Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/Our pets - Part 3

by Sarah Stickney Ellis

OUR PETS. By S. S.

(Concluded from p. 53.)

My interest in the taming of strange creatures being widely known, I received various contributions from a distance, and once had the pleasure of learning that a tame snake awaited my acceptance, whenever I would go to claim it. Soon afterwards I travelled in the direction of this promised treasure with two friends, who accompanied me in a chaise. One of these friends, a lady, very naturally expressed her horror at the prospect of such a companion; but I assured her it was so completely secured in a strong wire cage, that it was impossible it should escape. It was of course one of the harmless kind, but this seemed to make little difference. A snake was a snake to her; and as we travelled along, with the cage at the bottom of the carriage, I saw my friend sometimes lift up her feet with a shudder of disgust, while her expressive face looked unutterable reproaches at me. I confess I felt rather shocked myself; but I endeavoured to reassure my friend, by continued protestations, that her fears were groundless, for that any escape of the enemy was out of the question. In this manner we travelled until arriving at a hospitable dwelling where we were to spend the night on our way home. After my friend had alighted, I took out the cage with great care, and conveyed it into the house. But what was my consternation, when, on looking for the snake, I discovered that the cage was empty, and the door open, most likely unfastened by the shaking of the journey. I ran back to the carriage; there, at the bottom, was the snake; and my friend had the satisfaction of thinking, that, during the whole journey, this creature had been coiling at its pleasure about her feet. A warm womanly friendship will bear a good deal; but my friend was accustomed to say she thought hers had been rather too severely tried.

This snake was a member of our household for many months, but I do not think it ever afforded me much pleasure; and sometimes I must confess that its creeping, coiling motion caused me an involuntary shudder. It was very tame, would hang on my arm, and exhibited no inclination to leave me; only sometimes, when the sun shone upon it, I observed such an accession of apparent life and animation, with such quick darting movements, that I saw it would escape; as indeed it did at last, without leaving me anything to regret. Indeed the manner in which it was necessary to feed the snake was so revolting, that having seen it once, and only once by accident, I determined from that time that the snake should be at liberty to depart whenever it chose. It never ate what had been killed, though I tried it with all sorts of insects, mice, &c. Our people used to put a small frog into the cage, shutting both up together. In the case which came under my own eye, the little frog was sitting upon the snake with every appearance of contentment, and had been sitting there some time; when, suddenly, with one sweep of the neck as rapid as lightning, the snake snapped up its living victim, and swallowed it before I had time to avert my eyes. This was quite enough. I had the cage placed in the garden, with the door always open, and after a few days the snake disappeared.

A far more agreeable pet than the snake, though still one at which some persons pretended to shudder, was a tame weazel, which succeeded in making friends with the whole family. I had no idea that such a thing could be tamed, at least made so tame. It was very young, and half-dead when brought to me, scarcely so large as a walnut when coiled up. I fed it with milk from a quill, and as soon as I considered it old enough to take care of itself, I took it into a grass field, where I thought it would be safe from harm, and where I had no doubt it would be delighted to be set free. Instead of this, I found the little creature perfectly terrified, and so anxious not to be left, that it pursued my retreating feet with the most piteous cries. The idea had never occurred to me that I could myself be an object of affection to this small animal; yet true it was, my careful nursing had produced the effect of rendering it unwilling to be deserted by me; and from that time we entered into a mutually understood engagement to be all to each other that a weazel and a human being could be. For some days afterwards I repeated the experiment, merely to test the reality of my little friend’s attachment, and always with the same result. It had no sense of safety but with me, and no wish to be elsewhere; so I prepared for its accommodation as an inmate of the family, and it soon became an universal favourite.

Remembering what all the weazel tribe can be when assailed or injured, some persons would be disgusted at the idea of such a household guest. But it should be borne in mind, that the means of defence which nature has given to these animals, and which renders them so offensive when worried by dogs, or otherwise wounded, has nothing whatever to do with their quiescent condition; so that, if kindly treated, and made healthy and happy, the weazel is as cleanly and delicate an animal as the squirrel, or any other of our accustomed pets. I think mine was more so; for never was a speck to be seen on its snow-white breast, nor was its soft silky coat ever ruffled.

