Chapter III: Part 3

There being no fear of housebreakers or thieves here, the dog was allowed to sleep in Mamma's bed-room; we provided him with a box and some folds of carpeting at the bottom, and made him, we thought, a soft comfortable bed.

But Tawney much preferred sheets and blankets, and, my sister sleeping in a little bed in the corner of Mamma's room, he used to wait till she was fast asleep, and then slip himself on to the bed so quietly as not to wake her; and, getting down to the foot of the bed, would remain there till morning.

But Mamma said he must stay in his box; and forbad my sister to allow him to get on the bed.

As, however, he never tried to do so until she was asleep, she could not prevent it. So Mamma listened, and when she heard Tawney very softly leave his box and go to the bed, she got up and whipped him, and put him back in his box, ordering him to stay there.

Several nights this took place; till Tawney had the cunning to wait till Mamma also was asleep, when he crept into the warm resting-place, and staid there in peace till the morning.

When daylight appeared, he returned to his own bed, in order to avoid the morning whipping, which he knew would come, were he discovered in the forbidden place.

When we were returning home, we were to make some visits in London; so, thinking it best not to take Tawney, we entrusted him to a man who was going to our own town, with many charges as to feeding and watching him.

And when we had left London and arrived at home, there was poor Tawney safe and well, and extravagantly delighted to see us.

When we enquired about his behaviour on the road, of the man who had brought him, he told us that he had been in a terrible fright at the London station, thinking that he had lost Tawney entirely.

He had to cross London from one station to another; and there was an hour or two to spare before the starting of the train from the second station; so, wishing to leave the station for that time, and fearing to risk Tawney in the street, he tied him up, as he thought, safely in a shed belonging to the station. He was also taking with him some luggage belonging to us, among which was a large round packing-case, that usually stood in Mamma's room; these were shut up in a store-house at the other end of the station.

At the appointed hour our friend returned to the station, and went to claim the dog; but no Tawney was in the shed, only the end of the broken rope which had fastened him. In great anxiety he ran about enquiring of all he met. No one knew anything of the dog, no one had seen him pass out of the station; and after fruitless search in all the waiting and refreshment rooms, and in short through the whole station; he was reluctantly obliged to go for the luggage in order to pursue his journey, when, on opening the door of the store-house, what was his joy on beholding the missing Tawney, seated on the top of the round packing case, that he well knew to belong to his mistress. How he found out that the luggage was in the store-house, and how he got in, we could not of course discover; and it only confirmed us in our opinion of Tawney's intense wisdom. We and Tawney enjoyed ourselves much for some weeks, taking long walks, long drives, and hunting rats in all the neighbours' stacks. We had some fine games in our own field, and a great deal of basking in the sun, as it was a beautiful summer, with constant sunshine.

I mentioned, that Tawney used to enrage the people in the cottages by trying to worry their cats. On one of these occasions, when he had made a dreadful confusion at the door of a cottage containing children, upsetting a tub of soap-suds, dirtying the clean sanded floor, and frightening an old woman nearly out of her wits, by his reckless endeavour to seize on the cat; a man had come angrily out of the cottage, and coming close up to the carriage, declared with a clenched fist, and a furious countenance, that if Tawney ever approached his door again, he would kill him. Papa, who happened to be with us, said that if he would give Tawney a good beating, it would punish the dog without punishing us; and as he was a great favourite, he begged that he would not think of killing him. Then we drove on, leaving the man standing sulkily in the road.

Whether Tawney had gone alone to this cottage for the purpose of worrying the cat, or whether the man had taken his revenge for the first offence, or whether he had done any thing in the matter, we shall never know; but we could not help suspecting him when the following sad affair happened.

It was a very sultry day, too much so to run or to do anything but lie on the grass, which we did during the whole morning. Papa sat reading on a bench placed in the shady side of the house, and we were on the grass beside him; Tawney lay roasting in the sun, and, now and then, panting with heat, came to us in the shade, or even went into the dining-room window and flung himself down under the table; some steps led into the garden from the window, and as the window-sill was not level with the dining-room floor, but raised about two feet above it, we had a stool or sort of step inside the window, as well as outside; Tawney generally sprang through, without troubling himself about the steps.

Soon after Tawney had entered the house, apparently for the purpose of cooling himself, we heard a tumble, then another, and I got up to see what he was doing. "Why Papa," I cried, "what can be the matter with Tawney, he is trying to jump out of the window and cannot reach the sill, and falls back again." Papa came to see, and again the dog made an ineffectual spring at the low window-sill. Papa lifted him out into the garden, saying he supposed he had half blinded himself with lying so long in the hot sunshine. But we continued to watch him, and presently we saw his limbs twitching in a sort of fit, and he ran wildly about us. Papa called to the gardener, and they took him into the stable, forbidding us to approach him, as they feared he was going mad; they dashed water over him as he lay exhausted on the straw in the stable; but soon the fits became more and more violent, and our poor dog in a few hours was dead.

