scare-crow to frighten the Blackbirds.

Peter never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home
to the big fir-tree.

He was so tired that he flopped down upon the nice soft sand on the
floor of the rabbit-hole, and shut his eyes. His mother was busy
cooking; she wondered what he had done with his clothes. It was the
second little jacket and pair of shoes that Peter had lost in a
fortnight!

I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening.

His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave
a dose of it to Peter!

"One tablespoonful to be taken at bed-time."

But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and
blackberries, for supper.

LIONS AND TIGERS

Anonymous

The Lioness was wide awake, but two of the little Lion Cubs were
rather sleepy. The third one however, who had perched himself on
his mother's back, was quite livety: he had not had quite so much
for dinner as the others.

"Mother," he began, "what do all these two-legged things come and
look at us for? And why have they got such funny skins? Do they
ever have anything to eat, mother--bones, and things like that?"

"Don't purr so loudly, my dear," said the Lioness, or you'll wake
your brother and sister. These two-legged things are people--the
big ones are called men and women, and the little ones are boys and
girls. They don't do us any harm; indeed, some of them are very
kind to us--they give us our dinner, and clean straw in our houses,
and help to make us comfortable. They do their best, poor things,
so you mustn't growl at them."

"Look, mother," said the Lion Cub, "that small thing with the white
skin has thrown something into our house! What does she think we
shall do with it?"

"Don't take any notice of her, my dear." said the Lioness, blinking
her eyes at the little girl (who was "the small thing with the
white skin"); "it's only something that they call bread--she
thinks that we shall eat it. But it's really only fit for elephants
or bears; _we_ don't eat stuff like that. I tasted it once, I
remember, but that was a long time ago, when I was very, very
hungry, and glad to get anything I could."

"When was that, mother?" said the baby Lion. "Do tell me about it."

"Ah, I didn't always live in a house like this, my dear," replied
the Lioness. "I was born far away from here, in a place called
Africa, and I was quite grown-up before I saw a man at all. We used
to live very happily there in my young days--though it wasn't such
an easy life as that we have now. There was no one to bring you
your dinner regularly every day; no, you had to catch your dinner
first and then eat it, and sometimes we had to go a long time with
nothing but a very small antelope or perhaps a bird or two."

The Lion Cub's eyes opened wide with astonishment.

"What is Africa like, mother?" he said. "Did anyone else live
there?"

"Dear me, yes," answered the Lioness. "All sorts of creatures.
There were antelopes and snakes, and several of our own relations,
and hosts of others besides."

The Lion Cub thought for a little while. Then he said, "Why did you
come here, then, mother?"

The Lioness growled slightly. From the next cage there came a loud
roar, waking the two sleeping Lion Cubs, and startling the other so
much that he tumbled off his mother's back.

"Ho, ho, ho!" said a deep voice. "I remember! It seemed such a nice
fat young calf, didn't it?" It was the big Lion next door. The
Lioness seemed quite vexed; she had not known that the Lion was
listening. But he had been, and now he seemed to be in a very good
humor, and went on purring and talking to himself, but the little
Lion Cubs could easily hear what he was saying, and paid the
greatest attention.

"Yes," he went on, "and it _was_ a nice fat young calf, too; I
saw it first, and I remember thinking that it would make such a
fine dinner for us both. I never dreamed that there were hunters
about, and it was a trap to catch us; of course I was quite young
in those days. But it was a trap, and we were both caught."

"I needn't have been caught," growled the Lioness from the back of
her cage, "if I hadn't come to see what you were doing."

"Ah, well," said the Lion. "We were both of us deceived. And then
they put us into small, strong cages and took us over the great big
water and brought us here. I often think of the days when we were
free, but we get along very well here, don't we? It's no use making
a fuss about what you can't help, and really these two-legged
creatures are very amusing."

"Yes," said the Lioness, still with a little growl in her voice,
"but one needn't pretend that one wouldn't rather be free. Those
pumas, now, are always saying how much better it is always to live
in a cage."

The Lion shook his mane scornfully. "Pumas!" he said. "Who would
take any notice of what a puma would say? They call themselves
'friends of man!' They're only friendly because they daren't be
anything else."

"Do they come from Africa, too, mother?" said the Lion Cub.

"No, they live in America, my dear," replied the Lioness. "But
come, it's time we went out into the garden at the back of the
house. You must have a little fresh air." So saying, she stalked
through the little door at the back of the cage and went out,
followed by her Cubs, into the open space beyond.

"Good afternoon," said a lazy, sleepy voice from the other side of
the bars. "It's quite a fine day, isn't it?"

The three little Cubs all turned with a start. There was the Tiger,
stretched out in the sun, looking at them with a sleepy sort of
smile.

Of course, it wasn't a garden really, it was just a large open-air
cage, but there were rocks and trees dotted about all over it, and
it certainly looked very pleasant in the warm afternoon sunshine.

He was a very handsome fellow, was the Tiger, and he evidently knew
it, too. The Lioness greeted him pleasantly, and said with a purr
as she stretched herself out on the ground, "These young people of
mine were just asking me all sorts of questions; perhaps you can
tell them something interesting that has happened to you?"

"Ee-yow!" yawned the Tiger.

"Do, please," begged the little Lion Cubs, poking their noses
against the bars. "Do you come from Africa, too?" added the first
one.

"No," answered the Tiger, "I come from India. I used to live in the
jungle."

"And were you caught in a trap, too?" said the eager little Lion
Cub.

"Gr-r-r-!" said the Tiger, suddenly beginning to growl. "There he
goes!" It was an Elephant, which was slowly walking along in the
distance with a number of children on his back. The Tiger looked
after him with a very angry look in his eyes, and not until he was
quite out of sight did he become quiet again. Then he said to the
Lioness, "Excuse me, but I never see that fellow without thinking
how it was one of his relations that helped to capture me. Ah, I
shall never forget it. I wasn't full-grown then, and I used to
live with my father and mother and my young brother in a cosy
little home in the jungle. Most of the men-creatures who lived
near us over there were brown, you know, not white like the ones
we see over here. My father was getting old, and food had become
very scarce. One night my father paid a visit to one of the
men-creatures' villages and brought us home a goat, and the next
night he brought us a sheep. It seemed very easy to get food that
way, but the men-creatures didn't like it, I suppose."

"Oh, sir," said the smallest Lion Cub, "please tell me, did you
ever eat a man?"

The Tiger smiled. "No," he said, "I never did, but my father--".

"Don't you think we'd better get on with the story?" put in the
Lioness.

"Well," said the Tiger, "one day there was a dreadful
noise--shouting and banging of drums and all sorts of things, and
crowds of the brown men came into the jungle, waking us up out of
our afternoon nap. We were very much startled at first, but my
father told us not to be afraid, and said he would look after us.
Presently we saw one of those wretched elephants coming along, and,
would you believe it, he had actually allowed some of the white men
to get into a sort of castle on his back, where they could shoot at
us in safety! Of course, it was no good. My poor father was killed,
and so was my mother; they captured me, and I was brought here over
the water, and here I have been ever since."

The Tiger stretched himself out at full length and yawned again; he
seemed to be quite tired by his long speech.

"Don't you ever want to be back again in the jungle?" said one of
the Lion Cubs.

"Well," said the Tiger, "sometimes, when it's cold and damp and
foggy, I do. But it's fairly comfortable here, on the whole. Now, I
must wash myself." And he began to lick his coat, just as a cat
does, and the Lion Cubs, seeing that there was nothing more to be
got out of him, that afternoon, started a game between themselves.

APES AND MONKEYS

Anonymous

"Who was it that pulled my tail?" said the cross old Monkey sitting
in the corner of the cage. "I won't have my tail pulled, do you
hear? If any one pulls my tail again, I'll--"

"Well, what will you do, Crosspatch?" said a small brown Monkey.
"Do tell us; we should like to know." And he threw a nut-shell at
the cross old Monkey, hitting him on the nose and making him
crosser than ever.

"Ill complain to the keeper," said the old Monkey. "I'll steal all
your dinners. I'll--I'll--I'll do something dreadful to you."

"Oh, go along," said the little brown Monkey. "Let's have a game at
Touch Tails. You're 'he'!" And he gave a hard tug at the cross old
Monkey's tail, then darted away up to the top of the cage, with the
old one after him and a number of other small Monkeys after
_him_, giving a pull at his tail every now and then, till he
didn't know which one to attack first, and finally gave it up as a
bad job, and retired to his corner again, jabbering away to himself
as to what he would do, while all the others danced about with
delight and swung to and fro on the ropes, chuckling with
enjoyment.

"What a noise those Monkeys do make, to be sure!" said the
Chimpanzee to the Orang-Utangs. "I really think something should be
done to stop them."

"Here comes some of these little men-things!" said one of the
Orang-Utangs. "What queer things they are! Are they really
relations of ours, do you suppose?"

"I don't know," replied the Chimpanzee, "but I must say they are
very poor relations, if they are. Whatever do they put on all those
ridiculous things for?"

"Yes," said the eldest Orang-Utang. "And what very short arms they
have! I don't believe they'd be any good at swinging about on
trees, do you?"

"I'm sure they wouldn't," answered the Chimpanzee. "And then their
feet! Do you know they can't use their feet at all for holding on
to anything as we can? Isn't it silly? They're so ashamed of them
that they cover them up in things they call boots; it must be very
uncomfortable."

"Have you noticed what they do with nuts?" said the smallest
Orang-Utang. "There was a boy here once who wanted to eat a nut,
and he was going to crack it in the ordinary way, when his mother
said to him, 'Don't do that, my dear, you'll spoil your teeth!'
Just fancy!"

"Ah, but have you ever seen one of the very small men-things?" said
the Chimpanzee. "The things they call 'long-clothes babies'! They
are the most absurd creatures you ever saw in your life. They are
covered with white things (which must get dreadfully in the way),
and they can't do a single thing for themselves. They can't walk,
and they can't talk, and they don't eat fruits--they just lie
still, and sometimes they feebly kick about and wave their funny
little arms, and the strange part of it is that their mothers and
fathers seem quite proud of them. I'm very glad we're not like
that."

"So am I," said the Orang-Utangs. "But why do these men-things wear
such a lot of things over their skins?" said the eldest.

"Oh, they don't know any better," said the Chimpanzee. "You know
they are not nearly so strong as we are."

"Ah, but they're very artful, some of them," said the eldest
Orang-Utang. "I should think if they were caught young, you might
be able to teach them to do quite a lot of tricks."

"I dare say," replied the Chimpanzee. "Only I expect it would take
a lot of trouble and time."

"I'm glad I'm not a man-thing," said the youngest Orang-Utang. "It
must be horrid to have to wear clothes."

"There are those Monkeys again," said the Chimpanzee. "I wonder
what they are doing now. They are always up to some game or other.
I declare they are nearly as foolish as men."

The Monkeys seemed to be all running after each other, fighting and
squabbling, and grabbing at lettuce and pieces of banana, and
making grimaces at each other, and scolding away until the
Chimpanzee could scarcely hear the sound of its own voice.