I soon found that my weazel was not only an affectionate, but most amusing companion, its gambols rapid and graceful in the extreme. Like other favourites, it was addicted to taking liberties, and if I was busy and would not play, nothing was left untried to attract my attention. Summersets were performed upon the table where I was writing, the end of my pen and even my nose were bitten; and not until the rapid little feet, dipped in ink, had made stars all over my paper, and I was compelled to enforce a retreat, would my companion cease from its antics. It would be impossible to describe the beauty and the grace of this little creature while performing its varied evolutions, or the rapidity with which it would dart from one part of the room to another, always most animated in the dusk of the evening, or, as I fancied, when moonlight shone into the room; yet all the while so timid, that if a stranger entered it was still in a moment, perhaps curled up like a ball in some fold of my dress, or hiding in its accustomed place of safety, the hollow of my hand. This was its habit, too, when tired with play; and not unfrequently when I rested on the sofa, it would roll itself into a flattened ball immediately under my cheek. It was always most timid out of doors, and would manage to follow me, usually with an appearance of distress, even when I walked about the garden amongst grass and shrubs, which I supposed might have concealed me from its view. Nor was it to myself alone that this little creature showed attachment. All the family shared in its affection; even with children it was docile, playful, and perfectly harmless; but, as already said, if a strange gentleman or lady entered the parlour, even in its gayest moments, it was gone in an instant into some hiding-place where it was not always easily found.

After many months of this pleasant intercourse, I had occasion to make a journey to a distant part of the country, and decided upon taking my weazel with me. We travelled in a chaise, and the little creature was so annoyed at its confinement in a box, as well as at the constant motion, that it spent the greatest pant of the time in a most disgraceful state of raving passion, screaming and tearing at the bars which held it in as well as gave space for air. In this condition of things, I must confess that the box which I had done my best to render airy and comfortable, was far from resembling a bed of violets. I shall never forget the effect it produced upon the countenance of the head-waiter at one of those old-fashioned, well-appointed inns where we stopped one day to dine. With the utmost politeness he had ushered us into the house. With equal politeness he was fetching in the articles we had left in the carriage, the weazel amongst the rest. It was screaming and tearing with passion just under the nose of this solemn-looking waiter, whose face, that seemed as if it had never smiled, wore an expression of such ineffable disgust, that I was obliged to turn away, quite unable even to apologise for the behaviour of my little companion.

This was a fatal journey to my poor weazel, so far at least as our intercourse was concerned. The house to which it was transferred was situated in a town, with a garden protected by high walls. Alarmed at the sight of so many strange people and things, the weazel became more wild, and one day disappeared never to return. We supposed it had run up the garden wall, and, becoming frightened, had escaped on the opposite side.

After this I tried the taming of more than one animal of the same species, but never with the same results. I found them all very different from my first pet, in character and disposition. One I succeeded in taming, but it seldom played, and afforded but little entertainment. Another caused me such serious alarm, that I never made the experiment with a weazel again. I had had it some time, and supposed it to be quite harmless; indeed I had never seen in any of them the least tendency to be otherwise; when one day I was amusing myself with it in company with a child about seven years of age. It was running about her hands and arms, and had climbed to her shoulder, when in an instant it seized her neck about the place of the jugular vein, with a look and action so full of ferocity that I was only too glad to be on the spot to rescue the child; and from that moment determined to have nothing more to do with weazels as domestic companions.

Amongst those pets which were more agreeable to us than to our friends, I fear I must class my raven. In their mischief-loving propensities the raven and the jackdaw bear a strong resemblance to each other; but there is an aspect of grave and venerable dignity about the former which renders him infinitely more amusing when he stoops to be jocose. I have been told by a naturalist, that, next to the tortoise, the raven lives to the greatest age of any of the lower animals, not unfrequently attaining the dignity of seventy or eighty years. He always looks old, and his very voice sounds as if it had grown deep and hoarse with long usage amongst the winds and storms that beat about old church towers, or roar through unfrequented forests. My raven was a very social bird, fond of human fellowship, and by no means of a morose or melancholy turn of mind. Indeed he was a little too much on the alert, and too fond of meddling with other people’s business. As, for instance. when he watched the introduction to a new plantation about the house of a large collection of rare and valuable shrubs, which he saw put into the ground with the greatest care, and then, as soon as the workmen had retired, tore off and destroyed every label so effectually that the names of the plants were never known. Or when he watched with his curious eyes, peeping sideways, any operation in the yard requiring tools of greater nicety than usual, and, unobserved by the workmen, flew away with the very implements which they most wanted and were least able to replace. The extraordinary impudence with which he would reply to any such imputation brought against him, with a nod of the head, and a hoarse croak that seemed to say, “I know all about it, but I am not going to tell you,” was the cause of many a strange missile being hurled at the thief, for to catch him on such occasions was impossible. He could evade as well as defy; and when he took the latter course, he always perched himself in some inaccessible place, from which he looked down with such an air of personal insult, that it was impossible not to desire to pursue him with summary vengeance.