A man that examined him by Papa's desire, said there was no doubt that he had been poisoned by strychnine. He might have picked up something so poisoned while running in the roads, or it might have been purposely done by the angry man to whom I alluded. We never found out the manner in which it had been administered, and could only regret most heartily the loss of our dear playfellow. We had not another dog for a very long time, and never shall love one so well as Tawney.

PUFFER, THE PIGEON.

What pretty things are pigeons, how happy and nice they look sitting on the house-top, and walking up and down the sloping roof with their pretty pink feet and slender legs; and then how they flutter up into the air, making circles round the house, and now and then darting off on a straight flight across the fields. Soon after we came to live at our country house, my sister had a present of a pair of fantail pigeons, quite white. They were beauties, not the slightest speck of any colour was on their feathers; and when they walked about with their tails spread out in a fan, and their necks pulled up so proudly, we thought them the prettiest creatures we had ever seen. Our Papa allowed us to have a nice place made for them in the roof of the stables, with some holes for them to go in at, and a board before the holes for them to alight on; inside there were some niches for nests, and as the fantails were quite young, we soon ventured to put them in there. At first we spread a net over their holes, so that they could only walk about on the board outside; and when we thought they knew the look of the place well, we let them have their entire liberty, and they never left us.

Next we obtained a pair of tumblers, these were small dumpy little birds, of a burnished sort of copper colour, and such queer short little bills; when they were flying, they turned head over heels in the air, without in the least interrupting their flight. Then we had some capuchins, they were very curious-looking creatures, white and pale reddish brown, with a sort of a frill sticking up round their necks, and the back of their heads. We called them our Queen Elizabeths, for their ruffs were much more like her's than like a monk's hood, from which resemblance they are named. Besides these, we had several common pigeons, some pretty bluish and white. We fed them regularly in the yard, and when they saw us run out of the house, with our wooden bowl full of grain, they came fluttering down and took it out of our hands, and strutted about close to us so tamely and nicely; and then they would whirl up again in the air.

We lived quite close to a railway station, and at one time of the autumn, a great number of sacks of grain were brought there for carriage to distant parts of the country; for the corn fields were very numerous about us. In the process of unloading these sacks from the carts, and again packing them on the railway trucks, a quantity of corn was spilt about, and our pigeons were not slow to find this out; we noticed they were constantly flying over into the station-yards; and sometimes when we went to feed them in the morning, they did not come for our breakfast at all, having already made a great meal at the station. There was an old pigeon-house in the roof of the luggage store, which formed part of the station buildings; and our ungrateful pigeons actually went and built some of their nests in this pigeon house in preference to our own. At least, they laid their eggs there; as for building a nest they never did, they trod an untidy sort of hollow in the straw and wool we placed for them, and there laid their eggs.

We often wondered why it was they did not build beautiful compact and smooth nests like the little hedge birds. That was the only thing about the pigeons that we did not like--their dirty untidy nests, and the frightful ugliness of the newly-hatched pigeons. The first nest they had, was made by the white fantails, and we had anxiously watched for the hatching, expecting that we should have two beautiful little soft white downy pigeons, something like young chickens, or, still better, young goslings. And how disappointed we were when we saw the little frights, with their bare great heads and lumps of eyes, and their ugly red-skinned bodies, stuck full of bluish quills. After that we did not much trouble ourselves about the young pigeons, until they came out with some feathers, and tried to fly; but for all that, it was very provoking to see them go off to another house.

Our favourite of all, was a large handsome pouter or cropper. He was of a kind of dove colour, mixed with green and bluish feathers, and when he stood upright, and swelled out his breast, he was quite beautiful. He became tamer than any one of the pigeons; he would come to the window when we were breakfasting, and take crumbs of bread from our fingers, he would perch on our shoulders when we called to him in the yard, and liked to strut about at the back door, and to come into the kitchen and to peck about beneath the table; we called him Puffer. But he too was very fond of going to the station, and sitting on the store-house roof; and at last, really half our pigeons had their nests in the station house instead of in ours. We went and fetched them out, nests and eggs altogether, several times; and then we persuaded the station men to block up the door of the old pigeon-house, which prevented them from laying their eggs there, but they still greedily preferred that yard to our own. Then came the harvest time. There were many fields of corn within sight of our house, and we perceived that our naughty pigeons took to flying out to these fields, instead of going so much to the station. How beautiful they looked with Puffer at their head, darting along in the sunshine, till they were almost out of sight; and in about an hour they would come back again, spreading themselves all over the house-top, and lying down to bask in the sun, and to rest after their long flight, and the good meal they had made in the corn-fields. Puffer would always come down to us, however tired, and let us stroke him and kiss his glossy head and neck.

