Birds and Beasts 2

Birds and Beasts 2

The liking was reciprocal. From the very first Jack had taken a fancy to

the big woolly-coated dog, as woolly as a sheep, who never barked or

growled or grumbled or showed his teeth—so unlike the other dogs in the

menagerie; in the same way Murph, the big dog, had formed an affection

for the well-behaved, sad-faced little ape, who never pulled his tail

and never tried to scratch out his eyes.

 

As it happened, the showman had made up his mind to make them perform

together. Murph was the best runner in the troupe; there was nobody like

him for a round trot or a swinging gallop, for wheeling suddenly round

and dropping to his knees just before making his exit, nobody to match

Murph, always good-tempered and imperturbable, always on the look-out,

with his bright eyes half hid under the bushy eyebrows, for a bit of

sugar and a round of applause.

 

Jack, for his part, had very soon become a brilliant horseman, lissom

and fearless, an adept at leaping through the hoops and vaulting the

bars. Thus the two seemed made for each other, both in body and mind.

They bore the hardships of the life together, and they shared its

successes; by dint of standing so often back against back and muzzle

against muzzle, they found their hearts brought close together too, and

became fast friends. Murph was never to be seen without Jack; wherever

Jack was, Murph was there as well; they lived curled up on the same rug,

in the same corner, under the same table, Murph licking Jack in the

neck, and Jack stroking Murph’s nose, each bound to each in perfect

trust and amity.

 

 

V

 

Murph was older than Jack by nearly nine years, and his years made him

nearly as serious-minded as his friend. But it was a different sort of

gravity. Murph was neither morose nor disillusioned; his was the gentle

seriousness of old age. He had seen many things since he had been in the

world, but life did not appear to have left only its dregs in him. He

still believed in springtide, in friendship, in the master’s kind heart;

then he had neither family nor native land to regret, for he had been

born in the menagerie of a father and mother broken in like himself to

circle the trapeze and leap through the hoop.

 

His horizon was bounded by the four walls of the caravan in which, as a

puppy still sucking at his mother’s breast, he had been carted from fair

to fair. Day by day he had watched from behind the window-panes the long

procession of cities and countries filing past; he had visited most

parts of Europe, in company with the strange _omnium-gatherum_ of apes,

goats, parrots, and dogs that at each halting-place was the delight of

the infant population. But he had never taken it upon him to covet the

kingdom of this world; he had never craved to roam at liberty through

the streets; never, in one word, had he so much as dreamt of playing

truant. He was a very learned dog, and, like other learned people, he

lived absorbed in his own thoughts, self-centred within the circle of

his meditations, seeking nothing of things outside.

 

 

VI

 

Murph was a poodle by breed, and you might have searched long before you

found a bigger or better-built one. Standing well on his legs, with a

good, strong, supple back of his own, he carried his head high, as a

self-respecting poodle should. I mean, of course, in the days when Murph

was still young, for since age had crept on him, it _would_ droop more

or less; but even so, there was something proud and dignified about its

carriage that always attracted attention. He walked slowly and sedately,

as if intent on the solution of an ever-insoluble problem. His thick,

curly fleece clothed his neck like a mane, while a stout pair of long

drooping moustaches gave him the look of an old cavalry officer; his

skin was smooth and polished where the coat had been cut very close; he

wore heavy ruffles round his ankles, and his tail ended in a woolly

tuft.

 

Thus accoutred, Murph was a fine-looking dog; the curs of low degree

that came prowling round the van, and caught a glimpse of him through

the crack of the door, gazed at him with admiration. He had the majestic

port of beings destined to greatness; it was easy to see he might have

been a diplomatist, or a great general, if nature, in fashioning his

lot, had not chosen rather to give him the shape of a poodle; nor was

Murph slow to appreciate and enjoy the impression he produced.

 

Fine fellow as he was, he was not altogether free from vanity; the

humblest animal with which Murph compared himself was the lion; he had

seen one once in a travelling menagerie, and been struck by his own

likeness to the king of beasts. Why, had he not, like the lion, a mane

about his neck, a tuft to his tail, and bracelets of hair about his

ankles? Had he not likewise his Olympian look and superb carriage? By

dint of a little imagination, Murph had come to believe the lion a

degenerated type of poodle dog.

