Lang Andrew
The Animal Story Book
VIII
Before going out to shoot that day, I thought it only right to give M. Charpillon an account of Pritchard’s proceedings. He regarded him, therefore with mingled feelings, in which admiration was more prominent than sympathy, and it was agreed that on our return the dog should be shut up in the stable, and that the stable-door should be bolted and padlocked. Pritchard, unsuspicious of our designs, ran on in front with a proud step and with his tail in the air.
‘You know,’ said Charpillon, ‘that neither men nor dogs are allowed to go into the vineyards. I ought as a magistrate to set an example, and Gaignez still more, as he is the mayor. So mind you keep in Pritchard.’
‘All right,’ said I, ‘I will keep him in.’
But Michel, approaching, suggested that I should send Pritchard home with him. ‘It would be safer,’ he said. ‘We are quite near the house, and I have a notion that he might get us into some scrape by hunting in the vineyards.’
‘Don’t be afraid, Michel; I have thought of a plan to prevent him.’
Michel touched his hat. ‘I know you are clever, sir – very clever; but I don’t think you are as clever as that!’
‘Wait till you see.’
‘Indeed, sir, you will have to be quick, for there is Pritchard hunting already.’
We were just in time to see Pritchard disappear into a vineyard, and a moment afterwards he raised a covey of partridges.
‘Call in your dog,’ cried Gaignez.
I called Pritchard, who, however, turned a deaf ear.
‘Catch him,’ said I to Michel.
Michel went, and returned in a few minutes with Pritchard in a leash. In the meantime I had found a long stake, which I hung crosswise round his neck, and let him go loose with this ornament. Pritchard understood that he could no longer go through the vineyards, but the stake did not prevent his hunting, and he only went a good deal further off on the open ground.
From this moment there was only one shout all along the line.
‘Hold in your dog, confound him!’
‘Keep in your Pritchard, can’t you! He’s sending all the birds out of shot!’
‘Look here! Would you mind my putting a few pellets into your brute of a dog? How can anybody shoot if he won’t keep in?’
‘Michel,’ said I, ‘catch Pritchard again.’
‘I told you so, sir. Luckily we are not far from the house; I can still take him back.’
‘Not at all. I have a second idea. Catch Pritchard.’
‘After all,’ said Michel, ‘this is nearly as good fun as if we were shooting.’
And by-and-bye he came back, dragging Pritchard by his stake. Pritchard had a partridge in his mouth.
‘Look at him, the thief!’ said Michel. ‘He has carried off M. Gaignez’s partridge – I see him looking for it.’
‘Put the partridge in your game-bag, Michel; we will give him a surprise.’
Michel hesitated. ‘But,’ said he, ‘think of the opinion this rascal will have of you!’
‘What, Michel? do you think Pritchard has a bad opinion of me?’
‘Oh, sir! a shocking opinion.’
‘But what makes you think so?’
‘Why, sir, do you not think that Pritchard knows in his soul and conscience that when he brings you a bird that another gentleman has shot, he is committing a theft?’
‘I think he has an idea of it, certainly, Michel.’
‘Well, then, sir, if he knows he is a thief, he must take you for a receiver of stolen goods. Look at the articles of the Code; it is said there that receivers are equally guilty with thieves, and should be similarly punished.’
‘Michel, you open my eyes to a whole vista of terrors. But we are going to try to cure Pritchard of hunting. When he is cured of hunting, he will be cured of stealing.’
‘Michel, you open my eyes to a whole vista of terrors. But we are going to try to cure Pritchard of hunting. When he is cured of hunting, he will be cured of stealing.’
‘Never, sir! You will never cure Pritchard of his vices.’
Still I pursued my plan, which was to put Pritchard’s fore-leg through his collar. By this means, his right fore-foot being fastened to his neck, and his left hind-foot being cut off, he had only two to run with, the left fore-foot and the right hind-foot.
‘Well, indeed,’ said Michel, ‘if he can hunt now, the devil is in it.’
He loosed Pritchard, who stood for a moment as if astonished, but once he had balanced himself he began to walk, then to trot; then, as he found his balance better, he succeeded in running quicker on his two legs than many dogs would have done on four.
‘Where are we now, sir?’ said Michel.
‘It’s that beast of a stake that balances him!’ I replied, a little disappointed. ‘We ought to teach him to dance upon the tight-rope – he would make our fortunes as an acrobat.’
‘You are joking again, sir. But listen! do you hear that?’
The most terrible imprecations against Pritchard were resounding on all sides. The imprecations were followed by a shot, then by a howl of pain.