One day after they had all flown far out all over the fields, we heard a shot at a distance; we were not noticing it much, beyond saying to each other, "There is some one shooting;" but the gardener who was with us observed, "I wish it may not be some one firing at your pigeons. The farmers can't bear their coming after the grain; I am sorry they have taken to flying away to them corn-fields." This alarmed us, and we watched eagerly for the return of the pigeons. "Here they come," I exclaimed, and presently they were all settling as usual about the house top, Puffer in the midst quite safe. "Count them, Sir," said the gardener. So we set to work to number the fantails, tumblers, Queen Elizabeths, and dear old Puffer; all right, but surely there were not so many of the common pigeons; no, two were missing! "They've been shot then, sure as fate," said the gardener, "we shall lose them all I fear." Next morning we gave them a double breakfast, hoping that not feeling hungry, they would not again go to the fields; but off they went as usual about mid-day, and very anxiously we watched for their returning flight; we could always see Puffer a long way off, he was so much larger than the others, and we longed for the time when all the corn would be reaped and carried away, out of the reach of our favourites.

One by one our pigeons diminished; we begged the gardener to speak to the farmers about, and ask them not to shoot our pigeons; but he said that it must be very annoying to the farmers to see a tribe of birds devouring the produce of their hard labour and anxiety; and that he did not wonder at their endeavouring to destroy the thieves. He said that if he spoke about it, the farmer would say, "Shut up your birds, and if they don't meddle with us, we shan't meddle with them." Then we consulted whether we could cage our pigeons; but they had always had their liberty, and we were sure that they would not thrive if shut up. So we must take our chance, and the naughty things persisted in flying over the fields to the distant corn. One day, no Puffer returned to us; and in despair we gave away all our remaining pigeons.

DR. BATTIUS--THE BAT.

I now come to rather a singular pet. Every one--or rather every child--has a dog, or a cat, or rabbits, or thrushes; little birds in cages are dreadfully common, and so are parrots; so are jackdaws; and, as for ponies and donkeys, what country-house is without them.

But I think that many people have not had a tame bat. It is not generally a tempting-looking creature; and I should never have thought of taking any trouble to procure one with the intention of petting it.

Our bat put itself into my possession by coming or falling down the chimney of my bed-room.

The room was dark; and I heard a scratching and fluttering in the chimney for some time. Then I heard the flapping of wings about the room; and thought that a robin or a martin had perhaps fallen into the chimney and had been unable to make its way again to the top.

I got up, and was seeking a match to light my candle, when the little creature came against me, and I caught it with both hands spread over it.

I felt directly that it was not a bird; there is something so peculiarly soft and strange in the feel of a bat; and I was nearly throwing it down with a sort of disgust.

Second thoughts, which are generally best, came in time to prevent my hurting the poor little creature; and I lighted the candle, and took a good look at my prize.

It was about the size of a small mouse; it kept its wings closely folded, and I placed it in a drawer, and shut it up till morning, when I and my sister had a long inspection of my prize.

I do not know of what variety it was; for there are, I believe, a great many different kinds. He had not long ears; his eyes were very small indeed, though bright.

We had never handled a bat before, and were not soon weary of examining his curious blackish wings; the little hooks, where his fore-feet, apparently, should have been; his strangely-deformed hind feet; and his mouse-like body and fur.

We wrapped him up and shut him in a basket, and during the day, I caught a handful of flies, of all sizes, and put them into the basket.

When it grew dusk, we opened the basket, and he soon came out and fluttered about the room for a time; we found that he had eaten all the flies, but not the wings of the larger ones.

When he had been at liberty for some time, we easily caught him again, and shut him up; and when he became a little more used to me, I left him out all night, being careful to close the opening into the chimney; and he used to have the range of mine and the adjoining room during the night.

We tried him with a variety of food. I had fancied that bats ate leaves and fruit; but he never touched anything of that kind. He would eat meat, preferring raw to cooked; and would drink milk, sucking it up, more than lapping.

He evidently did not like the light; but sometimes would make flights about the room when candles were burning; and, occasionally, I took him about in my jacket pocket in the day-time. If I took him out to show him to any one in the broad day-light, he never unfolded his wings to fly, but remained quietly in my hand with his wings folded.

We had been reading a book in which one of the characters, a strange old man, was named Dr. Battius; so we called our bat after him; and I do think the little creature learnt to know me. He never fluttered or tried to get away from me; and would always let me take hold of him without manifesting any fear.