"Oh, no," said the small Orang-Utang, who was a kind-hearted little
fellow, "they are very foolish, but I shouldn't say they were as
bad as that!"

"Well, no, perhaps not," said the Chimpanzee.

THE HIPPOPOTAMUS AND THE RHINOCEROS

Anonymous

"Ugh!" grunted the big Hippopotamus. "I think I shall have a bath.
Oh, dear me, I feel so sleepy!" And he opened his mouth and gave a
tremendous yawn.

"Well!" said a deep, gruff voice from the other side of the
railings. "Well! If I had a mouth as large and as ugly as that I
would keep it shut, at any rate."

It was the Rhinoceros, next door. The Hippopotamus and he didn't
get on very well together; indeed, they were always quarreling, so
that it was just as well that there were bars between them.

The Hippopotamus turned round angrily. "Ugly?" he said. "Who are
you calling ugly? I am sure I'm just as pretty as you are, with
that great horn sticking out of your nose. I don't think it looks
at all nice."

"H'm!" said the Rhinoceros. "I don't care if it doesn't. It's been
very useful to me, all the same."

"Well," returned the Hippopotamus, "and so has my mouth, so there!
If it had been any smaller, I shouldn't have been able to get it
round, for it was rather a large boat."

"Whatever are you talking about?" demanded the Rhinoceros. "Look
here! Let's stop quarreling for a bit, and you shall tell me your
story and I'll tell you mine. Fire away!"

"Ah, that's just what the men did," said the Hippopotamus. "We were
all swimming in the river, when they came down in their boat. It
was what they call a canoe (so the Flamingoes told me), and most of
the men in it were black; but there was one white man who had a
curious stick in his hand, which he every now and then would point
at some bird or animal, and then he made tire come out of the
stick, and the bird or animal generally got hurt.

"I lay in the water watching them, when, all at once, the white man
pointed his stick at my brother, and before you could say
'crocodile,' my brother was floating away down the stream with a
bullet in his head. The men in the boat paddled away after him, but
that was more than I could stand, so I went after them. I saw the
white man point his stick at me, but I dived in time and came up
just beside them; then it was that my mouth came in so handy. I
just opened it quite wide and then I closed it again, and, well,
somehow the boat was upset and the men were all kicking about in
the water, splashing and shouting and making no end of a fuss. But
I let them go that time, I only wanted to give them a lesson. Now,
it's your turn. How did your horn come in useful?"

"Oh, my adventure was on land, of course," said the Rhinoceros, who
had been much interested in the Hippo's story. "I was snoozing, one
afternoon, at home, when I heard a curious noise, and I saw some of
those black men you talked about, followed by a white one on a
horse. Well, before I had time to do or say anything, the white man
pointed his gun at me (that's what they call the stick that the
fire comes out of), and the next moment I felt a bullet knock
against my side. Of course, it didn't hurt me--that's the advantage
of having a skin like mine; but it made me very angry. So I just
got up and ran at the gentleman of the horse; he was very much
surprised, and so was the horse, especially when I gave him a prod
with this horn of mine. He turned right round and galloped away as
fast as he could go, with the black men after him. Of course, I
didn't take the trouble to run after them. But, you see, my horn
does come in useful sometimes."

"Ugh!" grunted the Hippopotamus. "I suppose it does. But it isn't
pretty, all the same."

"Well, anyway it's better than your mouth," replied the Rhinoceros,
getting angry again.

"But I can swim!" said the Hippopotamus.

"But you haven't got such a tough skin as I have," replied the
Rhinoceros. And they went on quarreling until the keeper came with
their dinner.

THE GIRAFFE

Anonymous

I am a Giraffe and my name is Daisy. I come from a hot country a
long way off, called Africa; I am quite grown up now and shall not
get any bigger. Don't you think I am big enough as I am? I do.
There is no other animal which is as tall as I am; I am taller than
the Elephant or the Camel, but of course I am not as strong as the
Elephant is.

You need not be at all afraid of me, because I will not hurt you.
No, thank you, I do not want to eat you up at all; I should not
like to eat little boys and girls; indeed, I don't think I could if
I tried, and I am sure I do not want to try. I eat leaves and grass
and hay and things like that; I can reach the leaves of the trees
because I have such a long neck.

One day a lady came to see me here and she had some very
nice-looking green things on the top of her head, and I thought
that I would like to eat them as they looked so nice; so I just
bent my head over the top of the bars of my cage and took a bite at
them. But they were not at all nice, really, and the lady made such
a fuss! She thought I was going to eat her up, I believe. I heard
afterwards that the things I had eaten were the flowers on her hat,
and they were not real flowers at all. I don't think people ought
to have such things in their hats if they don't want us to eat
them. Of course, I thought the lady had brought them on purpose for
me, so I didn't see why I shouldn't eat them. But I don't think
that lady will come quite close to my cage again.

I lived here alone for quite a long time, because they would not
get a playmate for me. You see, there are not nearly so many of my
family now as there used to be, and then we don't like traveling
over the sea at all. But now I have a playmate and he is a very
nice little chap; of course he is not as fine and big as I am, but
he will grow up in time and I shall be very glad to have some
company. I can really run quite fast when I have room, but here
there isn't room enough; and I don't very much mind, because I'm
quite content to walk about gently, thank you. And then I have to
take great care of my health, you know, because I'm rather delicate
and not like the Ostrich, who seems to be able to eat almost
anything. Why, he tells me that he is very fond of rusty nails, and
as for pennies he considers them most delicious. It's a very funny
sort of taste, I think. No, it's no good for you to offer me nuts,
thank you, because I couldn't crack them.

My horns, were you asking about? We all have horns, both gentlemen
and lady Giraffes, but they are always quite small, like mine.
They're not much use to us, you know, for when we want to fight any
one we use our feet--we can give very strong kicks with our
fore-feet, if we like. But, on the whole, we don't like fighting;
we find that it's much safer to run away--you see, we can run so
fast that there are not many creatures who can catch us.

I am, as I have said, very particular about my food, and I don't
like thorns or thistles, so when I come across a plant with prickly
thorns on it, I carefully pick off the leaves with my tongue and
leave the thorns behind. I don't believe you could do that with
your tongue, but mine is a very useful tongue, and I shouldn't like
to change it with anybody. I sometimes find it rather awkward to
get anything on the ground, which is just between my front feet; I
have to put my legs very wide apart, and then bend down my neck,
like this. I suppose it does look rather funny, so I don't mind if
you do laugh at me. But then, you know, you look just as funny to
me, with your very small legs and no neck at all to speak of, and
no horns and no tail; I sometimes wonder how you can get on at all.

I come of a very old family, you know; I believe that you men have
known about me for a very long time.

If you will excuse me now, I think I will go in, as I am rather
afraid of catching cold; it wouldn't do for me to get a sore throat
or a stiff neck, would it? Good-by I I'm so pleased to have met
you.

PARROTS

Anonymous

Outside the Parrot-house there was a terrible noise; a screaming,
squawking, shouting, and crying, just as if the whole place were on
fire, or every Parrot were being killed.

The Macaws were sitting on their little perches out in the open
air. They were very proud of themselves, for they greatly enjoyed
being outside on a sunny, warm day; it was much better than being
in a cage, inside the house. They were all very fine birds; some
had blue heads and yellow bodies and green tails; others had red
heads and yellow tails; there were one or two who were quite white,
but they each one thought that he was a very fine fellow, and they
all shouted and screamed and squawked at the top of their voices.

And what was it all about? The greatest noise seemed to be going on
round one perch, where a big Macaw, with a blue and green head, was
talking very loud and very fast to a group of other birds close by,
and he seemed to be very angry about something. In one claw he held
a large apple, and if you had been near enough, you would have seen
that some one had evidently taken a big bite out of it. This was
what was making all the bother. Mr. Green-and-Blue-Head kept
shouting out: "Who bit my apple? Who bit my apple? I won't have it!
I won't stand it! It's too bad! It was all right this morning! I
believe it was you that did it!" (this was said to a white
Cockatoo). "Oh, you bad, wicked bird! What will become of you? Oh,
you bad thing! Go along, do! Who bit my apple?"

But the white Cockatoo began to scream at once. "'Oh, I didn't!" he
said. "How dare you say such a thing? Bite your apple, indeed! I
wouldn't do it. Don't call me names, because I won't have it. I'll
peck you, you bad bird! Who are you telling to get along? Bite your
apple, indeed! Squaw-aw-aw-aw-awk-k-k!"

Then a little, green Love Bird began to try to make peace. "It
doesn't matter very much, does it, Mr. Macaw?" she said. "It's not
a very big bite, though, of course, it must be very vexing. But I'm
sure Mr. Cockatoo didn't do it, if he says he didn't. But, please,
don't let us have any pecking. You'll find out, sometime, who did
it, I dare say."

"Oh, that's all very well for you," returned the Macaw, "but it
isn't your apple. Who bit my apple? Who bit my apple? You'd better
tell me, at once, whoever it was, and then, perhaps, I shan't be
quite so angry."

"Oh, do be quiet about your apple," put in another Macaw, with a
bright, red head. "Who cares about your apple? Why don't you enjoy
yourself out in the sun? I declare it quite makes me think of my
young days, sitting out here."

"Apple? Apple? Who said apple?" shouted another bird from the end
of the row. "Give me a bit! Give poor Polly a bit! Poor old Polly!
Pretty Poll! Give me a bit; don't be greedy! Who's got the apple?"

Then four or five others all began at once: "No, no, I want a bit!
I asked first! I want some, too! Over here! No, here you are! This
way with the apple! Hurry up! Be quick! Where's that apple?"

Just then a lady and a little girl and a little boy came along past
where the Parrots were sitting. Instantly all the birds began to
chatter and scream louder than ever.

"Look, look at them!" they called out. "Did you ever see anything
so absurd? Where are their feathers? What ridiculous beaks! I don't
believe they could crack nuts, if they tried ever so hard. They
haven't got any wings. Oh, how funny! Ha, ha, ha! Go away, do, you
ugly creatures!"

The little girl and boy and the lady didn't understand what they
were saying, of course. But the lady said: "Come along quickly,
children, and let us get past these noisy birds; they quite give me
a headache with their screaming."

"Well, did you ever!" said the Parrots. "Calling us noisy birds!
I'm sure we're not noisy. They haven't got green heads and red
tails; I don't see what they think so much of themselves for! Well,
I'm glad they've gone! If they'd come near me, I'd have given them
a bite! Silly things! Squawk-k-k!"

The Macaw with the apple was still very sad. No one took any notice
of him, and no one would tell him who had bitten his precious
apple. All at once, it slipped out of his claw and fell on to the
ground. He tried to reach it, but the chain which tied him to his
perch was not long enough, and he couldn't get it. All the other
Parrots began to scream with laughter at him; they danced up and
down and flapped their wings and shouted, and made more noise than
ever. Then some Sparrows flew down and began to peck at the apple,
and this made the Macaw angrier than ever.

"H'm!" said one little Sparrow, looking up at the Macaw, with a
twinkle in his eye; "quite a good apple! I wonder that you threw it
away. Who's been biting it?"

