at their worst just then,
very dull and dingy.
“I could not recall much of those early days, even
if I tried hard. I remember that my mother would
leave me from time to time to go down to the lake
to fish for me; all the mother birds would go together,
and then we little ones would stand up on
the edge of the nest and sometimes tumble over it.
Some babies, not more than a few days old, would
.pn +1
walk boldly to the edge of the lake and start swimming;
it came quite easy to them, far more easy
than the flying that had to be mastered later on.
When food was found the mother birds would come
back and feed us, and tell us stories of the world
lying far beyond our ken, the world that men live
in. My mother told me how she and my father
worked to make the nest, piling the soft mud up
with feet and bill, and moulding it into shape. She
told me that flamingoes live together, and that only
bad characters are driven from the pack and forced
to live the solitary life.
“Nearly a month had been required to hatch me
from the egg, and I had all the summer to grow in,
for the older birds would soon moult, and while they
were moulting there could be no flying. ‘As soon
as we have our new autumn plumage,’ said my
mother, ‘you will start your flying lessons.’ And
as the days passed, she showed me great flocks of
other birds flying overhead, the white egrets, the
spurred geese in their black and white dress, the
avocets and ibises. At times the hippopotamus
trumpeted in the marsh, or a lion roared on the
plain, or we heard the wail of a hyæna in the hours
of deepest darkness; but there were no other noises
.pn +1
to disturb us, and never a danger came our way.
The leaders of the flamingo pack had chosen an
oasis cut off from the other fertile region by miles of
summer-made desert. I learned that when the
autumn rains came all the land would blossom and
bud once more, and be accessible to man and beast;
but by that time we young birds were to be flyers,
and the masters of the pack would guide us to
safety.
“‘We are fortunate birds indeed,’ said my
mother; ‘we have beauty and well-ordered lives, we
are related to the storks and herons, on the one hand,
and the geese tribes on the other; so in birdland we
are sure of a welcome wherever we go. We can walk,
swim or fly, according to our own inclination; our
feet are webbed, our necks are the most flexible
things in birdland; we are very peaceful, even in the
mating season, and our eyesight is quite remarkable.
We live in the least accessible parts of the world,
and the most cunning hunter is baffled by our shyness.
Some of us stand as high as a tall man, and
measure four feet from bill to tail. These are the
measurements of birds that cannot possibly be overlooked.’”
The Flamingo repeated these phrases with evident
.pn +1
pleasure, and drew himself up to his full height in
order to show that when his neck was straight, and
he cared to stand erect, he cut a very fine figure. To
be sure he looked a little ridiculous, with his absurdly
thin legs and neck, but he did not know this, and there
was nobody to tell him.
“As the summer grew,” continued the Flamingo,
“the sun’s heat reduced the waters of the lagoon
and made the little plateau that held our nest quite
dry and hard. Then we youngsters would go off
for little journeys on our own account, sometimes to
the water for food, at other times towards the plains.
We must have looked a curious company, and you
would not have known us for flamingoes; our plumage
was now white, with a little brown shading here
and there, while our bills were still nearly straight.
Had we been in an enemy’s country, as we were so
often in the later days, we must have fared badly
in those late summer months, for we were very awkward
and helpless; we could not have defended
ourselves against anything, and our parents were
losing their feathers, and could hardly fly at all.
Then I appreciated the wisdom of the leaders, who
had chosen for us a part of the country that was unknown
to nearly all other living creatures, and
.pn +1
possessed splendid food supplies. A few flocks of birds
related to us would rest and feed on the lagoon for
an hour or two, and then would be up and away,
while sometimes the only visitor was the little bird
that walks upon the water,[#] or the little warblers
that sang among the reeds all day.
“By the time my feathers had grown, and the
moult of the parent birds had brought back a
wonderful set of bright pink feathers, I was face to
face with the task of my life, learning to fly. That
is difficult enough at all times and among all birds,
but a very special trouble comes to a young flamingo,
because his own parents are not very good at flight.
Even when we are fully developed we rise with
difficulty; and when we are learning, and are apt to
tumble about, we get bad bruises and nasty falls, because
our parents cannot move quickly enough to
help us. Some young birds were permanently injured,
and could never fly properly; others fared even
worse, and died of their injuries, and for some weeks
our little colony was happy no longer. The young
ones complained, the old ones scolded, and it was impossible
to make allowance for weaklings. Those
that could not fly by the time the waters rose would
.pn +1
be left behind. That was the order, and it made us
do our best.
“One morning the plover was heard calling to us
at daybreak to say that the floods were coming down.
The leader sounded the order for departure, and in
a few moments we were on the wing in a wedge
formation, speeding in search of fresh pasture
grounds. It was a difficult journey, and we dropped
a few weaklings by the way. When the heat became
intense, we were halted by the side of a lake,
and there we clustered for hours, shading our heads
under our wings. The surface of the water was
turned crimson by the strong light on the pink
feathers of the grown-up birds.
“Those of us who did not find room on the lake
stood round the sides, generally on one leg, thrust
our heads and part of our neck under the most
convenient wing, and slept or rested until the elder
birds called to us to resume our places. Then the
great wedge swept on, past forest and clearing and
marsh land to another lagoon where we settled for
our evening meal, very tired and stiff, but delighted
to find that once we were on our wings we could
move with ease. We were now in more open
country; the break-up of the drought had scattered
.pn +1
birds and beasts everywhere. Until the rain came
they had kept in the water-courses and river-beds,
now they could go where they pleased. Where we
rested for the night there was so much noise that for
all my fatigue I found it hard to sleep. If we moved
and opened our eyes the glitter of the fire-flies was
so bright and fascinating that it was hard to turn
from them; the frogs, whose friends or relations or
play-fellows we had eaten, protested all night long at
the top of their voices; grasshoppers and mosquitoes
sang, herons croaked and small birds held concerts.
This was disturbing enough, but when an elephant
pack thundered along towards the forest and the
hippopotamus challenged them from the marshes
only a few hundred yards away, you can imagine that
sleep was not easy, and those of us that were still
young and inexperienced would have flown away if
we had known of a quieter resting-place. In a little
time we learned to rely upon our leaders, to understand
that the air held roads and well-marked tracks
for them, that they could guide us, if not with perfect
safety, at least with far more certainty and definite
intention than we gave them credit for.
“Sometimes we camped in the neighbourhood of
salt water that the flood had brought down, but this
.pn +1
made no difference to our comfort. We could fish in
salt water as well as in fresh, and our food—water
plants, grubs, insects and small reptiles—was always
plentiful. Sometimes, towards evening, when we
were just settling for the night, there would be a rush
for river or marsh. Deer of all shapes and sizes,
zebras, sometimes lions or leopards, would come to
drink, and though they may have had no designs upon
us, our nerves could not stand the strain of their
company. However tired we might be we would
rise. Those who went up first would wheel round
and round in a circle that grew larger and larger, until
at last every bird was on the wing and we were
off again through the quick falling twilight, forced
to come to ground again where best we could. Then
the night would be very restless and disturbed, for
any small alarm would send nervous birds fluttering
up into the darkness, only to come down again at the
sound of the leader’s cry that all was well.
“If I were to tell you of the strange sights that I
have seen,” continued the Flamingo, after pausing a
moment to sample a little of the mud in the pond,
“you would be surprised, but it would take too long.
I have seen an army of storks being ranged in
close formation to stay the advance of an army of
.pn +1
locusts. I have seen beasts of prey drinking side
by side with harmless antelopes, and not seeking to
molest them. I have seen the rhinoceros lying
asleep in the grass in the hunters’ country, quite at
his ease, because his faithful attendant, the rhinoceros
bird, has been perched on his broad back keeping
watch for him. When he rises up the birds will often
fly away to a tree, for they know he can look after
himself, but when he rests they settle down upon
him once again.
“I have seen the baby beasts of marsh and forest,
the lion cubs and the hippopotamus calves. I have
watched the paths of hunters and hunted in lands
where the black man has never seen white folk, and
goes about in fear of the animals that ravage his
gardens, destroy his cattle, and kill him, too, if they
can. And by the time I had seen all these sights I
knew something of the world we live in; the spring
had come again, and our leaders were bringing us
back by forced marches to the lagoon where I was
born.
“When we were back in the old familiar spot there
were grave discussions about the nests. None of us
wished to build new nests if the old ones would do,
but some collections of nests were held to be in bad
.pn +1
condition, and in one of these blocks my mother’s
nest was set. So those who had to rebuild moved
down the edge of the lagoon, and were soon busy
scraping up mud and rushes. I helped a little, but
I did not mate. My feathers were only beginning
to turn pink, my bill had hardly acquired a proper
curve, and no flamingo is satisfied with his appearance
until his beak is longer than his head. I was too
young to find a companion, and stayed happily
enough by the new nest, or waded into the lagoon
with unattached companions of my own year, and
had a pleasant, idle time.
“Unfortunately, the nesting season was a failure
in our district. The other nesting areas did well
enough, but some snakes attacked ours, capturing a
number of eggs and some of the first hatched birds.
There was no delay. We left the nests and started
away to another water, a separate pack. The rest
of the old pack was busy rearing young, the snakes
did not attack them, so they stayed and we went,
under the guidance of a very old bird who was one
of the best leaders in the flamingo community.
“When we arrived at a safe place, where water
and mud were to be found in abundance, it was too
late to build nests. A few birds laid late eggs on
.pn +1
the ground, but nothing was hatched, and we moped
till moulting time and through it with never a newborn
bird in our company. I moulted and secured
a new crop of feathers, not very bright, not to be
compared with the plumage of birds that were seven
years old or more, but still much better than the
dingy white and dull brown feathers with which I
had been forced to content myself in times past. I
found myself better able to fly, and though I have
never been quick to rise in the air and get away, I
have never known fatigue, and, indeed, in the following
spring, when I proposed to a charming bird of
my own age whose plumage was not quite so glossy
as my own, I was able to fascinate her by my graceful
movements in the air, by the ease with which I
turned and twisted with wings spread, neck thrust
straight out, and feet stretching as far behind me as
they could go. My first attempt at nest-making was
not altogether a success—our one egg addled—but
perhaps it was as well. We were very young and
might have made bad parents.”
He paused, and sought for consolation in the
depths of the muddy water.
“And then?” queried the Swan.
“The autumn brought the hunting man,” said the
.pn +1
Flamingo sadly, “and that’s why I’m here. They’ve
clipped my wings; I can’t fly. The air is chill, and
cold, and dirty. I’ll never grow good plumage
again. I know there is food enough and shelter for
bad weather, and companionship of a kind, but I
want the African sun, and the tropical streams and
forests, and the wild free life, and——”
“It’s no good, my friend,” interrupted the Swan.
“You want too much. Be satisfied that you are still
alive. Better be a live flamingo in Regent’s Park
than a dead one in Central Africa.”
So saying he sailed away to the middle of the
pond. The wigeon followed. But the Flamingo,
standing on one leg, looked steadily through the
misty air as though he could see in the far distance
the land of his heart’s desire.
.fm
.fn #
Microparra capensis.
.fn-
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stH
HOB, THE FERRET
.sp 2
If you left the lane for the footpath that passes along
the wood-side, you could see the keeper’s cottage in
a large clearing away to the right. In the days that
belong to this story it was a pretty place, thatched
and creeper-covered, with a modest outhouse, one or
two sheds, and some ground that had been reclaimed
from the wood when the eighteenth century was still
young. The flower-garden held half a dozen beehives,
and there was a small paddock where a few pheasants
were raised under domestic hens. In a corner of the
paddock stood a useful ferret-hutch, standing a little
above the ground, with sloping runs from the entrances
to a little piece of the meadow round the
hutch, fenced round with posts and wire-netting about
a foot high. A large elm tree stood by the side of
the enclosure, and one of its branches was used by
the old keeper as his vermin larder. Here one saw
stoats, weasels, hedgehogs, and sometimes a polecat,
together with magpies, hawks, and, one regrets to
.pn +1
add, an owl. As soon as the old man had trapped
or shot one of his real or fancied enemies, its dead
body was nailed to the branch and, in that corner of
a southern county, traps were seldom idle or empty.
Some week or ten days before Hob was born, the
room in the hutch where his mother slept was carefully
cleaned, supplied with a new hay bed, and
closed. Hob entered the world in complete darkness
in company with four brothers and sisters. Not
only was their room void of light, but their eyes were
closed. Their mother fed and tended them very
jealously. Had her sleeping-place been entered in
the first month of their life, while they were sightless
and helpless, their mother would have killed them,
for that is ferret law. In those early days they were
particularly ugly, and would squeak faintly as though
to emphasise their distaste for their surroundings;
but their mother found plenty of fresh milk or porridge
waiting for her when she went out to eat in
the apartment next her hut, together with odd luxuries
in the shape of freshly killed mice or rats, or
young game birds and chickens that had met an
untimely death. So the babies were bound to thrive.
One fine June morning the old keeper found them
in the ferret’s dining-room lapping milk by their
.pn +1
mother’s side. Thereupon he opened the part of
the hutch that had been closed down so long, cleaned
it thoroughly, and put in a fresh bed, so that Hob
and his brethren returned to a clean home and proceeded
to live their life in earnest. Within a week
they were playing for the greater part of the day in
the enclosure round their hutch, and this early exercise
made them strong and active, so that none of
the litter moped and pined and died, as baby ferrets
will when they are badly housed and have no place
for exercise. They still slept in their old room, but
paid small heed to their mother, who, for her part,
seemed to have lost the most of her care for them.
When the youngsters were not racing about, playful
as fox cubs, they were eating diligently, and in those
days they never failed to receive three meals. Milk
diet was their usual fare, but now and again their
master would tie a piece of fresh meat in some form
to the wooden stake in the middle of their playground,
and they would attack together, each trying
in vain to carry it off to the hutch to devour at
leisure.
When they were three months old, Hob’s brothers
and sisters were taken away and sent in a neat box
to another county in response to an advertisement,
.pn +1
and Hob owed his immunity from travel to the fact
that he was the best of the litter, and was destined
for ferreting on the home farm. He was transferred
to another hutch, where he lived by himself; but
when he had his first sporting day, it was in his
mother’s company. He never forgot the morning,
for it brought experiences that were new and unpleasant.
In the first place he had no breakfast,
though he had been ready for it soon after daylight.
Secondly he was muzzled, and this was an indignity
to which he never learned to submit without a
struggle. The muzzling was done with strong thread
that was tied in slip knots, and went round the neck
and over the mouth in very painful fashion. Most
people would have hesitated to muzzle a ferret that
had never been used, but the keeper was a very old-fashioned
person, and held that the lesson of restraint
could not be learned too soon. When he had made
Hob perfectly helpless in the fashion hinted at, he
lowered him into a bag full of straw, where his
mother, whose mouth, like Jericho of old, was
straightway shut up, was already burrowing. Then
the old man shouldered the sack, picked up a ditching-shovel
and, whistling his retriever, set out to
accompany one of the sons of the house to a bank
.pn +1
where rabbits had been playing havoc with some
green corn.
The bank was sandy and had a high slope, so it
could be attacked at any time of year; and when
the mother ferret started in very confidently, Hob
followed her down the dark passage to a point
where it branched out. There he left her and went
forward alone, for he scented a familiar odour. He
knew the smell of rabbit very well, and found the
taste was pleasant; he required no teaching to tell
him there were rabbits in the burrow, and that they
were within reach. Darkness could not baffle him,
and though the path he followed soon branched in
several directions, he did not hesitate, but chose one
that brought him suddenly to his quarry. At the
sight of her enemy, Bunny bolted incontinently and
sought the outer air; there was a muffled report a
moment later, and Race the retriever went down to
the bottom of the bank and picked her up dead as
mutton, so cleanly shot behind the ears that she may
be said to have died painlessly.
Of these matters Hob knew nothing; he was following
his quarry more slowly, and by the mouth of
the hole he put up another rabbit that bolted down
the bank before he could reach it. He peeped out
.pn +1
of the opening, watched the headlong rush, heard
the gun go off again, and saw the runner turn a
somersault. Then his master came forward, untied
the muzzle, and rewarded him with a piece of newly
killed rabbit. When he had eaten his fill he was
put back into the bag, where he went to sleep, and
knew no more until he woke to find himself being
transferred to his hutch. His mother, who had
done a hard morning’s work, received very careful
treatment, her feet being bathed in warm water;
but Hob, who had not worked long, needed nothing
more than rest to restore him to his usual activity.
Though he did not know it, Hob had earned
golden opinions already; he had shown all the instincts
of the polecat, of which fierce animal a ferret
is no more than a domesticated species. So he was
taken out from time to time through the summer,
his hours of service being gradually lengthened, and
he was always rewarded with part of a fresh kill.
So keen was his hunting instinct that when he did
not get his breakfast, he understood the reason for
its absence and would run round the hutch in a state
of great excitement when he heard his master’s approach.
By the time summer and autumn had
passed and the thick growths had died down from
.pn +1
the hedgerows, leaving the burrows plainly to be
seen, Hob was as reliable a ferret as ever bolted rabbit.
He would run along a hedge, testing every
hole in turn, climbing up and down and missing
nothing. If he disregarded an earth, there was no
need to worry about it—Bunny was not at home.
If, on the other had, after a moment’s hesitation, he
ran in, the appearance of a rabbit was usually a matter
of moments. He never made a mistake, and if
rabbits would not bolt, the weather rather than the
ferret was to blame.
Winter brought Hob his first experience of any
note, and gave him his first intimate knowledge of
wild life. Snow had fallen heavily, making the
landscape one vast study in white, and leaving tell-tale
tracks of bird and beast all over the snow. It
was easy enough to see where the rabbits were living,
even if you did not come upon them sitting outside
their burrows and staring rather disconsolately across
the land. It chanced at the time that two of the
younger sons of the house, only lately promoted to
the unrestricted use of 28-bore guns, decided to go
ferreting, and took Hob with them. One was quite
certain that he understood how a muzzle was put
on, but his belief in his own intelligence was scarcely
.pn +1
justified, and before Hob had gone to earth five
minutes he had worked the objectionable restriction
from his jaws, and celebrated the event by killing
his first rabbit. He stayed awhile to enjoy a meal
that was as pleasant as it was unexpected, and then
proceeded to see what was happening in the outer
world. His path led him to peep out from a hole
under the roots of a beech tree. A net had been
placed there by the young amateurs, who were compelled
by the nature of the ground to face the other
way; but one turned round in time to see Hob,
quite free from a muzzle, regarding him with serious
interest. He made an effort to pick the ferret up,
but being unskilled, forgot to use the dead rabbit
that chanced to lie beyond the net as a lure, and
instead of seizing Hob with a firm, steady grasp,
snatched at him nervously. Very disgusted, the
ferret made a snap at the uncertain fingers, returned
to the earth, found the dead rabbit that lay there,
and made another heavy meal. Then, feeling quite
tired, he laid himself up against his victim’s warm
fur and slept peacefully. The ferret that came
down on a line to inquire after him reported progress,
but failed either to wake Hob up or to reach the
rabbit lying in an end-hole behind him, and as
.pn +1
digging operations were impossible because of the thick
roots, the sportsmen returned disconsolate. Even
then, had they blocked up all the exits, they might
have recovered their ferret with the next day; but
they did no more than net the ones they could see,
and it was by the small one they had overlooked
that Hob entered the world at large on the following
morning.
For him it was a very pleasant place to live in.
On all sides there were rabbits only waiting to be
killed and eaten, and to do him justice, Hob did
not keep those that were within reach very long
waiting for their fate. Freedom brought a quick
reversion to savagery, all the instincts of the wild,
free-living polecat revived in him at once. He devoted
his first free day to the systematic chase of a
family of rabbits right up to the end-hole of their
run, from which there was no escape. Then with
horrid persistence he killed one after the other,
biting them behind the head and taking nothing
more than a little blood from each. When the
slaughter was over, he slept among the dead rabbits—clearly
he knew nothing of the fear of ghosts.
In the meantime his loss had been reported to the
old keeper, who put a line ferret into the hole where
.pn +1
he was first lost, and then dug right down to the
dead rabbit in spite of obstacles; but of course he
was too late, and now he could do no more than
keep a sharp look-out when he went on his rounds,
and give the farm-hands notice that a jack-ferret
was loose, and might be found at any moment, and
that a reward of two shillings awaited the finder.
But for all that a price was put upon his head, Hob
was not destined to be secured until he had spent
two or three weeks at large, and had grown as fat
as the aldermen of the comic press.
In the days and nights of his freedom, Hob had
many adventures. It became his habit to hunt at
night, and many a time the despairing cry of a pursued
rabbit woke the wood when all its denizens
seemed to be asleep. Though he could not have
run a rabbit down in a race, he succeeded by reason
of the terror he imposed upon his quarry. Poor
Bunny would race about at three-quarter speed,
shrieking as she went. He would pursue silently, remorselessly,
never losing the scent until his victim
would either stop short or would run aimlessly about
in a circle, while he waited for a few moments before
rushing forward and inflicting the sharp bite that
brought the hunt to an end. He soon ceased to
.pn +1
pursue for the mere gratification of his appetite; he
would kill for the sake of killing. But towards morning,
when the birds were proclaiming the coming of
another day, he would drag a victim to a burrow,
eat his fill and go to sleep.
Once he happened to chase a rabbit into a fox’s
earth, and even to catch a glimpse of the vigilant
head and fierce eyes of its owner before he turned
and saved himself. On another occasion, while he
was watching a rabbit that sat out on a bank close to
the hole that sheltered him, and preparing to dart
forward in pursuit, his intentions were frustrated by
a poaching cat that crept silently up to where the
rabbit sat unsuspecting, and carried it away. Any
trouble of this kind made the ferret very angry and
sent him running wildly in search of a fresh victim.
His girth had increased enormously, and his skin
was as tight as a drum, but he kept in excellent
condition, and seldom failed to kill when he had
started in pursuit. Many a time he passed his old
home, for in all his wanderings, that took him as
far as two miles from the keeper’s cottage, he never
forgot its exact position.
Not until he had been a vagabond for nearly three
weeks did his luck fail him, and then on a fine
.pn +1
Saturday afternoon he was sighted by one of the
ploughman’s lads, and having no time to find a
burrow or any other hiding-place, he submitted to
be picked up. The boy took him home to his
father’s cottage, found a sack, and having put some
straw into it, threw Hob in after, and tramped over
to the keeper. There was nobody in the house,
and not liking to meddle with the ferret-hutches,
the lad put the bag into the house through a window
that chanced to be open. He then closed the
shutter and came away. Hob, having been shaken
by the fall, waxed specially indignant and industrious,
searched the bag diligently, and managed to
find a hole. He worked his way through it and
started to prospect. He was in the larder, and on
a shelf he managed to reach there was a chicken
that the keeper had dedicated to Sunday’s dinner.
Hob, being ignorant of his master’s intentions—or,
perhaps, indifferent to them—made an excellent
supper off such parts of the bird as took his fancy,
and was discovered midmost his repast. Then his
time of liberty came to a sudden end, and the next
fortnight was a period of repentance, for he had no
more than enough food to keep him alive, and the
fine, prosperous contour he had developed in
.pn +1
freedom disappeared slowly but surely, leaving him
loose-skinned as of yore. When he went into service
again, it was as a line-ferret—his master had
finished taking risks.