‘That is Pritchard’s voice,’ said Michel. ‘Well, it is no more than he deserves.’
Pritchard reappeared the next moment with a hare in his mouth.
‘Michel, you said that was Pritchard that howled.’
‘I would swear to it, sir.’
‘But how could he howl with a hare in his mouth?’
Michel scratched his head. ‘It was he all the same,’ he said, and he went to look at Pritchard.
‘Oh, sir!’ he said, ‘I was right. The gentleman he took the hare from has shot him. His hind-leg is all over blood. Look! there is M. Charpillon running after his hare.’
‘You know that I have just put some pellets into your Pritchard?’ Charpillon called out as soon as he saw me.
‘You did quite right.’
‘He carried off my hare.’
‘There! You see,’ said Michel, ‘it is impossible to cure him.’
‘But when he carried away your hare, he must have had it in his mouth?’
‘Of course. Where else would he have it?’
‘But how could he howl with a hare in his mouth?’
‘He put it down to howl, then he took it up again and made off.’
‘There’s deceit for you, gentlemen!’ exclaimed Michel.
Pritchard succeeded in bringing the hare to me, but when he reached me he had to lie down.
‘I say,’ said Charpillon, ‘I hope I haven’t hurt him more than I intended – it was a long shot.’ And forgetting his hare, Charpillon knelt down to examine Pritchard’s wound. It was a serious one; Pritchard had received five or six pellets about the region of his tail, and was bleeding profusely.
‘Oh, poor beast!’ cried Charpillon. ‘I wouldn’t have fired that shot for all the hares in creation if I had known.’
‘Bah!’ said Michel; ‘he won’t die of it.’ And, in fact, Pritchard, after spending three weeks with the vet. at St. – Germains, returned to Monte Cristo perfectly cured, and with his tail in the air once more.
IX
Soon after the disastrous event which I have just related the revolution of 1848 occurred in France, in which King Louis Philippe was dethroned and a republic established. You will ask what the change of government had to do with my beasts? Well, although, happily, they do not trouble their heads about politics, the revolution did affect them a good deal; for the French public, being excited by these occurrences, would not buy my books, preferring to read the ‘Guillotine,’ the ‘Red Republic,’ and such like corrupt periodicals; so that I became for the time a very much poorer man. I was obliged greatly to reduce my establishment. I sold my three horses and two carriages for a quarter of their value, and I presented the Last of the Laidmanoirs, Potich, and Mademoiselle Desgarcins to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. I had to move into a smaller house, but my monkeys were lodged in a palace; this is a sort of thing that sometimes happens after a revolution. Mysouff also profited by it, for he regained his liberty on the departure of the monkeys.
As to Diogenes, the vulture, I gave him to my worthy neighbour Collinet, who keeps the restaurant Henri IV., and makes such good cutlets à la Béarnaise. There was no fear of Diogenes dying of hunger under his new master’s care; on the contrary, he improved greatly in health and beauty, and, doubtless as a token of gratitude to Collinet, he laid an egg for him every year, a thing he never dreamt of doing for me. Lastly, we requested Pritchard to cease to keep open house, and to discontinue his daily invitations to strange dogs to dine and sleep. I was obliged to give up all thoughts of shooting that year. It is true that Pritchard still remained to me, but then Pritchard, you must recollect, had only three feet; he had been badly hurt when he was shot by Charpillon, and the revolution of February had occasioned the loss of one eye.
It happened one day during that exciting period, that Michel was so anxious to see what was going on that he forgot to give Pritchard his dinner. Pritchard therefore invited himself to dine with the vulture, but Diogenes, being of a less sociable turn, and not in a humour to be trifled with, dealt poor Pritchard such a blow with his beak as to deprive him of one of his mustard-coloured eyes. Pritchard’s courage was unabated; he might be compared to that brave field marshal of whom it was said that Mars had left nothing of him whole except his heart. But it was difficult, you see, to make much use of a dog with so many infirmities. If I had wished to sell him I could not have found a purchaser, nor would he have been considered a handsome present had I desired to give him away. I had no choice, then, but to make this old servant, badly as he had sometimes served me, a pensioner, a companion, in fact a friend. Some people told me that I might have tied a stone round his neck and flung him into the river; others, that it was easy enough to replace him by buying a good retriever from Vatrin; but although I was not yet poor enough to drown Pritchard, neither was I rich enough to buy another dog. However, later in that very year, I made an unexpected success in literature, and one of my plays brought me in a sufficient sum to take a shooting in the department of Yonne. I went to look at this shooting, taking Pritchard with me. In the meantime my daughter wrote to tell me that she had bought an excellent retriever for five pounds, named Catinat, and that she was keeping him in the stable until my return. As soon as I arrived, my first care was to make Catinat’s acquaintance. He was a rough, vigorous dog of three or four years old, thoughtless, violent, and quarrelsome. He jumped upon me till he nearly knocked me down, upset my daughter’s work-table, and dashed about the room to the great danger of my china vases and ornaments. I therefore called Michel and informed him that the superficial acquaintance which I had made with Catinat would suffice for the time, and that I would defer the pleasure of his further intimacy until the shooting season began at Auxerre.