The Macaw screamed and scolded, but it was no good. If he hadn't
talked so much, he might have eaten his apple in peace. Now, he had
lost it altogether.

And he never found out who bit his apple.

RAB AND HIS FRIENDS

By John Brown, M.D.

Four and thirty years ago, Bob Ainslie and I were coming up
Infirmary street from the high school, our heads together, and our
arms intertwisted, as only lovers and boys know how or why.

When we got to the top of the street, and turned north, we espied a
crowd at the Tron-church. "A dog fight!" shouted Bob, and was off;
and so was I, both of us all but praying that it might not be over
before we got up! And is not this boy nature! and human nature,
too? and don't we all wish a house on fire not to be out before we
see it? Dogs like fighting; old Isaac says they "delight" in it,
and for the best of all reasons; and boys are not cruel because
they like to see the fight. They see three of the great cardinal
virtues of dog or man--courage, endurance, and skill--in intense
action. This is very different from a love of making dogs fight,
and enjoying, and aggravating, and making gain by their pluck. A
boy--be he ever so fond himself of fighting, if he be a good boy,
hates and despises all this, but he would have run off with Bob and
me fast enough; it is a natural, and a not wicked, interest that
all boys and men have in witnessing intense energy in action.

Does any curious and finely-ignorant woman wish to know how Bob's
eye at a glance announced a dog-fight to his brain? He did not, he
could not see the dogs fighting; it was a flash of an inference, a
rapid induction. The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting, is a
crowd masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate
woman, fluttering wildly round the outside, and using her tongue
and her hands freely upon the men, as so many "brutes"; it is a
crowd annular, compact and mobile; a crowd centripetal, having its
eyes and its heads all bent downward and inward, to one common
focus.

Well, Bob and I are up, and find it is not over; a small
thoroughbred, white bull-terrier, is busy throttling a large
shepherd's dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled with.
They are hard at it; the scientific little fellow doing his work in
great style, his pastoral enemy fighting wildly, but with the
sharpest of teeth and a great courage. Science and breeding,
however, soon had their own; the Game Chicken, as the premature Bob
called him, working his way up, took his final grip of poor
Yarrow's throat--and he lay gasping and done for. His master, a
brown, handsome, big young shepherd from Tweedsmuir, would have
liked to have knocked down any man, would "drink up Esil, or eat a
crocodile," for that part, if he had a chance; it was no use
kicking the little dog; that would only make him hold the closer.
Many were the means shouted out in mouthfuls, of the best possible
ways of ending it. "Water!" but there was none near, and many cried
for it who might have got it from the well at Blackfriars Wynd.
"Bite the tail!" and a large, vague, benevolent, middle aged man,
more desirous than wise, with some struggle got the bushy end of
Yarrow's tail into his ample mouth, and bit it with all his might.
This was more than enough for the much-enduring, much-perspiring
shepherd, who, with a gleam of joy over his broad visage, delivered
a terrific facer upon our large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged
friend--who went down like a shot.

Still the Chicken holds; death not far off. "Snuff! a pinch of
snuff!" observed a calm, highly-dressed young buck, with an
eye-glass in his eye. "Snuff, indeed!" growled the angry crowd,
affronted and glaring. "Snuff! a pinch of snuff!" again observes
the buck, but with more urgency; whereupon were produced several
open boxes, and from a mull which may have been at Culloden, he
took a pinch, knelt down, and presented it to the nose of the
Chicken. The laws of physiology and of snuff take their course; the
Chicken sneezes, and Yarrow is free.

The young pastoral giant stalks off with Yarrow in his
arms--comforting him.

But the bull-terrier's blood is up, and his soul unsatisfied; he
grips the first dog he meets, and discovering she is not a dog, in
Homeric phrase, he makes a brief sort of _amende_, and is off.
The boys, with Bob and me at their head, are after him; down Niddry
street he goes, bent on mischief; up the Cowgate like an arrow--Bob
and I, and our small men, panting behind.

There, under the single arch of the South bridge is a huge mastiff,
sauntering down the middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in
his pockets; he is old, gray, brindled, as big as a little Highland
bull, and has the Shakespearian dewlaps shaking as he goes.

The Chicken makes straight at him, and fastens on his throat.
To our astonishment, the great creature does nothing but stand
still, hold himself up, and roar--yes, roar; a long, serious,
remonstrative roar. How is this? Bob and I are up to them. _He is
muzzled!_ The bailies had proclaimed a general muzzling, and his
master, studying strength and economy mainly, had encompassed his
huge jaws in a home-made apparatus, constructed out of the leather
of some ancient breechin. His mouth was open as far as it could;
his lips curled up in rage--a sort of terrible grin; his teeth
gleaming, ready, from out the darkness; the strap across his mouth
tense as a bowstring; his whole frame stiff with indignation and
surprise; his roar asking us all round, "Did you ever see the like
of this?"

He looked a statue of anger and astonishment, done in Aberdeen
granite.

We soon had a crowd; the Chicken held on. "A knife!" cried Bob; and
a cobbler gave him his knife; you know the kind of knife, worn away
obliquely to a point, and always keen. I put its edge to the tense
leather; it ran before it; and then!--one sudden jerk of that
enormous head, a sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise, and
the bright and fierce little fellow is dropped, limp, and dead. A
solemn pause; this was more than any of us had bargained for. I
turned the little fellow over, and saw he was quite dead; the
mastiff had taken him by the small of the back, like a rat, and
broken it.

He looked down at his victim appeased, ashamed and amazed; snuffed
him all over, stared at him, and taking a sudden thought, turned
round and trotted off. Bob took the dead dog up, and said, "John,
we'll bury him after tea." "Yes," said I, and was off after the
mastiff. He made up the Cowgate at a rapid swing; he had forgotten
some engagement. He turned up the Candlemaker Row, and stopped at
the Harrow Inn.

There was a carrier's cart ready to start, and a keen, thin,
impatient, black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse's
head looking about angrily for something. "Rab, ye thief!" said he,
aiming a kick at my great friend, who drew cringing up, and
avoiding the heavy shoe with more agility than dignity, and
watching his master's eye, slunk dismayed under the cart--his ears
down, and as much as he had of tail down, too.

What a man this must be--thought I--to whom my tremendous hero
turns tail! The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless,
from his neck, and I eagerly told him the story which Bob and I
always thought, and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir
Walter, alone were worthy to rehearse. The severe little man was
mitigated, and condescended to say, "Rab, ma man, puir Rabbie"
--whereupon the stump of a tail rose up, the ears were cocked, the
eyes filled, and were comforted; the two friends were reconciled.
"Hupp!" and a stroke of the whip were given to Jess; and off went
the three.

Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had not much of a
tea) in the back-green of his house in Melville street, No. 17,
with considerable gravity and silence; and being at the time in the
Iliad, and, like all boys, Trojans, we called him Hector of course.

Six years have passed--a long time for a boy and a dog: Bob Ainslie
is off to the wars; I am a medical student, and clerk at Minto
House Hospital.

Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednesday; and we had much
pleasant intimacy. I found the way to his heart by frequent
scratching of his huge head, and an occasional bone. When I did not
notice him he would plant himself straight before me, and stand
wagging that bud of a tail, and looking up, with his head a little
to the one side. His master I occasionally saw; he used to call me
"Maister John," but was laconic as any Spartan.

One fine October afternoon, I was leaving the hospital, when I saw
the large gate open, and in walked Rab with that great and easy
saunter of his. He looked as if taking general possession of the
place; like the Duke of Wellington entering a subdued city,
satiated with victory and peace. After him came Jess, now white
from age, with her cart; and in it a woman, carefully wrapped
up--the carrier leading the horse anxiously, and looking back. When
he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble) made a curt and
grotesque "boo," and said, "Maister John, this is the mistress;
she's got a trouble in her breest--some kind of an income we're
thinkin'."

By this time I saw the woman's face; she was sitting on a sack
filled with straw, her husband's plaid round her, and his big-coat,
with its large white metal buttons, over her feet.

I never saw a more unforgettable face--pale, serious,
_lonely_, delicate, sweet, without being at all what we call
fine. She looked sixty, and had on a mutch, white as snow, with its
black ribbon; her silvery, smooth hair setting off her dark-gray
eyes--eyes such as one sees only twice or thrice in a lifetime,
full of suffering, full also of the overcoming of it; her eyebrows
black and delicate, and her mouth firm, patient, and contented,
which few mouths ever are.

As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful countenance, or a more
subdued or settled quiet. "Ailie," said James, "this is Maister
John, the young doctor; Rab's freend, ye ken. We often speak aboot
you, doctor." She smiled, and made a movement, but said nothing;
and prepared to come down, putting her plaid aside and rising. Had
Solomon, in all his glory, been handing down the Queen of Sheba at
his palace gate, he could not have done it more daintily, more
tenderly, more like a gentleman, than did James the Howgate
carrier, when he lifted down Ailie, his wife.

The contrast of his small, swarthy, weather-beaten, keen, worldly
face to hers--pale, subdued, and beautiful--was something
wonderful. Rab looked on concerned and puzzled, but ready for
anything that might turn up--were it to strangle the nurse, the
porter, or even me. Ailie and he seemed great friends.

"As I was sayin', she's got a kind o' trouble in her breest, doctor;
wull ye tak' a look at it?" We walked into the consulting-room,
all four; Rab grim and comic, willing to be happy and confidential
if cause could be shown, willing also to be the reverse on the same
terms. Ailie sat down, undid her open gown and her lawn handkerchief
round her neck, and, without a word, showed me her right breast.
I looked at and examined it carefully, she and James watching me,
and Rab eying all three. What could I say? There it was that had
once been so soft, so shapely, so white, so gracious and bountiful,
so "full of all blessed conditions"--hard as a stone, a centre of
horrid pain, making that pale face, with its gray, lucid, reasonable
eyes, and its sweet resolved mouth, express the full measure of
suffering overcome. Why was that gentle, modest, sweet woman,
clean and lovable, condemned by God to bear such a burden?

I got her away to bed. "May Rab and me bide?" said James.
"_You_ may; and Rab, if he will behave himself." "I'se warrant
he's do that, doctor;" and in slunk the faithful beast. I wish you
could have seen him. There are no such dogs now. He belonged to a
lost tribe. As I have said, he was brindled, and gray like Rubislaw
granite; his hair short, hard, and close, like a lion's; his body
thickset, like a little bull--a sort of compressed Hercules of a
dog. He must have been ninety pounds' weight, at the least; he had
a large blunt head; his muzzle black as night, his mouth blacker
than any night, a tooth or two--being all he had--gleaming out of
his jaws of darkness. His head was scarred with the records of old
wounds, a sort of series of fields of battle all over it; one eye
out, one ear cropped as close as was Archbishop Leighton's
father's; the remaining eye had the power of two; and above it, and
in constant communication with it, was a tattered rag of an ear,
which was forever unfurling itself, like an old flag; and then that
bud of a tail, about one inch long, if it could in any sense be
said to be long, being as broad as long--the mobility, the
instantaneousness of that bud were very funny and surprising, and
its expressive twinklings and winkings, the intercommunications
between the eye, the ear, and it, were of the oddest and swiftest.