It would be idle to pretend that Hob liked his
work in its new form, but to his credit be it said
that he never sulked. He worked as hard as ever,
though it was inglorious labour to hunt for other
ferrets that had killed rabbits and eaten the best
part of them, or chased several to an end-hole and
were now crowding them up in a corner and trying
vainly to kill them. As soon as he stopped he knew
he would be pulled out by the hand that controlled
the line, and thrown back into basket, bag or box,
while spade or pickaxe was requisitioned to break
down into the earth. He would resist withdrawal
to the uttermost, but the collar round his neck was
too tight to be slipped, and he had to come out.
From time to time Hob ran with the jill-ferrets
in the clearing round the hutches, and he was
the father of several fine litters, but was probably
unaware of the fact, for he was totally devoid of
domestic instincts. He could not have helped the
jill to tend the little ones, nor would he have been
content to endure the darkness and seclusion of her
.pn +1
home for an hour. It would not have been wise to
leave him with young ferrets, even though they were
his own children, if it happened to be meal-time and
one and all were hungry. They would have been
regarded less as kith and kin than as intruders bent
upon depriving him of his food.
After a long period of line-work, Hob’s patience
was rewarded by a few days’ ratting. Some of the
old thatched cottages on the estate were infested by
the rats. They swarmed in the walls and under
the floors and in the thatch; when the corn was
threshed they repaired to the houses, where they
were fruitful, and multiplied and replenished the
cottages and ate everything save tar, glass and
metal. Complaints were made to the bailiff, and
half a dozen ferrets visited each cottage in turn. It
was a black week in ratland. Flight into the open
availed very little, for there were one or two active
terriers in the garden; hiding-places did not avail,
for there was no hole so small but that a ferret could
follow if a rat could lead; and as for fighting, it was
no better—the ferret knew how to dodge the sharp
teeth and plant his own before the rat could try
again. There were no muzzles and no lines to
hinder progress, and Hob killed as he had killed in
.pn +1
the few weeks when he was a free ferret and all the
rabbits in the woodland were at his mercy. To be
sure, he received a few bites, so did his fellows, but
they did not mind such honourable wounds. When
the last rat had been killed, the ferrets were collected
and taken home, to be carefully examined and have
their wounds dressed and their feet carefully washed
in warm water, with which a disinfectant was mixed.
This careful treatment saved all trouble, and after a
couple of days’ rest the ferrets were quite ready for
work.
For more than two years Hob served his master,
working so well that many people tried to buy him,
and at last an amateur, who knew little about shooting
and less about ferrets, made an offer that the
old gamekeeper could not resist, and Hob went by
rail in a small box to a farm where he was destined
to enter upon evil days. In the first place, his hutch
was a small one, and though it had a sleeping-apartment
as well as a living-room, there was no space
for exercise. The straw was not changed regularly,
the saucer that held the milk was often left uncleaned,
so that the milk turned sour; pieces of
rabbit or small birds were thrown in haphazard and
promptly conveyed to the sleeping-room by Hob,
.pn +1
who knew no better. Within a month of finding
his new home the ferret had quite lost the gloss that
was on his coat in the old days, and lack of exercise
had reduced his vigour. When he went out to work
in warren or hedgerow, and came home tired out
and with wet feet, he was turned out into his hutch
and left to get warm by rolling himself upon straw
that was sometimes damp and dirty. The old warm
foot-bath that had kept him in such good condition
was quite unknown in the new home. In a little
while he was ill; his feet suffered from a complaint
born of damp and dirt, and he had the kind of fever
that results from lack of proper attention. These
conditions were noted and, thanks to a little prompt
and practical treatment, they were righted, but the
real causes of the illness were never removed, because
they were not understood, and it was a tradition
of the neighbourhood that ferrets are delicate
and hard to rear. Indeed, Hob’s new owner was
heard to say that the old gamekeeper had sold him
a weakly ferret for a long price, and had kept back
the one he arranged to buy.
Perhaps the discomfort of his surroundings decided
Hob to make his escape from them. Be that
as it may, he took the first opportunity after his
.pn +1
recovery to remain in an earth from which he had
driven a couple of rabbits to the gun. He was free
and unmuzzled, and he had no kill by his side; the
line-ferret sent down to investigate made no sign.
Digging only served to send him further into a
perfect labyrinth that should have been dug out or
blown up at the end of the previous season, and
when sunset made the weary and angry diggers
desist from their labours, Hob was free once more.
By the following morning he had left the earth a
long way behind him, and was sleeping in security
by the remains of the rabbit that had yielded him
supper and breakfast in one long meal. He could
not run about as he did when he first made his
escape into the world—lack of exercise and consequent
illness had made him weak, nervous and
slow in pursuit. If the rabbits had only known
they might have escaped from him easily enough,
and he must have starved; but he was a ferret, and
that fact was sufficient to rob them of the keen edge
of their speed. So strength came back to him
slowly but surely, his eye recovered its brightness,
and his coat its glossy smoothness, and though his
feet were often wet and dirty, he could clean himself,
because he had plenty of room to turn about.
.il fn=illus183.jpg w=525px id=ilE
.ca FERRET [Photo by C. Reid]
Then with increase of strength came the desire to
run for very pleasure of exercise, and towards evening
the whitey-grey figure might have been seen
passing rapidly along the edge of plantations and
across open meadow-lands—might have been seen,
and was seen, for one night a young farmer, out in
search of a rabbit for the table, noticed the movement
of the long, lithe body, and knowing nothing
of a missing ferret, was certain that he saw a stoat.
In a moment his gun was at his shoulder, and a
second later Hob’s career was at an end.
“Blame me if’e bean’t a ferret!” remarked the
shooter as he picked his victim up. And following
that brief oration came the obsequies of Hob, who
was flung into a convenient ditch.
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stI
THE FIGHTING BULL
.sp 2
When the fighting bulls come in at sunset, led from
the lush pastures by the belled bullocks that have
been their lifelong companions, one animal walks
alone in the rear of the herd. He is of more than
common size and splendidly armed, if one may use
the bull-fighter’s term in speaking of his horns, but
his is a gentle nature, and even the ganadero’s
daughter, little Golisa, who has no more than ten
summers to her credit, may bring him a handful of
corn without fear. He is nine years old, and has
many peaceful seasons before him, for he is El Perdonado.
Never heard of him, you say? That must be because
you don’t know Andalusia. I saw the historic
fight of which he was the hero; heard the greatest
diestro in Spain make an appeal to the President that
El Cuchillo, as he was then called, might be pardoned
for bravery. And I saw the Spanish grandee, one
of whose ancestors was immortalised by Velazquez,
.pn +1
bare his head and pronounce the verdict of acquittal
that is not heard once in five years in the plaza de
toros. So El Perdonado (The Pardoned One) is
by way of being an acquaintance of mine, and I have
ridden for miles across country to see him browsing
peacefully on the grass lands beyond Utrera, where he
was born and bred. Now I will try to set his history
before you, that you may know something more of
fighting bulls than the plaza de toros can teach. The
most of what I have to tell I have seen for myself,
but for some of the more intimate details I am indebted
to El Conecito, most expert of Andalusian
banderilleros, with whom I used to chat over horchatas
in the café of the Emperadores that is on the
Sierpes of Seville. He will never see this acknowledgement
of his help, for he slipped in the plaza de
toros at Valencia during the corrida in honour of the
feast of the Santissima Trinidad, slipped on a purple
patch that had not been properly covered with sand,
and died as he had lived—quite fearlessly.
.tb
El Perdonado was born on a Utrera bull-farm, in
one of those restful districts that delight the traveller
between Seville and the sea. The alqueria had
whitewashed walls and a red roof, from which a
.pn +1
belfry rose; it lay amid rich pastures. There were
pools shaded with willows, and avenues of poplars
that stood like sentinels against the sky-line, and over
all the country-side brooded the spirit of deep and
abiding peace. The young bull’s mother was of the
notorious Miura herd of the Duke of Veragua, “the
herd of death,” famous for their prowess throughout
the arenas of Spain, and known by the red divisa
that they carry into the ring. His sire was from a
northern province, and not so well known to fame,
but highly esteemed by the aficionados, the men who
study the science of the bull-ring.
As soon as the calf was weaned he was turned out
on to the rich lands that are watered by one of the
tributaries of the Guadalquivir, and there he passed
his days, eating lazily or standing in one of the pools
to keep cool. He and his fellows were placed in the
charge of a ganadero, who rode tirelessly across the
meadows throughout the day, watching that his
charges came to no harm and guiding or correcting
them as he thought fit with a long pole. The young
bulls were as hard to manage as a pack of foxhounds.
They had every sort of temper among them; they were
vicious, crafty, daring and sulky in turn, but they
had one quality in common, and that was terror of
.pn +1
the master’s pole. For Miguel, the ganadero, could
knock a troublesome bull calf head over heels with
his formidable weapon; he could ride like a vaquero
of the pampas and turn a score of animals together
in any direction he desired. Yet for all that he was
fierce and pitiless, Miguel was the slave of any
animal that fell sick, and never a racehorse received
better attention in time of trouble.
Our friend gave little or no anxiety to the ganadero,
and there was nothing in his behaviour during
the first two years of his life that might outline his
character, until the day when the proprietor of the
farm rode down to the pastures with a company of
friends and expert professionals to test the novillos,
as the young bulls were then called. Each bull in
turn was separated from the herd and charged by a
stranger on horseback who was armed with such a
pole as Miguel used.
Some of the animals would not face the charge at
all, but fled in terror from it—to be driven into a
fenced pasture and become mere butcher’s meat
in the fulness of time. Others realised that their
enemy was not Miguel, and charged him with fury.
These were acclaimed by their owner, named on the
spot, and entered in the stud-book as fighting-bulls.
.pn +1
None of the novillos made so fierce a charge as the
subject of this story, and because of the strength,
shape and sharpness of his horns, he was entered in
the records as El Cuchillo (The Knife). Among
the bulls tested were some not quite of the first class
in development and horn growth, though they were
not lacking in courage and strength. These were
sent away to provincial bull-rings, where they
served, in corridas de novillos, to give practice
to matadors of the second class, and to satisfy
the blood-thirst of men and women who could not
afford the time or money to visit the large arenas.
For El Cuchillo and the chosen companions of
his year, life took a new and agreeable form when
the first test had been withstood. They were kept
by themselves in the lowest and richest meadows,
where the grass came to their flanks and the water
never failed. In the evening the tame bullocks that
carried cow-bells round their necks came to fetch
them home, and when they reached their stalls there
was always a measure of fine corn for supper.
So they increased in strength and natural ferocity
until only Miguel dared face them, and he relied
chiefly upon his old reputation. It is more than
likely that he would have fared ill in a contest with
.pn +1
the least of them now; but, as he carried the
familiar pole, was a stranger to fear, and never allowed
an order to be disobeyed, his rule was not
seriously challenged. He called each bull by its
name as though he were the huntsman and his
charges were a pack of hounds.
.tb
One afternoon when El Cuchillo was rather more
than three and a half years old, the tame bullocks
came to the prairie some hours before their time,
and in their wake followed half a dozen ganaderos,
with Miguel at their head, all carrying long poles.
Some eight bulls, including El Cuchillo, were separated
from the rest of the company, and round these
the belled bullocks formed a little circle, and the
company started along an unfamiliar and deserted
road, through lanes overblown with flowers of richest
colour and fragrant with the perfume of wild thyme.
Past farmhouses well-nigh smothered in greenery,
and tiny wayside ventas where little groups of interested
spectators were gathered under the vine-trellised
arbours, men and beasts took their slow and
peaceful way. Before nightfall a quiet meadow
received the company of bulls and bullocks and,
while five of the ganaderos went to claim the
.pn +1
shelter of a neighbouring farmhouse, Miguel kept
watch during the few dark hours.
In the afternoon of the next day the journey
was resumed, and the fierce bulls went forward in
orderly fashion enough, because they were accustomed
by now to the company of bullocks and the
tinkling of their bells. So that the bullocks knew
the way, the bulls were well content to follow.
Only on the fourth evening did they reach their
destination, the tablada that lies within five miles
of Seville and offers a clear view of the Giralda
Tower and the cathedral. There for some days
bulls and bullocks rested from their labours, and
the corn supply of the former was renewed by Miguel
with a lavish hand. Such little fatigue as might
have been associated with the journey over dry and
dusty roads was speedily forgotten.
A very gay procession rode out of Seville to the
tablada on the afternoon of the Friday following
the arrival of the animals. There were several
noble patrons of the bull-ring, a tall, fair-bearded
man who was treated with special deference, and a
dancing-girl whose name was known from London
to New York viâ St. Petersburg. One of Spain’s
leading matadors was of the party—a heavy-jawed
.pn +1
dull-eyed man, who rode his horse very awkwardly;
there were two of the directors of the plaza de toros,
and some of the lesser lights of the arena, including
El Conecito, the banderillero. The bulls took little
notice of the intruders. Their friends, the tame
bullocks, were feeding by their side, and Miguel,
armed with his pole, sat watching over them from
the horse of which he seemed to be a part.
The company rode past the bulls, noting their
points as connoisseurs should, and when the great
matador—why hide the fact that it was Espartero
himself?—saw El Cuchillo, he positively trembled
with excitement. In thick guttural tones he asked
Miguel a few questions; then, with a light in his
eyes that seemed to change the character of his face,
he cantered heavily to where the great bull stood.
“We shall meet on Sunday, my beauty,” he cried
aloud, “and then you shall feel my sword in your
heart or I will take your horns to my body.”
And El Cuchillo, who at other times would permit
no man to come within ten yards of him, raised
his huge head and stared at the finest swordsman in
all Spain, as though he understood the challenge
and accepted it.
“You seem pleased with that fellow, Espartero,”
.pn +1
said the tall man, turning for a moment from the
lady with whom he had been conversing.
“Your highness,” replied the great diestro, “since
the day when I entered a plaza for the first time, I
have never seen a bull better set-up, better armed or
in more splendid condition. And if I read him
aright, half a dozen horses won’t tire him.”
Having spoken he drew back, the animation
passed from his face as rapidly as it had come there,
and he rode silently back to the city in the wake of
his gay companions. Only Miguel remained in the
tablada, perhaps in that moment the proudest man
in Andalusia. For it was to his care and tireless
work that El Cuchillo’s perfect condition was due.
More than twenty-four hours passed uneventfully,
save that the supply of corn was doubled, but as
Saturday night drew on many unaccustomed sounds
disturbed the bulls—sounds of carriage wheels, the
tramp of many horses and the noise of human voices.
More than once the huge animals rose to their feet
and looked round uneasily, but the bullocks showed
no sign of nervousness, and Miguel was in his place.
Night deepened, but moon and stars shone with a
good grace, and soon there were other lights moving
close to the ground—lanterns carried by horsemen
.pn +1
at the end of long poles. Miguel’s voice sounded
across the tablada, calling the beasts by name; they
rose to their feet and came together, a dark, unwieldy
nervous mass that a false movement might have
turned into a destructive force. But other ganaderos
were riding through the tablada now and
calling the bullocks, that, obedient to the summons,
gathered round the bulls and, preceded by Miguel
and one ganadero, led the way through the pastures
to the high road. As soon as this was reached
Miguel’s companion shook his reins and darted off
at a thundering gallop along the Seville road. His
the duty to warn belated travellers that the encierro
had commenced, to turn carriages and waggons into
side lanes, and then to continue his headlong rush
until the plaza de toros was reached, and he could
summon the men on duty there to light their fires
and open the great gate leading to the toril. It was
a simple matter enough to take the bulls from their
native pasture to the place they were leaving now,
but the last few miles between the tablada and the
bull-ring were full of dangers, for all Seville was accustomed
to turn out to see the procession.
When bulls, bullocks and their guardians were
safely on the high road, a long procession of carriages,
.pn +1
followed by men on horse and afoot, came from a
turn in the main road and formed a sort of rearguard.
The fascination of the night-ride was at once their
justification and their excuse. The air was so still
that the ringing sound of flying hoofs reached the
ear when the first ganadero was some two miles in
advance of the procession; one was conscious of
the heavy, intoxicating perfume that stole out from
gardens on either side of the road. From the poplar
trees came the ceaseless call of the cigarrons,
nightingales sang amid the orange-orchards of Las
Delicias, the melancholy cry of the bittern rose from
the river marshes, mingled with the croaking of the
bull-frogs never at rest. And every venta along the
roadside was crowded, the garden trees were hung
with lanterns, guitars tinkled an accompaniment to
malagueñas, jotas, boleros and other songs and
dances of Southern Spain, and through the pageant
and festivities prepared in their honour the bulls
moved with silent dignity. Right along the Guadalquivir’s
bank, where the lights shone from the faluchas
at rest upon its waters, they tramped almost
up to the Tower of Gold, and then the plaza de toros
shone out clearly in the light of huge bonfires
.pn +1
kindled just beyond its boundaries. Guided for the
first and last time by the poles of the ganaderos, the
bullocks turned sharply to the right, and after a
moment’s hesitation that gave the one touch of suspense
to the proceedings, the fighting bulls followed.
The heavy doors were drawn behind them, the procession
dispersed, and, quite unseen by any eyes
save those of the men engaged, each bull was driven
to his own condemned cell, while the bullocks remained
by themselves in a small straw-covered yard.
Then profound silence reigned throughout the city,
broken only when the bells clashed from the Giralda
Tower and the old serenos who paraded the streets
with spear and lantern cried to the Maria Santissima
that the night was clear.
.tb
In his narrow prison El Cuchillo may have noted
the coming of the morning when one white bar of
light fell across the wall. There were sounds of
activity beyond the toril, but he remained undisturbed.
He had little room to turn, there was no
food, and, worse still, no water. Hunger, thirst
and fear yielded slowly to an overmastering sense
of anger, founded upon his consciousness of giant
strength. He bellowed savagely, and would have
.pn +1
given effect to his rage had it been possible to
move freely.
Long hours passed; morning yielded to afternoon.
The great splash of light that came through the bars
waxed intense and intolerant and then waned slowly
with the passing hours, while an indescribable sense
of movement filled the twilight of the condemned
cell. In some subtle fashion it told of the gathering
of an expectant multitude. On a sudden a military
band, somewhere just beyond the toril, crashed out
the Spanish National Anthem, there were cheers and
shouts, succeeded by a death-like stillness that was
broken in its turn by a shrill, penetrating trumpet
call. Time after time, for more than an hour, came
the reverberating notes, the snatches of wild music,
the cries from many thousand throats. Only one
word rang clear: “Espartero”.
At last El Cuchillo became conscious of voices on
either side of him, the light broadened, and a hand,
shooting out a little way above him, stuck the barbed
point of a red rosette in his shoulder. A moment
later the trumpets called again, the front wall of his
prison opened as though by magic, and he dashed
forward with a rush that brought him half way across
the yellow arena. A yell from twelve thousand
.pn +1
throats arrested him; he lashed his flanks, blinked a
little—for even the setting sun hurt his eyes after
those long hours of darkness—and then answered his
audience with a roar of defiance. Certainly he knew
that he was surrounded by his enemies; perhaps the
awful odour of blood that filled the arena gave him
some prevision of the butchery that was to accompany
his death.
Let us pass over the first few minutes of the struggle.
El Cuchillo knew no difference between the armour-cased
picadores who carried the spiked poles, and the
hapless, unprotected, blindfolded horses they bestrode.
That is all that needs be said by way of excuse for
the six carcases that strewed the arena when the
tercio sounded, carcases from which the blue-coated
attendants had stripped saddle and bridle. With
one exception the picadores had fallen behind their
horses in the most approved fashion; the exception,
a heavy man, protected at all vital points against
the reddened horns, was tossed high into the air
and carried off with a broken collar-bone; while
Espartero himself drew El Cuchillo away with some
of the most superb cloak-work Seville had seen since
Lagartijo retired from the bull-ring.
With the enthusiasm of the huge auditorium a thrill
.pn +1
of amazement was mingled. Though the bull’s neck
bore red marks of the picadores’ poles, he was
singularly fresh, his breathing was not short and
sharp as it should have been, and he was in no sense
distressed.
Conecito came forward with his banderillas, the
beribboned spears used for the second attack upon
the bull, and the crowd cheered lustily, for the banderillero
was a favourite. Bull and man seemed to
charge together, and then Conecito was seen travelling
post-haste for the barrier, which he reached just
in time, while his opponent drew up and trotted off
gamely but with “half a pair” (the technical term
for one banderilla) hanging from his shoulder. The
second banderillero tried next and failed altogether—El
Cuchillo’s pace beat him utterly; and then, to
the accompaniment of a roar of applause and a burst
of barbaric music, Espartero himself came forward
with a pair of the light lances. This time there was
no mistake. For all Cuchillo’s wonderful habit of
using his eyes as he charged he could never quite
tell where the great matador would cross him, and
at the second attempt the two lances were beautifully
placed. Then Conecito tried again, with the same
result as before, save that the one sent home was
.pn +1
on the other side of the bull’s flank, so that he carried
two pairs now. The second banderillero was quite
beaten, but the renowned Rafael Guerra, who led
the second cuadrilla, succeeded, amid thunders of
acclamation. Then the judge raised his hand to
the string with which he signalled, the trumpeters
sounded the third call and a great hush fell upon
the arena.
Espartero was to kill. The great diestro, who
had been testing the quality of two or three swords,
and giving instructions to the footmen of his cuadrilla,
now chose his weapon, and wrapping the scarlet
muleta round it strode across the arena until he
stood below the President’s box.
Hat in hand, he asked permission to kill El
Cuchillo in manner that would do honour to Seville.
The President raised his hat in token of assent;
Espartero flung his own over the barrier and turned
towards the middle of the arena, where El Cuchillo,
standing sturdily defiant, greeted his coming with a
thunderous bellow, and stared with bloodshot eyes
at the gold epaulettes and braid, the gaudy coat,
the red waistband and blood-stained white stockings
of his enemy.
Conecito, who now carried one of the
.pn +1
plum-coloured cloaks, stood a little to the left of his chief
and heard Espartero speak to the bull as though he
were a human being.
“El Cuchillo,” he said slowly, almost solemnly,
“you are a great bull and know no fear. You have
killed six horses and you are still fresh. I, Espartero,
salute and honour you. And now one of us
must die.”
So saying, he unfurled the scarlet cloth, the
muleta, and flashed it across the bull’s startled eyes,
so that he charged the uncanny thing. It jumped
up out of his reach, and came back just below his
nose, and buzzed round him like a hornet, and led
him to jump and turn and twist and lose his
caution, and stand with his forelegs closer and
closer together as Espartero wished, for when they
were quite in the normal condition he could send
his espada through the matted hair over the
shoulder and through the lungs to the heart. Then
on a sudden, when the aficionados were telling each
other that the end of the splendid animal would
be tame enough, and speculating whether Espartero
would kill with his favourite volapies, or would fall
back on the descabello à pulso, that must be difficult
with a bull whose movements were so
.pn +1
uncertain, El Cuchillo seemed to recover his nerve. He
ignored the muleta and rushed at Espartero himself,
and in that moment all the diestro’s plans were upset,
and he was forced to save himself by one of the
agile turns of which he was the master.
The trumpets sounded a single warning note;
Espartero had gone beyond the time allotted to
him. A murmur of astonishment rippled round the
vast arena; never before in the history of Seville
had Espartero been warned. Even the boys who
sell programmes and fruit and sandwiches ceased
their cries; the flutter of fans on the sunny side of
the ring faded into stillness almost automatically;
and the gaudy flags that decked the arena seemed
to hang breathless. Alone in that vast concourse
matador and bull preserved their tranquillity, and it
would be hard to say which of the two needed it
most.
Espartero realised the need for prompt action.
