CHAPTER XV.
INSTINCT OF ANIMALS.
GRANDMAMMA, will you tell me,’ asked Alice one day, ‘how the geese can know when bad weather is coming? Ellen Laurence told me that they knew.’
‘They certainly do know, I believe, my dear Alice,’ replied her grandmamma. ‘God has given animals the instinct to foresee changes of weather.’
‘But what is instinct?’ inquired Alice.
‘Instinct is a knowledge that comes of itself. It is a gift natural to animals, given, as I said before, by God; and thus animals know when storms and bad weather are coming, and when an earthquake is about to take place. Even dogs will try and give warning, when the house they live in is in danger of falling; and it is a well-known fact that rats will desert a leaky ship, birds will not build their nests in a falling tree or any other dangerous place. I could tell you several stories of the instinct of animals.’
‘Will you, then, tell us some stories about it, dear grandmamma?’ said both the little girls.
Grandmamma thought a little, and then began as follows:—
‘There was an old woman, who lived all alone in a very old cottage; she had a little dog, who was very fond of her, and always slept at the foot of her bed. One stormy evening in autumn the old woman was washing her feet in a tub close to the fire, before going to bed. The little dog ran out of the house and ran in again; at last he came up to the old woman, and barked at her, and whined, and then ran out of the house again. The old woman took no notice of her dog, but continued washing her feet; but the dog came in again, and looked uneasy and restless, and barked, and at length he took hold of the woman’s dress with his teeth, and tried to pull her away. The old woman pushed him away, and gave him a little slap on his head, and told him to be quiet, and the dog ran out again on to the road howling and whining; but he came back directly, and seemed quite furious, for he seized the old woman by her clothes, and pulled and tore, and looked so wild and strange, that his mistress took her feet hastily out of the water, put them into her slippers, and followed her dog through the open cottage door on to the road, to see what could be the matter. She had hardly reached the road when a dreadful loud noise made her turn round, and to her terror she saw that the chimney of her old cottage had fallen in and part of the roof; she looked through the still open door, and saw that her chair and tub had been crushed by the falling bricks and mortar, and she knew that she herself had been thus mercifully saved from being killed, thanks to the fidelity and instinct of her little dog.’
‘What a nice story, dear grandmamma!’ said Alice; ‘and how clever the dog was! But will you tell us some more about the cleverness of animals? Are other animals as clever as dogs?’
‘Yes, dear child, many instances are told of the sagacity or cleverness of other animals; but I think that dogs are the cleverest, for when people have been buried in the snow, dogs are sent to find them out.’
‘Pray tell us how, grandmamma,’ begged Alice.
‘There are some very high hills or mountains in other countries, much higher than our hills here, which are nearly always covered with snow, and so cold that the snow is seldom melted. These mountains are called the Alps, and divide France and Switzerland from Italy. (You will remember, dear Alice, the chain of mountains you looked at in your map this morning.) Travellers who are obliged to cross these high mountains often lose their way in the deep snow, and at last get covered with snow, and they would die, and indeed often do die, in the snow and cold. On stormy and snowy nights, when travellers are exposed to greater danger, good men, monks, who live on those mountains, go out with a number of clever dogs in search of those people who may have lost their way. These dogs, by dint of scratching and smelling at the snow, are able to find out where the poor traveller has fallen, and has been buried by the snow. They bark whenever they find one, and the good monks come to their help, and dig out the half-frozen traveller, who otherwise must have died.’
After listening attentively, Alice said—
‘How wonderful it is! I did not know that dogs were so clever and so useful.’
‘But are cats as clever?’ asked Beatrice.
‘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.
‘We had to go through a small brook where the water was rather deep; the horse chose the safest road through the water, where the banks were the lowest; he took us over a rather dangerous ditch, where the boards that had served as a sort of bridge had been broken down in the winter, and were partly supported by some frozen earth and ice; and then, when we reached the firmer, better road, leading up the hill, my good horse trotted steadily till he brought us safe to my own house door.
‘You may easily think that I ordered my horse a good supper of oats.’
‘Oh, grandmamma, why did you not bring that nice horse here? We should have so liked to have him here.’
Grandmamma smiled and said, ‘Dear Alice, that is so long ago, he cannot be alive.’
‘Tea is ready, ma’am,’ said Mary, opening the door.
‘Tea!’ said Alice; ‘we have only just had dinner. How quickly the afternoon has gone! I do so like to listen to your stories, grandmamma; and look, I have finished hemming my tea-cloth. I thought before that it never would be done.’