He went several long journeys in my pocket; once I had him with me in a lodging by the sea-side, and amused myself much with him. He would sit on the table in the evening, lap his milk at my supper-time, and would vary his exercise by crawling or progressing along the floor, darting about the room, or hanging himself up to something by his hooks, and letting his body swing about.

He cleaned himself carefully, used to rub his nose against the soft part of his wing, or rather his black skin, for it was not much like a wing, and would scratch and clean his body with his hind feet.

People used to say, "How can you keep such a repulsive sort of animal?"

But, in fact he was not a dirty creature; he spent as much time rubbing and scraping himself, as any cat would do; and he ate nothing dirty, raw beef and flies being his chief food, with a very little milk.

We had heard and read that bats have some extraordinary way of seeing in the total darkness, or else that their touch is so delicate, that they can feel when approaching any wall or hard thing; and it was so with Dr. Battius, excepting on one occasion--the night when I first caught him; then he struck against my chest; so that I secured him easily, by clasping both hands over him.

But I never after saw him strike against anything; he used to fly about my room at night, and I never heard the least tap against any object; he even would come inside my bed curtains, and fly to and fro; but I could not detect the slightest sound of touching them.

The black skin that formed his wings was so wonderfully soft to the touch, that perhaps he felt with that, when the wings were spread out.

I cannot imagine that his crushed-up little eyes could see in the dark; they appeared scarcely good enough to see at all in any light.

This poor little creature lived in my care for many months.

I went to visit some friends who were not fond of any animal in the house; and I knew that this dusky little creature would inspire disgust, if not terror, among some of the party. So, unwillingly, I left him at home.

But my sister being away too, the servant, perhaps gave him too much food, or he missed his exercise about the room. One morning he was found dead in his drawer.

I have no idea whether bats are long-lived animals; or whether they would, for any time, flourish in solitude. Had I kept the poor little doctor with me, I might have found out more about him.

THE CHOUGH.

I think I may here describe a bird, which, although he was not our property, was watched with much interest by us, and which we never met with but once.

It was a Chough.

It belonged to an officer who was living in the same barracks; and we first saw it perched on the window-sill of his kitchen.

"Is that a crow?" asked my sister, pointing to it, as we stopped to examine it.

"That cannot be a crow," I answered; "its legs are yellow, as well as its beak; and it is more slender, and a more bluish sort of black."

When we approached and offered to touch it; it did not draw back or appear shy, but allowed us to stroke its back and look at it quite closely.

It was a very handsome bird; its plumage beautifully glossy; its claws hooked and black; and its tongue very long. It was pecking at a plate of food that was near it; but did not appear very hungry.

Presently, the officer's servant came to the window, and we enquired what it was.

"A Cornish Chough," was the answer.

We had never seen one before; indeed, knew nothing about that sort of bird. We had, indeed, heard its name in an old song or glee, called the "Chough and Crow;" or that begins with those words.

So we asked Mamma about it when we went in, and she showed us an account of it, in which we found that it is not at all common everywhere, like a crow; but that it only lives in the cliffs of Cornwall, Devonshire, and Wales; and has sometimes, but rarely, been seen about Beachy Head, and in no other part of Europe, excepting the Alps. So that it is really a very uncommon bird.

The same account said that they could be taught to speak like a jackdaw.

But we never heard this one say anything, or make any noise, except a sort of call or croak, with which he answered the servant who attended to him.

We always stopped to stroke and pat him when we went out to walk; and he was a great pet with the soldiers, and went about some years with the regiment.

He showed his intelligence and quickness in a very curious way.

During the time that the regiment was quartered in Scotland he was lost; he had either wandered out of the barrack-gate, and had failed to find his way back again; or he had been picked up and carried away by some thief. He was, however, never seen or heard of for many months, and was given up as lost.

The regiment then removed to Edinburgh; and two or three soldiers went to visit a sort of zoological garden in the outskirts. There were a great number of cages, among other things; and the attention of the men was attracted to one of these cages by the violent fluttering and exertion made by the inhabitant to get out.

On coming closer to the cage, they perceived that the prisoner was the old Cornish Chough; and they asked the keeper if it was lately that they had confined it, since it seemed so uneasy.

The man said that it had been in that cage for a long time, and never had been otherwise than perfectly quiet and satisfied.

They wished to take it away, saying they knew the bird's former master; but the owner refused to part with it, and the soldiers passed on.

On their way back, the keeper was still standing watching the bird; who, as soon as the soldiers came again in sight, fluttered and dashed itself violently against the bars.