Rab had the dignity and simplicity of great size; and having fought
his way all along the road to absolute supremacy, he was as mighty
in his own line as Julius Caesar or the Duke of Wellington, and had
the gravity of all great fighters.

You must have often observed the likeness of certain men to certain
animals, and of certain dogs to men. Now, I never looked at Rab
without thinking of the great Baptist preacher, Andrew Fuller. The
same large, heavy, menacing, combative, sombre, honest countenance,
the same deep inevitable eye, the same look--as of thunder asleep,
but ready--neither a dog nor a man to be trifled with.

Next day, my master, the surgeon, examined Ailie. There was no
doubt it must kill her, and soon. It could be removed--it might
never return--it would give her speedy relief--she should have it
done. She curtsied, looked at James, and said, "When?" "To-morrow,"
said the kind surgeon--a man of few words. She and James and Rab
and I retired. I noticed that he and she spoke a little, but seemed
to anticipate everything in each other. The following day at noon,
the students came in, hurrying up the great stair. At the first
landing-place, on a small well-known blackboard, was a bit of paper
fastened by wafers and many remains of old wafers beside it. On the
paper were the words--"An operation to-day. J. B., _Clerk_"

Up ran the youths, eager to secure good places; in they crowded,
full of interest and talk. "What's the case? Which side is it?"

Don't think them heartless; they are neither better nor worse than
you or I; they get over their professional horrors, and into their
proper work', and in them pity--as an _emotion_, ending in
itself or at best in tears and a long-drawn breath, lessens, while
pity as a _motive_, is quickened, and gains power and purpose.
It is well for poor human nature that it is so.

The operating theatre is crowded; much talk and fun, and all the
cordiality and stir of youth. The surgeon with his staff of
assistants is there. In comes Ailie; one look at her quiets and
abates the eager students. The beautiful old woman is too much for
them. They sit down, and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough
boys feel the power of her presence. She walks in quickly, but
without haste; dressed in her mutch, her neckerchief, her white
dimity short-gown, her black bombazine petticoat, showing her white
worsted stockings and her carpet-shoes. Behind her was James with
Rab. James sat down in the distance, and took that huge and noble
head between his knees. Rab looked perplexed and dangerous; forever
cocking his ear and dropping it as fast.

Ailie stepped up on a seat, and laid herself on the table, as her
friend the surgeon told her; arranged herself, gave a rapid look at
James, shut her eyes, rested herself on me, and took my hand. The
operation was at once begun; it was necessarily slow; and
chloroform--one of God's best gifts to his suffering children--was
then unknown. The surgeon did his work. The pale face showed its
pain, but was still and silent. Rab's soul was working within him;
he saw that something strange was going on--blood flowing from his
mistress, and she suffering; his ragged ear was up, and
importunate; he growled and gave now and then a sharp impatient
yelp; he would have liked to have done something to that man. But
James had him firm, and gave him a _glower_ (Scotch word--a
hard stare) from time to time, and an intimation of a possible
kick;--all the better for James, it kept his eye and his mind off
Ailie.

It is over; she is dressed, steps gently and decently down from the
table, looks for James; then turning to the surgeon and the
students, she curtsies--and in a low, clear voice, begs their
pardon if she has behaved ill. The students--all of us--wept like
children; the surgeon wrapped her up carefully--and resting on James
and me, Ailie went to her room, Rab following. We put her to bed.
James took off his heavy shoes, crammed with tackets, heel-capt and
toe-capt, and put them carefully under the table, saying, "Maister
John, I'm for nane o' yer strynge nurse bodies for Ailie. I'll be
her nurse, and I'll gang aboot on my stockin' soles as canny as
pussy." And so he did; and handy and clever, and swift and tender
as any woman, was that horny-handed, snell, peremptory little man.
Everything she got he gave her; he seldom slept; and often I saw
his small, shrewd eyes out of the darkness, fixed on her. As
before, they spoke little.

Rab behaved well, never moving, showing us how meek and gentle he
could be, and occasionally, in his sleep, letting us know that he
was demolishing some adversary. He took a walk with me every day,
generally to the Candlemaker Row; but he was sombre and mild;
declined doing battle, though some fit cases offered, and indeed
submitted to sundry indignities; and was always very ready to turn
and came faster back, and trotted up the stair with much lightness,
and went straight to that door.

Jess, the mare, had been sent, with her weatherworn cart, to
Howgate, and had doubtless her own dim and placid meditations and
confusions, on the absence of her master and Rab, and her unnatural
freedom from the road and her cart.

For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed "by the first
intention"; for as James said, "Oor Ailie's skin's ower clean to
beil." The students came in quiet and anxious, and surrounded her
bed. She said she liked to see their young, honest faces. The
surgeon dressed her, and spoke to her in his own short, kind way,
pitying her through his eyes, Rab and James outside the circle--Rab
being now reconciled, and even cordial, and having made up his mind
that as yet nobody required worrying, but as you may suppose
_semper paratus_.

So far well; but four days after the operation my patient had a
sudden and long shivering, a "groosin'," as she called it. I saw
her soon after; her eyes were too bright, her cheek colored; she
was restless, and ashamed of being so; the balance was lost;
mischief had begun. On looking at the wound, a blush of red told
the secret; her pulse was rapid, her breathing anxious and quick,
she wasn't herself, as she said, and was vexed at her restlessness.
We tried what we could, James did everything, was everywhere; never
in the way, never out of it. Rab subsided under the table into a
dark place, and was motionless, all but his eye, which followed
every one. Ailie got worse; began to wander in her mind, gently;
was more demonstrative in her ways to James, rapid in her
questions, and sharp at times. He was vexed, and said, "She was
never that way afore; no, never." For a time she knew her head was
wrong, and was always asking our pardon--the dear, gentle old
woman; then delirium set in strong, without pause. Her brain gave
way, and then came that terrible spectacle.

  "The intellectual power, through words and things,
  Went sounding on its dim and perilous way;"

she sang bits of old songs and psalms, stopping suddenly, mingling
the Psalms of David, and the diviner words of his Son and Lord,
with homely odds and ends and scraps of ballads.

Nothing more touching, or in a sense more strangely beautiful, did
I ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, affectionate, eager, Scotch
voice--the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled utterance,
the bright and perilous eye; some wild words, some household cares,
something for James, the names of the dead, Rab called rapidly and
in a "fremyt" (querulous, trembling) voice, and he starting up,
surprised, and slinking off as if he were to blame somehow, or had
been dreaming he heard. Many eager questions and beseechings which
James and I could make nothing of, and on which she seemed to set
her all, and then sink back ununderstood. It was very sad, but
better than many things that are not called sad. James hovered
about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as ever; read to
her, when there was a lull, short bits from the Psalms, prose and
metre, chanting the latter in his own rude and serious way, showing
great knowledge of the fit words, bearing up like a man, and
doating over her as his "ain Ailie." "Ailie, ma woman!" "Ma ain
bonnie wee dawtie!"

The end was drawing on: the golden bowl was breaking; the silver
cord was fast being loosed--that _animula blandula, vagula,
hospes, comesque_ (dear fleeting life, a sojourner and companion)
was about to flee. The body and the soul--companions for sixty
years--were being sundered, and taking leave. She was walking,
alone, through the valley of that shadow, into which one day we
must all enter--and yet she was not alone, for we know whose rod
and staff were comforting her.

One night she had fallen quiet, and as we hoped, asleep; her eyes
were shut. We put down the gas and sat watching her. Suddenly she
sat up in bed and taking a bedgown which was lying on it rolled up,
she held it eagerly to her breast--to the right side. We could see
her eyes bright with surpassing tenderness and joy, bending over
this bundle of clothes. She held it as a woman holds her suckling
child; opening out her nightgown impatiently, and holding it close,
and brooding over it, and murmuring foolish little words, as one
whom his mother comforteth, and who sucks and is satisfied. It was
pitiful and strange to see her wasting dying look, keen and yet
vague--her immense love.

"Preserve me!" groaned James, giving away. And then she rocked back
and forward, as if to make it sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it
her infinite fondness. "Wae's me, doctor; I declare she's thinkin'
it's that bairn." "What bairn?"

"The only bairn we ever had; our wee Mysie, and she's in the
Kingdom, forty years and mair." It was plainly true: the pain in
the breast telling its urgent story to a bewildered, ruined brain,
was misread and mistaken; it suggested to her the uneasiness of a
breast full of milk, and then the child; and so again once more
they were together, and she had her ain wee Mysie in her bosom.

This was the close. She sank rapidly: the delirium left her; but,
as she whispered, she was "clean silly"; it was the lightening
before the final darkness. After having for some time lain
still--her eyes shut, she said, "James!" He came close to her, and
lifting up her calm, clear, beautiful eyes, she gave him a long
look, turned to me kindly but shortly, looked for Rab but could not
see him, then turned to her husband again, as if she would never
leave off looking, shut her eyes and composed herself. She lay for
some time breathing quick, and passed away so gently, that when we
thought she was gone, James, in his old-fashioned way, held the
mirror to her face. After a long pause, one small spot of dimness
was breathed out; it vanished away, and never returned, leaving the
blank clear darkness of the mirror without a stain. "What is your
life? it is even a vapor, which appeareth for a little time, and
then vanisheth away."

Rab all this time had been full awake and motionless; he came
forward beside us; Ailie's hand, which James had held, was hanging
down; it was soaked with his tears; Rab licked it all over
carefully, looked at her, and returned to his place under the
table.

James and I sat, I don't know how long, but for some time--saying
nothing: he started up abruptly, and with some noise went to the
table, and putting his right, fore and middle fingers each into a
shoe, pulled them out, and put them on, breaking one of the leather
latchets, and muttering in anger, "I never did the like o' that
afore."

I believe he never did; nor after either. "Rab!" he said roughly,
and pointing with his thumb to the bottom of the bed. Rab leaped
up, and settled himself; his head and eye to the dead face.
"Maister John, ye'll wait for me," said the carrier, and
disappeared in the darkness, thundering downstairs in his heavy
shoes. I ran to a front window: there he was, already round the
house, and out at the gate fleeing like a shadow.

I was afraid about him, and yet not afraid; so I sat down beside
Rab, and being wearied, fell asleep. I awoke from a sudden noise
outside. It was November, and there had been a heavy fall of snow.
Rab was _in statu quo_ (in the same place); he heard the
noise, too, and plainly knew it, but never moved. I looked out, and
there, at the gate, in the dim morning--for the sun was not up--was
Jess and the cart--a cloud of steam rising from the old mare. I did
not see James; he was already at the door, and came up to the
stairs, and met me. It was less than three hours since he left, and
he must have posted out--who knows how--to Howgate, full nine miles
off; yoked Jess, and driven her astonished into town. He had an
armful of blankets, and was streaming with perspiration. He nodded
to me, spread out on the floor two pairs of clean old blankets,
having at their corners "A. G., 1794," in large letters in red
worsted. These were the initials of Alison Grame, and James may
have looked in at her from without--himself unseen but not
unthought of--when he was "wat, wat and weary," and after having
walked many a mile over the hills, may have seen her sitting, while
"a' the lave were sleepin';" and by the firelight working her name
on the blankets, for her ain James' bed.

