Part 8

As far as we know, robins may have tried to tame other creatures. They may have paid court to cows and horses, but found that they could not catch the eye of a cart-horse, or arrest the attention of the bull. After repeated disappointments (like our own with the zebra) they may have learnt that the only animal really capable of domestication is man.

The decision of the point whether we were taming the robins or they us rests upon this: which side made the first advances.

There was no real question here--the robins began it all.

The robins had been brought up in the ivy of the garden wall. We had played croquet close to them, and gardened beneath them all the summer. They had escaped being raided by the prowling Persian or the orange Angora. Towards the end of the summer the great door into the hall stood open all day, and we used to pull chairs outside into the strip of shade. Then the robins began to take notice of us.

By this time they had grown up and pegged out their own “claims.” The baby robin, who had not yet changed his waistcoat, lived in the ivy and sat upon the left gate-post.

As we camped opposite in basket chairs he drew nearer, hoop by hoop, across the croquet ground. At last he hopped upon the back of the chair I sat in.

Then we thought it time to return his call, which was most effectively done by the distribution of breadcrumbs.

This caused immediately the descent of the second robin, who lived in a holly tree on the right hand of the door; and at once the feud began. While the baby robin’s disinterested attachment had been tolerated, no sooner did he begin to reap a reward than his father swooped on him. We gathered that it was the father, for he was full-fledged, an older bird, neat and smart.

There were altogether four of these robins, and as they adopted the Benson family, what is more natural than to call them by Mrs. Trimmer’s beloved names of Robin, Dicksy, Pecksy, and Flapsy. I am convinced that the baby resembled Dicksy; the smart formidable father shall be called Robin; Pecksy and Flapsy have still to emerge.

Now as Dicksy skimmed across the lawn, halted nervously, and advanced to pick up a breadcrumb, like a bolt from the blue Robin fell upon him from the holly tree. Dicksy fled back to shelter, but was received by Pecksy, who, emerging from the arbutus bush, chased him back with a few hard pecks. Pecksy also was half-fledged, and had a queer tuft of light feathers on her head. Although she lived in the arbutus bush, the right-hand gate-post was her watch-tower.

Now since Dicksy had been our first and earliest friend, and could alone be held disinterested, we threw crumbs after him; on these Robin and Pecksy descended; and a crumb happening to fall considerably to the left, out of the left-hand wall came shyly a fourth robin--evidently Flapsy.

The next day witnessed a gourd-like growth of intimacy with Robin. He was always in the near holly tree; he descended for crumbs and came nearer boldly; he even followed us into the house.

But meanwhile Dicksy’s life was being made a burden to him. He alone was not allowed to approach us. Pecksy drew nearer, half across the lawn; Flapsy settled on the croquet stump and took short flights towards us for crumbs; none interfered with Robin, but Dicksy’s appearance was like the trumpet for battle; each habitat became forthwith an ambush.

Dicksy reconnoitred on the left-hand gate-post--not a robin in sight. He ventured half across the lawn and not a wing stirred. He drew nearer to the tempting crumb, now he was close, and at that moment Robin swooped upon him. Dicksy swerved to the left trying to escape, and Flapsy received him with open beak; he headed off to the right and Pecksy flew out from her arbutus bush. Finally, he was driven back to cover under ivy leaves with an empty stomach and an unsatisfied heart.

Dicksy must somehow have offended against all codes and conventions of robins, but in what way we grosser mortals cannot conceive.

Later as the winter came on, when Robin came round to the lilac bush at the dining-room window, when he and Flapsy came in to inspect the tables before and after meals, when he entered the bedroom above to inquire after a late riser, and partook of light refreshment, Dicksy still seemed disconsolately to haunt his gate-post.

But now with the coming of spring, and all the new fashions, one cannot be sure of any one’s identity. Dicksy, I know, was changing his sombre waistcoat for scarlet; so I can but hope it may be he who is uttering the quaint little crack of a voice to announce his presence in the next room.

But I tremble for the prospects of next summer if we are going to prove so attractive a family. If Robin and Flapsy nest again in the ivied wall; if Dicksy brings a mate to the left hand gate-post; and Pecksy sets up an establishment in the arbutus bush, the war of the worlds will be nothing to the war of the robins.

And at this moment we have undergone a new adoption, for a milk white jackdaw without a tail flew into the garden yesterday, and the household was scattered, uttering endearments, among the cabbages, and scraps of raw meat adorned the lawn. Towards evening he was persuaded to enter the kitchen. Matilda was asked to lend her cage for a time, but when she saw a new centre of attraction she burst into screams so terrific that every one who was not already occupied in housing the jackdaw ran into the kitchen to see who was being murdered. So they provided temporary accommodation for Jack under a basket chair.

He liked it so well that this evening he was found sitting on the chair waiting for some friendly mortal to bestow him inside.

THE MYSTERIOUS RA

“Reposeful, patient, undemonstrative, Luxurious, enigmatically sage, Dispassionately cruel.”

Ra had three periods of development. In the first, he showed himself cowardly and colourless; in the second, he sowed his wild oats with a mild and sparing paw; and in the third period it was borne in on us that whatever qualities of heart and head he displayed were but superficial manifestations, while the inner being of Ra, the why and wherefore of his actions, must for ever remain shrouded in mystery.

We might have guessed this, had we been wise enough, from his appearance. His very colour was uncertain. His mistress could see that he was blue--a very dark, handsome blue Persian. Those who knew less than she did about cats called him black. One, as rash as she was ignorant, said he was brown; but as there are no brown cats Ra could not have been brown. Finally, a so-called friend named him “The Incredible Blue.”

When the Incredible Blue sat at a little distance two large green eyes were all that could be discerned of his features. The blue hair was so extremely dark that it could be hardly distinguished from his black nose and mouth. This gave him an inexpressibly serious appearance.

The solemnity of his aspect was well borne out by the stolidity of his behaviour. There is little to record during his youth except an unrequited attachment to a fox-terrier. In earlier days Ra’s grandmother had been devoted to the same dog--a devotion as little desired and as entirely unreciprocated.

But it was necessary that Ra should leave the object of his devotion and come with us to live in a town; and now it became apparent that his affections had been somehow nipped in the bud. Whether it was the loss of the fox-terrier, the new fear of Taffy’s boisterous pursuits, or the severity of his grandmother’s treatment--for the first time he came into close contact with that formidable lady--whatever the reason may have been, it was plain that Ra’s heart was a guarded fortress. He set himself with steady appetite to rid the house of mice, but he neither gave nor wanted affection.

He would accept a momentary caress delicately offered; but if one stroked him an instant too long, sharp, needle-like teeth took a firm hold of the hand. We apologised once to a cat lover for the sharpness of Ra’s teeth. “I think the claws are worse,” was all he said.