The man said that losing sight of them, it became quiet, and sat dolefully on its perch; but the moment it again saw them, it exerted all its strength to reach them.

There is no doubt that the poor bird recognised the red-coats, among which it had formerly lived, and wished to go to his old friends.

The soldiers told the officer how they had discovered his old pet; and he purchased it from the keeper of the garden.

The poor Chough manifested great pleasure at being again in the barrack kitchen, and followed the fortunes of the regiment until his master's death, when we lost sight of the yellow-billed yellow-legged Cornish Chough.

THE KITTENS--BLACKY AND SNOWDROP.

"Guess what we have, Mamma! Guess!" cried I and my sister, as we ran into the dining-room, with something wrapped up in each of our pinafores. So Mamma felt, and found that we had something alive; then she guessed guinea-pigs, then rabbits; at last we rolled out on the carpet two little kittens.

They were such soft, pretty little things; one was black and the other white. I chose the black one, and my sister had the white. They lived chiefly in the nursery, and were soon very familiar, and quite at home.

My black one, however, was pleased to be much fonder of my sister than of me; it particularly insisted on sleeping on my sister's bed; and we sometimes changed beds to see if it would follow her. Blacky would jump on the bed, come and look at my face, waving his tail about in the air, and seeing that it was his own master, he would bound off the bed and go and look in the other, and being satisfied that my sister was there, he would curl himself up at her back. In consequence of some illness in the nursery, my sister was sent to another room, and Blacky not finding her in the nursery, went and looked into all the bed-rooms until he found her. Snowdrop, as we called the white cat, used to sleep in a large wardrobe, rolled up upon some of the clothes. They were both very fond of getting into cupboards and drawers, and often startled us, and others, by springing out, when drawers and closet-doors were opened in different rooms; we were obliged to forbid them the drawing-room, because they would get on the chimney-piece, and on the top of a book-case where there was a good deal of china, and we thought they would certainly throw down and break it all in their rough games.

At the time we had these cats, we had also the jackdaw and hawk; and Blacky and Snowdrop often went to have a game with Jacky, who liked them; they used to run after him round his bush, and amuse themselves with whisking their tails about, and seeing him peck at them. But when they tried the same game with the hawk, they found a very different creature to deal with; for the savage bird darted at the playful little creatures, and very nearly bit off Blacky's tail; and afterwards, if he saw them in the garden, although they did not offer to approach his stump, he would slyly steal among the shrubs and bushes, till he got near enough to them to make a dart at their tails, and many a savage bite he gave them.

We did not keep these cats long. Blacky disappeared entirely; whether some one stole him for the luck of having a black cat, or what became of the poor little fellow we did not know. Snowdrop was fond of running on the top of the garden-walls, and of hunting little birds about the roads; and it seems strange that so active an animal as a cat should allow itself to be run over, but Snowdrop, in hunting a bird across the railway, which ran on the other side of our garden wall, was actually killed by the train.

BLUEBEARD, THE SHETLAND PONY.

Our donkey, Neddy, was never replaced; but instead of him we had a far better pet, a beautiful little Shetland pony! We had left Ireland, and went to live in England; we had a nice garden, a paddock and some fields, and a stable; and when we saw all this, we ran to Papa and begged that we might now have another donkey, as there was plenty of room for him. But Papa said we might now very well ride a pony, and that he would look out for a nice one. Shortly after this he went to a large horse-fair at Doncaster, and almost before he could have arrived there, we began to look out and watch for his return with the pony.

We made all kinds of guesses about the size and the colour that the pony would be, and wrote out a long list of names suitable for a Shetland. I wished that it might be black, and my sister wished for a cream colour; but I believe that no such thing exists as a cream-coloured Shetland. And after all our expectation, Papa came home so late, that we did not see him that night.

We besieged his door next morning, shouting, "Did you find a pony? Have you bought the pony?" Yes, a pony had come, but we were not to look at him until Papa came down; and after breakfast, Papa sent for it to the dining-room window. Oh! what a nice little roly-poly of rough hair it was. It was very small, and its funny little face peeped out from the shaggy bunch of hair over its eyes, in such a sly way. Its mane was a complete bush, and its tail just swept along the ground. And all over its body the coat was so thick and soft, and so long, that the legs looked quite short and dumpy. Altogether, it was the most darling little fellow any one could imagine; its colour was dark-brown, and its mane and tail nearly black.

Papa promised to get a nice saddle and bridle for it, as we declared that Neddy's old pad was so shabby, that it would be a shame to put it on this little beauty. But, meantime, we were well satisfied to use it, and commenced our rides forthwith; scarcely a day passed without our making a long excursion. Sometimes Mamma walked with us, and sometimes only nurse; we used to trot along the road for some distance, and then canter back again to Mamma, so that we had a long ride, whilst she only took a moderate walk; and we soon had explored every lane and bye-road near our new home.