He motioned Rab down, and taking his wife in his arms, laid her in
the blankets, and wapped her carefully and firmly up, leaving the
face uncovered; and then lifting her, he nodded again sharply to
me, and with a resolved but utterly miserable face, strode along
the passage, and downstairs, followed by Rab. I followed with a
light; but he didn't need it. I went out, holding stupidly the
candle in my hand in the calm frosty air; we were soon at the gate.
I could have helped him, but I saw he was not to be meddled with,
and he was strong, and did not need it. He laid her down as
tenderly, as safely, as he had lifted her out ten days before--as
tenderly as when he had her first in his arms when she was only "A.
G."--sorted her, leaving that beautiful sealed face open to the
heavens; and then taking Jess by the head, he moved away. He did
not notice me, neither did Rab, who presided behind the cart.

I stood till they passed through the long shadow of the College,
and turned up Nicholson street. I heard the solitary cart sound
through the streets, and die away and come again; and I returned,
thinking of that company going up Libberton Brae, then along Roslin
Muir, the morning light touching the Pentlands and making them
on-looking ghosts; then down the hill through Auchindinny woods,
past "haunted Woodhouselee"; and as daybreak came sweeping up the
bleak Lammermuirs, and fell on his own door, the company would
stop, and James would take the key, and lift Ailie up again, laying
her on her own bed, and, having put Jess up, would return with Rab
and shut the door.

James buried his wife, with his neighbors mourning, Rab inspecting
the solemnity from a distance. It was snow, and that black ragged
hole would look strange in the midst of the swelling spotless
cushion of white. James looked after everything; then rather
suddenly fell ill, and took to bed; was insensible when the doctor
came, and soon died. A sort of low fever was prevailing in the
village, and his want of sleep, his exhaustion, and his misery,
made him apt to take it. The grave was not difficult to reopen. A
fresh fall of snow had again made all things white and smooth; Rab
once more looked on, and slunk home to the stable.

And what of Rab? I asked for him next week of the new carrier who
got the goodwill of James's business, and was now master of Jess
and her cart. "How's Rab?" He put me off, and said rather rudely,
"What's _your_ business wi' the dowg?" I was not to be so put
off. "Where's Rab?" He, getting confused and red, and intermeddling
with his hair, said, "'Deed sir, Rab's died." "Dead! what did he
die of?" "Weel, sir," said he, getting redder, "he didna exactly
dee; he was killed. I had to brain him wi' a rack-pin; there was
nae doing wi' him. He lay in the treviss wi' the mear, and wadna
come oot. I tempit him wi' the kail and meat, but he wad tak
naething, and keepit me frae feedin' the beast, and he was aye gur
gurrin', and grup gruppin' me by the legs. I was laith to make awa
wi' the old dowg, his like wasne atween this and Thornhill--but,
'deed, sir, I could do naething else." I believed him. Fit end for
Rab, quick and complete. His teeth and his friends gone, why should
he keep the peace and be civil?

A RIDE WITH A MAD HORSE A FREIGHT-CAR

By W.H.H. Murray

It was at the battle of Malvern Hill--a battle where the carnage
was more frightful, as it seems to me, than in any this side of the
Alleghanies during the whole war--that my story must begin. I was
then serving as Major in the --th Massachusetts Regiment--the
old--th, as we used to call it--and a bloody time the boys had of
it too. About 2 P.M. we had been sent out to skirmish along the
edge of the wood in which, as our generals suspected, the Rebs lay
massing for a charge across the slope, upon the crest of which our
army was posted. We had barely entered the underbrush when we met
the heavy formations of Magruder in the very act of charging. Of
course, our thin line of skirmishers was no impediment to those
onrushing masses. They were on us and over us before we could get
out of the way. I do not think that half of those running,
screaming masses of men ever knew that they had passed over the
remnants of as plucky a regiment as ever came out of the old Bay
State. But many of the boys had good reason to remember that
afternoon at the base of Malvern Hill, and I among the number: for
when the last line of Rebs had passed over me, I was left among the
bushes with the breath nearly trampled out of me and an ugly
bayonet-gash through my thigh; and mighty little consolation it for
me at that moment to see the fellow who ran me through lying stark
dead at my side, with a bullet-hole in his head, his shock of
coarse black hair matted with blood, and his stony eyes looking
into mine. Well, I bandaged up my limb the best I might and started
to crawl away, for our batteries had opened, and the grape and
canister that came hurtling down the slope passed but a few feet
over my head. It was slow and painful work, as you can imagine, but
at last, by dint of perseverance, I had dragged myself away to the
left of the direct range of the batteries, and, creeping to the
verge of the wood, looked off over the green slope. I understood by
the crash and roar of the guns, the yells and cheers of the men,
and that hoarse murmur which those who have been in battle know,
but which I cannot describe in words, that there was hot work going
on out there; but never have I seen, no, not in that three days'
desperate _melee_ at the Wilderness, nor at that terrific
repulse we had at Cold Harbor, such absolute slaughter as I saw
that afternoon on the green slope of Malvern Hill. The guns of the
entire army were massed on the crest, and thirty thousand of our
infantry lay, musket in hand, in front. For eight hundred yards the
hill sank in easy declension to the wood, and across this smooth
expanse the Rebs must charge to reach our lines. It was nothing
short of downright insanity to order men to charge that hill; and
so his generals told Lee, but he would not listen to reason that
day, and so he sent regiment after regiment, and brigade after
brigade, and division after division, to certain death. Talk about
Grant's disregard of human life, his effort at Cold Harbor--and I
ought to know, for I got a Minie in my shoulder that day--was
hopeful and easy work to what Lee laid on Hill's and Magruder's
divisions at Malvern. It was at the close of the second charge,
when the yelling mass reeled back from before the blaze of those
sixty guns and thirty thousand rifles, even as they began to break
and fly backward toward the woods, that I saw from the spot where I
lay a riderless horse break out of the confused and flying mass,
and, with mane and tail erect and spreading nostril, come dashing
obliquely down the slope. Over fallen steeds and heaps of the dead
she leaped with a motion as airy as that of the flying fox when,
fresh and unjaded, he leads away from the hounds, whose sudden cry
has broken him off from hunting mice amid the bogs of the meadow.
So this riderless horse came vaulting along. Now from my earliest
boyhood I have had what horsemen call a 'weakness' for horses. Only
give me a colt of wild, irregular temper and fierce blood to tame,
and I am perfectly happy. Never did lash of mine, singing with
cruel sound through the air, fall on such a colt's soft hide. Never
did yell or kick send his hot blood from heart to head deluging his
sensitive brain with fiery currents, driving him into frenzy or
blinding him with fear; but touches, soft and gentle as a woman's,
caressing words, and oats given from the open palm, and unfailing
kindness, were the means I used to 'subjugate' him. Sweet
subjugation, both to him who subdues and to him who yields! The
wild, unmannerly, and unmanageable colt, the fear of horsemen the
country round, finding in you not an enemy, but a friend, receiving
his daily food from you, and all those little 'nothings' which go
as far with a horse as a woman, to win and retain affection, grows
to look upon you as his protector and friend, and testifies in
countless ways his fondness for you. So when I saw this horse, with
action so free and motion so graceful, amid that storm of bullets,
my heart involuntarily went out to her, and my feelings rose higher
and higher at every leap she took from amid the whirlwind of fire
and lead. And as she plunged at last over a little hillock out of
range and came careering toward me as only a riderless horse might
come, her head flung wildly from side to side, her nostrils widely
spread, her flank and shoulders flecked with foam, her eye
dilating, I forgot my wound and all the wild roar of battle, and,
lifting myself involuntarily to a sitting posture as she swept
grandly by, gave her a ringing cheer.

"Perhaps in the sound of a human voice of happy mood amid the awful
din she recognized a resemblance to the voice of him whose blood
moistened her shoulders and was even yet dripping from saddle and
housings. Be that as it may, no sooner had my voice sounded than
she flung her head with a proud upward movement into the air,
swerved sharply to the left, neighed as she might to a master at
morning from her stall, and came trotting directly up to where I
lay, and, pausing, looked down upon me as it were in compassion. I
spoke again, and stretched out my hand caressingly. She pricked her
ears, took a step forward and lowered her nose until it came in
contact with my palm. Never did I fondle anything more tenderly,
never did I see an animal which seemed to so court and appreciate
human tenderness as that beautiful mare. I say 'beautiful.' No
other word might describe her. Never will her image fade from my
memory while memory lasts.

"In weight she might have turned, when well conditioned, nine
hundred and fifty pounds. In color she was a dark chestnut, with a
velvety depth and soft look about the hair indescribably rich and
elegant. Many a time have I heard ladies dispute the shade and hue
of her plush-like coat as they ran their white, jeweled fingers
through her silken hair. Her body was round in the barrel and
perfectly symmetrical. She was wide in the haunches, without
projection of the hip bones, upon which the shorter ribs seemed to
lap. High in the withers as she was, the line of her back and neck
perfectly curved, while her deep, oblique shoulders and long,
thick forearm, ridgy with swelling sinews, suggested the perfection
of stride and power. Her knees across the pan were wide, the
cannon-bone below them short and thin; the pasterns long and
sloping; her hoofs round, dark, shiny, and well set on. Her
mane was a shade darker than her coat, fine and thin, as a
thoroughbred's always is whose blood is without taint or cross. Her
ear was thin, sharply pointed, delicately curved, nearly black
around the borders, and as tremulous as the leaves of an aspen. Her
neck rose from the withers to the head in perfect curvature, hard,
devoid of fat, and well cut up under the chops. Her nostrils were
full, very full, and thin almost as parchment. The eyes, from which
tears might fall or fire flash, were well brought out, soft as a
gazelle's, almost human in their intelligence, while over the small
bony head, over neck and shoulders, yea, over the whole body and
clean down to the hoofs, the veins stood out as if the skin were
but tissue-paper against which the warm blood pressed, and which it
might at any moment burst asunder. 'A perfect animal,' I said to
myself as I lay looking her over--'an animal which might have been
born from the wind and the sunshine, so cheerful and so swift she
seems; an animal which a man would present as his choicest gift to
the woman he loved, and yet one which that woman, wife or
lady-love, would give him to ride when honor and life depended on
bottom and speed.'

"All that afternoon the beautiful mare stood over me, while away to
the right of us the hoarse tide of battle flowed and ebbed. What
charm, what delusion of memory held her there? Was my face to her
as the face of her dead master, sleeping a sleep from which not
even the wildest roar of battle, no, nor her cheerful neigh at
morning, would ever wake him? Or is there in animals some instinct,
answering to our intuition, only more potent, which tells them whom
to trust and whom to avoid? I know not, and yet some such sense
they may have, they must have; or else why should this mare so
fearlessly attach herself to me? By what process of reason or
instinct I know not, but there she chose me for her master; for
when some of my men at dusk came searching, and found me, and,
laying me on a stretcher, started toward our lines, the mare,
uncompelled, of her own free will, followed at my side; and all
through that stormy night of wind and rain, as my men struggled
along through the mud and mire toward Harrison's Landing, the mare
followed, and ever after, until she died, was with me, and was
mine, and I, so far as man might be, was hers. I named her Gulnare.