With splendid disregard for danger he returned to
his work, and once again the muleta flashed all
round the bull’s head, bewildering, dazing and
almost stupefying him, while one of the banderillas
that lay right across the animal’s shoulder was lifted
into its proper place by a daring stroke of the
.pn +1
sword. For a moment the forelegs came together,
and it seemed as though Espartero hurled himself
upon the bull, but a second later the sword was
high in the air, the matador’s stroke had been
foiled by one of El Cuchillo’s sudden movements,
and one blood-stained horn ripped Espartero’s red
waistcoat as he jumped aside avoiding death by a
hand’s-breadth. The capadores rushed in to cover
their chief’s defeat, and El Cuchillo, disdaining the
plum-coloured cloaks, made for one man. The
moment of mad chase to the barrier was one of
horrible uncertainty, the capador vaulted and fell,
badly bruised, on the other side, and then El Cuchillo
trotted back to the centre of the arena, distressed and
bleeding, but unbeaten. The trumpet called again.
Espartero examined the sword that had been
picked up and brought to him, only to fling it aside.
Armed with a fresh one, he paused to replace and
reassure his wondering cuadrilla, and moved forward
again. His face was perfectly colourless, his
hand was shaking, the fatigue of the work done
during the long afternoon was making itself felt, for
he had killed two difficult bulls already, and El
Cuchillo had been more than twenty minutes in the
arena.
.pn +1
“Give me your horns or take my sword this
time,” he cried, as he approached his enemy, and, as
though in reply, El Cuchillo bellowed his defiance
to Spain and its champion matador.
Now, in those last moments, the silence was
almost as oppressive as the heat.
Something of the fury of despair seemed to seize
upon man and beast, some shadow of their overwhelming
anxiety lay heavily upon the audience.
The muleta had seemingly lost its power to charm,
and the matador seemed resolved to set his life
upon the point of his own sword. With a superb
gesture, he lowered the scarlet rag and invited
El Cuchillo to charge. Hundreds of men and
women, used though they were to all the carnage
of the arena, turned their eyes away, until a deafening
roar roused them to see Espartero hurled on
one side and El Cuchillo in pursuit of the plum-coloured
cloaks, with the sword quivering in his
shoulder.
As the shout rolled through the arena, and Espartero
walked slowly to the barrier, the setting sun
made a final effort and flooded half the arena with
yellow crocus-coloured light. The pigeons from the
Giralda Tower swept right across the plaza, and from
.pn +1
the sunny side rose a sudden shout of “Pardon!
pardon.”
It was caught up all over the arena as El Cuchillo,
with a mighty effort, shook the sword out of his
shoulder and, with splendid valour, returned to the
centre of the arena, unbeaten still, and ready for the
next attack.
The clamour increased and became deafening
until Espartero was seen walking empty-handed to
the corner below the President’s box. Then it died
away to absolute silence.
In clear tones that could be heard all over one
side of the arena the great matador asked the President
to grant pardon to El Cuchillo for his splendid
fight, which had given more honour to the famous
plaza de toros than would come to it by his death.
And the President, listening gravely to his appeal,
raised his hat and replied, “We pardon El Cuchillo
on account of his bravery”.
Amid a scene of extraordinary enthusiasm the
trumpets sounded again, and the tame bullocks came
into the arena by way of the toril. They grouped
themselves round El Cuchillo, while people cheered
and flung hats and cigars and flowers to Espartero,
and the band played Spain’s National Anthem. So
.pn +1
the long-horned hero of “the herd of death” passed to
the toril, where the barbs were removed, his wounds
were dressed and his raging thirst was satisfied.
And the crowd that had gathered along the river-side
road to see him pass to his death gathered on the
morrow to do him honour on his way back to the
pleasant pastures of Utrera, where old age comes to
him to-day, slowly and in peaceful guise.
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stJ
THE CUCKOO
.sp 2
The month was May, the place was the Heron
Wood, which was ablaze with wild hyacinths and
pansies, and full of singing-birds. If you have ever
been through the wood you must know the little open
space in the middle with the pond to which a stray
wild duck comes now and again in cold weather.
From one corner of the pond you can see right down
the slope to the wood’s end, along a path now overgrown
with ferns and weeds, but, in the old preserving
days, a ride cut to enable the squire to shoot his
pheasants. There a Vixen had her earth. She
could see over the approach to the wood and yet
remain unseen, so she was well content.
.il fn=illus211.jpg w=332px id=ilF
.ca YOUNG CUCKOO [Photo by C. Reid]
A bird that seemed at first sight to be a sparrow-hawk
came into the wood above the ride, hard-pressed
by a flock of sparrows and finches that were
pursuing it with loud, angry cries. Once among the
trees, the hunted one was lost to its pursuers, who
gave up the chase and returned twittering to the
open. The Vixen sat quite still. Suddenly she
heard the flutter of leaves, as strong wings passed
between them, and in another minute the bird that
might have been taken for a sparrow-hawk lighted
on the branch of the black-thorn above her, lowered
his head, drooped his wings, spread his tail out to
the fullest extent and called, “Cuc-koo,” he cried,
“Cuc-koo, cuc-cuk-koo”.
“Well, I am surprised,” said the Vixen, “I thought
you were a hawk.”
“So did the hedge-sparrows and the green-finches,
and the yellow-hammer,” laughed the Cuckoo. “It
was very amusing, particularly as they could not get
near me. But I would not like them to catch me in
the open.”
“Then why do you try to appear like a hawk when
you’re a cuckoo,” said the Vixen. “Trouble enough
comes to all of us without asking for it. At least I
think so.”
“I’m not so foolish as you think,” explained the
bird, whose plumage, now it could be seen closely,
was very drab and undistinguished, just a dirty grey
with brown markings, and nothing of the gloss that
belongs to the feathers of the hawk tribe. “You see,
I’m quite a defenceless bird. My bill is not made to
.pn +1
deal with anything harder than insects. I’m not
built for fighting. Now I’m a fair size, and every
hawk can see me when I fly abroad. If they knew
me for a cuckoo, I’d not do much good for myself,
the first that saw me would have a free meal. So I
imitate their flight and all their actions, and they
take me for one of themselves. In this way I am
safe to go from place to place; but there is the
drawback that all the little hawk-haters of the
woods and hedges are deceived too, and they mob
me as you have seen. However, we can’t expect to
have unmixed good luck, and deception involves
trouble. Upon my word, I’m almost as wise as
the brown owl himself.”
“How do you manage the imitation so well?”
asked the Vixen. “I’m not readily deceived, but I
thought you were a hawk.”
“Just practice,” he replied. “When I’m feeding I
can twist and turn up and down any way you like, and
when I’m trying to hide I can slip in and out among
branches in a way your eye could not follow. But
when I go into the open where there may be hawks
about, I take a straight flight, keep my tail spread
out, utter no sound at all and go across the fields as
though I were on the look-out for little birds.”
.pn +1
“And what are you doing in this part?” asked
the Vixen suspiciously. She was not pleased to see
strangers in the wood.
“I’ve been about since early April,” replied the
Cuckoo. “I’ve taken up my summer quarters here,
and I don’t mind telling you that there is no room
for any other male cuckoo in this wood. I had to
make an exception to my general rule of peaceful
living and fight one of my own tribe for possession
of this pitch. I won, and he has gone across the
river.”
“What about your mate?” she asked him, and
the Cuckoo smiled again, rather wickedly.
“I don’t mind allowing any really charming
lady cuckoo to call for a few days, but she can’t
stay,” he replied. “My instincts are those of a
bachelor.”
The Vixen thought it best to change the subject.
“What part have you come from?” she said.
“My winter home is in the centre of Africa,” he
replied. “A place south of the equator full of
tropical forests, where there are lions and hippopotami
and a few black people in towns and villages
where a white man has never been seen.
“We leave there in March and come north. On
.pn +1
our way through Morocco or Algeria some of us stop,
unwilling to cross the sea. You can hear us in the
forests of Ma’mora and Argan, and in the woods of
the country of the Beni M’gild. But the most of us
persevere and leave Africa and come into Spain.
There the great spotted cuckoo, who is my cousin,
stays and spends his summer. He is four inches
longer than I am; he has a crest on his head, and
white under-parts. He does not thrive as he might,
for his wives will put their eggs in magpies’ nests,
and those birds are not good foster-parents. My
cousins say that the country north of Spain is too
cold for them; but we say they are too idle or too
cowardly to take the longer journey. We take it,
however, making the sea passage as short as possible,
and travelling in separate parties.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the Vixen
curiously, and keeping her eyes upon him as though
she feared a surprise.
“You see we male birds come first, and the other
folk follow,” he explained. “They come about a
week later than we do. We all land in the South
and go quite at our leisure to the northern counties
and to Scotland. One part of these islands is like
any other to us so long as there are plenty of
.pn +1
insect-eating birds in the neighbourhood. This year
I arrived about the 6th of April.”
“Nobody heard your voice before the 14th,” remarked
the Vixen, for she knew every sound from
copse and woodland.
“We wait for our females before we sing,” said
the Cuckoo, “and when our notes are heard for the
first time there is quite a flutter of excitement in
birdland. Dozens of birds come round to ask us
what we are and where we come from; they are in
their first year, and have forgotten our notes. Some
of the elders want to hear the news from Africa.
Unfortunately, the novelty soon wears off. Our
women-folk can’t call as we do. They have nothing
better than a husky note with something like a
common chuckle in it. They try to say ‘cuc,’ and it
sounds like ‘kwook’. And now I’ve said quite
enough for one day, and I’m going to find some
dinner.”
He must have lighted not very far away, for he
called merrily and persistently during the next few
minutes, and the notes thrilled through the wood,
giving to every living thing the assurance that
summer had returned at last. The Vixen waited
awhile, and heard a mild, meek “kwook-oo-oo,” that
.pn +1
seemed to be the confidential reply of some fair
lady of the family, then she went back to her earth.
Perhaps the Cuckoo had seen or heard his partner
and had gone to a more remote corner to call to her.
Through the long nights of May and June the
Cuckoo seemed to be nearly always awake. He was
quite the last of the woodland birds to go to sleep
and the first to wake up. The Vixen would hear
his call break the silence of the Heron Wood before
three o’clock in the morning, when she was waiting
for her lord’s return. It was not always the familiar
cuc-koo accented on the first syllable, but sometimes
cuc-cuc-koo, and sometimes, though not often, cuc-koo-koo.
He was comparatively shy; most of the
cuckoos that passed over the meadow, calling as
they flew, were hen birds, and it was seldom that he
answered their call. One morning in early June,
when the Vixen was playing with her cubs in the
shaded corner by the water, he slipped through
the leaves, lighted on a branch above her head,
spread his tail and called loudly, jerking his body
with each note as though the effort was a considerable
one, and he did not want any of the significance
of the cry to be lost.
“Why don’t you keep your singing for the
.pn +1
daytime,” said one of the fox cubs, the biggest in the
litter, “instead of waking me up before sunrise?”
“Well,” he replied, “you must not grumble at that.
Other birds sleep soundly because they have been
busy all day building their nests or helping to hatch
the eggs or feed the little ones. Naturally enough,
then, the evening finds them tired out, and they
sleep until the sun wakes them. But cuckoos are
the wisest birds in all the world. They want to enjoy
the spring and summer without the hard labour that
others practise. So I have no nest to build, no wife
to keep, no young to tend, and I know the Heron
Wood in all its beauty as no other bird can hope to.
A very few hours give me all the sleep I require,
and when I wake and see the summer decorating
the beautiful wood, I must tell how grateful I am.
It is by my help that the wood returns thanks for
the gift of summer at all hours of the day and night,
for when the late woodlark ceases his song I resume
mine.”
“That explanation may satisfy you,” the Vixen
interrupted, “but I am not sure that it convinces
me. For you seem to shirk your duties, and you
can have no share in the joy of the birds that work;
you are not a father.”
.pn +1
“You don’t know much about it,” cried the Cuckoo
merrily. “Follow me now, if you please.”
So the Vixen, leaving her cubs to gambol about
the little patch of green-sward, followed, and he went
lightly through the wood until he came to a bush
where two accentors, known to the village lads as
hedge-sparrows, had a nest.
“Show yourself,” he whispered, and when she did
so the sitting bird flew away hurriedly, leaving six
pale-blue eggs exposed to view.
“Look carefully,” said the cuckoo with a chuckle,
and the Vixen saw that one egg was rather larger
than the rest, and had some tiny black specks that
might have been overlooked at first sight.
“Come away,” whispered the Cuckoo. “I don’t
like to be seen about here. But I’ll tell you in confidence
that I’m the father of the big blue egg.”
They moved off quietly to the more secluded
corner of the wood where the cubs had found some
rabbits to play with.
“If boys saw the nest they might not recognise that
as a cuckoo’s egg at all. Some eggs have red or
brown blotches on a grey-white ground; they were
not like this one, and you would not see them in a
hedge-sparrow’s nest. They would be in a blackbird’s
.pn +1
home by the side of the ten-acre meadow,
or a warbler’s on the marsh, or in a wagtail’s
nest.”
“I was born in this wood in a hedge-sparrow’s
nest three years ago,” said the Cuckoo, on another
morning when he sat on a bough above the Vixen’s
earth, “and when I am a father the egg is always
blue. The mother of the egg you have just seen
visited me for a few days at the end of May and
laid this egg for me on the ground. You see I had
no nest to offer her. So soon as we saw that the
colour was blue, as I expected it to be, we scoured
the wood for a nest that had eggs similar to it. We
soon found the hedge-sparrow’s. Then we waited
patiently for both birds to go for an airing, and my
mate took the egg up in her mouth and flew with
it to the nest. There she left it, and on the following
day I said good-bye to her and she went away.”
“Will she lay any more eggs this year?” the
Vixen asked him.
“It is quite possible,” replied the Cuckoo, “at intervals
of a week or ten days, but they will be no
concern of mine, in fact, they may not even be blue.
But they will all find a place in the nests of birds
that have our tastes in food. In parts where there
.pn +1
are no insect-eating birds you would have to search
a long time to find a cuckoo.”
“Do the hedge-sparrows, and warblers, and pipits
and the rest of them realise the trick you have
played upon them?” she asked him. “My mother
once chose a badger’s earth for her home and I
was the only one that got out alive.”
“Never,” he replied lightly. “They only think
one of their eggs is a little unlike the rest, that’s all.
You know our eggs are quite small for our size.
And when they are all hatched the parents must
work harder than they expected to, for a young
cuckoo can eat as much as the rest of the family put
together.”
Some fourteen or fifteen days after the strange
egg had been put in it, a blind ugly cuckoo came
from the shell in the hedge-sparrow’s nest, calling
for food. The little hedge-sparrows had not yet appeared,
but the unoccupied parent bird had all his
work cut out to keep the newcomer satisfied. He
was constantly on the wing through the wood in
search of insects, and very often strayed to the
orchard of Home Farm, where fat green caterpillars,
most luscious morsels, were to be found
among the currant bushes. And all that time the
.pn +1
Father Cuckoo was living at ease on the fat of the
land.
“I met that hard-working hedge-sparrow this
morning,” he said to the Vixen, when he took his
favourite place on the branch of an elder above her
earth; “he was coming to the orchard as I left it.
What a splendid arrangement it is to be sure. I’m
sure my baby will be well fed, and that foster-father
seems to enjoy the work. Let him thank his good
luck there are not two of my family in his nest. If
there were, he would have no time to feed himself
or his mate.”
“Do the hens ever put two eggs into one nest?”
said the Vixen.
“Only by accident,” he replied. “Sometimes
it happens that a hen carries an egg to a nest, and
deposits it there without noticing that some other
hen has been before her. She would not carry two
of her own eggs to the same nest. Hers is too keen
a sense of affection for the unborn; she knows as
well as I do that there is quite enough work for
any pair of small birds in the raising of a single
cuckoo.”
The little hedge-sparrows were born only to die.
Their ungainly foster-brother was clamorous for all
.pn +1
the food that reached the nest, and he could not
stretch himself without danger to the little ones.
Do not let it be said that he deliberately murdered
them; but before they were three days old all lay
dead on the ground below the hedge. The parent
birds did not seem to feel their loss very keenly.
Probably this was their second brood, and the
earlier one had been reared successfully; for the
nest, built of wool and horsehair and soft mosses, is
always one of the first to appear in the Heron
Wood, and, being badly hidden, is preyed upon by
all unscrupulous egg-eating birds, or egg-collecting
boys.
This one was hardly two feet from the ground,
and might have escaped notice, had not the cuckoo-mother
been looking for such an one. But even the
Vixen who was not tender-hearted could not help
feeling sorry for the hard-working couple, kept constantly
busy to feed the thief who had thrown their
proper offspring out of the nest with such complete
unconcern. Possibly their hard work served to help
them to forget their troubles.
Father Cuckoo to admit any responsibility
though the Vixen, having a mother’s feelings for the
time being, remonstrated with him.
.pn +1
“You can’t blame a young cuckoo, not a fortnight
old for being hungry, and wanting all the food,”
he said. “And you can’t blame me or his mother,
for we were both brought into the world in the same
fashion, and know no other. There are cousins of
ours in America who make nests and bring up their
young in the usual fashion; but for unknown generations
they have had this custom, and we, on the
other hand, have had ours.
“Nobody can explain these things. Why should
I have such dull, ugly feathers, for example, when
some of my African cousins have a plumage that
shines as though each feather had been dipped in
gold? Twice a year I moult, never without a hope
that the new suit will be a brilliant one. But I remain
dull and shabby; my partners are like me,
and have no taste for domesticity.
“On the other hand, we can enjoy the knowledge
that we are among the best loved birds in the world,
so far as mankind is concerned; that thousands associate
the summer with our song, and find the
woodland empty when we are summoned south
again. All these things are matters of natural law,
and you must take us as we are, while we take the
world as we find it.”
.pn +1
“What you say may satisfy you,” said the Vixen
severely; “but it cannot be expected to satisfy the
hedge-sparrow.”
“Perhaps there is no need to think about them,”
rejoined the Cuckoo. “You must know that if those
birds were left undisturbed, they would raise from
twelve to eighteen young every season, for the hens
lay three times. In a few years there would be
hedge-sparrows in clouds, far more than the land
can support. So Nature teaches them to set their
nests in open places, where Robin, the horseman’s
lad, and all his school companions, may take the
eggs by the dozen, and the magpie or the rook may
help themselves.”
“Well,” she said, “you won’t deny that the mother
cuckoo is quite heartless?”
“I do deny it,” replied the father. “She will be
somewhere near the nest, and will make it her business
to see that the youngster is doing well. So
soon as he is able to fly she will take charge of him
and bring him up in the way he should go. She
keeps an eye on all her family.”
“But how came he to kill the little birds?” persisted
the Vixen. “We only kill for food at this time
of year.”
.pn +1
“Just want of room,” replied the parent bird. “I
can assure you there is no vice in him. When a
young cuckoo wakes to life in a small nest, his first
instinct is to make room for himself. I’m rather
surprised to think that my son did not throw the
eggs out right away. That is what I did when I
was born in this wood. I wriggled and wriggled
until I had them one after the other on the flat of
my back, and then hoisted them over the side.
There can’t be any blame for me in the matter, because
the instinct came to me as naturally as my
hunger. A cuckoo’s egg only takes a fortnight in
the hatching, so the cuckoo baby is generally in time
to throw other eggs out of the nest. When two
cuckoos have got into the same nest by mistake, the
two baby birds fight, and the weaker one goes out
with the other eggs or the small birds. If two
cuckoo eggs get placed in one nest, the cuckoo that
is born first is the lucky one. Even a blackbird’s
nest can’t hold two cuckoos. Perhaps it is our
quarrelsome nature when young that made some
mother cuckoos lay eggs in alien nests.”
The Vixen wondered whether these incidents had
anything to do with the mobbing of the cuckoo by
the small birds when he went abroad. They seemed
.pn +1
more reasonable as an explanation than the sparrow-hawk
theory.
The baby cuckoo was soon fledged, and left nest
and wood at the same time, leaving his father in
sole possession. As the summer wore away, the call
changed considerably and ceased to have the fresh
ring about it. There was no loss of health to the
bird associated with the failing voice. On the contrary,
he was in splendid condition, and ate heartily
of all the good things the wood provided—moths,
caterpillars, beetles and even butterflies. The indigestible
parts of these dainties he ejected in pellets,
just as though he had been an owl. With the end
of July his notes had quite gone; other cuckoos were
coming into the district in great numbers, and were
allowed to enter the wood unchallenged.
“They are from the north of England and from
Scotland,” he explained. “They leave early so as
to be down here in good time, for we shall all go
south together. Some have come all the way from
the mountains of Sutherlandshire.”
“But the young ones can’t face the journey yet,”
said the Vixen. “Many of them are not yet six
weeks old. My cubs take longer to learn to help
themselves.”
.il fn=illus231.jpg w=358px id=ilG
.ca
A TWO DAYS OLD CUCKOO
Ejecting a young Titlark and Eggs from its nest.
[Photo by T. A. Metcalfe]
.ca-
“That’s all right,” explained the Cuckoo; “the
birds, you see, are all old ones; in fact, all the
mother birds are three years old at least. The
season’s children wait in England some weeks longer
than we do, and travel together. Their mothers
have told them all about the road, and we all have
an instinct that keeps us from taking a wrong direction.”
“Why don’t they accompany you?” inquired the
Vixen.
“It is hard to say why we have our call in August
unless it is to get home before moulting time,” replied
the Cuckoo, “but as far as the youngsters are
concerned, I should say that they could not stand
the heat of our winter home in August. We get
there before September, and they are seldom with
us before October, and then the country is more fit
for young birds that have known no warmth worth
mentioning. Coming south gradually in September,
they can enjoy what awaits them at the journey’s
end.”
“Have you a special day for your departure?”
she asked. “I shall be off to the osiers in September
and I’d like to see you go.”
“When we have received our marching orders,”
.pn +1
replied the bird, “or as you might say, knowing no
better, when the instinct for departure is upon us,
we await the first fine night with a wind blowing
towards the south. Have you ever noticed how the
winds help birds at the season of the great migrations?
They do, whether you have noticed it or
not.”
For some days in the beginning of August the
fields and woods showed a large number of cuckoos
now quite mute, and then the Vixen prepared
to leave the neighbourhood. Cub hunting had
started.
“We are ready to fly now,” said the Cuckoo.
“The signal has come to us; the wind is backing
towards the north.”
“Aren’t you sorry to leave?” she asked him.
“Yes and no,” he replied. “If you had perennial
spring and summer I would stay gladly enough.
But one of my family was taken half-fledged from a
nest here once and lived with clipped wings in an
old garden across the river. He has spoken to all
of us about the English winter, and it is something
we never wish to meet. We are going to a land of
such sunshine as you have never seen.”
Half-way through September there was no
.pn +1
cuckoo of any age to be heard or seen. And the
place seemed to lack something, over and above the
crops that had gone from the fields and the green
mantle that was fading from the hedgerow and the
wood.
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stK
THE SEAL
.sp 2
Towards the latter end of May, the grown-up lady
seals sought a corner of the shore where the slope
was gentle and the sun was warm; the younger
seals betook themselves, together with the old males,
to another part of the coast, out of sight and hearing.
Before the first of the long June days had come to
bring new jewels to the treasury of the sea, the meaning
of the separation was made plain—there were
many little baby seals playing by their mothers’ side.
Some rested upon a little nest of white wool that had
nothing to do with their skin, which was dark and
of a different texture. No mother had more than
one child.