 

But let us pass lightly over his foibles; every one has his little

weaknesses. Time, moreover, that damps the foolish ardour of mankind and

dogkind, had tamed our friend’s ambitions. He was by now as

contemplative and calm as some wise philosopher satiated with the

glories of this world. More often on his back than on his feet, he would

watch the younger dogs, his juniors in the profession, capering and

giving themselves the airs of a drum-major heading his regiment, without

any other feeling towards them but one of kindly indulgence; and if any

one else was disposed to rebuke them, he would shake his head, as much

as to say, “There, there, we have all of us done the like in our day!”

 

 

VII

 

Jack had come as a solace to his old age; he had loved him as a friend,

almost as a son, with a truly fatherly affection.

 

This little suffering, delicate creature, so morbidly nervous and

excitable, had roused in him some mysterious instinct of protection,

that had grown little by little and ended by forming an unbreakable bond

of brotherhood. Ceaselessly he watched over his protégé, sheltered him,

defended him, kept for him the best of his bodily heat and his warm

heart. If a bullying animal ran after Jack, in one bound the latter was

beside Murph, who would show a determined front, that soon sent the

would-be tormentor to the right-about. One day, indeed, Murph, usually

so good-tempered, showed his teeth to the master himself, who, for some

small fault, had thought good to lift his whip at the little monkey. If

Jack was a-cold—and he was always shivering, blow the wind from what

quarter it might—quick he would slip between Murph’s paws and cuddle

against his breast in the warm, cosy place. Murph was Jack’s special

providence.

 

Thus they had been living for nearly half-a-dozen years. Never a cloud

had dimmed their good accord; never an angry snap of the teeth—never a

pettish fit; mankind might have taken a lesson in the art of friendship

from them. Thus they had grown old, loving, fondling, helping each

other, making between them the prettiest happy family ever known in the

world, never weary one of the other, but realising the ideal of the most

perfect union.

 

Mutual esteem further increased their affection. Murph had never seen an

ape more alert and clever, more intelligent and active than Jack; he

would gladly have stood for hours watching him performing his tricks,

clinging to the cords with his delicate, dry little hands, then hurling

himself into space to alight again on his feet, or else holding on by

his tail and swinging from earth to heaven on the trapeze.

 

On his side Jack—Jack the cynic, whose lack-lustre eyes seemed incapable

of any curiosity—admired his friend Murph as a creature of extraordinary

gifts.

 

And what wonderful things the good dog could do, to be sure! I have

mentioned some of them; I could tell of many others. Murph could climb a

ladder; Murph could walk along a line of bottle necks; Murph could nose

out the prettiest lady in the audience; Murph could play the

cornet-à-piston; Murph could smoke a pipe; Murph was almost a man.

 

 

VIII

 

It did one good to see him “come on,” a big pink bow knotted in the

tufts that adorned his tail. He would enter gravely, bow politely to

right and left, then cast a questioning look at his master, quite

motionless the while, except for a slight quiver of the tail, waiting

for the conclusion of the introductory remarks which the “old man” never

failed to address to the audience. At last came the loud “Hi,

Murph!”—and the good dog began his evening’s work.

 

He could have given points to the most experienced actors by his aplomb,

his punctiliousness, his patient and never-flagging attention. Nothing

ever distracted him from his part. Wags would amuse themselves sometimes

by offering him a lump of sugar, or even pitch a sausage or a cake right

between his paws; but Murph was adamant against such temptations. How

the crowd cheered and clapped hands and stamped feet when he went

bounding from hoop to hoop, so supple and nimble and self-possessed,

never losing step or missing a spring, striking the paper with his head

fair and square in the middle every time, crashing through and landing

again on his feet, gravely and yet so elegantly.

 

His tricks finished, he would repeat his bows to right and left, still

quite sedate and unintoxicated by the thunders of applause. The fact is,

Murph respected both his audience and himself; he knew how to keep his

feelings to himself—how different from those ill-trained dogs that yelp

and bark and lose their heads in the hurly-burly, quite forgetting that

the finest thing on earth is to take one’s triumph modestly.

 

 

IX

 

But Murph was particularly admirable in the tricks he went through with

Jack. Each of the two friends seemed made to help out the other, and

each vied with the other in sacrificing himself to enhance the general

effect. Now it was “Mazeppa’s ride”; you know—Mazeppa bound on the back

of his fiery charger and borne on and on in wild career over the steppes

in a whirlwind of flying stones and smothering dust. Now it was a