"As quickly as my wound permitted, I was transported to Washington,
whither I took the mare with me. Her fondness for me grew daily,
and soon became so marked as to cause universal comment. I had her
boarded while in Washington at the corner of--Street and--Avenue.
The groom had instructions to lead her around to the window against
which was my bed, at the hospital, twice every day, so that by
opening the sash I might reach out my hand and pet her. But the
second day, no sooner had she reached the street, than she broke
suddenly from the groom and dashed away at full speed. I was lying,
bolstered up in bed, reading, when I heard the rush of flying feet,
and in an instant, with a loud, joyful neigh, she checked herself
in front of my window. And when the nurse lifted the sash, the
beautiful creature thrust her head through the aperture, and rubbed
her nose against my shoulder like a dog. I am not ashamed to say
that I put both my arms around her neck, and, burying my face in
her silken mane, kissed her again and again. Wounded, weak, and
away from home, with only strangers to wait upon me, and scant
service at that, the affection of this lovely creature for me, so
tender and touching, seemed almost human, and my heart went out to
her beyond any power of expression, as to the only being, of all
the thousands around me, who thought of me and loved me. Shortly
after her appearance at my window, the groom, who had divined where
he should find her, came into the yard. But she would not allow him
to come near her, much less touch her. If he tried to approach she
would lash out at him with her heels most spitefully, and then,
laying back her ears and opening her mouth savagely, would make a
short dash at him, and, as the terrified African disappeared around
the corner of the hospital, she would wheel, and, with a face
bright as a happy child's, come trotting to the window for me to
pet her. I shouted to the groom to go back to the stable, for I had
no doubt but that she would return to her stall when I closed the
window. Rejoiced at the permission, he departed. After some thirty
minutes, the last ten of which she was standing with her slim,
delicate head in my lap, while I braided her foretop and combed out
her silken mane, I lifted her head, and, patting her softly on
either cheek, told her that she must 'go.' I gently pushed her head
out of the window and closed it, and then, holding up my hand, with
the palm turned toward her, charged her, making the appropriate
motion, to 'go away right straight back to her stable.' For a
moment she stood looking steadily at me, with an indescribable
expression of hesitation and surprise in her clear, liquid eyes,
and then, turning lingeringly, walked slowly out of the yard.

"Twice a day for nearly a month, while I lay in the hospital, did
Gulnare visit me. At the appointed hour the groom would slip her
headstall, and, without a word of command, she would dart out of
the stable, and, with her long, leopard-like lope, go sweeping down
the street and come dashing into the hospital yard, checking
herself with the same glad neigh at my window; nor did she ever
once fail, at the closing of the sash, to return directly to her
stall. The groom informed me that every morning and evening, when
the hour of her visit drew near, she would begin to chafe and
worry, and, by pawing and pulling at the halter, advertise him that
it was time for her to be released.

"But of all exhibitions of happiness, either by beast or man, hers
was the most positive on that afternoon when, racing into the yard,
she found me leaning on a crutch outside the hospital building. The
whole corps of nurses came to the doors, and all the poor fellows
that could move themselves--for Gulnare had become a universal
favorite, and the boys looked for her daily visits nearly, if not
quite, as ardently as I did--crawled to the windows to see her.
What gladness was expressed in every movement! She would come
prancing toward me, head and tail erect, and, pausing, rub her head
against my shoulder, while I patted her glossy neck; then suddenly,
with a sidewise spring, she would break away, and with her long
tail elevated until her magnificent brush, fine and silken as the
golden hair of a blonde, fell in a great spray on either flank,
and, her head curved to its proudest arch, pace around me with that
high action and springing step peculiar to the thoroughbred. Then
like a flash, dropping her brush and laying back her ears and
stretching her nose straight out, she would speed away with that
quick, nervous, low-lying action which marks the rush of racers,
when side by side and nose to nose lapping each other, with the
roar of cheers on either hand and along the seats above them, they
come straining up the home stretch. Returning from one of these
arrowy flights, she would come curvetting back, now pacing sidewise
as on parade, now dashing her hind feet high into the air, and anon
vaulting up and springing through the air, with legs well under
her, as if in the act of taking a five-barred gate, and finally
would approach and stand happy in her reward--my caress.

"The war, at last, was over, Gulnare and I were in at the death
with Sheridan at the Five Forks. Together we had shared the pageant
at Richmond and Washington, and never had I seen her in better
spirits than on that day at the capital. It was a sight indeed to
see her as she came down Pennsylvania Avenue. If the triumphant
procession had been all in her honor and mine, she could not have
moved with greater grace and pride. With dilating eye and tremulous
ear, ceaselessly champing her bit, her heated blood bringing out
the magnificent lacework of veins over her entire body, now and
then pausing, and with a snort gathering herself back upon her
haunches as for a mighty leap, while she shook the froth from her
bits, she moved with a high, prancing step down the magnificent
street, the admired of all beholders. Cheer after cheer was given,
huzza after huzza rang out over her head from roofs and balcony,
bouquet after bouquet was launched by fair and enthusiastic
admirers before her; and yet, amid the crash and swell of music,
the cheering and tumult, so gentle and manageable was she, that,
though I could feel her frame creep and tremble under me as she
moved through that whirlwind of excitement, no check or curb was
needed, and the bridle-lines--the same she wore when she came to me
at Malvern Hill--lay unlifted on the pommel of the saddle. Never
before had I seen her so grandly herself. Never before had the fire
and energy, the grace and gentleness, of her blood so revealed
themselves. This was the day and the event she needed. And all the
royalty of her ancestral breed--a race of equine kings--flowing as
without taint or cross from him that was the pride and wealth of
the whole tribe of desert rangers, expressed itself in her. I need
not say that I shared her mood. I sympathized in her every step. I
entered into all her royal humors. I patted her neck and spoke
loving and cheerful words to her. I called her my beauty, my pride,
my pet. And did she not understand me? Every word! Else why that
listening ear turned back to catch my softest whisper; why the
responsive quiver through the frame, and the low, happy neigh?
'Well,' I exclaimed, as I leaped from her back at the close of the
review--alas! that words spoken in lightest mood should portend so
much!--'well, Gulnare, if you should die, your life has had its
triumph. The nation itself, through its admiring capital, has paid
tribute to your beauty, and death can never rob you of your fame.'
And I patted her moist neck and foam-flecked shoulders, while the
grooms were busy with head and loins.

"That night our brigade made its bivouac just over Long Bridge,
almost on the identical spot where four years before I had camped
my company of three months' volunteers. With what experiences of
march and battle were those four years filled! For three of these
years Gulnare had been my constant companion. With me she had
shared my tent, and not rarely my rations, for in appetite she was
truly human, and my steward always counted her as one of our 'mess.'
Twice had she been wounded--once at Fredericksburg, through the
thigh; and once at Cold Harbor, where a piece of shell tore away a
part of her scalp. So completely did it stun her, that for some
moments I thought her dead, but to my great joy she shortly
recovered her senses. I had the wound carefully dressed by our
brigade surgeon, from whose care she came in a month with the edges
of the wound so nicely united that the eye could with difficulty
detect the scar. This night, as usual, she lay at my side, her head
almost touching mine. Never before, unless when on a raid and in
face of the enemy, had I seen her so uneasy. Her movements during
the night compelled wakefulness on my part. The sky was cloudless,
and in the dim light I lay and watched her. Now she would stretch
herself at full length, and rub her head on the ground. Then she
would start up, and, sitting on her haunches, like a dog, lift one
foreleg and paw her neck and ears. Anon she would rise to her feet
and shake herself, walk off a few rods, return and lie down again
by my side. I did not know what to make of it, unless the
excitement of the day had been too much for her sensitive nerves. I
spoke to her kindly and petted her. In response she would rub her
nose against me, and lick my hand with her tongue--a peculiar habit
of hers--like a dog. As I was passing my hand over her head, I
discovered that it was hot, and the thought of the old wound
flashed into my mind, with a momentary fear that something might be
wrong about her brain, but after thinking it over I dismissed it as
incredible. Still I was alarmed. I knew that something was amiss,
and I rejoiced at the thought that I should soon be at home where
she could have quiet, and, if need be, the best of nursing. At
length the morning dawned, and the mare and I took our last meal
together on Southern soil--the last we ever took together. The
brigade was formed in line for the last time, and as I rode down
the front to review the boys she moved with all her old battle
grace and power. Only now and then, by a shake of the head, was I
reminded of her actions during the night. I said a few words of
farewell to the men whom I had led so often to battle, with whom I
had shared perils not a few, and by whom, as I had reason to think,
I was loved, and then gave, with a voice slightly unsteady, the
last order they would ever receive from me: 'Brigade, Attention,
Ready to break ranks, _Break Ranks_.' The order was obeyed.
But ere they scattered, moved by a common impulse, they gave first
three cheers for me, and then, with the same heartiness and even
more power, three cheers for Gulnare. And she, standing there,
looking with her bright, cheerful countenance full at the men,
pawing with her forefeet, alternately, the ground, seemed to
understand the compliment; for no sooner had the cheering died away
than she arched her neck to its proudest curve, lifted her thin,
delicate head into the air, and gave a short, joyful neigh.