Poor Michel, as soon as he saw Catinat, had been seized with a presentiment of evil.
‘Sir,’ he said, ‘that dog will bring some misfortune upon us. I do not know yet what, but something will happen, I know it will!’
‘In the meantime, Michel,’ I said, ‘you had better take Catinat back to the stable.’ But Catinat had already left the room of his own accord and rushed downstairs to the dining-room, where I had left Pritchard. Now Pritchard never could endure Catinat from the first moment he saw him; the two dogs instantly flew at one another with so much fury that Michel was obliged to call me to his assistance before we could separate them. Catinat was once more shut up in the stable, and Pritchard conducted to his kennel in the stable-yard, which, in the absence of carriages and horses, was now a poultry-yard, inhabited by my eleven hens and my cock Cæsar. Pritchard’s friendship with the hens continued to be as strong as ever, and the household suffered from a scarcity of eggs in consequence. That evening, while my daughter and I were walking in the garden, Michel came to meet us, twisting his straw hat between his fingers, a sure sign that he had something important to say.
‘Well, what is it, Michel?’ I asked.
‘It came into my mind, sir,’ he answered, ‘while I was taking Pritchard to his kennel, that we never have any eggs because Pritchard eats them; and he eats them because he is in direct communication with the hens.’
‘It is evident, Michel, that if Pritchard never went into the poultry-yard, he would not eat the eggs.’
‘Then, do you not think, sir,’ continued Michel, ‘that if we shut up Pritchard in the stable and put Catinat into the poultry-yard, it would be better? Catinat is an animal without education, so far as I know; but he is not such a thief as Pritchard.’
‘Do you know what will happen if you do that, Michel?’ I said. ‘Catinat will not eat the eggs, perhaps, but he will eat the hens.’
‘If a misfortune like that were to occur, I know a method of curing him of eating hens.’
‘Well – but in the meantime the hens would be eaten.’
Scarcely had I uttered these words, when a frightful noise was heard in the stable-yard, as loud as that of a pack of hounds in full cry, but mingled with howls of rage and pain which indicated a deadly combat.
‘Michel!’ I cried, ‘do you hear that?’
‘Oh yes, I hear it,’ he answered, ‘but those must be the neighbours’ dogs fighting.’
‘Michel, those are Catinat and Pritchard killing each other!’
‘Impossible, sir – I have separated them.’
‘Well, then, they have met again.’
‘It is true,’ said Michel, ‘that scoundrel Pritchard can open the stable-door as well as any one.’
‘Then, you see, Pritchard is a dog of courage; he’ll have opened the stable-door for Catinat on purpose to fight him. Be quick, Michel, I am really afraid one of them will be killed.’
Michel darted into the passage which led to the stable, and no sooner had he disappeared than I knew from the lamentations which I heard that some misfortune had happened. In a minute or two Michel reappeared sobbing bitterly and carrying Pritchard in his arms.
‘Look, sir! just look!’ he said; ‘this is the last we shall see of Pritchard – look what your fine sporting dog has done to him. Catinat, indeed! it is Catilina he should be called!’
I ran up to Pritchard, full of concern – I had a great love for him, though he had often made me angry. He was a dog of much originality, and the unexpected things he did were only a proof of genius.
‘What do you think is the matter?’ I asked Michel.
‘The matter? – the matter is that he is dead!’
‘Oh no, surely not!’
‘Anyhow, he’ll never be good for anything again.’ And he laid him on the ground at my feet.
‘Pritchard, my poor Pritchard!’ I cried.
At the sound of my voice, Pritchard opened his yellow eye and looked sorrowfully at me, then stretched out his four legs, gave one sigh, and died. Catinat had bitten his throat quite through, so that his death was almost immediate.