Had you passed among the mother seals in the
very early June days, while they sprawled at ease,
suckling their little ones, you might have noticed
one male seal who was rather bigger and more intelligent
than most of his neighbours. You would not
have been able to go among or even near them unless
.pn +1
you had taken the form of a red shank, or an oyster-catcher,
or of one of the other sea birds that are the
particular friends of seals; but you may take it, that
this baby was the best of the pack, if only because
the story is concerned with his career.
From the tongue of rock that overlooked the
smiling waters, the baby seal, clinging to his mother’s
side, heard the summer song of the sea, mingled
pleasantly with the wondering bleating cries of
many little babies like himself.
“Take me to the water,” he whispered to his
mother.
“Cling round my neck, then,” she replied, lowering
her head, and he did as she bade him, as well as his
feeble limbs would permit.
“Hold on tightly,” she cried, and cast herself off
the rock into the deep water, that plashed and
curled and danced round them, as though for very
love of seals.
“Soon you will learn to dive,” said Mother Seal,
“you will be able to sleep on the water or under it, to
catch fine fat fish when you do not want my milk
any more. You are born to a beautiful life; so be
happy.”
Day after day, mother and son lay side by side for
.pn +1
hours on a ledge of rock that Mother Seal’s body
had worn smooth; they spent only the hottest hours
in the water. Soon the little one learned to face the
sea, holding on to one of his mother’s flippers; then
he went in quite boldly alone and learned to dive,
and saw the fish that lived in the depths, and pursued
them clumsily and in fun, for he was not yet
weaned.
Only when he was two months old, and had grown
quite rapidly, did his mother tell him that he must
now learn to feed himself, and by this time it was
an easy task, as the plaice and flounders soon found
to their cost. They could not hide themselves in
the sand sufficiently quickly to escape from his
pursuit.
Having finished her maternal duties, Mother Seal
changed her coat. The spots that had marked it
became very light, and the skin itself assumed a
yellow tint that seemed quite like silver at times.
“Is it time to change?” asked the male seals, who
had now returned with the young sons and daughters
to the maternal haunts. “If it is, we have no
time to lose,” and they, too, put on the light summer
dress which was, with all who wore it, a symbol of
joy and happiness, a tribute to the halcyon days
.pn +1
when domestic cares were laid aside, when there was
hardly any night, when food was plentiful, and the
sun seldom ceased to shine upon warm and tranquil
waters.
The seals, scattered now into little groups in every
bay and round every islet, enjoyed their idle days to
the full. Sometimes they would travel upshore quite
a long way, and laze upon the dry sand, the younger
and less experienced among them being most addicted
to such journeys. Every crag that looked
out over the deep water had its noisy tenants, and
throughout August there would be a series of dances
given by various seal hosts and hostesses, at which
the most agile among the visitors would glide
through the water in dolphin fashion. They were
inclined to be rather jealous of the dolphins.
During this pleasant season the Little Seal, now
in the enjoyment of his liberty, made friends with a
very old Herring-gull. The bird lighted upon his
rock one afternoon and saluted him in friendliest
fashion.
“I fish for my living just as you do,” he remarked,
“but you have some advantages over me. However,
there is room for all of us, so we might as well be
friends. You will find some of my family with your
.pn +1
people all through the summer. We sometimes
warn them of the approach of man.”
“What is man?” queried the Young Seal, “and
why do you warn us?”
“Man,” explained the Herring-gull, “is the sworn
foe of all things in the heavens above, on the earth
beneath, and in the waters under the earth. He
shoots birds in the air, pursues beasts on the land,
and catches fish from the sea. If he saw you now
he would certainly kill you, not because you have
done him any harm, but because you are alive. He
would probably shoot you, and say you were a nice
little fellow, for he does not bear malice.”
“But that would be murder, would it not?”
asked the Seal, opening his eyes to the fullest
extent.
“Oh, dear no,” replied the Herring-gull, “it would
be sport,” and flew away, leaving the puzzled youngster
to think the matter out for himself.
With September, another change of colour came
to the seals. Their coat became rather darker than
before, and the black spots, that began on the head
and spread in ever growing patches over the body,
reappeared. The flippers darkened to a heavy
brown, and with all these changes came an altered
.pn +1
mood, and the males began to fight for possession
of the females.
The Young Seal took no part in these contests,
though his coat showed the influence of the season;
he was little more than a baby, and, on the advice
of the Herring-gull, he kept away from the scene of
the fighting. He had made small progress in growth
since weaning time came, the fish diet that made
him strong had done little to help him to develop.
This mattered not at all; strength rather than length
was needed to face the rough days that lay before
the seal world when September was at an end,
and the long fight between adult male seals was
over. There was very little love in the camp during
that season. Polygamy prevailed, and the conqueror
took as many wives as he could keep away
from his weaker brethren; but when the last fight
had been fought and the early cold snaps reminded
them of the hard season ahead, friendly relations
were resumed throughout the community.
At the bidding of the storm-wind the sea parted
with its beautiful tints, the water became very cold
and lashed itself into terrible fury, and foamed like
a bayed wolf. Many a rough buffet it gave to the
Young Seal, and not a few bruises, but the low
.pn +1
temperature did no harm to him. He had enough pure
oil in his body to withstand Arctic cold, and on these
northern Scottish shores the temperature never approached
Arctic severity. His friend the Herring-gull
had gone; he saw no birds now within speaking
distance, though a few gulls passed down wind
every few hours of the day, trying in vain to steer
along the road they wished to follow.
As the winter advanced, the seals split into small
groups on some family basis of their own, and passed
most of their time on the rocks, climbing up from
the water by the aid of the strong nails in their foreflippers
and the muscles of the tail. They always
faced the water from which they had risen, and
their attitude at this season was a very listless one,
as if the triumph of wind and rain were not altogether
to their liking.
When the Little Seal joined his family party, consisting
of the mother, two male seals, and several
children of two and three years old—eight in all—he
soon found that the bottom of the water was the
most comfortable part of the world within his reach.
Down upon the smooth sandy bottom there fell no
shadow of the trouble cast upon the upper waters
and the land, and so he learned to remain for long
.pn +1
drowsy periods, half-sleeping, half-waking, roused to
instant activity by the sense of the presence of a
fish. He could see under the water as clearly as he
could upon the land, and his whiskers were developing
the sensitiveness that belongs to seals in even a
larger measure than to cats.
These nerves served to rouse him when he was
almost asleep, and indicated the presence of food.
When after even a long hunt he had caught his fish,
he did not need to seek land; he could eat it at his
ease under the waves; and if he came up afterwards,
it was generally to tread water with his flippers, and
look round to take his bearings.
Finally, when he was quite tired of the sea, he
would return to the home rock, climb up in the
manner described, and then, resting his head upon
the body of the seal nearest to him, go to sleep.
Every seal attached himself to his neighbour in this
fashion for reasons of safety. When they were lying
in such close touch, the first sign of alarm was communicated
automatically to one and all. Perhaps in
that quiet corner there was little need for such extravagant
precautions, but the history of seals
throughout the world is one long drawn-out tragedy,
and the need for care had become as strong an
.pn +1
instinct as any that entered into their simple lives.
In old days, and among kind superstitious folks,
the seals had been mermen and mermaids; and
when they sat on rocks in the sunshine, passing
their webbed toes through their coat to keep it
bright and lustrous, simple seafaring men had
thought they saw mermaidens combing their golden
locks. The sunlight had supplied the gold, and
perhaps the little waves had lent the song; and so the
story grew, and passed into legend, and gladdened
many a child-like simple heart, even though it dwelt
in a time-worn body. But now, in the place of gold,
men had introduced the age of lead; mermaids and
mermen shocked an age that held materialism to be
the highest form of faith, and knew that a leaden
bullet properly aimed could kill the most beautiful
creature that ever played about a summer sea. So
the old seals, grown wary, exercised what care they
could to save their helpless, harmless families from
the enemy man.
Spring came back at last, and if it made little or
no difference to the aspect of the rock-strewn shore,
there were pleasant changes beyond. The waters
subsided and lost their angry colour, the days
lengthened, the light grew stronger, and sea birds
.pn +1
came back to the cliffs to lay their eggs, and scream
and quarrel in the old familiar fashion. And with
the advent of May the adult female seals withdrew
from the others, and the adult males retired with
the younger generation to another part of the coast
where, as good luck would have it, our friend found
the old Herring-gull busily pursuing his fishing.
“I’d like to travel,” said the Young Seal, whose
blood tingled with the spirit of the season. “I’m
tired of stopping always in one place. Where does
the sea end? You ought to know, seeing that you
can fly all over it.”
“The sea has no end and no beginning,” explained
the Herring-gull. “It is like the sky, boundless.
Wherever I go, I find the sea. But if you
wish to travel, follow the coast down until you come
to a place where the water turns in towards the
land. Follow carefully, until it narrows, and you
reach a part where men have spread great nets.
They are put there to catch a wonderful fish with
scales as bright as a herring’s, and a pink body that
all seals love to feed upon. But be careful to stay
well beyond the nets, and do not let greed tempt
you to travel too far. Then I shall see you back in
the late summer, and you will thank me.”
.pn +1
This advice seemed very good to the Young Seal,
who felt no family ties and had a love of adventure.
He set out, resting from time to time upon the shore,
and keeping the best possible look out for strangers.
As he moved down the coast, he met a seal two
years older than himself, bound on the same errand,
and this one promised to show him the road. Having
company, each seal was bolder than before, and
as the sea was teeming with fish just then, they
moved quite slowly to the home of the great pink
delicacy. One fine afternoon they lay at their ease
high upon the shore, and came near to be cut off, for
a pleasure boat hove in sight, and they had to rush
towards it in search of safety. This was a thrilling
experience, and might have ended very differently if
any of the four men on the boat had carried a gun.
As it was, the two seals ran down the beach in fearful
haste, raising sand and shingle very freely, as
they progressed in awkward jerks, first on their
chest, then on their stomach. To the men in the
boat the movements appeared so strange that they
could hardly row for laughter, indeed the reduction
of their efforts may have accounted for the seals’ escape,
but to the two frightened animals the case was
quite different—they found nothing to laugh at.
.pn +1
When they reached water at last, they were very
sore, stiff and bruised; sharp stones and rocks had
hurt them very considerably. They remained under
the water for a very long time, and only ventured
to show their heads above it a long way down the
coast. At the same time the incident was not without
considerable value. It taught them that an
enemy might appear at any moment, and that they
must not venture inland either when the tide was
receding or when the shape of the coast corner
tended to obstruct the view.
At length they reached the river’s estuary, and
moving along it with extreme caution, found a point
where the banks narrowed a little below the netting.
There they remained for some weeks, and the
Younger Seal found that the salmon seeking the fresh
water were worthy of everything the Herring-gull had
said in their praise. He remembered the advice that
had been given to him; his little experience along
the coast had done something to fix it in his mind,
and it is doubtful whether the fisher folk who looked
after the nets realised the close presence of the seals.
Doubtless the men, to whom some of the salmon fell
in the latter days, knew that the fish had run the
gauntlet, for now and again a salmon escaping with
.pn +1
his life from seal and nets carried to the upper waters
the mark of the seal’s teeth. If not gripped behind
the neck, many a salmon could tear himself away
with little serious hurt.
At last the fish began to decrease in numbers and
the Seal had eaten enough salmon to satisfy him for
a long time. He began to think with pleasure of the
life that awaited him among his own people, and of
the joys of basking at ease without fear of disturbance.
In the estuary he had been bound to observe
the greatest care, and now he was not feeling quite
well, the season of change was upon him. So he
went down again to the open water, and turned his
head to the north, covering the road home in comparatively
short time, and arriving to find that the
female seals were silvered, and that the males were
beginning to change colour. He told all his experiences
to the Herring-gull, but said nothing about them
to his brethren. Instinct told him that if the salmon
ground should be invaded by the seals, man the
enemy, who owned the nets, would resent the invasion
after his own brutal fashion. Strange though
it may appear, he knew himself for a poacher.
This summer did not differ from the last. Perhaps
the Seal climbed higher rocks than he had cared to
.pn +1
face in the previous year, and perhaps he was more
nervous if alarmed, and more careless when undisturbed.
There were some rocks that the high tide
covered and the low tide left bare, and he took a particular
pleasure in seeking one of these at the ebb
and sleeping on the top until the flood lifted him off
into the water—sometimes to finish his sleep there.
Though his colour changes were well defined now,
he took no part in the September fighting, he was
not yet sufficiently matured to seek a mate. His
sex was fairly clear by now, particularly when he
was with a female of his own age, for then his jaws
and teeth were larger and stronger than hers would
be, and his head was rather bigger. In disposition
he was kind and gentle, and would play for hours
with his half-sister, a baby girl seal born to his mother
about the time when he sought the salmon. He
taught her many of his cleverest tricks, and sometimes
went with her, in pursuit of fish, to places she
could not have visited alone. So she saw nothing
of the savage September fights in which many male
seals were quite badly torn.
Another winter passed uneventfully, another spring
saw considerable increase in the seal colony, and following
it a partial migration in search of fresh feeding
.pn +1
grounds. The gulls and sea swallows told the seals
they liked best the very quiet and well-stocked
corners of the coast; they had the best opportunities
of finding out where safety and plenty were associated.
The Young Seal took his half-sister down the coast
to the river estuary, and they stayed from time to
time upon the top of a high rock that was well out
of the reach of man. But some of the salmon that
came to the nets were very badly mauled, and the
men in charge began to keep a sharp look-out. At
first they were uncertain whether otters or seals were
in the estuary, then a field-glass revealed the presence
of the real enemy, and a Norwegian who was among
the workers at the nets offered to mend matters in a
certain brutal fashion practised in his own land. He
rowed out to the rock when the seals were not at
home, and fixed eight or ten barbed hooks round
the base on a stout rope. Then, on the following
morning, when the seals were at rest upon the rock,
the boat appeared suddenly, and they slid off into
the water.
As good luck, or their light weight, would have
it, little harm was done. The Elder Seal was badly
scratched, and his young companion had a torn
.pn +1
flipper; but the injury was only bad enough to
keep them from the rock and send them farther
down stream to the mouth of the estuary, where
they soon found the salmon too quick for them, and
made up their minds to return.
When September came, the Young Seal showed
fight, and actually endeavoured to enter into competition
with one of his elders for the possession of
a lady seal who was at least two years his senior.
The contest was a brief one. A few leaps out of
the water, one or two valiant attempts to bite, and
the smaller combatant received a terrible scratch
that put the fear of death into him, and cost quite
a lot of his young hot blood.
He sought the refuge of a lonely crag, and felt
exceedingly sorry for himself. There his faithful
half-sister found him, and stretched herself by his
side and kissed him affectionately, while the Herring-gull
came and talked wisely to him, and between
the efforts of his two friends and well-wishers he
was induced to take a brighter view of life.
“You are much too young to take a wife,” explained
the Gull cheerfully; “why, if you succeed in
securing one two years from now, you will have
done well.”
.pn +1
“I shall never get over this trouble,” groaned the
Seal, showing the nasty gash left by his opponent’s
flipper. “Where I fell back into the water, it was
quite red and horrid.”
“Nonsense,” said the Herring-gull quite cheerfully;
“you’ll be quite right by the time your
dark spots have come back. Your enemy did
not want to maul you very severely, or you would
have had a very different tale to tell. He could
have ripped you up, or cracked your skull as if
it were no thicker than an egg-shell, had he been
in earnest. No seal should think of fighting for
a mate before he is three years old at least.
There isn’t a seal of your age that has a wife
in any part of the sea I ever sailed over, and
very few would be so foolish as to search for
one!”
This information cheered the Young Seal, but he
kept away from his companions until his wounds
were healed, and, returning, found that all quarrels
had been forgotten, and the kindliest feelings ruled.
To be sure, there were occasional fights, but they
were quite friendly affairs like the dances and games
of “Follow my leader” in which the community delighted.
.pn +1
Two years passed uneventfully, the Seal was an
adult now nearly six feet long, victorious in the
September fights, and master of many lady-loves.
The Herring-gull was gathered to his forefathers, and
it was from a younger generation that news came to
the seal family of certain changes fraught with grave
danger to one and all. The land lying round the
little bay they knew and loved so well had passed
from the hands that held it for so long and was let to
a sportsman. Sport! the word had a strange and
terrifying sound in the Seal’s ear, he remembered
what his old friend had told him.
He was guardian of a group of seals now, the last
to take his place on rock or shore, the first to rise out
of the water and look for danger. His playing time
was over, and responsibility had come with power.
Shots had been heard on several occasions; some
young seals that had ventured on to the sand at full
tide, and had forgotten about the ebb, had never
returned.
The Old Seal summoned a family council, and
explained matters.
“Farther to the north,” he said, “there are some
islands that the Herring-gull knew. There the guns
are never heard. Shall we leave our home?”
.pn +1
The answer to this question is plain to all visitors
to the coast to-day. Sea-birds scream and play and
flutter their wings over the rocks, the summer waters
are bright and clear and tempting to the swimmer,
but the seals have gone for good and aye.
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stL
THE GIRAFFE
.sp 2
Picture to yourself a wide expanse of open land
covered with flowers and grasses that spring two or
three feet high in the track of the rains.
To the far west stretches a high mountain range,
whose topmost peaks are ever clad in snow; to the
east a river bed filled with a raging torrent at one
season, and dry at another; to the south an acacia
wood; to the north the open land, trackless and
desert as the sea.
In this land, from which the sun never takes its
departure for more than a few days at a time,
Maami the giraffe was born, a quaint and curious
little creature, whose proportions even in those early
days were almost grotesque. In the secluded spot
that was his earliest home the growth was thick and
luxuriant and, while one who surveyed it with a
field-glass from a distant hill might have thought
the grasses were comparatively short, the big antelopes
that raced along from time to time showed no
.pn +1
more than the tops of their horns, the lion who pursued
them was unseen. So, too, was the leopard, as
he stole along in the direction of the foot hills of the
mountain, hoping to surprise some of the noisy
baboons that lived and clustered there.
From time to time a lion roared close to the young
giraffe’s home; once, indeed, when his mother was
away, and there were other moments of danger that
Maami never understood. Had he been old enough
and big enough to see and understand what followed
the lion’s roar, when he was lying in the soft nest
that his mother’s body had made for him, his love
and admiration for his parent would have been
greater than ever. The Old Giraffe had been feeding
in the acacia grove, and was on her way home when
the lion roared. Hearing the cry, she broke into
her fastest stride; it was not a gallop, it was not a
canter, it was not a trot; it partook of all three, and
in the rhythm of the movement there was a challenge
that the lion would not wait to accept.
The great plain was full of antelopes that could
be had without fighting, so he roared an assurance
that he meant no harm, and hurried away to the
left, while the eager mother pounded her rapid way
to her calf’s side, and then seeing that he was all
.pn +1
right, stood up to the last inch of her height and
looked out over the prairie to see where danger lay.
In other animals of Africa it is the sharp hearing,
the extraordinary scent that puzzles the European;
the giraffe was content to rely upon a power of
vision second only to the eagle’s. Her bright coat
lost its lustre against trees and bushes; she became
part of the landscape by reason of her wonderful
gift of protective colouring, and could scan the
country with a certainty that no source of danger
would be overlooked.
Throughout the season of rains mother and son
remained in the thicket; but when the drought came
it brought countless cruel insects to prey upon
Maami’s tender skin, and for his sake the Mother
Giraffe, who was schooled to endure such trouble,
decided to leave their home.
“We will go up into the forest of the high hills,”
she said, speaking in the low tones that only the
animal world can hear,[#] “for the insects never climb
so far. The evening cold would kill them, so they
must stay on the low hot ground.”
.pn +1
Then Maami followed his mother through a dense
growth that wrapped and hid him, over rivers that
were dwindling down to the size of insignificant
brooks, over the bare foot hills, where the baboons
loved to play when the nights were long and bright,
and up into the high forest, whose depths knew no
light at all.
The silence of the place was awe-inspiring after
the comparative gaiety of life upon the plains.
Never a singing bird came to the forest; the snakes
that climbed and clung could hang motionless for
hours, and more than once Maami passed a very
old elephant standing up against some tree trunk as
stiffly and silently as though carved in wood by some
cunning sculptor. Happily, there were consolations
to make amends for the darkness and solitude.
The ticks and hard-biting insects, that could thrive
so well upon the plains, succumbed to the cold damp
air of the high ground, and within a week Maami
and his mother were free from pain and annoyance.
Then, again, food was plentiful for the Mother Giraffe,
and there was plenty of milk for Maami. On the
plains the giraffe had often been driven to the
mimosa wood, or even farther afield, in search of
succulent branches and tree tops; here the meals
.pn +1
were waiting to be eaten at every hour of the day.
Giraffes have a certain contempt for the ground;
they will not bend their long necks to the earth.
Living, they stand with heads erect; dying, they
preserve their stately carriage until the last. Only
when moving rapidly will they bend head and neck
to the body level. Though the plains might have
held much nourishing food the giraffes never condescended
to seek it; they looked to the tree tops for
their fare.
Mother and son stayed in the depths of the high
forest during the dry season, and the elder giraffe
seldom left her son. He could follow her when she
searched for food, and it was only on the rare occasions
when she needed water that she left him for a time,
and went down by night towards the plains, where
a pool well known to her survived the scorching heat.
A few minutes there would suffice the giraffe for
some days; indeed, if she found leaves that retained
their moisture at all, a weekly journey to the pool
would suffice for all her wants.
Only when the rains returned the two giraffes
made their way hastily to the scorched plains.
There could be no delay, because the dry beds of
the rivers would become impassable when the rain
.pn +1
had fallen for a few days, and many beasts would
be cut off from the plains, or compelled to travel for
miles through dangerous country in order to find a
ford.
The scorched vegetation made way, as though by
magic, for a new, green carpet, that rose hour by
hour; great flocks of birds and beasts returned from
the far corners whither the drought had driven
them; and to the giraffes, so long pent up in the
dark forest, the change was a delightful one. Maami
was big enough now to look out over the advancing
greenery, young enough to frisk and play, shaking
his neck and whisking his tail as his mother did, and
unfortunate enough to attract the attention of a
jackal who chanced to be prowling about, and at
once set off to the lair of his master the lion, bearing
glad tidings of fresh meat. The lion was
hungry, so hungry, indeed, that the jackal would not
approach too close to the lair, preferring to howl
without it. As soon as the lion stirred the jackal
slipped away to the side, and followed at a respectful
distance.
At first the lion moved in the direction of another
lair, to summon two of his tribe to join him; but
they were feasting on an eland bull many miles away,
.pn +1
and he was forced to proceed alone. He moved
stealthily up wind in the direction of the giraffes’
resting-place; but there were birds on every bush,
and they gave the alarm, so that when the huge,
tawny beast was within forty or fifty feet of his goal
he saw the Mother Giraffe watching and waiting for
him. He paused, and lashed his flanks with his tail,
uttering a horrible challenge, at which Maami nearly
died of fright; but the Mother Giraffe, in no wise
alarmed, whisked her own tail by way of reply,
twisted her long neck in many strange ways, planted
her feet firmly on the ground and waited for the attack.
With a quick succession of leaps the lion hurled
himself at his prey, but as he came full at the giraffe
she lashed out with her heavy feet.
The movement was timed to perfection; no eye
save the giraffe’s could have calculated the aim to
such a nicety, and the lion fell as though stunned, his
lower jaw broken, his hunting ended for all time.
Without waiting to see what had happened, the
Mother Giraffe signalled to Maami to follow her, and
they glided away in their own curious fashion until
they were miles from the spot where the great yellow
body lay writhing on the ground, a group of jackals
waiting hungrily for the end.