"My arrangements for transporting her had been made by a friend the
day before. A large, roomy car had been secured, its floor strewn
with bright clean straw, a bucket and a bag of oats provided, and
everything done for her comfort. The car was to be attached to the
through express, in consideration of fifty dollars extra, which I
gladly paid, because of the greater rapidity with which it enabled
me to make my journey. As the brigade broke up into groups, I
glanced at my watch and saw that I had barely time to reach the
cars before they started. I shook the reins upon her neck, and with
a plunge, startled at the energy of my signal, away she flew. What
a stride she had! What an elastic spring! She touched and left the
earth as if her limbs were of spiral wire. When I reached the car
my friend was standing in front of it, the gang-plank was ready, I
leaped from the saddle, and, running up the plank into the car,
whistled to her; and she, timid and hesitating, yet unwilling to be
separated from me, crept slowly and cautiously up the steep incline
and stood beside me. Inside I found a complete suit of flannel
clothes with a blanket and, better than all, a lunch-basket. My
friend explained that he had bought the clothes as he came down to
the depot, thinking, as he said, 'that they would be much better
than your regimentals,' and suggested that I doff the one and don
the other. To this I assented the more readily as I reflected that
I would have to pass one night at least in the car, with no better
bed than the straw under my feet. I had barely time to undress
before the cars were coupled and started. I tossed the clothes to
my friend with the injunction to pack them in my trunk and express
them on to me, and waved him my adieu. I arrayed myself in the
nice, cool flannel and looked around. The thoughtfulness of my
friend had anticipated every want. An old cane-seated chair stood
in one corner. The lunch-basket was large and well supplied. Amid
the oats I found a dozen oranges, some bananas, and a package of
real Havana cigars. How I called down blessings on his thoughtful
head as I took the chair and, lighting one of the fine-flavored
_figaros_, gazed out on the fields past which we were gliding,
yet wet with morning dew. As I sat dreamily admiring the beauty
before me, Gulnare came and, resting her head upon my shoulder,
seemed to share my mood. As I stroked her fine-haired, satin-like
nose, recollection quickened and memories of our companionship in
perils thronged into my mind. I rode again that midnight ride to
Knoxville, when Burnside lay intrenched, desperately holding his
own, waiting for news from Chattanooga of which I was the bearer,
chosen by Grant himself because of the reputation of my mare. What
riding that was! We started, ten riders of us in all, each with the
same message. I parted company the first hour out with all save
one, an iron-gray stallion of Messenger blood. Jack Murdock rode
him, who learned his horsemanship from buffalo and Indian hunting
on the plains--not a bad school to graduate from. Ten miles out of
Knoxville the gray, his flanks dripping with Wood, plunged up
abreast of the mare's shoulders and fell dead; and Gulnare and I
passed through the lines alone. _I had ridden the terrible race
without whip or spur._ With what scenes of blood and flight she
would ever he associated! And then I thought of home, unvisited for
four long years--that home I left a stripling, but to which I was
returning a bronzed and brawny man. I thought of mother and
Bob--how they would admire her!--of old Ben, the family groom, and
of that one who shall be nameless, whose picture I had so often
shown to Gulnare as the likeness of her future mistress; had they
not all heard of her, my beautiful mare, she who came to me from
the smoke and whirlwind, my battle-gift? How they would pat her
soft, smooth sides, and tie her mane with ribbons, and feed her
with all sweet things from open and caressing palm! And then I
thought of one who might come after her to bear her name and repeat
at least some portion of her beauty--a horse honored and renowned
the country through, because of the transmission of the mother's
fame.

"About three o'clock in the afternoon a change came over Gulnare. I
had fallen asleep upon the straw, and she had come and awakened me
with a touch of her nose. The moment I started up I saw that
something was the matter. Her eyes were dull and heavy. Never
before had I seen the light go out of them. The rocking of the car
as it went jumping and vibrating along seemed to irritate the car.
Touching it, I found that the skin over the brain was hot as fire.
Her breathing grew rapidly louder and louder. Each breath was drawn
with a kind of gasping effort. The lids with their silken fringe
drooped wearily over the lustreless eyes. The head sank lower and
lower, until the nose almost touched the floor. The ears, naturally
so lively and erect, hung limp and widely apart. The body was cold
and senseless. A pinch elicited no motion. Even my voice was at
last unheeded. To word and touch there came, for the first time in
all our intercourse, no response. I knew as the symptoms spread
what was the matter. The signs bore all one way. She was in the
first stages of phrenitis, or inflammation of the brain. In other
words, _my beautiful mare was going mad._

"I was well versed in the anatomy of the horse. Loving horses from
my very childhood, there was little in veterinary practice with
which I was not familiar. Instinctively, as soon as the symptoms
had developed themselves, and I saw under what frightful disorder
Gulnare was laboring, I put my hand into my pocket for my knife, in
order to open a vein. _There was no knife there._ Friends, I
have met with many surprises. More than once in battle and scout
have I been nigh death; but never did my blood desert my veins and
settle so around the heart, never did such a sickening sensation
possess me, as when, standing in that car with my beautiful mare
before me marked with those horrible symptoms, I made that
discovery. My knife, my sword, my pistols even, were with my suit
in the care of my friend, two hundred miles away. Hastily, and with
trembling fingers, I searched my clothes, the lunch-basket, my
linen; not even a pin could I find. I shoved open the sliding door,
and swung my hat and shouted, hoping to attract some brakeman's
attention. The train was thundering along at full speed, and none
saw or heard me. I knew her stupor would not last long. A slight
quivering of the lip, an occasional spasm running through the
frame, told me too plainly that the stage of frenzy would soon
begin. 'My God,' I exclaimed in despair, as I shut the door and
turned toward her, 'must I see you die, Gulnare, when the opening
of a vein would save you? Have you borne me, my pet, through all
these years of peril, the icy chill of winter, the heat and torment
of summer, and all the thronging dangers of a hundred bloody
battles, only to die torn by fierce agonies, when so near a
peaceful home?'

"But little time was given me to mourn. My life was soon to be in
peril, and I must summon up the utmost power of eye and limb to
escape the violence of my frenzied mare. Did you ever see a mad
horse when his madness is on him? Take your stand with me in that
car, and you shall see what suffering a dumb creature can endure
before it dies. In no malady does a horse suffer more than in
phrenitis, or inflammation of the brain. Possibly in severe cases
of colic, probably in rabies in its fiercest form, the pain is
equally intense. These three are the most agonizing of all the
diseases to which the noblest of animals is exposed. Had my pistols
been with me, I should then and there, with whatever strength
Heaven granted, have taken my companion's life, that she might be
spared the suffering which was so soon to rack and wring her
sensitive frame. A horse laboring under an attack of phrenitis is
as violent as a horse can be. He is not ferocious as is one in a
fit of rabies. He may kill his master, but he does it without
design. There is in him no desire of mischief for its own sake, no
cruel cunning, no stratagem and malice. A rabid horse is conscious
in every act and motion. He recognizes the man he destroys. There
is in him an insane _desire to kill._ Not so with the phrenetic
horse. He is unconscious in his violence. He sees and recognizes
no one. There is no method of purpose in his madness. He kills
without knowing it.

"I knew what was coming. I could not jump out, that would be
certain death. I must abide in the car, and take my chance of life.
The car was fortunately high, long, and roomy. I took my position
in front of my horse, watchful, and ready to spring. Suddenly her
lids, which had been closed, came open with a snap, as if an
electric shock had passed through her, and the eyes, wild in their
brightness, stared directly at me. And what eyes they were! The
membrane grew red and redder until it was of the color of blood,
standing out in frightful contrast with the transparency of the
cornea. The pupil gradually dilated until it seemed about to burst
out of the socket. The nostrils, which had been sunken and
motionless, quivered, swelled, and glowed. The respiration became
short, quick and gasping. The limp and dripping ears stiffened and
stood erect, pricked sharply forward, as if to catch the slightest
sound. Spasms, as the car swerved and vibrated, ran along her
frame. More horrid than all, the lips slowly contracted, and the
white, sharp-edged teeth stood uncovered, giving an indescribable
look of ferocity to the partially opened mouth. The car suddenly
reeled as it dashed around a curve, swaying her almost off her
feet, and as a contortion shook her, she recovered herself, and
rearing upward as high as the car permitted, plunged directly at
me. I was expecting the movement, and dodged. Then followed
exhibitions of pain which I pray God I may never see again. Time
and again did she dash herself upon the floor, and roll over and
over, lashing out with her feet in all directions. Pausing a
moment, she would stretch her body to its extreme length, and,
lying upon her side, pound the floor with her head as if it were a
maul. Then like a flash she would leap to her feet, and whirl round
and round until from very giddiness she would stagger and fall. She
would lay hold of the straw with her teeth, and shake it as a dog
shakes a struggling woodchuck; then dashing it from her mouth, she
would seize hold of her own sides, and rend herself. Springing up,
she would rush against the end of the car, falling all in a heap
from the violence of the concussion. For some fifteen minutes
without intermission the frenzy lasted. I was nearly exhausted. My
efforts to avoid her mad rushes, the terrible tension of my nervous
system produced by the spectacle of such exquisite and prolonged
suffering, were weakening me beyond what I should have thought it
possible an hour before for anything to weaken me. In fact, I felt
my strength leaving me. A terror such as I had never yet felt was
taking possession of my mind. I sickened at the sight before me,
and at the thought of agonies yet to come. 'My God I exclaimed,
'must I be killed by my own horse in this miserable car!' Even as I
spoke the end came. The mare raised herself until her shoulders
touched the roof, then dashed her body upon the floor with a
violence which threatened the stout frame beneath her. I leaned,
panting and exhausted, against the side of the car. Gulnare did not
stir. She lay motionless, her breath coming and going in lessening
respirations. I tottered toward her, and as I stood above her, my
ear detected a low gurgling sound. I cannot describe the feeling
that followed. Joy and grief contended within me. I knew the
meaning of that sound. Gulnare, in her frenzied violence, had
broken a blood-vessel, and was bleeding internally. Pain and life
were passing away together. I knelt down by her side. I laid my
head upon her shoulders, and sobbed aloud. Her body moved a little
beneath me. I crawled forward, and lifted her beautiful head into
my lap. O, for one more sign of recognition before she died! I
smoothed the tangled masses of her mane. I wiped, with a fragment
of my coat, torn in the struggle, the blood which oozed from her
nostril. I called her by name. My desire was granted. In a moment
Gulnare opened her eyes. The redness of frenzy had passed out of
them. She saw and recognized me. I spoke again. Her eye lighted a
moment with the old and intelligent look of love. Her ear moved.
Her nostril quivered slightly as she strove to neigh. The effort
was in vain. Her love was greater than her strength. She moved her
head a little, as if she would be nearer me, looked once more with
her clear eyes into my face, breathed a long breath, straightened
her shapely limbs, and died. And there, holding the head of my dead
mare in my lap, while the great warm tears fell one after another
down my cheeks, I sat until the sun went down, the shadows darkened
in the car, and night drew her mantle, colored like my grief, over
the world."

A-HUNTING OF THE DEER

By Charles Dudley Warner

The pleasurable excitement of a deer-hunt has never, I believe,
been regarded from the deer's point of view. I happen to be in a
position, by reason of a lucky Adirondack experience, to present it
in that light.

Early on the morning of the 23d of August, 1877, a doe was feeding
on Basin Mountain. The night had been warm and showery, and the
morning opened in an undecided way. The wind was southerly: it is
what the deer call a dog-wind, having come to know quite well the
meaning of "a southerly wind and a cloudy sky." The sole companion
of the doe was her only child, a charming little fawn, whose brown
coat was beginning to be mottled with the beautiful spots which
make this young creature as lovely as the gazelle. The buck, its
father, had been that night on a long tramp across the mountain to
Clear Pond, and had not yet returned.

The doe was feeding, daintily cropping the tender leaves of the
young shoots, and turning from time to time to regard her
offspring. The fawn had taken his morning meal, and now lay curled
up on a bed of moss, watching contentedly, with his large,
soft-brown eyes, every movement of his mother. The great eyes
followed her with an alert entreaty; and, if the mother stepped a
pace or two further away in feeding, the fawn made a half-movement,
as if to rise and follow her. You see, she was his sole dependence
in all the world. But he was quickly reassured when she turned her
gaze on him; and if, in alarm, he uttered a plaintive cry, she
bounded to him at once, and, with every demonstration of affection,
licked his mottled skin till it shone again.