‘Well, Michel,’ said I, ‘it is not a good servant, it is a good friend that we have lost. You must wash him carefully – you shall have a towel to wrap him in – you shall dig his grave in the garden and we will have a tombstone made for him on which shall be engraved this epitaph:
‘Like conquering Rantzau, of courage undaunted,
Pritchard, to thee Mars honour has granted,
On each field of fight of a limb he bereft thee,
Till nought but thy gallant heart scatheless was left thee.’
As my habit was, I sought consolation for my grief in literary labours. Michel endeavoured to assuage his with the help of two bottles of red wine, with which, mingled with his tears, he watered the grave of the departed. I know this because when I came out early next morning to see if my wishes with regard to Pritchard’s burial had been carried out, I found Michel stretched upon the ground, still in tears, and the two bottles empty by his side.
THE ADVENTURES OF PYRAMUS
Pyramus was a large brown dog, born of a good family, who had been given, when a mere pup, to Alexandre Dumas, the great French novelist, then quite a young man. Now the keeper to whom Pyramus first belonged had also a tiny little fox-cub without any relations about the place, so both fox-cub and dog-pup were handed over to the same mother, who brought them up side by side, until they were able to do for themselves. So when the keeper made young Dumas a present of Pyramus, he thought he had better bestow Cartouche on him as well.
Of course it is hardly necessary to say that these fine names were not invented by the keeper, who had never heard of either Pyramus or Cartouche, but were given to his pets by Dumas, after he had spent a little time in observing their characters.
Certainly it was a very curious study. Here were two animals, who had never been apart since they were born, and were now living together in two kennels side by side in the court-yard of the house, and yet after the first three or four months, when they were mere babies, every day showed some difference, and soon they ceased to be friends at all and became open enemies.
The earliest fight known to have taken place between them happened in this way. One day some bones were thrown by accident within the bounds of Cartouche’s territory, and though if they belonged to anybody, it was clearly Cartouche, Pyramus resolved most unfairly to get hold of them. The first time Pyramus tried secretly to commit this act of piracy, Cartouche growled; the second time he showed his teeth; the third time he bit.
It must be owned that Cartouche had shown some excuse for his violent behaviour, because he always remained chained up, whereas Pyramus was allowed certain hours of liberty; and it was during one of these that he made up his mind to steal the bones from Cartouche, whose chain (he thought) would prevent any attempt at reprisals. Indeed, he even tried to make out to his conscience that probably the bones were not dainty enough for Cartouche, who loved delicate food, whereas anything was good enough for him, Pyramus. However, whether he wanted to eat the bones or not, Cartouche had no intention of letting them be stolen from him, and having managed to drive off Pyramus on the first occasion, he determined to get safely hold of the bones before his enemy was unchained again.
Now the chains of each were the same length, four feet, and in addition to that, Pyramus had a bigger head and longer nose than Cartouche, who was much smaller altogether. So it follows that when they were both chained up, Pyramus could stretch farther towards any object that lay at an equal distance between their kennels. Pyramus knew this, and so he counted on always getting the better of Cartouche.
But Cartouche had not been born a fox for nothing, and he watched with a scornful expression the great Pyramus straining at his chain with his eyes nearly jumping out of his head with greed and rage. ‘Really,’ said Cartouche to himself, ‘if he goes on like that much longer, I shall have a mad dog for a neighbour before the day is out. Let me see if I can’t manage better.’ But as we know, being a much smaller animal than Pyramus, his nose did not come nearly so close to the bones; and after one or two efforts to reach the tempting morsel which was lying about six feet from each kennel, he gave it up, and retired to his warm bed, hoping that he might somehow hit upon some idea which would enable him to reach the ‘bones of contention.’
All at once he jumped up, for after hard thought he had got what he wanted. He trotted merrily to the length of his chain, and now it was Pyramus’s turn to look on and to think with satisfaction: ‘Well, if I can’t get them, you can’t either, which is a comfort.’
But gradually his grin of delight changed into a savage snarl, as Cartouche turned himself round when he had got to the end of his chain, and stretching out his paw, hooked the bone which he gradually drew within reach, and before Pyramus had recovered from his astonishment, Cartouche had got possession of all the bones and was cracking them with great enjoyment inside his kennel.It may seem very unjust that Cartouche was always kept chained up, while Pyramus was allowed to roam about freely, but the fact was that Pyramus only ate or stole when he was really hungry, while Cartouche was by nature the murderer of everything he came across. One day he broke his chain and ran off to the fowl-yard of Monsieur Mauprivez, who lived next door. In less than ten minutes he had strangled seventeen hens and two cocks: nineteen corpses in all! It was impossible to find any ‘extenuating circumstances’ in his favour. He was condemned to death and promptly executed.