.pn +1
Perhaps the two giraffes were made more careful
by this adventure; certainly Maami never frisked
again in the old-time happy fashion; but it was no
more than an incident of daily life, and did not call
for any special remembrance.
The year that followed was uneventful, and when
the two giraffes came again from the forest the
Mother Giraffe asked permission to join the herd
from which she had departed when the time came
for Maami to be born. Self-preservation took the
mothers away at these most critical periods of their
lives, and they were not permitted to return until
their offspring were old and strong enough to obey
the orders of the old bulls to whom the safety of the
herd was entrusted. Experience had shown that
when a calf was too young to follow the lead, mother
and child fell easy victims to pursuit. Alone they
might avoid attention, but a herd was a more or less
certain mark for hunters, whether they went on two
feet or four. So a mother looked after herself and
child until both were able to face any emergency,
and then they were readmitted to the pack.
Maami was now in his fourth year and well able
to look after himself, cognisant of many, if not all,
the dangers that beset giraffes, and the old bull in
.pn +1
charge of the herd gave him welcome in most approved
fashion by bending down certain high
branches of edible trees until they were within
the newcomer’s reach.
For the Young Giraffe a new life seemed to have
opened. He could follow the herd to feeding places
where never a giraffe would have gone alone, he
was entrusted with sentry duty from time to time,
he acquired a measure of confidence, and, above all,
he fed entirely upon vegetable matter. When he
claimed his mother’s care no longer, he knew that
he had gained independence.
The herd numbered thirty or more, and was led
by an old bull giraffe and two lieutenants, whose
skins were darker than those of the old females or
any of the young giraffes. All the males were
thicker in the neck than the females, and heavier in
the foot, and they were more nervous than their
companions. Even when the herd rested against
the woodland trees in the extreme heat of the day,
or sought for their favourite branches at feeding
time, the old bulls would never cease from scanning
the surrounding country. The leader went a little
lame; he, too, had killed a lion, but not without
damage to some leg muscles that made him move
.pn +1
much as a camel moves, the natural ungainliness of
a giraffe’s stride being made more than ever apparent
by the accident.
In spite of hours of duty, in spite of the feeling
that he must obey orders, Maami was happy enough.
He learned to signal the events of hill and prairie by
certain definite movements of head, neck and tail, so
that when he was watching while others fed, his inability
to cry aloud might not lead to trouble.
Nature, in her infinite care for these her most helpless
surviving children, had granted protective colouring
and something akin to telegraphic signalling to
the giraffe world, and for two years the old bull
giraffe kept his little company together with no other
loss save that which came when one of the cows
retired to some quiet breeding ground. Three out
of four would come back in the course of time
bringing a little one old enough to feed himself and
obey orders, the fourth would not return. She
would fall a victim to some enemy, some black
huntsman searching for the giraffe because his hide
fetched a big price in the African market, where it
was made into whip-thongs, or she would fall to a
company of lions that could unite against a giraffe,
and by surrounding disable her.
.pn +1
Under the guidance of the old bull giraffe, the
herd travelled far afield, covering a wide expanse
of country and gathering much information about
good quiet pools and feeding grounds from many
other tree and grass-feeding animals. Zebras, deer
of all kinds, elephants and even hippopotami were
ready to give all the hints that were sought for, and
many a time, in response to warnings that belong to
the freemasonry of the animal world, the bull giraffe
led his company away from feeding grounds that,
for all their tempting aspect, held hidden dangers.
The zebras and the deer could hear trouble, elephants
could scent it, and when the wind played havoc
with the scent and hearing, the giraffes could use
their eyes in fashion that brought much-needed
guidance to those who had served them at other
seasons.
With the exception of the leopards, who worked
alone, few animals sought their food or their safety
by themselves. Even the lions united for the hunt,
and man, the destroyer, reaching the confines of the
unexplored lands where wild beasts dwelt, travelled
with a company. More than once Maami saw man
in the dim distance, with tents, baggage bearers, and
the impedimenta associated with the pursuit of big
.pn +1
game, but more often than not these destroyers
never saw the giraffes at all.
But disaster cannot be avoided for all time, and
it was written that Maami’s mother should be the
first of the company to pay tribute to man the implacable.
One night, as the herd came from feeding
among some young tree tops, she fell into one of
the cunningly contrived pits that a company of
native hunters had set in the path—a trap intended
for even bigger game, but readily discovered by the
solitary elephant for whom it had been set. He had
scented it a hundred yards away, and made a new
path into the forest that sheltered him, conquering
the pangs of thirst that had drawn him from his lair.
The giraffes having little scent and paying small
attention to the ground beneath their feet, were not
so fortunate; the mother beast fell, and the herd,
yielding to brute instinct, turned in its tracks, and
ambled away all night to a distant place of safety.
Maami understood his loss very vaguely, if at all.
With the advancing years mother and son had forgotten
the ties that bound them to one another in the
far-off days of motherly affection and childish need;
and, when morning broke, bringing lingering surcease
to the poor creature’s pain, terror and life,
.pn +1
there was none of the herd within sight of the scene
of the misfortune. It was one of the chances that
giraffes must take, this deep pit covered lightly with
grasses spread about a slender support of boughs;
and the shapeless carcase that the hunters cast aside
when they had stripped off the hide served to give
the carrion a hearty meal. Within twenty-four hours
the white bones alone remained to tell of the graceful
and harmless creature that had haunted wood
and plain so long.
.tb
Years have passed since Maami’s mother met her
fate in the hunters’ pit, and, of the giraffe herd that
still haunts the plains, seeking the high woods only
in a season of drought, few of the older ones remain.
Maami himself is very near to the leadership; he is
second to an old bull some three years his senior.
The leader of the early days lives solitary now, if he
lives at all. When his eyes grew dim and his limbs
began to lose their elasticity, he was compelled to
pass his duties and responsibilities to another and
to go his way alone.
To be sure he was no match for young lions or for
huntsmen, but there was no appeal from forest law,
which recognises the herd’s need for sound and sure
.pn +1
guidance, and since he had left the ranks others had
followed, all to lead solitary lives, happy indeed and
fortunate if inevitable death did not come to them in
cruel fashion. Calves new born when Maami joined
the herd are now responsible adults, and the herd
moves with more care than of old time; for, although
the lions tend to decrease, the white hunters have
penetrated into the district; and even the black ivory
and hide hunters organised by the big trading companies
are armed with weapons of precision, and have
learned to use them with a measure of accuracy
hitherto unknown. In districts known to Maami as
great homes of game in the years when he first joined
the herd, you may travel for miles seeing nothing
but a few whitening bones spread out here and there;
and the general trend of wild life is towards the
marshy malarial lands where hunters will not
follow willingly.
The giraffe has seen strange sights in these latter
days—lions, hyænas, leopards and jackals coming to
the stream to drink with big deer and giraffes and
zebras, and then moving off without as much as a
growl because man the hunter is on the track, and
before his advance one and all must retreat in terror.
There are nights that Maami will remember as long
.pn +1
as he lives, when among the beasts that come to the
pools his sharp eyes have counted wounded lions,
leopards and elephants. He has seen a great tawny
lion permanently lame, his shoulder inflamed to an
indescribable condition, an old bull elephant staining
the pool red, a leopard drinking with feverish haste
and then dropping dead by the side of the hard-sought
water. All these things tell the tale of the
destroyer with an eloquence beyond words, and account
for the strange spirit of fraternity that seizes
upon the beasts as they retreat pell-mell before the
irresistible advance of the white man.
Maami is travelling alone now; it is his last
journey. The white hunter has been too much for
the herd; he has dropped one and wounded another,
the rest have gone off in their odd swinging style,
tails flapping, necks waving, heads erect.
Terror-stricken and badly hurt, Maami is running
alone, he does not quite know where. He passes
over a great expanse of plain, through a wood strip
wherein he has often taken his fill of tender leaves,
but, for once, no thought of food comes to him, he is
conscious only of growing weakness and increasing
thirst. It is the pool that he is running for, and
happily it is not far off. He drinks deep of
.pn +1
dwindling waters; the dry season has come upon the land
of late—now he is running quite aimlessly through
the scrub and high grasses. He thinks the herd is
before him, always a little out of reach; he makes
a special effort to overtake it and sinks down very
slowly, his head still high.
From a neighbouring tree a white bird with red
bills looks down compassionately. The heat is intense,
thirst is coming back, a dark pool is forming
by his side, but this is not water. High up in the
air a vulture is looking at him; it descends very
slowly.
Two bright eyes shine for a moment from the
grass; the jackal is investigating the case. He meets
Maami’s eye and cannot face it, so he slinks away
to a safe distance and howls to his heart’s content.
“Blood!” he cries; “meat for one and all!” And
to far corners of the plain, to rocky holes that form
a day refuge for carrion, the shrill cry penetrates.
If there are any lions near by they are sleeping after
a successful night’s hunting, for never an answering
cry follows the jackal’s summons.
Maami is conscious of a strange gathering of ugly
birds and foul beasts, but it does not concern him
now. He is growing so cold that even the tropical
.pn +1
sun above his head is powerless to warm him; his
eyes are being veiled, the landscape is very blurred,
the herd has passed from sight. His head droops
slowly—he does not feel the teeth of the old hyæna
that, mad with hunger, has flung herself upon him.
.fm
.fn #
Though the giraffe is perhaps the only large animal that never
makes a sound, travellers and hunters are agreed that these animals
can communicate many thoughts to each other.
.fn-
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stM
THE WHITE STORK
.sp 2
In the afternoon little Tsamani would go in the company
of Fatima, his mother, to the flat roof of his
father’s house, but in the morning he was allowed to
go up there by himself, with only the little slave girl
Ayesha to guard him.
The happiest hours of Tsamani’s young life were
passed upon the flat house-top, where he could see
the Tensift river winding its way among the palms,
and the Atlas mountains with their peaks covered
in snow, and the wonderful tower called Kutubia,
that flanks the Mosque of the Library. He could
see one of the markets, crowded with heavily laden
camels and noisy tribesmen from the South; and at
times when the Sultan was in the city he would
watch him riding in state under the green umbrella
that is Morocco’s symbol of sovereignty. These
sights pleased Tsamani, and delighted the little
slave-girl, who was at once his guardian and his
.pn +1
playmate; but Father and Mother Stork pleased
him most of all.
When the warm spring weather came, and most
of the storks in Marrakesh took their long flight
oversea to cooler climes, Father Stork and Mother
Stork remained behind. She sat in her rough nest
upon three white eggs and he stood on one leg by
her side, with his neck bent, and his bill resting on
his breast. They both looked at Tsamani with
great interest, perhaps because he was the son of a
powerful governor—more likely because they were
sorry for him on account of his loneliness. For,
though Tsamani had a very soft white djellaba and
bright yellow slippers, he was a lonely boy enough—not
half so happy as many of the little beggars
who ran all over the streets in the bazaars, as merry
as they were hungry.
Father Stork made a great rattling noise with his
bill, and his mate responded rather more quietly.
“That’s a funny noise, O Father of the Red
Legs,” said Tsamani. “I can’t make it with my
mouth.”
“No,” said Father Stork, “I don’t suppose you
can. And you can’t fly, and you can’t catch frogs
and fish, and you can’t build a nest or hatch eggs—can
.pn +1
you, little Tsamani? But don’t let that worry
you, for grown-up men can’t do these things either,
and never think how foolish they are.”
“You are very clever, I know,” said little Tsamani,
wondering. “And my father has told me you are
very good too. Where do you come from, and where
have the other storks gone?”
“I must tell you,” replied Father Stork rather
pompously, “for it is impossible to know too much
about us. We are, perhaps, the most interesting, the
most highly honoured of all birds that fly. Our
wisdom, our virtue have been the talk of all ages.
We have been favoured by every nation, but the
followers of Mohammed have always treated us more
kindly than the others. You are a Mohammedan,
and this house was built by your great-great-grandfather.
Since he built it some of my family have always
lived in this corner of the roof. We remain
here when our children have joined the great procession
to the North, and give up our place to one or
other of the children only when we have gone on the
still greater journey from which there is no return.
Some day you will be a man and the friend of our
family, so it is right that I should tell you all you
want to know.”
.pn +1
“Why do you sit so closely by your nest?” asked
the little boy.
“Because all storks are not honest,” replied the
Father of the Red Legs. “These sticks that make
the nest are collected with great difficulty and hard
work. A dishonest stork—and there are such birds,
I’m sorry to say—waits for the parent to leave his
nest, and then steals his best twigs. So one has to
be very careful.”
The little slave-girl came across the roof-top, but
she only heard Father Stork clapping his beak—she
could not understand anything of the words he
spoke. She was not a “True Believer,” only a little
girl stolen by slave-raiders from the Western Sudan,
and brought across the terrible desert to the slave-market
in Marrakesh, where Tsamani’s father had
bought her for a little pile of silver Moorish dollars,
amounting in value to about twelve English pounds.
It was no part of her business to interfere if her little
charge stood by the storks’ nest and Father Stork
made that rattling noise with his bill. She was content
to stroll round the roof, listening to the tinkle
of the camels’ bells, looking down at the people in
the streets beyond, or at her master’s other slaves
who worked in the patio below, and passed the hours
.pn +1
singing, shouting or quarrelling as fancy urged
them.
“We have been a long time in the world,” began
the stork. “Even in the Bible—which is as the Koran
to people in the far countries whither my relatives go—there
is a reference to us. A prophet, Jeremiah by
name, testified to our wisdom as he watched us in
Palestine gathering for our yearly flight. ‘Yea, the
stork in the heaven knoweth his appointed times,’
he said, realising, as he did, that we followed the
seasons with never a mistake or approach to hesitation.
His people, the Jews, ancestors of the Hudis
who live to-day in the Mellah, called us Chassidim,
which means the pious ones, because they understood
something of our great love for our children. Can
you wonder, then, if we storks are proud? Yet storks
were not always birds.”
“What were you?” asked the astonished Tsamani.
“The first stork was born a Sultan,” replied the
bird solemnly. “He was a merry soul, but had no
fear of Allah. He sat at the head of his high staircase
and received his wazeers and subjects. One
day, to make them ridiculous, he had the stairs
greased; and when grave, pious men were about to
salute him, they slipped and fell upon those behind,
.pn +1
and all were sorely hurt and confused. Among
those hurt was a very great saint whose groans were
heard in heaven. Then Allah was wrath with the
Sultan, who sat back on his throne convulsed with
laughter, moving his head so that his long beard fell
and rose from his breast. In an instant the beard
became a bill—the Sultan was turned to a stork,
and in place of his laughter one heard the chatter
of his bill. But happily, on account of our high
descent, and our great love for our children, we are
set above all other birds.”
“Are you as fond of your three white eggs as my
mother is fond of me?” asked Tsamani in astonishment.
“Every bit,” replied Father Stork; and Mother
Stork repeated the words after him in a lower tone.
“They are to us more than all the wealth of Marrakesh,
and when, in the fulness of time, the shells
open and the three little babies are given to us they
will be dearer still. You must wait patiently until
their day arrives, and then you will be able to see
for yourself.”
“O, little master,” said the slave-girl, “it is time to
descend. The sun is hot, and thy lady mother will
await thee.”
.pn +1
So Tsamani went down to the hareem of his
father’s house, where his mother passed most of her
day lying on soft cushions and eating sweets and
contradicting his father’s other wives and favourites
because she was above them all. And when he
went upon the roof with her in the afternoon the
voices of the storks were no more to him than they
were to her—no more than the click-clack of their
long heavy bills. But on the following morning the
sound had a meaning for him—to his great delight.
Sometimes Father Stork would relieve Mother
Stork in the performance of her duties, for, as he
said: “Our love is equal, why then should the service
not be divided?” And in the course of a few
days there were three little storks in the nest, with
down for feathers, and such awkward bodies and ugly
heads on them that you and I, not knowing better,
would have laughed. Tsamani was rather disappointed
when he saw them for the first time, but
Father Stork reassured him.
“Look at me,” he said, putting his second leg
firmly on the ground, and lifting the heavy bill off
his breast. “I am a big, fine bird—nearer four
feet long than three. See how beautifully my bright
red bill contrasts with the black of my great wing-coverts
.pn +1
and the chief quill feathers, and the pure
white of the rest of my body. Look at my bright
red legs and toes; think what an effective finish
they give to me. Two of my children will grow
to be like me, as they are males; the third will be
like her mother—not quite as large and not so
brightly coloured as the others. And all the big
feathers will be brown before they are black.”
Each bird in turn would fly from the roof to the
pools in the gardens of the Moorish grandees, and
would come back with food for the little ones. If
the father went, the mother stayed; if the father
stayed, the mother went; the nestlings were never
left alone by night or day. It was hard work, for
the three babies were anxious to grow and to have
feathers in place of down, and to be able to fly or
flutter to the ponds and feed themselves. “Sometimes,”
said Father Stork, “they try too soon, and
tumble down into the street and are killed; at other
times they must stop half-way because of exhaustion—but
then every Moslem picks them up
and returns them to their nest, for it would be a
terrible misfortune to harm one of us. If some were
hurt we should all leave the country.”
“Far away to the north-west,” continued Father
.pn +1
Stork, “there is a country called Great Britain, and
we used to go there every year; but when men saw
us they would say that we were very rare, and
would shoot us, without pausing to think that that
would make us rarer still. So for fifty years we
have not been to those islands, and I do not think
we shall ever go there again, though one or two
stray birds may alight there, blown out of their
course by a gale. Though we are kind to all who
treat us well, we can fight when it is necessary to
do so. We aim at the head and eyes of those
who ill-use us; but against men who carry guns no
fighting avails, so we leave them—and now on all
the myriad roofs of Great Britain no stork builds its
nest.”
“Are the Mohammedans the only people who are
good to you, O Father of the Red Legs?” asked
Tsamani.
“They are our best friends,” said the Stork;
“though in parts of Europe we are welcomed, particularly
in Holland, where the people respect us for
the love we bear our little ones. They tell the story
of a great fire in one of their cities called Delft,
where some storks, unable to remove their nestlings,
died with them. We thought nothing of it—any
.pn +1
storks would have done the same; but the good
people of Delft were very impressed and told all the
Dutch folk far and wide, and increased our welcome
from that day. They even put up cart-wheels on
poles for us to build our nests on in districts where
the house-roofs have no flat surface that will help us.
As a rule, when we go to a town where the inhabitants
are of mixed race and religion, we find out
where the Mohammedan quarter is, and build there.
Uneducated people think it is because we prefer one
faith to another; but the truth, of course, is that the
Mohammedans respect us, welcome our arrival, regret
our departure and never disturb our nests. They
even say that we bring good luck to the dwellers in
the house we choose for our building.”
“To-day,” said Father Stork, a week or two after
the last conversation, “we are taking our young to
the marshes. Ask your mother to let you walk in
the Sultan’s garden near the great pomegranate
orchards by the Spanish gate.”
So Tsamani hurried down to the hareem and the
room where his mother lay upon soft cushions, with
her gimbri for company; and she gave her permission
readily enough, and called the old lady who had
charge of the women’s quarter, and bade her go
.pn +1
to the main courtyard and summon two men slaves
to accompany Tsamani and his little nurse to see
that no harm befell them.
So the little party went out to the gardens that lie
round the great green-tiled palace of the Sultan, and
when they came to the marsh by the orchard of
pomegranates Tsamani cried to his little companion:
“O Ayesha, let us stay here and play.” He had
seen Father and Mother Stork with their family on
the marsh. Then the two men slaves sat in the
shade of the red-blossomed pomegranate trees, and
little Ayesha picked wild flowers, while Tsamani
went up to the stork family and saw the little ones
that had only just as many feathers as enabled them
to fly feebly for short distances. They splashed
about in the shallow waters of the marsh, and tried
to catch frogs and little fishes; but they were not
skilful enough to do so; they could secure nothing
better than a few worms, and would have fared ill
but for Father and Mother Stork, from whom no
frogs or fishes could escape. When the parent
birds caught anything they washed it very carefully
in the water before giving it to their young to eat,
and no trouble seemed too much for them in satisfying
the hunger of their little ones. Tsamani watched
.pn +1
them while the two slaves slept under the pomegranate
trees; and Ayesha, picking more flowers
than she could carry, forgot that the sun’s heat was
growing greater.
“You must go home soon,” said Father Stork at
last, “or you will be hurt by the sun, and you will
have to go to the hospital, just as our family has to
go when it is sick or ailing.”
“Is there a hospital for storks?” said Tsamani,
very much astonished.
“Certainly there is,” replied Father Stork. “It
is in the old northern city of Fez, home of pious
and learned Moors, and was founded many generations
ago by a good Moslem. All sick or wounded
storks are brought there and put in the charge of the
pious men who conduct the hospital. The ailing
ones are doctored, the hungry ones are fed, the dead
are buried. It is not for nothing that we serve
Moorish cities.”
“Serve Moorish cities,” repeated Tsamani curiously.
“How do you do that?”
“We are the scavengers,” said Father Stork. “In
the western countries men are employed to remove
the rubbish and refuse from the houses, but here and
all over the East we take their places. To be sure,
.pn +1
we cannot eat the offal, as the vultures do; but we
eat a great deal that would spread sickness through
any city if left lying on the ground under the hot
sun. If there were no gardens and river-shallows
here we could live in the city itself, and would thrive
there. Very many of my family keep in the city of
Fez, although there is a river and they can go out
to the marshes if they felt inclined.”
The summer, and the rainy season that takes the
place of winter passed, bringing another spring in
their train; and still Tsamani spoke to the storks
when the weather permitted him to go upon the roof,
and learned a great deal of their lives and ways.
With the completion of their feathers and the change
of colour in their wing quills from brown to black the
young birds had gone afield, and were to be seen in
the well-watered meadows by the tomb of Sidi Bel
Abbas, the saint who wrought so nobly for the poor
in his days on earth that he has become the patron
of all the beggars in the white-walled city. One
sat on a corner of the tomb itself, the others on the
flat housetops near the gardens.
“They will go away with this summer,” said
Father Stork. “They will join the hundreds of
others that came back from the North before the
.pn +1
cold weather sets in. Did you not notice how full
the gardens became at the beginning of the winter,
and how the streets and the market places were full
of birds? They do not like the cold weather of
Holland and Denmark and Poland, and other
countries of Europe, where they go to rear their
young. At a given season of the year the desire
for home takes them. In spring they seek a milder
clime and leave Africa, so that the people of the
countries they favour may know that the summer
has come.”
“The swallow and the nightingale go with them.
Indeed, they go into countries that my family will
not visit. Think what those countries have lost.
There is France, and there is Britain, for example;
no stork builds in either.”
“Do you all come back and go away at the same
time from all countries?” asked Tsamani. “And
if you do how do you manage it, O Father of the
Red Legs?”
“You ask more than I can answer,” replied
Father Stork. “I can only tell you that within
three days of the start for the North there is not
one stork in Morocco that intends to take the
journey, and within a week of the time the first
.pn +1
stork comes southward from oversea the entire
migration is accomplished. It is one of Nature’s
secrets that she has chosen to tell to all the birds of
passage but has not given to you and your fellow-creatures,
and consequently nothing I can say
would make the reason clear to you.
“We know when to go and when to return as
well as you know when to go to sleep and when to
rise. It is bird law. At times the summons comes
to us to fly earlier than usual, even before all the
eggs are hatched, or the young ones have learned to
fly. Then we must forget our love. We must destroy
the eggs that are not yet hatched; we must
kill the little ones that cannot face the journey.