My raven was master of a few words, and only a few, but these he managed to use with considerable appropriateness. He was no Cockney, nor yet too well bred to speak in the dialect of his native country. Thus, his accustomed rejoinder, “What’s matther wi’ ye?” uttered in a guttural tone, was well understood by his associates of the yard and the stable, and sometimes it came with curious effect after he had bobbed his head to avoid a broom or a stick thrown at him, and then turned and looked his assailant in the face. I do not know that his need for verbal expression ever reached a much higher pitch than this. All great occasions were wont to call it forth; and once, as he stood on the roof of a low building, he was heard, after an unusually loud peal of thunder, to say, with peculiar emphasis, “What’s matther wi’ ye!” In fact, he was a remarkable illustration of how much may be made of a few words well applied, and of a few sounds, too; for when in high good humour he had a habit of whispering in one’s ear in a manner so droll, that I was quite sure he had something funny to say, though I failed to catch the idea. Sometimes I interpreted this curious whispering sound into an expression of tenderness, because it was generally accompanied by a gentle nibbling of the bill about my face, which, I must confess, required a considerable amount of faith to sustain without flinching, seeing what that huge bill could do, and knowing how easily it might have twitched out one of my eyes, had such been the whim of the moment.

The precision with which this powerful instrument could be made to take effect, was no small addition to the terror which our raven was accustomed to inspire, particularly amongst that class of individuals who do not look well to their heels. He had a quick, piercing eye, and could detect the smallest hole in a stocking. At such a hole the point of his bill would be aimed with a stroke so sudden and so sure, that a piece of flesh twitched out was the usual result, accompanied by execrations against the bird, who cared no more than if you had sung him a song: indeed, I don’t think he ever did care except for one or two things, and in these we had our triumph.

One of these resulted from a propensity which came upon him every spring to build a nest. He knew no more about the art of building than if he had had four feet instead of two, and had worn hair instead of feathers; but always about the same time of the year he became very mysterious, and very much occupied with some business of his own. He was observed to collect sticks, and resorted much to the under framework of an open thatched roof which protected a shed. Here, in fact, he slept at all seasons of the year, and the place might be called his “residence.” Here, then, he brought his sticks, impelled most probably by a dim vision that something more than usually domestic was to be done. But the sticks, though collected in large quantities, were laid about in all directions, without the least approach to compactness or form. I believe he was himself aware of the bad job he was making of it, for nothing could vex him more than for us to go and look at his nest; so of course we went accordingly. He evidently knew it was wrong. but did not know how to make it right; and when we approached the place he was both angry and embarrassed, exhibiting every appearance of being exceedingly ashamed of what he was about. Perhaps the building partner was wanting in the concern, and so the nest-making never advanced beyond the mere collecting of raw material. (See p. 89.)

Another trouble to the raven, and one which effectually brought down his defiant spirit, arose out of the attacks to which he was subject from wild birds of his own species. It is strange how tame birds excite the animosity of wild ones of their own tribe. It would seem almost as if they were considered false to their clan, or traitors to their family, in having gone over to the stronger party. Our raven never cared what man could do to him; but when he was pounced upon by a wild raven, his terror and excitement were extreme. This was more frequently the case than would have seemed likely, considering the scarcity of these birds. They generally came singly; but one morning we were alarmed by a terrible commotion in the yard, and learned afterwards that no fewer than six ravens had attacked our poor bird. He looked very small all the rest of the day, kept his feathers tight about him, and quite forgot to say, “What’s matther wi’ ye!”

If our raven did not die the death of a hero, his last end was still strangely characteristic of his life, though very mournful to relate. For a long course of misdeeds, retribution came at length. An old barn-door cock, an unusually large bird, who had persecuted him for some time, one day, seizing him unawares, so blinded and mangled poor Ralf that he was unable to defend himself; and when at last borne away by his ruthless enemy, was heard muttering, with more than wonted pathos, “What’s matther wi’ ye!”

The funeral of the raven was conducted with much solemnity, a clergyman then on a visit to our family being requested to officiate. He was interred amongst the old trees of a rookery, a large company of juvenile mourners attended, and many tears were shed around his grave.