After much debate about the pony's name, we had fixed on two or three, and finding that we could not agree on the important subject, we wrote out the names on slips of paper, and drew lots. "Bluebeard" was the name that we drew the oftenest, so that was decided; and as he really had a very long beard, we thought it very appropriate.

Although Bluebeard was a decided beauty, it must be confessed that he had a great number of tricks, and was not the best-behaved pony in the world. When we were out riding, if we met any carts on the road, or in passing through the streets, Mamma or nurse used to lead him by the bridle; this _we_ used to consider a great affront to our horsemanship, and Bluebeard, doubtless, thought it an affront to himself, for he could not bear to be led; he shook his head, and tried to get the bridle out of their hand, and failing to do so, he revenged himself by biting and tearing Mamma's shawl or dress; and our poor nurse had scarcely a gown left that was not in rents and holes from Bluebeard's teeth; she said it took her half her time to mend her clothes, for she never went out with us and returned with her clothes whole. This amused us very much; but Mamma thought she should have liked Bluebeard better if he had been less playful.

With good living, and the care that was lavished on him in our stable, he soon became fatter, and very frisky, so full of wild spirits and play, that we could not quite manage him. So Mamma had a very small basket-work carriage made, just to fit Bluebeard; it was painted dark-blue, and was very pretty; it had two seats, so just carried us, and Mamma and nurse.

Now we drove out one day, and rode the next; the carriage was so low, that we could jump in and out as Bluebeard trotted along; and we liked to run, holding on by the back, to see whether we could run as fast as Bluebeard at his fastest trot; and when we jumped out, he used to turn his head round and look for us, and sometimes made a full stop till we got in again. Mamma thought that the heavier work of drawing the carriage with four people in it, would prevent Bluebeard from becoming too frisky and unmanageable, as, certainly, it was far greater labour for him than a quiet trot with only myself or sister on his back; but I believe that the more work he had, the more corn he ate, for he scampered along with the carriage as if it were nothing at all, and grew more and more skittish. It was very amusing to watch for donkeys as we drove along the roads, for he could not bear to meet one; if he spied the long ears at a little distance, he used to fling up his head, stand still for an instant, and then turn sharply round, and rush away in the opposite direction to the offending object; this he did whether we were riding or in the carriage. It signified but little when we rode; for all that happened was our tumbling off, when he twitched himself round; and as he met Mamma and nurse a little way back on the road, he was always stopped.

But in the carriage it was a very awkward trick, and we should often have been upset, had not the front wheels turned completely under the body of the carriage, so Bluebeard could twist round, and put his head quite inside without upsetting us.

Once or twice, when going up a hill, a donkey suddenly put up his head from behind the hedge. Round flew Bluebeard with such a jerk, as nearly to throw us out of the carriage, and having whisked us round, he tore down the hill at a furious rate. All that could be done on such occasions, was for one of us to jump out and hold his head before he had time to turn round; and, therefore, we always kept a sharp look out for donkeys on the road. This dread of Bluebeard's was the more strange, as he was extremely friendly with a poor half-starved donkey that was sometimes put into the same field with him. He used to rub his head against it, talk to it, (that is, hold their noses near together), and seemed quite to like its company. But any other donkey inspired him with downright terror. Another bad trick when in the carriage, was kicking, which he often did, sometimes throwing his heels so high that he got them over the shaft, and then we had the fun of unharnessing him completely, in order to put him in again.

It sometimes took a very long time to catch him, though the field was very small; he would come close to the groom, and when he put out his hand to catch him, he would give his head a toss and gallop off round the field; now and then, when weary of his fruitless attempts at catching him, the groom would set the field-gate wide open, and Bluebeard would dart through it, along the lane, and up the hill to our house. But it was rather a risk doing so, as it was quite a chance whether he would go home, or in any other direction.

When he was fairly in the stable, and cleaning and harnessing had commenced, he by no means ceased from his playful tricks: he would roll in the straw with his legs kicking up; then he would bounce about in all directions, to prevent the bridle from being put on; and shake his head till all his shaggy mane fell over his eyes.

All this was meant for play and fun; but the groom often was reprimanded for unpunctuality, in not bringing the carriage to the door for half-an-hour or more after the time when it was ordered. Certainly, if Bluebeard would not be caught, and then would not be harnessed, it was not the groom's fault. However, he began to be very sharp and cross with the pony; and once pulling him roughly up from sprawling on his back, instead of standing still to be combed, Bluebeard dashed his head at him and gave him a bad bite on the chest.