Nothing could be more terrible to us. We would
prefer to die for our little ones, but we have no
choice but to obey the law. For generations uncounted
we have done so, and now it is no more
strange to us than the regulation of our day—the
morning search for food, the long rest for digestion
and contemplation that follows, the evening search
for another meal, the following sleep. In a day or
two now we shall commence our love-flights, and
my wife will fill our nest with eggs once more.”
“What are your love-flights?” said Tsamani.
.pn +1
“Wait a little while, and you will see,” replied
Father Stork.
Some two or three mornings later, when Tsamani
and Ayesha climbed to the roof-top, Father Stork
was no longer to be seen. It was then too late for
him to be eating. He should have been standing
by the nest, in accordance with custom; but there
were no signs of him. Mother Stork sat looking
skywards, as though in an ecstasy of happiness.
“I am not lost, Tsamani,” said Father Stork’s
voice. It sounded far away up in the sky; but
when the boy looked up into the blue his eyes
could hardly pierce the dazzling light. He saw nothing
for a few minutes, and then Father Stork descended
slowly, apparently from the heavens. He
was singing a strange new song, such as Tsamani
had never heard in all his life before—the song that
had lighted so much happiness in the eyes of
Mother Stork.
“Listen, Ayesha!” he cried. “Do you hear the
white stork’s song.”
“No, no,” laughed stupid Ayesha, showing her
beautiful white teeth. “The storks do not sing,
my little lord; they chatter with their beaks, but
they have no song. The doves in the gardens have
.pn +1
more song than storks.” Tsamani said no more;
he was afraid to let the girl know that he could
hear things she did not dream about.
“Quite right, Tsamani,” said Father Stork, gliding
easily and gracefully through the air to the
roof’s edge. “To Ayesha there is nothing to be
heard but the clattering of my mandibles. To my
wife it is a beautiful love-song. She thinks I
brought it down from heaven, for I soared out of
her sight so high that even to my keen eyes Marrakesh
was no more than a dull speck on the
ground. Now you shall see my lower love-flight.”
So saying, he sprang into the air, and, reaching a
point as far from the roof as the roof was from the
ground, went through a series of movements that
were like those of a great yacht with all her sails
set to catch a favouring wind. Tsamani never saw
his wings flap, never saw him in any difficulty to
turn in an exact angle at a given point; the motion
was smooth, easy, graceful, and it thrilled Mother
Stork with joy.
“We are great lovers,” said Father Stork, when
he had settled; “so well known that all the lovesick
youths of Moorish cities ask us to give their
.pn +1
messages to the well-beloved. They stand in the
white street below and sing to us.”
Once again Mother Stork sat on three eggs, once
again Father Stork stood on one leg by the nest-side,
his beak upon his breast, and helped in all
love and loyalty to fetch the food when the babies
came. The weeks hurried towards the summer, the
birds were nearly fledged, and one morning when
they were feeding in the gardens Father Stork
came back hurriedly with another of his tribe.
They talked vigorously upon the roof-top and then
the newcomer went his way, leaving Father Stork
angry and disturbed.
“What is the matter?” asked Tsamani uneasily.
He felt sure that trouble was brewing, that some
disaster was at hand.
“Matter enough!” said Father Stork gravely.
“My companion came to give me and my wife
notice that we must join in battle with the ravens
on the fourth day from now.”
“Why are you ill friends?” asked the boy.
“That is a secret of stork and raven life that I
cannot attempt to explain,” replied Father Stork.
“We must fight them and prevail, or must leave
this city. The battle will be a few miles from the
.pn +1
Dukala Gate. I think we shall win and return.
You will soon know.”
.tb
All through the third day Tsamani watched and
waited, seeing no grown stork on roof or in street,
straining eyes and ears in vain. Even the townsfolk
were alarmed, and crowded the Mosques, and prayed
devoutly.[#] On the following morning he rose when
the Mueddin called for the first prayer, and the
guardian of the hareem allowed him to pass the door
and to climb the steep steps to the roof. He saw
the sun come up from the East and he heard the
camels’ bells as the caravan moved out to cross the
desert, carrying salt, that it might return with slaves.
He was listening to the earliest notes of stock-doves
in the gardens, when with swift flight a stork swept
over the Dukala Gate. He was one of the younger
birds of that year’s brood.
“We have won!” he cried. “We have won!
The ravens are in full flight. The storks will return
to Marrakesh; and my parents sent me to bid you
good-bye.”
“Are they well and safe?” cried Tsamani, sorely
.pn +1
afraid, for he was old enough to know that he had
no other friends.
“They live,” replied the young stork, “but are
sorely wounded, and are flying northward, slowly
and carefully, to the City of the Sickle, the place of
the hospital, where their wounds may be healed. I
must return to them. Haply, we may all come back
again.”
“How the young stork chatters!” said Ayesha
sleepily.
But Tsamani said no word as he went down the
narrow stairs, for he felt that he was alone in the
world.
.fm
.fn #
This incident occurred when I was in Southern Morocco where
some reliable observers told me that fights between the storks and
ravens are of almost annual occurrence.
.fn-
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stN
THE WILD BOAR
.sp 2
He trotted along happily enough through the great
open spaces of the Argan Forest,[#] parts well-nigh
unknown to men. All around him the giant Argan
trees defied the sun. Stray goats climbed their
broad branches to eat the fruit, the tiny asphodel
flowered in their shade, and the stock-doves cooed.
Little Tusker knew the forest better in darkness
than by morning light, for the herd rested during
the heat, and the grown up ones fed at night; but
they often drank by day in that secluded place, and
would seek the pools by the tiny river where trout
flashed and otters fished and kingfishers shone in
the bright sun. It was pleasant to go down to the
pool in the middle of the hot night and listen to
the nightingales in the woods around. By day the
numbers of the herd stood in the way of complete
enjoyment, for the strong ones got to the water first
and the weakest had to wait.
.pn +1
“Why do we all go together like this?” asked
little Tusker.
“For safety,” replied the mother, who had no
tusks and was naturally of a timid, shrinking disposition.
“There are hyænas and other wild
things in the forest. We might be attacked if we
went by ourselves. You will remain with the herd
until you are four or five years old, and then you
will do as your father has done, and will live by
yourself, for your tusks will have grown until you
can protect yourself against anything but the
Man.”
“What is the Man?” he asked.
“He is the enemy who never tires,” answered his
mother. “He has two legs instead of four, he has
no tusks, he does not know the forest as we know
it, but he carries death with him, and the boar he
follows is doomed.”
All this was quite unintelligible to little Tusker,
and the first few years of his life brought him no reminder
of the warning. He travelled with the herd,
but as soon as he was able to look after himself his
mother’s affection came to an end, and she would
push him out of her way on the feeding grounds, as
readily as though he had been a stranger. The
.pn +1
herd went many miles in search of food, and did
most of their travelling and eating by night, when
only the jackals and hyænas made a noise in the
forest. They rooted for sweet potatoes and wild
turnips, tearing up great patches of ground, and
they hunted for the young maize at the proper
season of the year, ravaging the lands of the
farmers to get the grain.
Luckily for them the farmers, being Moors, were
without guns and full of superstition. They would
not sit up at night to wait for the marauders, and so
the herd grew fat. Every season saw some of the
full-grown boars leave to live their solitary life, and
in the early winter sows would go away for some
months and bring their litter back with them later
on.
On his nightly rambles little Tusker often met
the porcupine who also fed after dark, and was
quite harmless in spite of his formidable bristles.
He heard the jackals crying and was amused; he
saw the shining eyes of the hyæna and was afraid.
Slowly he learned all the lessons that a boar must
know, and the forest yielded him some of her many
secrets.
There was no real winter there. The forest
.pn +1
enjoys almost perennial summer, but there is a rainy
season when the days are cooler than at other
times. Then the best lairs are under the Argan
trees; when the greatest heat is on the land, the
moist sandy places high up above the valley are
best. Again, in the brief days of tempest the
hollows and gorges are most sought for, since the
wind cannot reach them.
Young Tusker learned to know how and when
the weather would change. He knew if any stranger
were coming down the wind ever so far away. The
meaning of the cries that the herd uttered, the signs
that showed if water was near, and the significance
of the footmarks that crossed the forest in all directions;
he learned all these things.
As he grew up, sleeping under the sun and feeding
under the stars, finding food plentiful and life
pleasant, Tusker gradually ceased to be little. His
shaggy skin became covered with bristles, a bristly
ridge covered his spine; his heavy head grew larger
and heavier, and the milk-white tusks developed
until the lower ones took the upward curve that
made them formidable. He could fight now with
his fellows, but little harm was done, for all boars
learn to receive their neighbour’s tusk-thrusts on
.pn +1
their own tusks or on the shoulders, where the
hard, coarse skin is not readily torn.
With consciousness of strength came the desire to
travel, and when Tusker found any track that moved
him to curiosity, he would leave the herd to follow
it. One night, when he was rather more than three
years old, he saw the mark of a boar, the track of a
large hoof, and he followed it industriously, leaving
the herd far behind. The big hoof-prints fascinated
him, he tracked them all through the night, and
through the next night, too. Then, under an Argan
tree, he found the stranger in his lair.
“What are you doing here?” said Tusker rather
rudely.
“I am a recluse from the mountains,” said the
stranger. “I have left family, friends and home,
that I may live my life alone, and there is good
feeding ground about here. I am three years’ old,
and it is time to lead the solitary life.”
He spoke at length of the joys of the single state
in which he lived all the year save for the brief period
beginning with November, when he drove some
charming young lady pig from the nearest herd to be
his companion for a few weeks. He would tend her
with all the care and love and affection of which a
boar is capable, but leave her to rear the young and
join the herd again when her litter was strong
enough.
.il fn=illus299.jpg w=525px id=ilH
.ca WILD BOAR [Photo by Ottomar Anchutz, Berlin]
Thereafter Tusker made his home under an Argan
tree, separated from the rest of the forest by a wide
clearing where wild thyme and toad flax and dwarf
palm grew, and creeping plants climbed over the
double-thorn bushes. During the fine weather he
never went out by daylight unless it was to drink,
but when the rains came he would eat by day. He
was so constituted that one visit to the pools would
suffice him for two or even three days; but the visit
was a prolonged one, accompanied by endless precautions,
for since he had become solitary he had
become more nervous than ever, and when he ate or
drank he would make sudden pauses to make sure
that nobody was about. He relied more upon hearing
than sight. The slightest unaccustomed sound when
he was coming to the pool would send him grunting
into the thicket, but if all was well he would permit
himself to enjoy a very lively time. First, he would
drink deeply, and then he would wallow in the mud
for two or three minutes to ease the irritation of his
skin.
The forest was very quiet at night in spite of
.pn +1
hungry jackals and stray hyænas, and Tusker made
very little noise as he travelled to his feeding grounds,
always working against the wind. There were a few
duars, or native villages, in the forest, and one or two
large farmhouses built on the sun-dried clay called
tapia that glows so white under the light of the moon.
Tusker avoided farm and village but he could not
leave the crops alone, and for the chance of a meal
of young maize he was content to go where no other
food would have taken him.
His keener perceptions taught him now that there
was a great, inexplicable danger in the forest—something
his mother had spoken about when he first
joined the herd by her side; and, though he had forgotten
the details, the sense of fear was never really
absent from him, and it was strengthened by one or
two events that took place in his first solitary year.
One night he met the recluse from his mountains
looking as he had never seen pig look before. His
coarse hair was matted with perspiration, he breathed
heavily, his little eyes were full of the terror that
comes to the hunted beast.
“I must eat a little,” said the recluse hoarsely,
“my strength has almost gone,” and so saying he fell
to and found a number of Argan nuts which he ate
.pn +1
eagerly, though he paused to sniff the breeze every
moment and ate head to wind. Tusker was astonished
and uneasy.
“What’s the matter?” he said, when both had
eaten.
“The Hunter of the Forest has been on my track
these three days,” said the boar of the mountains.
“I cannot shake him off, and unless I can reach the
hills where he will not follow, I must die. The hills
are two day’s journey and I am tired already. Twice
I have broken through the pack.”
“The pack? What is that?” said Tusker curiously.
“There are twenty or more of them,” replied the
mountain boar. “Dogs of mixed breed, some large,
some small, all savage. With them come the stalkers,
and in the track of the stalkers comes the hunter, and
when he reaches me I must die. I have tried every
trick known to me, you will learn in your time what
they are, but now I am not sure if I shall get to the
hills. I must seek a lair now and sleep. Perhaps
this good food and a quiet rest will restore my
strength.” He shambled off into the darkness,
leaving Tusker full of terror, so fearful indeed that
he would not go back to his old home, but wandered
for some hours in the darkest part of the forest.
.pn +1
Only in the spring-time did he become quite
courageous, but with the coming of April every
living thing in the forest took heart of grace; even
the stock-doves were ready to fight in defence of
nest and young. Tusker felt the full joy of life too
in November, when he had fought with several
brother boars for the sake of a sow who summed up
for him all his understanding of grace and beauty.
He drove her from the herd and followed her for
days when her other lovers were routed, he pursuing
and she retreating all through the wild places of the
forest.
Even the Hunter laid down his rifle for a brief season
knowing that should he find boar and sow together,
the boar would send the sow to make her
escape, and would stand and fight to the death to
give his beloved time to get away. When the season
of love and war had passed Tusker left his companion
to raise her litter and shift for herself; while,
all his love forgotten, he resumed his solitary life and
his accustomed nervousness.
Seven long years passed in the forest, and then in
the third year of his seclusion, when he was in splendid
condition, and provided with tusks that made him
respected by all his fellows, the Hunter of the Forest
.pn +1
found his tracks. All the forest paths had tracks of
boars, old and new, some of small animals, some of
large, and every track was plain as print to the Hunter.
When he first caught sight of Tusker’s footmarks, he
jumped off his horse.
“A great beast, Mohammed,” he said to the wiry,
muscular Moor who followed him; “leans to the left
when he walks, and must have some defect in his
right hind hoof, for it makes the faintest mark of
the four, he goes so lightly on it.” Then he made a
few measurements and recorded them, and noted the
exact position of the spot, and rode home very happy
indeed, for his eyes, trained to the forest for nearly
forty years, told him he was on the track of a very
fine boar.
That night Tusker fed upon the green maize in
the fields of a neighbouring farmer, returning before
daybreak to his lair, where he slept until a slight
rustle in the bushes near at hand startled him to
wakefulness. A moment later, and a little lean
mongrel dog showed at the entrance to his
home.
“Come out and fight,” said the little lean mongrel
dog showing his white teeth.
“Show me something worth fighting,” replied
.pn +1
Tusker, showing his own terrible weapons, “and I’ll
talk to you.”
“O Father of Tusks,” replied the little mongrel,
“wait until I summon my twenty-three brethren,”
and then he gave the call that summons the pack
and gladdens the huntsman’s heart. Tusker, hearing
answering yelps near and far, knew in a moment
that the dogs had been hunting for him with their
heads to the wind, so that he could not scent them,
and realised that he was face to face with the most
serious trouble of his life. He dashed out at once,
before the pack had found time to gather round him,
and made off as hard as he could through the forest.
Tusker led the pack through the most difficult
country. He ran at double thorn bushes and passed
right through them; the little dogs of the pack
followed on his heels, and the big ones kept well on
either side of the cover. And while he used his legs
Tusker used his brain as well. “The hunter cannot
keep up with us,” he said to himself, “if I turn to
bay I’ll hurt a few of these fellows, and while he attends
to them I’ll get further off.”
Ten minutes later, he slowed down and allowed
the foremost among the pack to reach him. Most
were scratched and torn by the thorns that could
.pn +1
not penetrate Tusker’s hide, but they were game,
and the first comers flung themselves upon him.
Tusker enjoyed the next minute or two, bitten and
worried though he was, and when he broke through
the pack and started off again his tusks, that had
been white, were red, almost as red as his angry
little eyes, Three dogs were gasping on the ground,
one dying and the other two so badly ripped that
had they been in an air less pure they must have
died before nightfall.
The Hunter came up before the sound of the
pursuit had quite rolled away, examined each dog
quickly but carefully, gave a surgical needle, some
thread and a little bottle to one of the trackers, and
started off with the rest of the company. The
tracker washed and sewed the wounds of the two
living dogs, made them as comfortable as he could
and left them for one of the servants to bring home.
As they had not been fed for four and twenty hours
he knew they would recover from their wounds.
Meanwhile Tusker rumbled through a scrub so
dense and prickly that, by taking a sudden turn in
a thicket, he was able to let the pack pass him.
Quick as thought he doubled on his own tracks a
little way, then turned sharp to the right avoiding
.pn +1
the huntsman and his party, and made straight for
a little river. He paused on the brink and drank,
but did not dare to wallow or cover his hot head
with the cool mud, for he heard in the distance the
cry of the hounds at fault and the voice of the
huntsman cheering them to find the line again. He
forded the river, landing some distance lower down
on the opposite bank, and travelled a few hundred
yards into the forest.
“Safe at last,” said Tusker, and began to hunt for
a lair, going backwards and forwards, sometimes
travelling in a circle, and testing the softness of the
ground with his snout. At last he found a soft
sheltered thicket, and rested from his labours, resolving
to wallow by the river at nightfall.
The Hunter was puzzled while his pack endeavoured
in vain to find the line. The trackers
went on to where the scrub became thin, and tracks
could show, but there were no fresh marks to guide
them. Then the Hunter cast back, guessing
shrewdly that Tusker had doubled on his own line;
but the ground gave him no help, and the luncheon
hour found the party still perplexed.
“If he went to the north,” said the Hunter, “we
may not find his track for weeks. If he went in any
.pn +1
other direction he must cross the river so we will
work the banks.” And when the simple meal was
over the Hunter led his trackers to the water, and
they studied every mark on the bank. Several
times the trackers thought they had found their
quarry, for they met perfectly fresh prints among
others that were any age from a day to a week, but
the Hunter’s eye was looking for the marks of a
certain set of hoofs, of which the right hind one
made the least mark, while the balance was ever
on the left side, and the distances were as recorded
in his notes.
Some time about four o’clock the Hunter found
the track, and forded the river; and, just before
sunset, saw where it led to the forest. He summoned
his admiring trackers, but forebore to proceed.
“The day after to-morrow at daybreak,” was
all he said, and then the party made its way home
in the fast failing light, by no means dissatisfied
with the day’s work.
On that night Tusker wallowed long and comfortably,
and uprooted a fine lot of wild radishes and
turnips. His new lair was comfortable and he was
no worse for his adventure, but he was ill-pleased on
the morning of the second day when without word
.pn +1
or warning a mongrel, whose face seemed familiar,
showed at the entrance to his lair and called on him
to fight.
Quick as thought, without word of parley Tusker
rushed out and sought the impenetrable covers that
had helped him before. He crossed the river and
gained on his pursuers.
In a clearing amid the thickets he came suddenly
upon a herd that scattered in all directions as he
gave word of the following pack.
Once more dogs were at fault, but the Hunter
was not. Within an hour after, careful scrutiny of a
score of tracks, he had picked out that of a boar that
ran with a list to the left, and trod lightly on its right
hind hoof, and moved at a certain recorded pace with
certain recorded distances between the hoofs.
Within two hours the hounds were closing in on
Tusker whose way to comparative safety lay over
a large expanse of forest that was more or less open.
Beyond that part the thicket was the worst in the
forest, and the Hunter knew that the chances would
be with the boar if he could reach that stronghold.
When Tusker heard the pack bearing down upon
him, he realised that the Hunter was his master, and
that only good luck could save him now. He
.pn +1
thought of the solitary pig from the mountains and
wondered if he looked like him in the hour of his
distress.
“I’ll try again,” said Tusker to himself, as he found
the dogs gaining on him in the more open country.
“The Hunter may be far behind,” and then he set
his fore-legs firmly on the ground and faced the
furious howling pack, using his terrible tusks with
all the force he could put behind them.
A few moments later he saw the Hunter emerging
from the bush, and broke through again with the
dogs, cut and wounded, upon his heels, encouraged
by their master’s voice.
He could not go far now. Once again he turned
and faced his adversaries, forgetting everything now
in his rage and conscious only of a lust for blood.
Suddenly there was a shrill whistle, and before it
ceased to echo, the pack opened to the right and left,
leaving Tusker alone. He looked up uncertain what
to do, saw the Hunter standing sixty or seventy yards
away from him with a shining barrel at his shoulder,
felt a sudden violent shock, heard as in the far distance
a sharp strange sound, knew that the dogs
were upon him again, but could not feel their teeth
or the ground he was lying on.
.pn +1
Another whistle, the dogs parted again, the Hunter
came up knife in hand, his trackers following.
“No need,” he said, thrusting the shining steel into
its case. “The bullet went to the heart. A
splendid fellow.”
.fm
.fn #
The Argan Forest is in Southern Morocco, and takes its name
from the Argan, a species of olive tree.
.fn-
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=stO
THE STORY OF A SLAVE
.sp 2
In the early days Marzuk saw life from a secure
position on his mother’s back. So soon as morning
dawned, the pair would leave their mud hut beyond
the northern gate of Timbuctoo, and seek the
market, there to spread out and arrange such produce
as had been collected overnight for the day’s
sale.
In their season Aminah, the mother of Marzuk,
sold the three fruits we have never seen in our western
world, the rich karita or butter fruit, the satisfying
nata which yields a sort of sweet flour in pods, and
the cheese fruit, upon which a man may dine and not
go hungry.
Marzuk’s mother was a black woman from below
the Niger, in the Soudan, and very ugly to the eyes
of all save her little boy. But her white loin cloths
and shifts were cleaner than those of most of her
neighbours, and worn with some nicety.
She wore her hair in three rolls on the top of her
head, supported by a white fillet about her brows,
.pn +1
and she was so industrious and cheery that the day’s
end seldom found any of her market stock unsold,
and generally saw quite an imposing heap of cowries
in the old calabash that was kept for use as a till.
Money was unknown.
So Marzuk, well-fed, grew strong and straight
and comely, learning to help his mother in her work,
and to play truant from his duties and adventure
alone into Timbuctoo itself, and to the Niger banks
beyond. When he returned Aminah would beat him
soundly, and cry over him in mother fashion, while
painting for him luridly the dangers of the road.
She spoke with rolling eyes and bated breath of
the fierce Touaregs, the brigands from the Sahara,
who went through the streets of Timbuctoo veiled
against the glare of the African sun; of the hippopotami
by the Niger’s bank that were ever lying in
wait to make meals of naughty boys; of the treacherous
and pathless sand-dunes to the north, and of
hungry monkeys chattering in the trees—monkeys
that were really little children changed from their
natural shape for disobedience to parents. But
neither stripes nor warnings could keep Marzuk’s
feet from straying.
The grass lands near the river, where the sheep
.pn +1
pastured, were Marzuk’s favourite resort, because of
the white ospreys that dwelt there. These birds
loved to follow the sheep from place to place, taking
no notice of shepherds or farmers, but ever intent
upon the actions of their four-footed friends.
Yet the boy kept well out of the way of all
Touaregs, the veiled men of the desert of whom his
mother had spoken. He watched them from a safe
distance when they roamed through the city, spear
in hand, ready and willing to quarrel with any native
who should cross their path.
They wore a head-dress that covered their fore-heads
and helped to shade their eyes, and a veil that
shrouded the lower part of the face and kept the
mouth free from sand.
Their true home was the desert, where they reared
vast flocks on scanty pasture, but they held the
natives of Timbuctoo in no respect, and would
stalk through the market-place, spear at the ready
and sword beside them, and call the men of the
city “Sand-eaters,” because they went with mouths
and nostrils uncovered. On their side the natives
spoke of the Touaregs as the “Abandoned of God,”
and would have kept them from the city altogether,
had their strength been equal to their will.
