Part 8

Zoe nearly had a bad accident once, in consequence of her fondness for coming into the house. I was sitting on the steps at the door and playing with her, when suddenly she bounced away from me and ran into the drawing-room. I pursued her, and she, knowing she was wrong, ran farther, saw a way of escape, and jumped straight through a large plate-glass window. I thought she would be cut to pieces, and in agonies rushed outside, where I found her making the most of her opportunities by devouring our best rose trees under the window.

Zoe lived with us for a year. Then I was kept indoors by a bad cold and throat, and I heard that the kid was sympathising with me by having a bad throat also. But alas, poor Zoe! her throat was much worse than mine, and though we strapped a little blanket on her back to keep her warm, and though the gardener and the cowman poured gruel down her throat, when she could hardly swallow, she got thinner and weaker, and one morning she died. I sobbed audibly all through prayers that morning.

Then a friend of mine told me that some cousins of hers were anxious to part with a goat they had, and Marcianus Capello, otherwise called Marcap, arrived. She was not at all like Zoe; she was a large, dull, elderly, brown and white goat. She did not want to make friends at all; she chiefly wanted to eat. But there was one great advantage about her, for a few weeks after I had her she gave birth to two little twin billygoats--two fluffy black-and-white creatures with huge legs.

Marcap was, like Zoe, tethered in the field, and it was supposed that filial affection would keep the kids near her. The kids had a fine time in consequence. One morning one heard a rattling over the roof of the nursery, and found the kids were playing King of the Castle on the house-top. Another time they came skipping out of a yard where building was going on, covered with lime to the tops of their legs; and for some little time we were terribly afraid that the smallest kid would lose his eyesight, as he had splashed lime up into his eyes, and that they both would come out of it with skinny hairless legs. A procession, of my nurse holding a cup of milk and water, myself and my youngest brother (who was too naughty to be left alone), could be seen crossing the field three times a day to bathe the kid’s eyes.

When the kids were old enough to do without their mother, we gave Marcap away. I did not mind parting with Marcap; I never should have got fond of her, for she had no idea of intimacy. But to part with a kid was a different matter; it took us a long time to decide that it would be better to keep the biggest and strongest kid, Capricorn; and we gave away the little one.

Capricorn proved just a little more warlike than it is quite convenient for a kid to be, if you are in the habit of taking it out for walks. In the first place, if he met a flock of sheep in a field, he would at once begin to drive them away, running and butting after them. In the second place, if he met cows, he would invariably have a pitched battle with them, unless he was dragged away by main force. I have seen him in the middle of a ring of cows, knocked down by them, and getting up to butt them again. Thirdly, if he met a donkey, even in a cart, he would go for it, which sometimes caused the drivers of the cart to swear. Lastly, if he met children, he would try to awe them by standing on his hind-legs. His wickedness gradually developed with his growth. Before he was grown up he was a very affectionate kid. Once, when I turned back in a walk, the rest of my family had the greatest difficulty in inducing Capricorn to go with them. He got on very well with our wise collie. Watch was useful in fetching him up, if he lagged behind in a walk to carry out some of his evil designs. I had a little cart for Capricorn, too, and made him pull up stones for a rockery we were making; this was a good outlet for his energies, and he had less time to be wicked.

But he finally got too fierce for us to keep him any longer. If I was running down a hill by his side he would try to hook me with his horns, and he was not at all to be trusted with children. I gave him away reluctantly, and it was some consolation to hear that he nearly killed his new master, who came upon him suddenly in the dark. Since then I found out that it was not individual wickedness, but, so to speak, class wickedness, and that it is rarely safe to keep a billygoat when he grows up.

Then for some time I had no kid. After a while a lady near who kept goats gave me two kids.

These were very pretty kids; one was quite white, the other fawn colour, and very graceful. They would follow me everywhere; but, as I could not keep two, Chat, the white one, was given away.

It was considerably easier to take Tan walks than it had been to take Capricorn; for Tan did not want to fight every beast or child she met. Watch was useful in fetching her as he had been with Capricorn. Long afterwards, when the acquaintanceship between them was a thing of the past, to say, “Watch, fetch the kid,” would bring her hurrying up to us. Tan was the only one of my goats who ever learnt a trick, but I taught her to shake hands in exchange for leaves or oats.

Then we moved from the place where we were living, and I left Tan behind me for a child of the family who were coming into our old house. I heard no more of her for a year, and then they wrote to me to say that Tan was pining, and they wished that I would send for her. So she came up by train, and the first moment she saw me she remembered me, and we shook hands.

Tan is still alive. On misty summer mornings, one sees her pass the windows heading a herd of cows; she is much too proud to walk with sheep; and though she will condescend to go with cows, she keeps herself to herself, never talks to any of them, but preserves a proud and solitary position. On rare occasions a sudden burst of friendship or curiosity will induce her to come into the house with me.

But my friendship with Tan, I must confess it, is not what it was; perhaps it might never have waned if I had not consented to the year’s separation. But although occasionally we bleat to each other from a distance, though we shake hands over a few oats, she no longer runs to meet me if I come near, she no longer cries out with a wailing bleat when I go away, she no longer has to be tied up to prevent her following me. And I do not think it is age that has made this difference, I think it was worked by that year of separation.

Passing through the farmyard on a cold day, I found Tan in the corner where the dead leaves had blown up, and lay a foot or more deep. She was standing in the deepest part of the heap, which came up to the top of her legs, and had secured herself, as it were, a good hot bottle for the night.