When Mamma came out to put a plaister on the bite, she was very angry, and said that if Bluebeard bit in his play, she could not allow us to keep him; and she desired that he should not have half so much corn.

But I do believe the groom paid no attention to this order, and gave him just as much as before; for the wicked little pony never became one bit quieter, and we often had to beg hard that sentence of dismissal should not be pronounced.

Whenever Papa had time to take us riding with him, or could spare his horse for the groom, we had a nice ride, Bluebeard having a long rein which Papa or the groom held, we found that he went a great deal better than when Mamma walked with us; indeed, he had then no time to play tricks, for it was as much as he could do to keep up with the great horse, whose walk matched with our gentle trotting; his trot to our cantering; and when the horse cantered, Bluebeard was put to his full speed.

We enjoyed these rides immensely; but, unluckily, they were few and far between, as the horse could be spared very seldom; therefore, we still continued our plan of Mamma walking, and we riding by turns; and it was a great excitement to us, watching for Bluebeard's tricks, for we were much afraid of his being sent away as too tiresome; and we tried in all ways to prevent and to conceal his delinquencies.

I very frequently went over his head, for he liked to go precisely the way he chose; and if we came to a turning in the road, and I pulled the bridle in one direction, Bluebeard was certain to insist on going the other. Then he tugged, and I tugged; but his neck was so strong, and his mouth so hard, that I seldom could succeed in making him go my way; and unless some one came to my assistance, the dispute generally ended by Bluebeard putting his head between his legs, and pitching me over his head.

My sister suggested that the best way to manage him would be always to urge him to go the way we did not wish, and he, being certain to differ from us, would take, as his own choice, the road that we really intended.

This was the same plan as that suggested for refractory pigs, who will never go forwards; viz., to pull them backwards, when they will at once make a bolt in the desired direction.

But I objected, that it was a shabby way of proceeding to manage him by deceit, and I preferred being flung over his head in open contest; and the plan was given up as too cowardly; and as my rolls were generally in the soft sandy lanes or on the grass by the road side, I never was in the least hurt.

My sister, too, had several tumbles which made us laugh very much.

We came once to a place where three lanes met, and Mamma called out to my sister, who was riding some way in front, to turn to the right; so she pulled the rein, and, as a matter of course, Bluebeard shook his mane, tossed his head about, and intimated that he intended to turn down the opposite lane to the left. Then my sister pulled and pulled, whipping Bluebeard at the same time; but his coat was so immensely thick, that he really did not feel a switch the least in the world, especially from a little arm like my sister's. So he did not stir, but kept twisting his head along the left-hand lane.

"He will kick in a minute," I said; and Mamma ran quickly to take hold of his bridle.

When naughty little Bluebeard felt her touch the rein, he made a bolt down the lane so suddenly, that he dragged Mamma down on the ground, and flinging up his heels at the same time, sent my sister flying, and she came down upon Mamma; so there they were rolling over each other in the dusty lane.

Bluebeard scampered a short way down the lane and then came back to us, whisking his tail, as if to say, "You might as well have come my way at once, without causing all this fuss."

And whilst we were employed in shaking the dust off Mamma's and sister's clothes, he stood looking at us in a triumphant kind of manner.

But after all, he did not have his own way; for when my sister was mounted again, Mamma took the bridle and led him down the lane to the right and all the way home; and he was not in favour with Mamma for some time after.

When the winter came on, his coat grew so thick and heavy, and his mane and tail so bushy and long, that he really looked like a great bundle of hair rolling along the road; for his legs scarcely showed as high as his knee. As for his eyes, it was a mystery how he saw at all; for they were not visible, except when we pulled back the hair to look at them: there never was such a curious rolypoly-looking little creature.

When the cold of the winter was passing away, it was agreed that Bluebeard had better be clipped, his coat being really much too heavy; no sheep's fleece could have weighed more.

So we had the pleasure of seeing the little fellow carefully shorn of his thick dress; his long bushy tail was left at our particular request, and also plenty of mane; we liked that, because we found it a great help to clutch a handful of mane, when he tried to kick us off; but his eyes were left free to look out, and very saucy they looked.

We were astonished to find how small he looked, and how thin and elegant his stumpy little legs appeared, we thought they scarcely seemed strong enough to bear our weight; and in the carriage he would appear a perfect shrimp.

Then his colour was entirely altered. Instead of dark brown, he was now a pale sort of grey; indeed, we could scarcely believe that the same pony was before us.

He did not look so droll and round, but much prettier; and we felt quite proud of him the next time we rode out with Papa.

