‘Cats are very knowing; but I do not think they have done so many clever deeds as dogs; and people think that cats do not love their masters or mistresses so much as dogs do.’
‘But how did little Mouser know how to climb up the tree when Wolf came near her?’
‘That knowledge was natural to her; she knew by instinct that a dog would hurt her, and therefore sprang up the tree as high as possible to be out of his reach.
‘Wild animals are often much more knowing than those animals that live with us. A young horse that has not been driven long will find his way often much better in the dark than his driver; but an old horse, who has been used to obey the rein all his life, does not trouble himself about the road he is going, and goes wherever the rein guides him.’
‘How very odd that is!’ said Alice.
‘I will tell you a little tale of one of my horses in Russia. It was about the end of April, I think, when the spring was beginning, and the winter just over. The snow was gone, and so was the ice on the rivers, except in some snug ditches, where ice was still to be found. You remember that I have told you that the winter in Russia lasts nearly six months.
‘The grass was beginning to grow, the birds beginning to sing and to build their nests; but the roads were in a very bad state with soft mud and deep pools of water. Well, one evening about six o’clock, the bailiff’s wife came to me, and told me that her brother-in-law, who lived in the valley close to the sea-coast, was very ill; and there were no doctors near, and I was accustomed to go and visit the sick, and give them medicine. So the woman begged me to go with her that evening to see the sick man.
‘I asked her how we could go with such roads, and she said that if I would let her, she could drive one of my horses in her own little light cart, for no carriage would be safe.
‘A good horse was soon put to the cart, and I mounted the cart and let the woman drive me. We had six good miles to drive—down hill at first from very high ground (for I lived on a cliff that overlooked the sea), and then through a very wild forest and some wilder bush-land. The light cart and my willing horse took us safely there. I saw my patient and gave him the medicines he required, and then we began our drive home.
‘But the daylight had faded, and it was nearly dark; we could not distinguish our road from several others that went in many directions across the wood. The bailiff’s wife was frightened, and soon owned to me that she could not see to drive. But I was not uneasy, for I knew my horse; so I told her to leave the reins quite loose, and to let the horse take us home. She obeyed my order very unwillingly; and the horse, feeling his head quite free, made a sudden turn into the right road, for we were already on a wrong one, and from that moment we went safely on.