.pn +1
Day by day camel caravans reached Timbuctoo,
coming across the desert from Morocco, Algeria or
Tunisia. Marzuk’s one interest in his home district
was connected with these caravans.
Twice a year, in midwinter and midsummer, the
camels would arrive in huge convoys. There would
be many hundreds of the unhandy supercilious beasts
there at one time, enjoying their longed-for rest, and
making hearty meals on the more succulent growths
of the dwarf forest.
The camel-drivers themselves, gaunt, hard-lived
men, with faces like birds of prey, had many adventurous
tales to tell, and Marzuk was a very
ready listener. He heard how the veiled thieves of
the desert held up whole caravans and taxed them,
helping themselves moderately if unopposed, but
quite ready for wholesale killing if resisted in any
way. He heard, too, of the great salt country,
visited by all caravans coming from Morocco.
“It is a wonderful place,” said Hadj Abdullah
the camel-driver, on a day when he arrived at Timbuctoo
after six months’ absence, “and Allah has
set it in the midst of the desert where no unbeliever
may see it. The houses are fashioned out of salt,
and so is the mosque, there are camel-skins over
.pn +1
all the buildings, and the people live on their
salt.”
“Oh, my master, do they eat it?” asked Marzuk.
“Silence, little empty head,” said Aminah, his
mother, who listened beside him. And the camel-driver
continued:—
“Twice a year we go there, carrying away the
white salt, which is the best, and the red-veined if
the other supply has failed. In return we leave
dates and corn and cotton, and so these people
live.
“So terrible is the glare of the salt,” added the
camel-driver, “that if we have women or children,
we leave them in the oases, a day’s journey from the
city.”
Besides the precious salt of El Djouf, which was
stamped in Timbuctoo and sent down the Niger to
districts where it was worth its weight in gold, the
caravans brought indigo, blue cotton and white,
mirrors for the women, calico, sugar, tea and coffee,
and white paper for the Marabouts. On their journey
home they were supposed to take gold dust and
ivory, the long feathers of the wild ostrich and undressed
leather. But the head of the caravan knew
of a commodity more valuable than these, and some
.pn +1
of the panniers that had carried salt to Timbuctoo
had living freight on the way back.
Hadj Abdullah employed agents in the city, and
well he knew how to arrange such business as he
had, of whatever kind it might be, without exciting
the suspicion of the natives.
.tb
The camels slowly recovered their strength, the
produce of Hadj Abdullah’s great caravan had been
disposed of profitably by barter, and the goods he
had received in exchange would afford plenty of
work for his beasts.
One morning the Moor stopped before the calabashes
where Aminah’s stores were placed. Marzuk
was by his mother’s side for once. Already in his
thirteenth year, he looked strong, healthy and intelligent.
Hadj Abdullah noted these things, whilst
seeming to examine Aminah’s little store.
“Oh, my mother,” he said with grave courtesy,
“have you any cheese-fruit, or has all gone for the
year?”
“I fear it has been eaten, my lord,” replied the
black woman respectfully.
“The pity,” he replied. “For a plentiful supply
such as my house (family) desires, I would give a
.pn +1
whole piece of fine blue cloth—the last that is left
me. Perhaps some fruit remains yet in the plantations
by the river. Can the boy go seek it?”
“I will send him, my lord,” replied Aminah, delighted
beyond measure at the idea of getting a
piece of the cloth that cowries could not buy.
“He must be back before the second day at sunrise,”
said the Moor, and resumed his walk.
So Marzuk set off at daybreak on the following
morning with many warnings of the ill that would
befall if his return were delayed. He passed
through the town, leaving it by the southern gate
before anybody but the guard was awake, and was
soon knee-deep in the meadows that the Niger
keeps ever green.
He tramped along merrily enough, quite unconscious
that two Arabs had followed him from the
huts beyond the southern wall. The ospreys were
everywhere—Marzuk saw nothing but the white
birds, and the shining river, and the butterflies, blue
and gold, that fluttered over the meadows.
On a sudden he heard footsteps, and saw the
Arabs hurrying in his direction. He stood to see
them pass, and as they reached him they turned
suddenly and flung themselves upon him. There
.pn +1
was no struggle, only the white birds heard one
choked cry of terror, and some few rose from the
meadow to the comparative safety of a neighbouring
tree.
His captors carefully gagged Marzuk, and bound
legs and arms tightly with cords of palmetto, then
he was rolled in sacking and carried back to a hut.
When the Arabs returned to the city they carried
what seemed to be a bale of raw cotton slung on a
pole between them, and they made unchallenged
way to the caravan quarter, beyond the city’s
northern gate.
Within the vast enclosure of thorn and cactus that
inclosed the caravanserai only the last great bales of
merchandise remained for the camels, and among
these Marzuk was left to pant for breath in an atmosphere
that would have stifled any but a negro.
Towards the afternoon, when he had seen his latest
acquisition safely stored, Hadj Abdullah sought the
market-place by the mosque.
“Oh, mother,” said he to Aminah, “has the lad
returned with the cheese-fruit?”
“No, my master,” she replied angrily. “I am
cursed in the boy. He goes on errands and returns
when he likes.”
.pn +1
“I am sorry, mother,” replied Hadj Abdullah,
“for by Allah’s grace to-morrow’s sunrise will see
us on the road again.”
From the mosques of the city the Mueddin called
for the prayer said by devout Moslems at the hour
of the false dawn. On walls and battlements the
early wakened doves were fluttering sleepily, the
guards at the gates still slept, the life of the city had
not stirred. But beyond the caravan quarter the
camels and mules of Hadj Abdullah were moving
out slowly in single file.
There were seventy or eighty camels in all and
ten mules, some of which carried Arab women who
sat in the comfort born of habit, smoking pipes of
the native tobacco.
First on the road were six camels, each carrying
two children in what had been salt-panniers.
Marzuk, whose thongs had been loosened, and
whose thirst had been assuaged, was but one of the
twelve whom Hadj Abdullah had bought secretly
or stolen, and, beyond the men engaged by him and
the natives he had bribed, none knew aught of the
camel’s freight.
Frightened as never in his life before, bruised and
sickened by the camel’s irregular stride, his flesh
.pn +1
scarred and his bones aching from the pressure of
the raw hide thongs that had bound his limbs, faint
for lack of food, and with nerves strained almost to
breaking point, Marzuk was never in doubt about
what had befallen him. He had been captured to
be sold as a slave.
From the resting-place of the caravan the last
camel had started on the road to Morocco, across
eight hundred miles of desert, steering a north-north-westerly
course over a track marked by the
skeletons of men and beasts that had fallen by the
way.
In her mud hut Aminah, never suspecting the truth,
thought angrily and fearfully of the absent boy, and
prayed that he might safely escape the hippopotami
coming for their nightly prowl along the river banks.
As day succeeded day, other caravans arrived
from the desert, but never a sign of the lad from the
riverside came to relieve a mind grown weary now
from anxiety and self-reproach. Weeks passed, and
months, until Aminah knew that her prayers had
failed to prevent evil spirits sacrificing her boy to the
wild beasts of the river. And then she grew old
suddenly, and within the year her place in the market
was vacant.
.pn +1
Hadj Abdullah’s caravan made slow progress.
The dwarf forest left behind, the sand waves of the
Sahara stretched out before them, and in traversing
this dry and burning sea the caravan endured days
and weeks of travelling that taxed men and beasts
to the uttermost.
Once a day, at sunset, the caravan halted, and then
Marzuk and his eleven companions were taken from
their panniers and fed. The Hadj feared to travel
by starlight, save when forced to it by anticipation
of an attack by the veiled brigands of the desert,
lest the track should be missed.
Marzuk’s companion, a girl younger than himself,
proved unable to endure the camel’s irregular stride,
the scanty food, and the blinding sunlight. Before
they had been two weeks on the road she could not
eat. One morning she broke out into a fit of screaming
that passed gradually into moans, and then
stopped abruptly. In the evening, when the baskets
were lowered, Hadj Abdullah was summoned in
haste, but he could do no more than curse the man
who had sold the child to him for half a bar of salt,
and had sworn that she was sound and fit for the
caravan journey. A little hole was scooped out in
the sand; the tally of the caravan had been reduced
.pn +1
by one. Next morning the burdens were rearranged,
and Marzuk was carried in a basket with another
lad, the camel that had carried him being requisitioned
to carry one of the drivers who had fallen
sick.
For many years the hardships of the journey remained
fresh and vivid in Marzuk’s memory. Oases
were long days apart, the brackish water was
always hot and never plentiful, they saw no living
things unless a viper ran across their path, or a few
desert antelopes showed for a moment on the horizon.
Sometimes, when the eyes ached behind tight-closed
lids from the cruel glare of sky and sand, Marzuk
would wake with a start at his companion’s cry—“See,
Marzuk! they are taking us home again”. Then
they saw Timbuctoo spread before them, the mosques
clearly to be distinguished, the tall palm trees and
clay-built houses seemingly but a few miles away.
The camels would raise their heads and lengthen
their stride. But the visionary city would come no
nearer, and gradually it would fade before their
longing eyes—the mirage that had set it down amid
the sands had vanished into aching sun-scorched
space.
Weeks passed slowly, so slowly that Marzuk’s
.pn +1
pannier mate, a weakling at best, succumbed to the
trials of the road, and was left to rest under a little
mound of sand that the first wind would level.
Marzuk, too, began to lose strength, and passed long
hours in a state of semi-consciousness, but he had
been reared well and generously, and before he had
time to break down altogether, the oasis of Tindouf
was reached.
The back of the weary journey was broken.
Thereafter oases were more frequent, the caravan
passed great weekly markets, the country of the
Touaregs was quite left behind, and the natives met
were men of fair skin, though sunburnt. The Atlas
Mountains appeared on the eastern horizon, filling
Marzuk with brief terror, for he had never seen
snow, or imagined hills like those that filled the far
distance. To the little black boy from Timbuctoo,
the great mountain range appeared as the awesome
wall of a new world, but his curiosity helped him to
pluck up spirit and prepare to face whatever the future
might have in store. The Draa country was left behind,
the Sus country reached and passed, Tarudant
being seen hull down on the western horizon, like a
ship far out at sea; and one fine morning, when rosy
light peeping over the snow-filled caverns of the
.pn +1
higher Atlas found the caravan already upon the
road, the Moors raised their voices and praised a
saint whose name the lad had never heard.
Marzuk rubbed sleepy eyes and saw in the plains
a long way before them a great city in a forest of
palm. Countless minarets glittered in the early
light, the sun lighted some river of size and importance.
“Oh, my master!” cried Marzuk to the Moor who
led a camel by his side, “is that a real city?”
“Truly,” was the grave reply, “it is Marrakesh[#]
itself.”
.sp 2
.ce
II.
.sp 1
The long file of camels came at last to rest outside
the Dukala gate and Hadj Abdullah placed his
praying carpet on the ground, turned towards Mecca
and returned thanks. No brigand had claimed dues
of his merchandise, and out of the twelve children
he had bought or stolen eight remained alive—a
higher average than most travellers could record.
Marzuk, used from early days to fend for himself,
with no special ties, and a feeling of confidence in
his own capacities that none but a Soudanee would
.pn +1
have felt under similar circumstances, gazed about
him in deep wonderment. Before him stretched a
city far exceeding Timbuctoo in area and importance,
a place surrounded by a wall that seemed
without end; he saw more palms in one direction
than his native place boasted on all sides together,
and the minarets of countless mosques standing
slender and erect as the palms themselves.
That night they slept within Morocco City, in a
great fandak indescribably filthy. The tired mules
were brought in with the slaves, the camels remaining
in the outer market in charge of their owner.
Hadj Abdullah hired his beasts in Morocco City,
paying a sum equivalent to two pounds a head for
the journey out and home. In the fandak he addressed
a brief warning to the children. They
would have three days’ rest and all the food they
could eat, and on the evening of the third day they
would be sold. Let them do their best and all
would be well with them, if they were rebellious—he
closed his mouth abruptly, but his silence was significant
enough.
Left in charge of the keeper of the fandak, the
children lay at their ease in the reeking straw, and
gave their three days to eating and drinking and
.pn +1
singing odds and ends of songs they had heard at
home. No sound of the city reached them, save at
the hours of prayer, when from every minaret the
faithful were called to acknowledge the Unity of
Allah. On the afternoon of the third day they were
taken to the baths by a strange man, and each child
was arrayed in clean white linen garments, supplemented
in the case of the girls by kerchiefs of many
colours.
“Follow me, O slaves,” said the Moor, when they
were all ready to return. He led them unresisting
through the heart of the city, through the bazaars
with their roofs of palm branches and box-like
shops, past the arcades of the workers in brass and
linen and leather and sweatmeats, to a corner where
the passage ended in a heavily barred gate.
The gatekeeper drew the bolts, and showed
through the open door a bare circular market-place
with a broken and dilapidated arcade stretching
down the centre of it, and booths all round the walls.
Marzuk cast one desperate look round, as a bird at
the door of a cage, but the fear of Hadj Abdullah
was upon him. In another moment they had been
shepherded through the gate-way and commanded
to stand still while their guardian went to a Moorish
.pn +1
official, who sat cross-legged on a carpet, and gave
the numbers and description of the party.
“Five boys, three girls, Timbuctoo,” repeated the
official, and wrote the details laboriously on a slip
of paper with a bamboo pen.
“Follow,” commanded the Moor, and the children
marched obediently to one of the huts or booths
built out from the wall like covered pens.
“Go within, and stay there until the market is
opened. Let none stir beyond the entrance,” he
said curtly, and seeing them safely housed, went off.
Marzuk left his companions whose terror annoyed
him, and going to the mouth of the pen looked out
at the scene.
He saw at once that he and his little party were
not alone in the slave-market. Nearly a dozen of
the other pens were tenanted for the most part by
adults, who could be heard chattering or singing
happily enough, and in one pen, at least, quarelling
violently. Certainly, they were in no way
cast down, and their indifference helped to bring
further confidence to Marzuk, who beckoned the
most distressed of the party—a little nine-year-old
girl—to come to his side and look out.
It was the eve of a great sale. The “Court
.pn +1
Elevated by Allah” was about to leave the southern
capital for the North; the great Wazeers would be
seeking to make the last changes in, or additions to,
their harems and households before leaving home.
On this account Hadj Abdullah had not kept the
slaves longer to fatten them, preferring to take the
prices that would rule at a big sale for inferior goods,
than what he would get for better material when
the city was half empty.
The sun was beginning to decline, and a faint
freshness was coming into the sultry air. The last
batch of slaves had been entered; a group of auctioneers
surrounded the Government official in charge
of the market, and speculated hopefully upon the
prices that would rule. The keeper of the gate flung
it back, and Marzuk saw the arrival of the earliest
buyers.
They came in singly for the most part—Moors
whose wealth was indicated by their portly presence,
and by their outer robes of white and blue cloth
woven in the north of England. They walked into
the market-place and sat down at their ease on the
ground against the unoccupied pens, or the long
arcade that bisected the market-circle. Some were
very old men with white beards, and a few were of
.pn +1
forbidding appearance; but most were fat and well-favoured,
True Believers to whom life came easily.
The last buyer had arrived. There must have
been thirty or forty in all, and Marzuk knew that
the sale was about to begin. A very old slave
walked over the dusty ground, with a goatskin
watering-can, and sprinkled it liberally. The dilal
(auctioneer) who had brought them to the pen came
up hurriedly, counted them with raised fore-finger
as though they had been sheep, and told them to be
ready to follow him, using the native tongue of
Guinea, since Marzuk alone of the little company
had as much as a smattering of Arabic.
His instructions understood, the auctioneer hurried
away to the centre of the market-place, where
the other dilals surrounded their chief. He looked
at the sun as though to tell the hour; it was sinking
behind the saint’s tomb on the edge of the market-wall.
He gave a signal; the selling brethren
formed themselves into a line, with their chief in the
centre. Then the venerable leader lifted up his
voice and prayed. He praised Allah; dilals and
buyers said “Amen”. He cursed Satan; the company
reiterated the curse. He employed the blessing
of Sidi bel-Abbas, the city’s patron saint, friend
.pn +1
of sellers and buyers. Might he bless the market,
the dilals and the patrons. Might he send prosperity
to one and all. The dilals stood with closed
eyes and extended hands and said “Amen.”
Their chief’s prayer came to an end. Quickly as
possible the dilals hurried to the pens they presided
over.
“Come forward, all,” cried the one in charge of
Marzuk’s pen, and the frightened children needed
no second bidding.
“Do as you see the others doing,” said the dilal,
as, with deft fingers, he rearranged the shawls of the
girls and set the boy’s robes straight.
Marzuk seized his little girl friend by the hand;
she took the hand of another girl; the dilal stood
in the centre of the line of children, four on either
side of him. Meanwhile, the other auctioneers had
arranged their slaves in much the same way, and
the companies stepped forward to walk slowly round
the market.
They moved round the circle of the market, and
the dilals called loudly upon intending buyers.
“O, Abdel Karim,” cried a burly Moor, as Marzuk’s
dilal passed him for the first time, “let me see the
lad who has your right hand.”
.pn +1
Marzuk was pushed forward. Coarsely, rather
than unkindly, the Moor laid his fat hands upon the
boy, felt his muscles, opened his mouth to note the
state of his teeth, and asked a dozen questions that
the boy’s Arabic could not have compassed had he
been attending. But it happened that at the
moment when he was thrust into the old man’s
arms Marzuk looked up, just as a company of white
ospreys swept high over the market, and in a moment
he saw the Niger rising before him, and the scented
fields he knew so well. Brave though he was, his eyes
were flooded, and the words could not pass his throat.
“Newly arrived from the South,” admitted the
dilal rather impatiently, in explanation of what he
feared would be one of the outbursts that the market
saw so often; “but he is strong and well, and
knows a few words.”
“Forty dollars, Salesman,” said the Moor briefly;
“let me see the girl.”
Marzuk’s little companion was pushed forward
and, too frightened to speak, kissed the old man’s
hand. He handled her with an approach to gentleness,
asking the auctioneer all he wanted to know.
“Forty dollars also,” he said, when the last word
was spoken.
.pn +1
Forthwith the dilal shifted the children for whom
no bid had been yet made from the right to the left
hand, and took the first vacant place in the line of
auctioneers and slaves, proclaiming with a loud voice:
“For the boy and the girl, forty dollars each”.
A quarter of an hour passed, while the salesman
marched round and round with his charges, and in
that brief period two smaller children passed from
the left to the right hand side of the dilal. They
were the remaining girls, for whom seventy dollars
were offered, an amount working out in English
money at ten pounds.
“A bad price—a bad price,” muttered the auctioneer
sadly, and then he withdrew from the line and
returned to the pen. “Wait here,” he said to the
four boys who had not yet been asked for; “wait
till the rest are sold.”
Then he hurried back to the line of auctioneers
with Marzuk and the three girls, proclaiming the
price and merits of his wares as loudly as possible.
Several times Marzuk was summoned by an intending
purchaser, and his price went slowly up to fifty-five
dollars, while his companion stayed at forty-eight.
For the other two girl children, a bright,
.pn +1
intelligent pair, and not without good looks of a kind,
there was a very brisk bidding; three country Kaids
were bent upon purchasing them. The three sat
along the arcade some twenty yards from one another,
and raised the price of the two little girls
three, four, sometimes five dollars at a time, the auctioneer
thanking them with a “Praise be to Allah
the One!” every time the price was augmented.
At last the Kaid from a town on the far side of
the Atlas Mountains raised the price to one hundred
and thirty-five dollars at which figure the bidding
ceased, and the two children were handed over to
their new master.
Greatly elated at the thought of his commission,
which, though but two and a half per cent., would
be quite appreciable, the auctioneer took Marzuk in
one hand and the girl in the other, and marched
briskly round, declaring their merits and the last
bid.
The girl caught up her companion in price, and,
passing from hand to hand, was chosen at last by
one of the Kaids, who had failed to purchase the
pair of girls, at eighty-two dollars. Marzuk saw her
frightened eye and quivering lip, she looked once at
him and burst into a violent paroxysm of sobbing.
.pn +1
But there was never a big sale in the Sok-el-Abeed
without tears in plenty. They were of no more moment
to the crowd than the water that the carriers
from the south country sprinkled over the sandy
market-place.
The auctioneer fetched another boy from the pen
and walked round with him and Marzuk.
The latter felt now that the end was coming, he
knew that his purchase lay between a fat white-bearded
Moor from the country and the keeper of
the fandak. He heard the price raised slowly to
seventy-five dollars, at which the keeper of the fandak
declared with an angry word that he would go
no higher.
.tb
It was to no hard servitude that Marzuk was
taken in the early days when he went for the first
time to a master’s house. He was appointed to
wait upon his master’s son, a lad of little more than
his own age, and if a few blows and some ill-usage
were his portion from time to time, he was troubled
but little so long as food was good and plentiful.
When the two boys grew towards manhood, their
relations became more intimate and friendly, and
Marzuk, who had been told off to the fields at every
.pn +1
harvest time, was raised to a rather more responsible
position, and called upon to superintend the labour
of the others. They worked on the land, ploughing
and reaping, cultivating the orchards and digging
water-pits, or they carried the produce of their master’s
fields to the markets of the city.
Here he succeeded, and was sent by his master to
the far country markets with corn and oil, sometimes
taking journeys of two or three weeks’ duration.
Once again his record was satisfactory, and he was
further promoted to carry letters and messages to the
great country chiefs, with whom his master had
commercial or social relations.
So it happened that he escaped the harder fate that
waits upon slaves who are idle or vicious or so unfortunate
as to find a bad master. Marzuk learned
to ride fearlessly, and to know the great tracks that
pass for roads in Morocco, and stretch between the
far scattered cities.
His master’s house held many slaves—they were
regarded as a source of wealth, and were encouraged
to do their best. In earlier days, when slaves
were very cheap, they had not fared so well, but
now that a master must pay heavily, he would not
waste man or woman as he could afford to do in
.pn +1
times when Mulai Ismail ruled and England held
Tangier.
To-day Marzuk is the chief of his master’s household,
a strong, intelligent fellow, who rejoices in the
whitest of djellabas and the largest size of yellow
slippers, carries a long rosary, and rules his master’s
other servants with a rod of iron.
Marzuk has picked up a great deal of Arabic; he
has become a Mohammedan, and looks forward to
the day when he will be manumitted, and will be
able to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Thereafter he
will embark his small store of dollars in trade, and
with his knowledge of markets and capacity for
sustained work he should end by employing slaves
of his own.
.tb
I have set down the main features of his story as
he told them to me in his master’s house, in days not
long gone past when I was a guest there, and entered,
so far as I might, into the fascinating life of the
East, and I cannot refrain from adding that Marzuk
stands to-day on a far higher rung in the ladder of
civilisation and progress than he would have reached
if the curse of slavery had not fallen on him in far
Timbuctoo.
.pn +1
And therein (a wholesome reflection for the more
arrogant among us) slavery, as understood and
practised in the world of Islam, differs mightily from
slavery as understood and practised in Christian
lands a few years ago.
I make no mention of the sort of slavery still existing,
under European auspices, on the Congo, and
in many of the cities of every country of Europe.
Allah forbid that sleek, smiling Marzuk, upon whose
ample shoulders the burden of labour has fallen so
lightly, should ever know the bitterness of such sad
lives as these.
