Birds and Beasts

Translated by A. R. Allinson from the French of Camille Lemonnier
Illustrated by E. J. Detmold
London: George Allen & Company, Ltd. Ruskin House , Rathbone Place. Mcmxi
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
JACK AND MURPH
Jack and Murph were friends, old friends, trusty and tried.
It was now nearly six years since the day chance had brought them together as members of the same company. Jack had come straight from the African forests; he had crossed the seas, and set foot on the continent of Europe for the first time; his amazement knew no bounds.
It is not for nothing a little fellow of his sort is torn from the freedom of his vagabond life in the woods and surrendered to the tender mercies of a showman of performing animals. He learned to know the cruel tedium of captivity; shut up in a cage, he thought sadly of his merry gambols in the tree-tops; his little face grew wan and withered, and he came near pining to death. But time damped the keenness of his grief; by dint of seeing around him other little creatures that, like himself, had wearied for their native wilds, then little by little had grown reconciled to their fate, and now seemed to get a prodigious amount of fun out of their new life, he made the best of the bars, the tainted air of the booth, and the clown’s grimaces, rehearsing his drolleries before the animals’ cages.
At the same time he could never quite share the gaiety of his companions in misfortune. While they were enjoying everlasting games of hide-and-seek, scuffling, squabbling, pelting each other with nuts, he would cower timidly in a corner, too sad at heart to join in their noisy merriment. Sometimes, when his feelings grew too much for him, he would break out in a series of sharp, shrill outcries, or wail like a new-born babe in his doleful despair.
The master was very fond of him, for he was both intelligent and teachable. In a very short time he learned to do his musket drill, to walk the slack-rope, and use the spring-board. But these accomplishments only earned him the ill-will of the other pupils. There was never a prank they did not play him. No sooner had he cracked a nut, to eat the kernel, than a hand would dart over his shoulder and snatch the morsel just as he was putting it between his teeth. They slapped his face, pinched his tail, scarified his head with their nails, jumped upon him, or half strangled him in a corner, till a day came at last when his master, noticing how he was bullied, put him in a separate cage all by himself. But this loneliness only made him more unhappy still; he spent his life in lamentation, sitting stock-still all day long, with his arms hanging limp, and his eyes fixed on vacancy, refusing either to eat or drink. This would never do; so they left him at liberty to wander at will in the house.