Steam was up, however, and we must lose no more time, but be off towards the lake. Past the old Swedish castle we glide and the English cotton mills, and now we are in Ladoga, and hastening, a moving island, towards the middle of the great lake, to the waters wherein the big ducks most do congregate. Very soon Prohoroff sights the first duck community—a hundred of them—peacefully floating and diving a quarter of a mile away. "Ease her!" is the word; then, "Easy ahead;" and slowly and cautiously we glide forward towards our hitherto unsuspecting quarry. It is an exciting moment. I do not know the name of this duck now before us; but he is a huge black fellow, a diver, with white feathers in his wings. And now two hundred yards have been covered, and still we creep on unobserved. Then a very old duck lifts her head and looks at us. "My dears," says she, "did you notice an island about here? I didn't." One or two younger members of the family glance casually at us, their mouths full of food. One says the island has been there all the time; the other rudely enquires who on earth cares whether the old lady noticed the island or not; the island is certainly there now!
After this, the old lady settles down to her usual morning avocations, until the island is within a hundred yards, or less, of the party. Then she gives us another and a longer look—her neck very straight and long, and her face at right angles to our advance—the one eye which is thus deputed to scan us looking concerned and agitated. "I'll tell you what it is, my dears," says she, "I don't like that island; the current is setting the other way, and yet we are nearer to it than we were. I'm off, for one!" and in the twinkling of an eye her black head has dipped beneath the surface; her white-flecked tail for an instant shows itself, then disappears, and Grandmother Duck is next seen fifty yards further away. Fortunately for us, her example is followed by one or two very old stagers only—perhaps they have seen this game played before; but the youngsters are not going to listen to the fears and fancies of the old fogies. What youngster ever did? Consequently, in another minute, judgment, swift and sure, has overtaken them. Four barrelsful of flame and lead belch out upon them as they float, two more as they rise, and seven or eight young unbelievers are lying dead upon the water, or endeavouring madly, broken winged and in touch with grim death, to dive out of range. All are picked up, by degrees. Meanwhile, the community is wheeling around over our heads high in air; they see us now, plainly enough, ensconced behind our pine-tree ambuscade, and are forming their own conclusions as to the morality of our proceedings. Having settled this point, and, we trust, complimented the old lady, their grandmother, upon her sagacity, they fly away, and are no more seen. They will exercise a wise caution with regard to islands henceforth.
And so the day passes; with each duck community it is the same tale. There are a few wise ducks and many unwise, and the deck of our launch is strewn with the bodies of these latter; great northern divers—who look as though no foolishness could possibly, under any circumstances, find napping that stern wisdom which sits for ever in the expression of their most serious countenances—and divers and ducks of every sort and kind, and to which my unlearned pen can give no certain names. Some of these proved very delicious when they afterwards made their positively last appearance in public; some were very much the reverse, though that sporting skipper and the cannonading engineer (who once nearly blew my head off in the excitement of the chase!) liked them all equally well. And so ended what was, to me, a novel and delightful experience. It was one of many days to which my soul cries out "encore!" and cries in vain, for Destiny says, "Oh no! your cake is eaten! you must wait your chance at next baking day!"
CHAPTER VI
ABOUT BEARS: BY ONE OF THEM
I
I come of what those conceited creatures, the humans, would probably call humble parentage. In other words, I belong to the great Ursine family: I am a bear. I may as well say at once, in order that there may be no misunderstandings between the humans and myself, in case my life story should ever come into their hands, that I do not in the slightest degree share their opinion as to the relative position in the scale of existence occupied respectively by them and by me. Indeed, if they will excuse my saying so, in my humble judgment I am at least as good as they are, and perhaps a little better. For instance, to compare us physically, I am taller than many, and broader, stronger, braver, fleeter, more majestic than the best of them. A human is a mere toy in my hands, as I have proved over and over again—why, there was old Ivan the keeper, only last month, he—but I am digressing. Ha ha! I can't help laughing, though, when I recall poor Ivan's face as I hugged him—my! how his tongue did stick out!
Again, if we are compared intellectually, I very much doubt whether we bears are so inferior as my friends the humans suppose. We do not talk their language—true! but, do they talk ours? I think not. On the other hand, we understand theirs—while they are ignorant altogether of ours!
As for their sciences, their education, their 'ologies (which they think so much of), their arts, their wars, their politics, their freedom—freedom! ha ha! it is not our notion of freedom!—do all these things render them the happier? What has all this "civilisation," so called, done for them? Are they freer than I am? Do they get more to eat and drink, and pay less for their victuals?
Well, well! I must not continue in this strain, airing my pet ideas instead of proceeding with what I intended to be a mere record of my own personal career; I could say much in support of the opinion expressed at the beginning of this chapter: namely, that we bears are just as good, if not a little better, than the human race; but then, after all, I shall never succeed in convincing the conceited—the most conceited of all creatures—man, of his inferiority: as for my ursine readers;—well, we know what we know!
My earliest recollections are among the most painful of all those scenes of my life which have impressed themselves upon my memory; for they are connected with the murder of my dear mother—the base and barbarous murder of as good and indulgent a mother as ever brought into the world and nourished a promising little Bruin family, for such, I think, my small brothers and sisters and I may fairly be called. I will record the shocking circumstances of our great domestic tragedy exactly as they occurred. My earliest recollections are of life in a dark and confined space in which my two brothers and my two sisters and I had but little room for our juvenile recreations. I remember a dear old mother who divided her time in sleeping, and admonishing and educating us. We were born in this place, she told us; it was called a "berloga," and was the den she had prepared for herself as a shelter during the long months of a cold and cruel Russian winter. It was not cold inside this den of ours, on the contrary it was very warm indeed. We had been born in December, and between that month and March we had had plenty of time to grow—we little ones—so that the berloga, which had been amply large enough for my mother alone, had become what I may describe as a tight fit for the six of us. It was lucky, mother used to say, that father was not with us at the time. He was away—she did not seem to know where, exactly, but she had arranged to meet him near a certain village, whose name she mentioned, some time in spring. I remember our mother used often to say, "Do let me go to sleep now, my dears; when you are older you will understand how difficult it is to keep awake in the winter time after the fatigues of a long season!" and, indeed, the good soul used frequently to fall fast asleep in the very midst of our lesson time—much to our joy, for we were always ready for a game of romps in that heyday time of childhood. Mother would have slept the whole winter but for us brats, she used to tell us! Well, one day about the end of March, when the other children and I were busily engaged in rolling over one another, and pretending to worry each other's ears, which was a favourite game of ours, we heard a terrible noise outside. Up to this time we had never heard any sound at all excepting such as we made ourselves. There were shouts and barking of dogs, and a creature—whom I afterwards discovered to be a human—was knocking at the sides of our house with a long pole—we could see all this through a small peephole which we kept open. We also saw other human creatures standing near. These last held in their hands steel sticks clubbed at one end, and were looking straight into the mouth of the den. Mother was fast asleep and we were obliged to awake her, for we felt alarmed at the aspect of these human creatures, puny beings though they seemed when compared with our beloved parent, who was so very much larger and stronger than they.