When he was next put into the pony-carriage, he almost appeared too small for it; and one bad effect of clipping him was, that he evidently felt so light and unshackled, that he could not restrain his wish to prance and jump; he now perpetually was kicking his legs over the shafts; and so, two or three times during a drive, we unharnessed him before we could replace him where he ought to be--between the shafts; instead of having his fore legs inside, and his hind legs outside.

Mamma said that this was dangerous, and that she feared Bluebeard might either break his own legs by this trick, or would upset the carriage and break ours. And we began to fear that Bluebeard would some day bring on his own dismissal.

One day, Mamma rode Bluebeard herself; and in spite of the greater weight, which he must have found very different from that of such small children as my sister and myself, Bluebeard kicked so much, and behaved altogether in such an improper manner, that Mamma declared he was no longer a safe pony for such young children, and said she should expect to see us brought home with fractured skulls or broken limbs, if we were allowed to ride him.

All our beggings and prayings had no effect. Bluebeard was sold to a man in the neighbouring town.

When this man said that he wanted the pony for a little boy to ride, Mamma said that he was too ill-broken and too unmanageable for any child, and that she did not wish to sell him for that purpose.

But he said that he intended to tie the boy tightly on to the saddle, and should make a groom walk with him with a long rein; and then should have no fear about the boy's safety. And he bought him, notwithstanding Mamma's warning.

We were so sorry to see the poor little fellow led away; our only consolation was, that in a year or two we should become too big for Bluebeard; and then, at any rate, we must have parted with him.

Now and then we saw the little boy riding him; and the groom that was with him showed us that he was strapped on to the saddle by a strap across each thigh, and also a strap below each knee; so that it was really impossible that he should fall off.

Mamma said it was not at all safe for a child to be fastened in that way; for if Bluebeard should take into his head to roll on his back, he would most probably kill the child. But as she had warned the father, and had told him of all the pony's bad tricks, it was no longer her affair to say anything about him, or to meddle with his arrangements.

It was a long time before Papa met with a pony to suit us better. The next one was to be so large, that he would last us for many years; he must be frisky enough to be pleasant and amusing, and yet must have no bad tricks; no kicking and running away; and, above all, he must be very pretty indeed, with long tail and mane.

All these qualities were not so easy to find combined; and before I talk about the next pony, I will mention some of our other pets.

So good bye to dear little naughty Bluebeard.

JOE, THE GERMAN DOG.

Being for some months in a German town, we proposed, before returning to England, that we should procure one of the strange-looking little German terriers, with long backs and short legs; and we made inquiries as to where we could obtain one of the real German breed. We found that there are several different races of these dogs; they have all the long back, and short bandy legs; but one kind is very large, with pointed nose and long tail; another kind is small, with excessively soft hair, small head and magnificent large eyes; another kind is small, rather wiry in the hair, and unusually long and pointed in the nose.

After seeing several, we at last had one offered to us that we liked, and bought; he was of the last-described species; his body long and narrow, his legs very short and crooked, and his feet enormous, big enough for a dog of three times the size; his tail was long, and dangled down in an ungainly sort of way; his head was small, and his nose much elongated and pointed; his eyes small and sparkling, and his ears rather soft and long. Altogether, he was the queerest-looking little animal you would wish to see. We named him Joe, and commenced his education by showing him, that he was not to consider our baby sister a species of rat, and to worry her accordingly, and by teaching him to sleep on a rug in the corner of one of the bed-rooms. He was a very sociable merry little fellow, liked scampering after us through the range of rooms, all on one floor or flat, and enjoyed running along the roads and in the park with us; but he was terribly chilly; he could not bear sleeping on his mat, always wanting to be on the bed, or at least muffled up in a flannel gown; and in the day, he was happiest when he was allowed to creep under the stove and lie there, really almost undergoing baking. I never saw an animal bear so much heat with satisfaction to himself.

He destroyed half the things in the house before he got over his puppy-days; but every one liked him, and he generally escaped punishment. He was sharp enough to know his way home, in a very few days after we bought him. We had him out in the park and missed him, a long way from home; seeing no sign of him, we concluded that some one had picked him up, and gave him up for lost, having no idea that the little young creature would know its way home; and we were quite surprised when we reached our own door, to find Joe sitting there waiting; he had come along the crooked walks of the park, through the streets, and up our long flight of stairs, and our opinion of his sagacity rose in proportion.

Shortly after we had bought Joe, we travelled to England, and determined to try whether we could manage to take him in the carriage with us, instead of letting the poor little fellow be shut up in a dog-box on the train, with, perhaps, a dozen other savage dogs. So Papa carried him under his cloak; Joe was very good at the station, and kept himself perfectly quiet, until we were all seated in the railway-carriage. We were beginning to think that we had him safe for that day's journey; and as soon as we had shewn our tickets, could let him run about the carriage.