In conclusion, I would say that there are no pets more enchanting than kids. They will give you as much amusement as kittens or puppies; while they are as intelligent as grown-up dogs, and even more wildly devoted. But there are two things you must never expect of a goat,--neither the least unselfishness in their affection, nor the smallest spark of benevolence.

COMMUNITY LIFE

Our old cowman Callaway was Cornish; he taught me to milk; he took a fatherly interest in my animals; he talked Cornished English, and I understood about a quarter of what he said. He had a wife who worked in the house of a neighbour of ours, and a very elegant daughter. I never could imagine how her hats and jackets and dresses got into the hovel in which the family lived; however, I suppose they must have got into it, for they certainly came out.

The wife’s employer’s daughter kept guinea-pigs; and Callaway promised to get us a white one. In due time he appeared with it. But to our delight, when the box was opened, out came two little white creatures, with shining red eyes, not weak bluish-pink eyes, but real good red ones like little jewels. They were named Ixtlilxochitl and Atahualpa, and installed in a wooden house with a wired-in yard under the laurel trees of the drying-ground. Here they rapidly became naturalised; burrowing under their wire fence, they found the way to the long, fresh grass beyond, and enjoyed as much liberty as they wished till nightfall, when the wooden slide of their house shut them safe from dogs and rats and cats.

I had many sympathisers in my amusements. Not only was there Callaway the cowman, who became house-builder to the community, but my old nurse used to take the guinea-pigs a breakfast of soaked bread every morning; and we had a butler sagacious about animals, to appeal to as a highest authority on all difficult questions. So when, one morning, I opened the slide, to find two new white things about as big as large mice gaily running about, the first thing I did was to run to the servants’ hall and summon the butler to advise in this difficult and delicate situation. Ixtlilxochitl was sent to a new hutch, hastily erected for him, and Atahualpa kept house for the babies.

This was very good for the development of Ixtlilxochitl’s character. He became very tame, learnt to sit up with his forepaws on my finger, and to “lie dead” on his back with his little pink hands and feet in the air; guinea-pigs’ forefeet are really small pink hands, with short claws on the fingers, and a rudimentary thumb.

Guinea-pigs grow up very soon; they have no helpless infancy at all. I have heard of a guinea-pig eating bran twenty minutes after it was born. I know we used to carry the infants about and let them run up our sleeves till they stuck, and had to be pulled back by their hind-legs; and though I would not recommend this practice, they never seemed to take any harm from it. Then, when they are about three months old they become heads of families. At first the family only consists of one or two members, but they increase in number until each family numbers seven or eight. You may expect a new family once every six or eight weeks. There is a nice sum in geometrical progression! And after this general statement of the matter you will hardly expect me to give you a history of each individual, though I made a chart of their genealogies. I will, however, give a short biographical notice of the most interesting characters.

The first two were Ulfias and Brastias. Ulfias was a nice, comely guinea-pig; he took after his father, and had brown whiskers. Brastias had pink ears, which were generally much bitten, and fierce red eyes; he was an ill-conditioned, cross little beast, and a great fighter. Moreover, he was a murderer.

It is the funniest thing in the world to see guinea-pigs fighting. They stand on the tips of their toes and raise their noses, until they present the chin only to their adversaries; then they begin to dance round, always chin to chin, gnashing their teeth; when they see a good opportunity they fly in and bite. It is a scientific way of fighting, like wrestling or fencing--quite different from the indiscriminate plunge of a cat, who rolls round in a heap with her adversary.

After these two came Enid, Elaine, and Geraint. Enid was the first to have a baby, and she had only one--a fat round one, which grew and prospered until one day when he suddenly disappeared. We searched and hunted with anxious hearts, but with no result. After a time we wanted to move the hutches to a new place, and when we took up that in which poor Enid and the baby lived, there was a hole under it--a rat’s hole, and at the end of the hole, as we peered down, we saw a little white thing--the skin and bones of a baby guinea-pig. Enid never had another baby; she grew sad and thin and pined away, and at last she died.

Then Elaine had a baby--two; but one was deformed, completely paralysed in his hind-legs, and I felt that the kindest thing to do would be to destroy him. So I took out a bottle of laudanum, and prepared to begin the hari-kari. Poor little guinea-pig! it was already very ill, and I could with difficulty get its little rabbit-like mouth open. What a tiny throat! could it swallow even enough poison to end its panting little life? When I laid it down again there was very little change, and I did not know what to do; then the pink nose, the hands and feet, began to have a slightly blue tinge. I could not disturb it again to open its mouth, so I poured a little more laudanum on its mouth and nose, and the limbs got bluer, and the breathing became harder, and at last ceased. It was a dreadful thing to do. However, on the whole, it was less dreadful than drowning it. Once I had to drown a bat.... We will draw a veil over that.

However, to proceed with the guinea-pigs. The baby that was not deformed was a very nice little pig--small but comely. He grew up and was called Jim.

There is an individuality about guinea-pigs, not explicable but to be apprehended intuitively. Jim was quite individual. You would have known that if you had only seen him sitting upright at his mother’s side to nibble out of the hay trough.

The guinea-pigs lived in a large estate fenced in by wire; inside the yard were various settlements, bedrooms, all with free access to the yard, and usually to the ground beyond, for they made holes under the wire and disported themselves outside. They had a beautiful rack to hold their hay, saucers for bran, and were given a breakfast of soaked bread every morning. At breakfast-time shrill whistles might be heard from the guinea-pig yard. Most people think guinea-pigs have only one noise, but in reality they have, quite clearly defined, three fundamental notes, of desire, contentment, and anger. They whistle when they are hungry, make what are called “guinea-pig noises” when they are well content--for ordinary conversation, and they gnash their teeth when they are angry.