.fm
.fn #
Marrakesh, known in England as Morocco City, is the southern
capital of the Moorish Empire.
.fn-
// - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
.pb
.if h
.li
| Telephone: | Telegrams: |
| Gerrard 7745. | “Milnopolis London.” |
.li-
.if-
.if t
.li
Telephone: Telegrams:
Gerrard 7745. “Milnopolis London.”
.li-
.if-
.nf c
AUTUMN, 1908
A List of New Books
PUBLISHED BY
JOHN MILNE Publisher
29 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
.nf-
.ta l:64 r:4 s="list of new books"
| PAGE
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll. 6s. | 4
Archibald Menzies. Agnes Grant Hay. 6s. | 12
Broken Honeymoon, The. Edwin Pugh. 6s. | 5
Call of the South, The. Louis Becke. 6s. | 16
Disinherited. Stella M. Düring. 6s. | 10
Duchess of Dreams, The. Edith Macvane. 6s. | 11
Enchantress, The. Edwin Pugh. 6s. | 15
Gentle Thespians, The. R. Murray Gilchrist. 6s. | 16
Graven Image, The. Mrs. Coulson Kernahan. 6s. | 7
Half-Smart Set, The. Florence Warden. 6s. | 14
Heart of the Wild, The. S. L. Bensusan. 6s. | 3
“I Little Knew—!” May Crommelin. 6s. | 15
Ichabod. James Blyth. 6s. | 11
Insane Root, The. Mrs. Campbell Praed. 6d. | 16
Irene of the Ringlets. Horace Wyndham. 6s. | 15
King’s Cause, The. Walter E. Grogan. 6s. | 9
Lady Mary of Tavistock, The. Harold Vallings. 6s. | 14
Last of Her Race, The. J. Bloundelle-Burton. 6s. | 14
Lost Angel, The. Katharine Tynan. 6s. | 15
Lost Heir, The. G. A. Henty. 6d. | 16
Love that Kills, The. Coralie Stanton & H. Hosken. 6s. | 8
Moth and the Flame, The. Alice Maud Meadows. 6s. | 14
’Neath Austral Skies. Louis Becke. 6s. | 6
Orphan-Monger, The. G. Sidney Paternoster. 6s. | 7
Potiphar’s Wife. Kineton Parkes. 6s. | 9
Quest of the Antique, The. R.& E. Shackleton. 10/6 net | 13
Quicksands of Life, The. J. H. Edge, K.C. 6s. | 8
Tobias and the Angel. Helen Prothero Lewis. 6s. | 10
Two Goodwins, The. R. Murray Gilchrist. 6s. | 6
Wilful Woman, A. G. B. Burgin. 6d. | 16
Within Four Walls. J. Bloundelle-Burton. 6s. | 5
.ta-
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JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
.ce
INDEX TO AUTHORS
.ta l:64 r:4 s="index to authors"
| PAGE
Becke Louis. ’Neath Austral Skies. 6s. | 6
Becke Louis. The Call of the South. 6s. | 16
Bensusan S. L. The Heart of the Wild. 6s. | 3
Bloundelle-Burton J. Within Four Walls. 6s. | 5
Bloundelle-Burton J. The Last of Her Race. 6s. | 14
Blyth James. Ichabod. 6s. | 11
Burgin G. B. A Wilful Woman. 6d. | 16
Carroll Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. 6s. | 4
Crommelin May. “I Little Knew—!” 6s. | 15
Düring Stella M. Disinherited. 6s. | 10
Edge J. H. K.C. The Quicksands of Life. 6s. | 8
Gilchrist R. Murray. The Two Goodwins. 6s. | 6
Gilchrist R. Murray. The Gentle Thespians. 6s. | 16
Grogan Walter E. The King’s Cause. 6s. | 9
Hay Agnes Grant. Archibald Menzies. 6s. | 12
Henty G. A. The Lost Heir. 6d. | 16
Hume Fergus. New Novel. 6s. | 12
Kernahan Mrs. Coulson. The Graven Image. 6s. | 7
Lewis Helen Prothero. Tobias and the Angel. 6s. | 10
Macvane Edith. The Duchess of Dreams. 6s. | 11
Meadows Alice Maud. The Moth and the Flame. 6s. | 14
Parkes Kineton. Potiphar’s Wife. 6s. | 9
Paternoster G. Sidney. The Orphan-Monger. 6s. | 7
Praed Mrs. Campbell. The Insane Root. 6d. | 16
Pugh Edwin. The Broken Honeymoon. 6s. | 5
Pugh Edwin. The Enchantress. 6s. | 15
Shackleton R. & E. The Quest of the Antique. 10/6 net. | 13
Stanton Coralie & Hosken H. The Love that Kills. 6s. | 8
Tynan Katharine. The Lost Angel. 6s. | 15
Vallings Harold. The Lady Mary of Tavistock. 6s. | 14
Warden Florence. The Half-Smart Set. 6s. | 14
Wyndham Horace. Irene of the Ringlets. 6s. | 15
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JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
.nf c
The Heart of the Wild
Wild Life Studies from Near & Far
BY
S. L. BENSUSAN
Author of “A Countryside Chronicle,” “Wild Life Stories,”
“Morocco,” etc.
Illustrated with actual Wild Life Photographs.
Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
.nf-
.if h
.li
The Heart
of the
Wild
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: The Heart of the Wild]
.if-
The specimen in the cage is a comparatively familiar animal,
and the difference between him and the hunted creature at
bay in the wild, or the timorous beastie suddenly encountered
in the field, is obvious to the least observant; but what of
the beast in his own lair? This is the side of nature that Mr.
Bensusan lays bare to the reader.
You are invited to spend a season in Mr. Beastie’s home, to hear his
family history, to accompany him on his foraging expeditions, to criticise
and admire the architecture of his house, to help fight his enemies, to romp
with his youngsters and train them for the battle of life, which appears to
be just as stern for the animal as for the human.
The lives dealt with include the Water-Rat, Giraffe, Ferret, Cuckoo,
Badger, Eagle, Camel, Stork, Wild Boar, Fighting Bull, Red Grouse,
Seal, Roebuck and Flamingo, and, if the reader will accept the analogy,
every life story is a human document.
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JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
A Charming Gift Book for Children
.nf c
THE CHILDREN’S ALICE
Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland
BY
LEWIS CARROLL
Nine full-page Illustrations in Colour by
Bessie Gutmann.
Together with numerous simple Drawings in Line, suitable for copying
and colouring by youthful artists. Illuminated Text.
Demy 8vo, cloth, fully gilt, 6s.
.nf-
.if h
.li
The
Children’s
Alice
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: The Children’s Alice]
.if-
This edition of Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece is confidently
placed before the public, in spite of numerous competitors,
because it is felt that it will supply a want. In many
recent editions of “Alice in Wonderland” the true object
of the book has been overlooked, for the illustrations in
more than one instance have been rather above the heads, and the
appreciation, of the youthful readers. Here is an edition, the coloured
illustrations of which, while being truly artistic, will appeal more directly
to the young folk. Here is a childlike and natural Alice and a new and
jovial Gryphon, while the gorgeous liveries of the fish and frog footmen
are emphasised by the new “direct” process by which the coloured
pictures are reproduced.
The illuminated text is sure to appeal to children to whom a blank
page of type is often uninviting, while the simple line drawings will be
a source of endless amusement for the re-creation in the nursery drawing
book, of types, scenes and characters from “Alice in Wonderland.”
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JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
New Six Shilling Novels
.nf c
The Broken Honeymoon
By EDWIN PUGH
Author of “The Man of Straw,” “Tony Drum,” “The Spoilers,”
“The Enchantress,” etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth.
.nf-
.if h
.li
The Broken
Honeymoon
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: The Broken Honeymoon]
.if-
Here, as in “The Enchantress,” Mr. Pugh treats his
subject with that candour of which his work is typical.
“The Broken Honeymoon” concerns the wooing, marriage
and honeymoon of a London clerk and a schoolmistress,
and is a sidelight on life in Suburbia, stripped of all its conventional
appurtenances, and shown with that naked reality which is characteristic
of all this author’s work. “The Broken Honeymoon” is a worthy
successor to “The Enchantress.”
.hr 60%
.nf c
Within Four Walls
By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON
Author of “The Last of Her Race,” “The Hispaniola Plate,”
“The Clash of Arms,” etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth.
.nf-
.if h
.li
Within
Four
Walls
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: Within Four Walls]
.if-
The talented author of “The Last of Her Race” has again
dipped into his vast fund of historical knowledge and has
weaved a romance out of the intrigues that surrounded the
life and death of Henri IV, who was assassinated by Raviallac
at the same time that a conspiracy was on foot among some
of the nobles of the Court to murder the king. The discovery of this
conspiracy by the heroine, leading to her imprisonment “Within Four
Walls,” and the adventures of her lover in effecting her rescue, are incidents
that provide Mr. J. Bloundelle-Burton with all the matériel for a powerful
historical novel.
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.ce
JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
New Six Shilling Novels
.nf c
The Two Goodwins
BY
R. MURRAY GILCHRIST
Author of “The Gentle Thespians,” “Beggar’s Manor,”
“The Courtesy Dame.”
Crown 8vo, cloth.
.nf-
.if h
.li
The Two
Goodwins
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: The Two Goodwins]
.if-
Mr. Murray Gilchrist’s pictures of rural life have a large
circle of admirers, and this book, which deals with the rich
farming folk of the Peak district, is quite up to his usual
high standard.
The torchlight procession at the great house, the loves of the rustic
characters, and, finally, the wedding dance in the “Old Barn,” are all
described in the dainty style with which this author has won such great
popularity in his former works.
.hr 60%
.nf c
Life in the Southern Pacific
’Neath Austral Skies
BY
LOUIS BECKE
Author of “The Call of the South,” etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
.nf-
.if h
.li
’Neath
Austral
Skies
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: ’Neath Austral Skies]
.if-
This volume is sure of a warm welcome from Mr. Becke’s
numerous readers. The descriptions of life in the South
Seas are told with his own particular charm, and the stories
of “Tom Dennison,” the dare-devil hero of many of his
former works, make this collection especially attractive.
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JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
New Six Shilling Novels
.nf c
The Orphan-Monger
BY
G. SIDNEY PATERNOSTER
Author of “The Motor Pirate,” “The Folly of the Wise,”
“The Lady of the Blue Motor,” etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth.
.nf-
.if h
.li
The
Orphan-
Monger
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: The Orphan-Monger]
.if-
Mr. Varden-Kingdom, “The Orphan-Monger,” can only
be described as a “philanthropist” with the pious hypocrisy
of a Uriah Heep, and the fiendish cunning of a
Mr. Squeers.
How his schemes to obtain the fortune of Margaret
Marston were brought to nought by the course of true love, forms a theme
which holds the reader spell-bound to the last page.
.hr 60%
.nf c
The Graven Image
BY
Mrs. COULSON KERNAHAN
Author of “An Unwise Virgin,” “An Artist’s Model,”
“The Mystery of Magdalen,” etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth.
.nf-
.if h
.li
The
Graven
Image
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: The Graven Image]
.if-
This story tells of the many strange and thrilling adventures
which befell a beautiful young girl, who, thrown on her own
resources, determines to fight against adverse fortune, and
incidentally, to unravel the mystery of “The Graven
Image,” which plays an important part in the family affairs
of her lover. With this material Mrs. Coulson Kernahan weaves a plot
rich in startling and dramatic incidents, with a romantic and happy
climax.
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.ce
JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
New Six Shilling Novels
.nf c
The Quicksands of Life
BY
J. H. EDGE, K.C.
Author of “An Irish Utopia,” etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth.
.nf-
.if h
.li
The
Quicksands
of Life
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: The Quicksands of Life]
.if-
Mr. Edge has already shown the public that he can tell a
good story of Ireland, for his last book, “An Irish Utopia,”
met with an enthusiastic reception. He has now drawn
still further on his life experiences, for most of the scenes of
his new novel are laid in London and very intimately
connected with the Temple, while the Irish portion of the plot places the
reader amidst the grazing farms of Munster, the extinction of which is now
such a burning question.
“The Quicksands of Life” is, however, a novel pure and simple, and
the reader need not be apprehensive of finding the work a mere treatise on
the Irish Question.
.hr 60%
.nf c
The Love That Kills
BY
CORALIE STANTON & HEATH HOSKEN
Authors of “A Widow by Choice,” etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth.
.nf-
.if h
.li
The Love
That Kills
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: The Love that Kills]
.if-
Giving the reader a sense of mystery to be unravelled from
the very first chapter, excitement of situation is the keynote
of “The Love That Kills,” right to the very end.
This story, of a supreme sacrifice made for love, will go
far to enhance the reputation of its clever authors.
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.ce
JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
New Six Shilling Novels
.nf c
Potiphar’s Wife
BY
KINETON PARKES
Author of “Love à la Mode,” “Life’s Desert Way,” etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth.
.nf-
.if h
.li
Potiphar’s
Wife
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: Potiphar’s Wife]
.if-
The dales of Derbyshire have furnished a fine setting to Mr.
Kineton Parkes’ story of the rugged lives and passionate
loves of their sturdy farmers and cattle raisers.
“Powerful in plot, brilliant in execution and possessing
an intensely human interest” was the verdict of the reader who read
this story in manuscript, and it is placed before the public with the
confidence that this opinion will be thoroughly endorsed.
.hr 60%
.nf c
The King’s Cause
BY
WALTER E. GROGAN
Author of “The Dregs of Wrath,” “The King’s Sceptre,” etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth.
.nf-
.if h
.li
The
King’s
Cause
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: The King’s Cause]
.if-
No writer of fiction has yet given us a book on the exciting
events of the Seventeenth Century, when Bristol was twice
successfully besieged within two years. In this story Mr.
Grogan tells of the adventures of Bevil Copleigh, of the
part he took in the surrender of Bristol to Prince Rupert,
and in the subsequent capitulation of that Prince to Sir Thomas Fairfax.
With a strong element of love running through it, “The King’s Cause”
will appeal to all as full of exciting adventure, while the careful manner in
which the author has studied the period makes his work instructive as well
as highly entertaining.
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.ce
JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
New Six Shilling Novels
.nf c
Tobias and The Angel
BY
HELEN PROTHERO LEWIS
Author of “The Rudder and the Rock,” “Hooks of Steel,” “Thraldom,”
“The Unguarded Taper,” etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth.
.nf-
.if h
.li
Tobias and
the Angel
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: Tobias and The Angel]
.if-
This is a pleasant, bright, wholesome novel, with a hint of
difficulties manfully faced and the power of love to save.
Dealing with the present the author does not shirk its
difficulties, indeed, the drink question, too old at forty,
divorce law, and other everyday problems all receive careful and delicate
yet masterful handling; nevertheless, the story is the opposite of prosy,
and makes good enjoyable reading.
.hr 60%
.nf c
Disinherited
BY
STELLA M. DÜRING
Author of “In the Springtime of Life,” etc.
Crown 8vo, cloth. Coloured Frontispiece.
.nf-
.if h
.li
Disinherited
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: Disinherited]
.if-
In this novel of present-day England Mrs. Stella M.
Düring portrays the life of the heir to a baronetcy, who,
brought up in the expectation of succeeding to the title,
finds himself suddenly disinherited by the late marriage of his aged
relative. Written with brilliance and with wit, and with an air of mystery
pervading the story, the reader’s interest is sustained throughout to a clever
and convincing termination.
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.ce
JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
New Six Shilling Novels
.nf c
Ichabod
BY
JAMES BLYTH
Author of “Juicy Joe,” “The Same Clay,” “Celibate Sarah,” etc.
.nf-
.if h
.li
Ichabod
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: Ichabod]
.if-
Mr. James Blyth has turned his attention from social
problems to historical anticipation, and in his latest book,
“Ichabod,” he gives a picture of England during the next
fifty years, endeavouring to show the result of the present ever-increasing
alien immigration.
The story is powerfully told, full of incident from cover to cover, and is
sure to leave the reader, whatever his views may be, full of thoughts.
.hr 60%
.nf c
The Duchess of Dreams
BY
EDITH MACVANE
Frontispiece in Colour. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
.nf-
.if h
.li
The
Duchess of
Dreams
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: The Duchess of Dreams]
.if-
A tale of social ambition, of startling adventure and of
passionate love, placed against the background of the
dazzling world of diplomacy.
Miss Macvane has written a story which is both pleasing
and interesting, in fact, she has most successfully entered
the domain where Anthony Hope and Henry Harland found such entertaining
inspiration for the treatment of a highly romantic situation.
The portrayal of the characters is convincing; and the pictures of
brilliant diplomatic functions are particularly vivid and realistic.
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.ce
JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
New Six Shilling Novels
.nf c
Archibald Menzies, Mystic
BY
AGNES GRANT HAY
Author of “Malcolm Canmore’s Pearl,” etc.
.nf-
.if h
.li
Archibald
Menzies,
Mystic
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: Archibald Menzies, Mystic]
.if-
As a study of the effect of worldly trials on a highly-developed
and enquiring character, Archibald Menzies is
sure to command attention from all who are interested in
the developments that have recently taken place in the
world of religion. A boy, reared by his mother in a quiet
Midland town, suddenly is brought face to face with a hitherto unknown
side of the history of his family; this, followed by a series of disappointments,
has the effect of causing him to take a doubting view of the
principles in which he has been brought up, and leads him to espouse the
cause of a “New Religion,” in which, however, he fails to find a solution
of the problem of present social conditions.
.hr 60%
.nf c
Further particulars will shortly be announced of a
NEW NOVEL
BY
FERGUS HUME
Author of “The Mystery of a Hansom Cab,” etc.
.nf-
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.ce
JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
Furniture
.nf c
The Quest of the Antique
Being some Personal Experiences in the
Finding of Old Furniture
BY
ROBERT and ELIZABETH SHACKLETON
Illustrated with 44 Photographs, and a Frontispiece
in Colour; Chapter Headings and Decorations
by Harry Fenn.
Demy 8vo, 425 pp., 10s. 6d. net.
.nf-
.if h
.li
The Quest
of the
Antique
.li-
.if-
.if t
[Sidenote: The Quest of the Antique]
.if-
This is not a book to appeal only to lovers of Old
Furniture, but it is a work to stir and hold the interest
of those who have never fallen under the spell of the
charming and stately Furniture of the Past.
The two who write this unusual book inherited a kettle,
bought a pair of candlesticks, and were given a Shaker chair; with this
beginning they entered upon the enthusiastic pursuit of the walnut, the
brass and the china of the Olden Time.
The story of what they found and their experiences in the finding, of
the quaint old houses which, as circumstances permitted, they made their
home, is all told with rare charm. In addition, the book is rich in
reliable information concerning Antique Furniture of every kind and in
helpful hints for others, both as regards buying and taste.
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.ce
JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
Recent Six Shilling Novels
.nf c
NEW EDITIONS are now ready of the following
recently published successful Novels:
SOME PRESS OPINIONS
.nf-
The Last of Her Race
.rj
By J. BLUNDELLE-BURTON
.in +2
.ti -2
COUNTRY LIFE.—“Strongest characters in modern fiction.”
.ti -2
THE QUEEN.—“The book is instinct with romance and fine feeling,
and makes delightful reading all through.”
.in -2
.sp 2
The Half-Smart Set
.rj
By FLORENCE WARDEN
.in +2
.ti -2
ABERDEEN FREE PRESS.—“This is the best book Miss Warden has
written.”
.ti -2
LIVERPOOL DAILY POST.—“It is as good as anything the authoress
has done, and will delight her large circle of admirers.”
.in -2
.sp 2
The Moth and the Flame
.rj
By ALICE MAUD MEADOWS
.in +2
.ti -2
MADAME.—“A thrilling love story. The delicate and charming way in
which Miss Meadows tells of the difficulties caused by jealousy
and passion is most interesting and attractive.”
.in -2
.sp 2
The Lady Mary of Tavistock
.rj
By HAROLD VALLINGS
.in +2
.ti -2
THE LADY.—“An excellent story, abounding in careful characterisation
and dramatic moments ... the interest and excitement are
sustained with never a break from the first page to the last.”
.ti -2
DAILY CHRONICLE.—“A delightful story.”
.in -2
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.ce
JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
Recent Six Shilling Novels
The Lost Angel
.rj
By KATHARINE TYNAN
.in +2
.ti -2
MADAME.—“Miss Tynan is already well known as a writer of short
stories, and the book in question even surpasses her usual
standard.... Told in the delightfully simple manner which sets
Miss Tynan’s work far above that of the usual writer of love
stories.”
.ti -2
THE LADY.—“Such stories are always welcome, so simple, so natural,
so pleasant are they ... abounding in pathos and humour.”
.in -2
.sp 2
Irene of the Ringlets
.rj
By HORACE WYNDHAM
.in +2
.ti -2
PALL MALL GAZETTE.—“As bright and agreeable as any one could
wish.”
.ti -2
DAILY CHRONICLE.—“Its humour is happier than that of any novel
Mr. Wyndham has yet given us.”
.in -2
.sp 2
“I Little Knew—!”
.rj
By MAY CROMMELIN
.in +2
.ti -2
DUNDEE ADVERTISER.—“Many books though Miss Crommelin has
written, nothing better than ‘I Little Knew—!’ has come from
her pen.”
.ti -2
T.P.’s WEEKLY.—“A companionable book for a traveller.”
.in -2
.sp 2
The Enchantress
.rj
By EDWIN PUGH
.in +2
.ti -2
The most widely discussed book of the Spring Season, 1908,
which the Critics themselves were at a loss to diagnose.
.ti -2
FREE LANCE.—“A mercilessly clever book.”
.ti -2
ACADEMY.—“The author’s audacity leaves us gasping.”
.ti -2
DAILY MAIL.—“We do not think that we ever read anything quite so
hideously frank.”
.ti -2
MORNING POST.—“Mr. Pugh handles a difficult and daring theme with
the tact and discrimination of a master. His incisive and direct
style provides an effective medium for an arresting and, in the
truest sense, tragic story.”
.in -2
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.ce
JOHN MILNE, Publisher
.hr 80%
Recent Six Shilling Novels
The Call of the South
.rj
By LOUIS BECKE
.in +2
.ti -2
CHRONICLE.—“Worth ten times the price.”
.ti -2
TELEGRAPH.—“Simply packed with incident of great pith and moment....
The volume is assured of a popular success.”
.in -2
.sp 2
.nf c
Over thirty favourable reviews appeared within a few weeks of
the publication of the First Edition.
.nf-
.hr 20%
The Gentle Thespians
.ce
A Comedy Masquerade
.rj
By R. MURRAY GILCHRIST
.in +2
.ti -2
STANDARD.—“A wonderfully attractive story.”
.ti -2
MORNING POST.—“The story moves gently and easily through beautiful
and smiling ways. It is a tale of sheer joie de vivre, and as pleasant
a book as one could desire.”
.in -2
.hr 60%
Sixpenny Novels
.nf c
The London Series
Demy 8vo, paper covers, 6d. each.
NOW READY
.nf-
The Insane Root
.rj
By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED
.nf r
Author of “Nyria,” “My Australian Girlhood,”
“Mrs. Tregaskiss,” etc.
.nf-
The Lost Heir
.rj
By G. A. HENTY
.nf r
Author of “The Queen’s Cup,” “Dorothy’s Double,”
“Rujub the Juggler,” etc.
.nf-
A Wilful Woman
.rj
By G. B. BURGIN
.nf r
Author of “The Shutters of Silence,”
“Tuxter’s Little Maid,” etc.
.nf-
// end of "The Heart of the Wild" by S. L. Bensusan