But gradually his grin of delight changed into a savage snarl, as Cartouche turned himself round when he had got to the end of his chain, and stretching out his paw, hooked the bone which he gradually drew within reach, and before Pyramus had recovered from his astonishment, Cartouche had got possession of all the bones and was cracking them with great enjoyment inside his kennel.
It may seem very unjust that Cartouche was always kept chained up, while Pyramus was allowed to roam about freely, but the fact was that Pyramus only ate or stole when he was really hungry, while Cartouche was by nature the murderer of everything he came across. One day he broke his chain and ran off to the fowl-yard of Monsieur Mauprivez, who lived next door. In less than ten minutes he had strangled seventeen hens and two cocks: nineteen corpses in all! It was impossible to find any ‘extenuating circumstances’ in his favour. He was condemned to death and promptly executed.
Henceforth Pyramus reigned alone, and it is sad to think that he seemed to enjoy it, and even that his appetite grew bigger.
It is bad enough for any dog to have an appetite like Pyramus when he was at home, but when he was out shooting, and should have been doing his duty as a retriever, this fault became a positive vice. Whatever might be the first bird shot by his master, whether it happened to be partridge or pheasant, quail or snipe, down it would go into Pyramus’s wide throat. It was seldom, indeed, that his master arrived in time to see even the last feathers.
A smart blow from a whip kept him in order all the rest of the day, and it was very rarely that he sinned twice in this way while on the same expedition, but unluckily before the next day’s shooting came round, he had entirely forgotten all about his previous caning, and justice had to be done again.
On two separate occasions, however, Pyramus’s greediness brought its own punishment. One day his master was shooting with a friend in a place where a small wood had been cut down early in the year, and after the low shrubs had been sawn in pieces and bound in bundles, the grass was left to grow into hay, and this hay was now in process of cutting. The shooting party reached the spot just at the time that the reapers were having their dinner and taking their midday rest, and one of the reapers had laid his scythe against a little stack of wood about three feet high. At this moment a snipe got up, and M. Dumas fired and killed it. It fell on the other side of the stack of wood against which the scythe was leaning.
As it was the first bird he had killed that day, he knew of course that it would become the prey of Pyramus, so he did not hurry himself to go after it, but watched with amusement, Pyramus tearing along, even jumping over the stack in his haste.
But when after giving the dog the usual time to swallow his fat morsel, Monsieur did not see Pyramus coming back to him as usual in leaps and bounds, he began to wonder what could have happened, and made hastily for the stack of wood behind which he had disappeared. There he found the unlucky Pyramus lying on the ground, with the point of the scythe right through his neck. The blood was pouring from the wound, and he lay motionless, with the snipe dead on the ground about six inches from his nose.
The two men raised him as gently as possible, and carried him to the river, and here they bathed the wound with water. They then folded a pocket-handkerchief into a band, and tied it tightly round his neck to staunch the blood, and when this was done, and they were wondering how to get him home, a peasant fortunately passed driving a donkey with two panniers, and he was laid in one of the panniers and taken to the nearest village, where he was put safely into a carriage.
For eight days Pyramus lay between life and death. For a whole month his head hung on one side, and it was only after six weeks (which seems like six years to a dog) that he was able to run about as usual, and appeared to have forgotten his accident.
Only, whenever he saw a scythe he made a long round to avoid coming in contact with it.
Some time afterwards he returned to the house with his body as full of holes as a sieve. On this occasion he was taking a walk through the forest, and, seeing a goat feeding, jumped at its throat. The goat screamed loudly, and the keeper, who was smoking at a little distance off, ran to his help; but before he could come up the goat was half dead. On hearing the steps of the keeper, and on listening to his strong language, Pyramus understood very well that this stout man dressed in blue would have something very serious to say to him, so he stretched his legs to their fullest extent, and started off like an arrow from a bow. But, as Man Friday long ago remarked, ‘My little ball of lead can run faster than thou,’ the keeper’s little ball of lead ran faster than Pyramus, and that is how he came home with all the holes in his body.
There is no denying that Pyramus was a very bad dog, and as his master was fond of him, it is impossible to believe that he can always have been hungry, as, for instance, when he jumped up in a butcher’s shop to steal a piece of meat and got the hook on which it was hung through his own jaws, so that someone had to come and unhook him. But hungry or not, Monsieur Dumas had no time to be perpetually getting him out of scrapes, and when a few months later an Englishman who wanted a sporting dog took a fancy to Pyramus, his master was not altogether sorry to say good-bye.
