Birds and Beasts 10

Birds and Beasts 10

Chirp! chirp! chirp!_ he would say in his shrill treble. It was at once

an appeal to his mistress to give him more, and a way of thanking her

for the trouble she took in feeding him.

 

His impudent little beak would dive into every single thing—bread, salt,

salad, the hollow of his mistress’s hand, poking everywhere, filching

bits from her very lips, never still for an instant. Teasing, defying,

thieving, he was in perpetual motion, as his brethren are among the

leaves of the forest trees.

 

They drank out of the same cup, ate off the same plate. Ah! but Monsieur

Friquet had his wilful moods too at times; _he_ was not the fellow to be

satisfied with everything; now it was the bread he refused with a little

decided peck that said as plain as words: “I won’t have it!”—now it was

the egg, or the salad, or something else. You see, he knew quite well,

did Monsieur Friquet, there was a biscuit waiting for him in the

cupboard, and he was inordinately fond of biscuit.

 

Sunday was a special festival.

 

Up betimes as usual, for workgirls are never lie-abeds, Claire would set

to rights the disorder of the week, tripping on tip-toe about the room,

not to wake Monsieur Friquet, who was snoring in a corner, a fat ball of

feathers, with his head under his wing.

 

“Monsieur Friquet won’t be awake for another hour,” she would think to

herself. “I shall have time enough to set all straight”—and she would

set to work, dusting, sweeping, washing the floor, happy in the prospect

of the coming Sunday that would release her a while from her chain of

servitude.

 

At last the bird would wake up, and there would be quick cries of: “Good

morning, Monsieur Friquet! How have you slept?”

 

“Chirp! chirp!” would come the answer.

 

And she would reply—

 

“Oh! so have I—excellently, thank you.”

 

Then breakfast would be served at once. He would come to table still

half asleep, with heavy eyes, to be scolded and fondled and chided.

 

“Lazybones! why, it’s close on eight o’clock!”

 

But he would hop on her shoulder, and put his little round head to her

lips as if to ask pardon.

 

Then they would talk of serious matters.

 

“Monsieur Friquet! I say, Monsieur Friquet!”

 

“Chirp! chirp!”—which meant: “Well, what? I’m all attention!”

 

“Monsieur Friquet, I want your advice. What shall we have to eat for

Sunday?”

 

“Chirp!”

 

“I hear you! Biscuit! biscuit! But people can’t live only on biscuit! We

must have something else _to go with it_. Suppose we bought a couple of

artichokes! Do you like artichokes, Monsieur Friquet? Yes? Ah! I knew an

artichoke would please you. Wait here for me, and I’ll run round to the

greengrocer’s.”

 

So the Sunday wore away in happy play and merry nonsense between the

pair.

 

What more was needed to transform the sharp thorns of pain into fragrant

roses of content? She had invested the bold little chattering fellow

with all the treasures of her tenderness; on him she lavished all her

care and devotion; he was father and mother and family to her, and where

he was, was home.

 

They lived long and happily together, and their love was never

interrupted.

 

[Illustration: A LOST DOG]

 

 

 

 

A Lost Dog

 

 

I

 

Have you ever noticed the melancholy pensive look masterless dogs assume

at the hour when the press thins, and the passers-by slacken their pace

on the side-walks, like waters from a tap running dry?

 

As the silence deepens they appear from every side, these poor,

friendless beasts, their meagre forms slinking through the fog and

gloom; up and down the streets they prowl, noses to the ground, and

tails drooping, like so many lost souls. Some have sound legs to run on,

others can hardly drag themselves along; but all have hollow flanks and

protruding ribs. They are out in search of food, nosing in the refuse

heaps, scratching in the mud, filching from the scavengers bones as

fleshless as themselves.

 

What the world lets fall from its table is still a banquet for their

starving bellies. They are not hard to please; till the wan light of

dawn surprises them, they hunt the streets, rain-soaked and

frost-bitten; then they creep back into mysterious holes and corners,

where they curl themselves up in a round and sleep away the livelong

day.