It was a pretty picture--maternal love on the one part, and happy
trust on the other. The doe was a beauty, and would have been so
considered anywhere, as graceful and winning a creature as the sun
that day shone on--slender limbs, not too heavy flanks, round body,
and aristocratic head, with small ears, and luminous, intelligent,
affectionate eyes. How alert, supple, free, she was! What untaught
grace in every movement! What a charming pose when she lifted her
head, and turned it to regard her child! You would have had a
companion-picture, if you had seen, as I saw that morning, a baby
kicking about among the dry pine-needles on a ledge above the
Ausable, in the valley below, while its young mother sat near, with
an easel before her, touching in the color of a reluctant
landscape, giving a quick look at the sky and the outline of the
Twin Mountains, and bestowing every third glance upon the laughing
boy-art in its infancy.

The doe lifted her head a little with a quick motion, and turned
her ear to the south. Had she heard something? Probably it was only
the south wind in the balsams. There was silence all about in the
forest. If the doe had heard anything it was one of the distant
noises of the world. There are in the woods occasional moanings,
premonitions of change, which are inaudible to the dull ears of
men, but which, I have no doubt, the forest-folk hear and
understand. If the doe's suspicions were excited for an instant,
they were gone as soon.

But suddenly she started, head erect, eyes dilated, a tremor in her
limbs. She took a step; she turned her head to the south; she
listened intently. There was a sound--a distant, prolonged note,
bell-toned, pervading the woods, shaking the air in smooth
vibrations. It was repeated. The doe had no doubt now. She shook
like the sensitive mimosa when a footstep approaches. It was the
baying of a hound! It was far off--at the foot of the mountain.
Time enough to fly; time enough to put miles between her and the
hound, before he should come upon her fresh trail; time enough to
escape away through the dense forest and hide in the recesses of
Panther Gorge; yes, time enough. But there was the fawn. The cry of
the hound was repeated, more distinct this time. The mother
instinctively bounded away a few paces. The fawn started up with an
anxious bleat. The doe turned; she came back; she couldn't leave
it. She bent over it, and licked it, and seemed to say, "Come, my
child; we are pursued; we must go." She walked away toward the
west, and the little thing skipped after her. It was slow going for
the slender legs, over the fallen logs, and through the rasping
bushes. The doe bounded in advance, and waited; the fawn scrambled
after her, slipping and tumbling along, very groggy yet on its
legs, and whining a good deal because its mother kept always moving
away from it.

Shortly came a sound that threw the doe into a panic of terror--a
short, sharp yelp, followed by a prolonged howl, caught up and
re-echoed by other bayings along the mountain-side. The doe knew
what that meant. One hound had caught her trail, and the whole pack
responded to the "view-halloo." The danger was certain now; it was
near. She could not crawl on in this way; the dogs would soon be
upon them. She turned again for flight: the fawn, scrambling after
her, tumbled over, and bleated piteously. The baying, now
emphasized by the yelp of certainty, came nearer. Flight with the
fawn was impossible. The doe returned ajad stood by it, head erect,
and nostrils distended. She stood perfectly still, but trembling.
Perhaps she was thinking. The fawn took advantage of the situation,
and began to draw his luncheon ration. The doe seemed to have made
up her mind. She let him finish. The fawn, having taken all he
wanted, lay down contentedly, and the doe licked him for a moment.
Then, with the swiftness of a bird, she dashed away, and in a
moment was lost in the forest. She went in the direction of the
hounds.

According to all human calculations, she was going into the jaws of
death. So she was: all human calculations are selfish. She kept
straight on, hearing the baying every moment more distinctly. She
descended the slope of the mountain until she reached the more open
forest of hard-wood. It was freer going here, and the cry of the
pack echoed more resoundingly in the great spaces. She was going
due east, when (judging by the sound, the hounds were not far off,
though they were still hidden by a ridge) she turned away toward
the north, and kept on at a good pace. In five minutes more she
heard the sharp, exultant yelp of discovery, and then the
deep-mouthed howl of pursuit. The hounds had struck her trail where
she turned, and the fawn was safe.

The doe was in good running condition, the ground was not bad, and
she felt the exhilaration of the chase. For the moment, fear left
her, and she bounded on with the exaltation of triumph. For a
quarter of an hour she went on at a slapping pace, clearing the
moose-bushes with bound after bound, flying over the fallen logs,
pausing neither for brook nor ravine. The baying of the hounds grew
fainter behind her. But she struck a bad piece of going, a
dead-wood slash. It was marvellous to see her skim over it, leaping
among its intricacies, and not breaking her slender legs. No other
living animal could do it. But it was killing work. She began to
pant fearfully; she lost ground. The baying of the hounds was
nearer. She climbed the hard-wood hill at a slower gait: but, once
on more level, free ground, her breath came back to her, and she
stretched away with new courage, and maybe a sort of contempt for
her heavy pursuers.

After running at a high speed perhaps half a mile further it
occurred to her that it would be safe now to turn to the west, and,
by a wide circuit, seek her fawn. But, at the moment, she heard a
sound that chilled her heart. It was the cry of a hound to the west
of her. The crafty brute had made the circuit of the slash, and cut
off her retreat. There was nothing to do but to keep on; and on she
went, still to the north, with the noise of the pack behind her. In
five minutes more she had passed into a hillside clearing. Cows and
young steers were grazing there. She heard a tinkle of bells. Below
her, down the mountain-slope, were other clearings, broken by
patches of woods. Fences intervened; and a mile or two down lay the
valley, the shining Ausable, and the peaceful farmhouses. That way
also her hereditary enemies were. Not a merciful heart in all that
lovely valley. She hesitated; it was only for an instant. She must
cross the Slidebrook Valley if possible, and gain the mountain
opposite.

The hunted doe went down "the open," clearing the fences
splendidly, flying along the stony path. It was a beautiful sight.
But consider what a shot it was! If the deer, now, could only have
been caught! No doubt there were tender-hearted people in the
valley who would have spared her life, shut her up in a stable, and
petted her.

The doe went on; she left the saw-mill on John's Brook to her
right; she turned into a wood-path. As she approached Slide Brook,
she saw a boy standing by a tree with a raised rifle. The dogs were
not in sight, but she could hear them coming down the hill. There
was no time for hesitation. With a tremendous burst of speed she
cleared the stream, and, as she touched the bank, heard the "ping"
of a rifle bullet in the air above her. The cruel sound gave wings
to the poor thing. In a moment more she was in the opening: she
leaped into the travelled road. Which way? Below her in the wood
was a load of hay: a man and a boy, with pitchforks in their hands,
were running toward her. She turned south, and flew along the
street. The town was up. Women and children ran to the doors and
windows; men snatched their rifles; shots were fired; at the big
boarding-houses, the summer boarders, who never have anything to
do, came out and cheered; a camp-stool was thrown from a veranda.
Some young fellows shooting at a mark in the meadow saw the flying
deer, and popped away at her: but they were accustomed to a mark
that stood still. It was all so sudden! There were twenty people
who were just going to shoot her when the doe leaped the road
fence, and went away across a marsh toward the foot-hills. It was a
fearful gantlet to run. But nobody except the deer considered it in
that light. Everybody told what he was just going to do! everybody
who had seen the performance was a kind of hero-everybody except
the deer.

The courage of the panting fugitive was not gone: she was game to
the tip of her high-bred ears. But the fearful pace at which she
had just been going told on her. Her legs trembled, and her heart
beat like a trip-hammer. She slowed her speed perforce, but still
fled industriously up the right bank of the stream. When she had
gone a couple of miles, and the dogs were evidently gaining again,
she crossed the broad, deep brook, climbed the steep, left bank,
and fled on in the direction of the Mount Marcy trail. The fording
of the river threw the hounds off for a time. She knew, by their
uncertain yelping up and down the opposite bank, that she had a
little respite; she used it, however, to push on until the baying
was faint in her ears; and then she dropped, exhausted, upon the
ground.

This rest, brief as it was, saved her life. Roused again by the
baying pack, she leaped forward with better speed, though without
that keen feeling of exhilarating flight that she had in the
morning. It was still a race for life; but the odds were in her
favor, she thought. She did not appreciate the dogged persistence
of the hounds, nor had any inspiration told her that the race is
not to the swift. She was a little confused in her mind where to
go; but an instinct kept her course to the left, and consequently
further away from her fawn. Going now slower, and now faster, as
the pursuit seemed more distant or nearer, she kept to the
southwest, crossed the stream again, left Panther Gorge on her
right, and ran on by Haystack and Skylight in the direction of the
Upper Ausable Pond. I do not know her exact course through this
maze of mountains, swamps, ravines, and frightful wildernesses. I
only know that the poor thing worked her way along painfully, with
sinking heart and unsteady limbs, lying down "dead-beat" at
intervals, and then spurred on by the cry of the remorseless dogs,
until, late in the afternoon, she staggered down the shoulder of a
Bartlett, and stood upon the shore of the lake. If she could put
that piece of water between her and her pursuers, she would be
safe. Had she strength to swim it?

At her first step into the water she saw a sight that sent her back
with a bound. There was a boat midlake; two men were in it. One was
rowing: the other had a gun in his hand. They were looking toward
her: they had seen her. (She did not know that they had heard the
baying of hounds on the mountains, and had been lying in wait for
her an hour.) What should she do? The hounds were drawing near. No
escape that way, even if she could still run. With only a moment's
hesitation she plunged into the lake, and struck obliquely across.
Her tired legs could not propel the tired body rapidly. She saw the
boat headed for her. She turned toward the centre of the lake. The
boat turned. She could hear the rattle of the oar-locks. It was
gaining on her. Then there was a silence. Then there was a splash
of the water just ahead of her, followed by a roar round the lake,
the words "Confound it all!" and a rattle of the oars again. The
doe saw the boat nearing her. She turned irresolutely to the shore
whence she came: the dogs were lapping the water, and howling
there. She turned again to the centre of the lake.

The brave, pretty creature was quite exhausted now. In a moment
more, with a rush of water, the boat was on her, and the man at the
oars had leaned over and caught her by the tail.

"Knock her on the head with that paddle!" he shouted to the
gentleman in the stern.

The gentleman _was_ a gentleman, with a kind, smooth-shaven
face, and might have been a minister of some sort of everlasting
gospel. He took the paddle in his hand. Just then the doe turned
her head, and looked at him with her great, appealing eyes.

"I can't do it! my soul, I can't do it!" and he dropped the paddle.
"Oh, let her go!"

"Oh, no!" was the only response of the guide as he slung the deer
round, whipped out his hunting-knife, and made a pass that severed
her jugular.

The buck returned about the middle of the afternoon. The fawn was
bleating piteously, hungry and lonesome. The buck was surprised. He
looked about in the forest. He took a circuit and came back. His
doe was nowhere to be seen. He looked down at the fawn in a
helpless sort of way. The fawn appealed for his supper. The buck
had nothing whatever to give his child--nothing but his sympathy. If
he said anything, this is what he said: "I'm the head of this
family; but, really, this is a novel case. I've nothing whatever
for you. I don't know what to do. I've the feelings of a father;
but you can't live on _them_. Let us travel."

The buck walked away: the little one toddled after him. They
disappeared in the forest.