 

Most of them are wild and shy, for they have only known the blackest

side of life—cuffs and kicks, wretchedness and desertion. For them no

hope survives the shipwreck of friendships betrayed; alone they live and

alone they creep into a hole to die—creatures of the dunghill whose

obsequies will be performed by the scavenger’s cart.

 

But if some are discouraged and disillusioned, there are bolder spirits

too who will sometimes, when they hear the steps of a belated wayfarer,

tear themselves from the heap they are foraging in and stand panting and

eager in the dark street, with the desperate eye of a swimmer looking

out across the raging foam in search of a port of safety. Hope is not

yet dead in _them_; they still have faith in mankind, and each shadowy

form that emerges in the light of the gas-lamps entices them as offering

promise of a home. For hours they will trot, with a humble, gentle,

deprecating gait, at the heels of a casual passer-by, a shadow among

shadows, dogging his steps to the last, hoping against hope. It is a

_friend_ they are fain to run to earth; but alas! the chase is one that

is repeated night after night—and it is almost always unsuccessful. More

often than not, the pursued has no inkling even of the dumb escort that

attends him through the night.

 

How _should_ he know? Behind his back the dog treads noiselessly, with

paws of velvet and nose to earth, checking his pace when the stranger

slackens his, stopping when he stops, bit by bit learning his walk and

ways. At last, when he has journeyed far through the dark streets, when

his legs ache with pursuing under the wayfarer’s form a dream that is

never to come true, a door will interpose, a ponderous, an impassable

barrier between him and his fond hopes. Yet, who can tell? perhaps he

will still linger on, shivering, till daylight, so unconquerable is his

faith in man.

 

It was one of these hopeful but unappreciated souls that encountered an

old schoolmaster one night, when the latter had tarried late in the

fields outside the fortifications, anxious to assist at the noble

spectacle the sun gives gratuitously to one and all, as he sets in the

glowing west.

 

He was returning by the boulevards, his heart full of these glories no

fireworks have ever yet been invented to match; as he jogged along, he

was thinking of God’s goodness, who every night lights up these ruddy

lamps of the sky to make fine flame-coloured curtains for the slumbers

of His creatures.

 

A little black dog, the ugliest little dog you ever saw, without ears

and without a tail, or as good as without, saw the solitary stranger.

Did he divine perhaps beneath the man’s easy, good-natured exterior a

fellow-sufferer, the heart of a disappointed, disillusioned being like

himself? Sometimes animals can see very far into things.

 

At any rate he started off in pursuit.

 

The stranger noticed nothing, but marched along, striding over gutters

and stamping across pavements, knocking sometimes against benches and

trees in his preoccupation. It had been raining for an hour past, as it

does come down in spring, in floods of warm soaking rain and sudden

showers that wetted man and dog to the skin, without either one or the

other being much disturbed.

 

Absent-minded as he was, the old man presently felt something rubbing

softly against his leg, and, looking down, was surprised to see the

wretched-looking cur beside him.

 

It was crawling and cringing, and with little half-stifled barks seemed

to be appealing to the generosity of this unknown friend, perhaps less

hard-hearted than the generality of mankind.

 

Many people, seeing what a hideous beast it was, would have said “No,

no!” at once. But it was just the creature’s hideousness that moved the

worthy man’s pity irresistibly. Touched by its repulsive looks, he

guessed at the pitiful hardships the wretched animal must have borne in

secret. He saw its sunken flanks, its mangy coat, its sharp-ridged back,

and loved it with a sudden ardour of affection—the affection poor

suffering folks feel for one another. All very well for happy people to

test and try one another for ever so long to see if they suit each

other, but they who have nothing to lose by mutual affection make no

bones about clapping hand in hand straight away and swearing eternal

friendship.

 

And so it was with these two new comrades.

 

Both were poor, and they fraternised at once. The dog was enchanted to

have met a kind stranger to help him in his need, while his benefactor

thought to himself how pleasant it would be to have the faithful