Chapter Twelve.Agrémens of Cat Life.Before we can thoroughly understand the ways and habits of any animal, we must try, in a manner, to put ourselves in that animal’s place, and thus be able to study life from its point of view.I don’t believe that God made any creature to be otherwise than happy, and He has endowed each member of His creation with just that amount of reason and instinct which shall enable it to find its food and a place to rest in, make love in its own way, marry after its own fashion—by civil contract—bring up its young, and, in a word, be generally jolly. I found a poor bee this morning getting drowned in the water-butt. “Yes,” I said, “I’ll save your life, but I will give you as a treat to my pet spider.” Man has the proposing, but not the disposing. I laid my bee for one moment on the edge of the butt to dry, when whirr! away he darted through the bright morning sunshine, and my spider had to be content with a bluebottle for breakfast. This spider, I may tell you, is a very large and beautiful specimen, striped and marked like a silver tabby. He lives in an outhouse, and has a web, the network of which is a yard in diameter, with goodness knows how many feet of tack, and sheet, and stay, and guy. And a very amusing rascal he is, and not a bit afraid of me. Nearly every day, I give him a bee with the sting out. (It is in the kaleidoscope of events; that some day I may leave the sting in, just to see how he feels it.) I place the bee in the web, and it is amusing to see how quickly my friend shins up the rigging—he catches the bee by the shoulders, and makes him spin for a few seconds like a top, till he is completely enveloped in a gauzy shroud, and there is a big hole in the web. I tell my spider he shouldn’t make a hole in the web. “Never mind that,” he replies, “soon make that all right,” and sure enough next morning the web is nicely repaired, and the bee nearly eaten. I don’t think he eats all the bee himself. I am convinced that he has a little wife who lives somewhere in a corner, and that every day he is careful to send her a leg, or a wing, or a bit of the breast. Well, he is happy, I know. Hadn’t he a nice private house, without rent or taxes, maybe a wife, and a thriving business, to say nothing at all about the bee. I have studied cats as I have studied that spider. I have imagined myself that spider. I have been, or imagined myself to be, a cat—a Tom, you know, and I can fully understand a pussy’s life and a pussy’s joys and sorrows.“How different,” I thought, as I mused one morning under a tree, “is the life of a cat from that of a dog. I’m the parson’s cat to be sure, but then I’m my own master. Now, there is the parson’s Saint Bernard dog, Dumpling for instance,—an honest, contented fellow enough, but, bless you, he isn’t free.Iam. Dumpling can’t do as he pleases. I can. I can go to bed when I like, rise when I like, and eat and drink, when, where, or what I choose. Dumplingcan’t. Really I feel I can forgive Dumpling for chasing me into the apple-tree last Sunday when I think of the dull life the dog leads, and how few are his joys compared to mine. Poor Dumpling needs servants to wait upon him, and he can’t even walk a couple of miles, and make sure of his way home, or sure of not getting into a row, or not getting stolen, or something else equally ridiculous. The other day Dumpling actually sat on the door-step for two hours in the rain, till his great shaggy coat was wet through and through, because, forsooth, he didn’t know how to get the door opened. Would I have done that? No. I should have walked up politely to the first kind-faced passenger, and asked that passenger to ‘be good enough to ring this bell for me, please, ’cause I ain’t big enough,’ and the thing would have been done. Could Dumpling unlatch a door or catch a mouse? Could he climb a tree and rob a sparrow’s nest? or could he find his way home over the tiles on a dark night? I would laugh to see him try.“Now here am I on this bright, beautiful summer morning, as fresh as a daisy, as happy as a king. Catch me sleeping in the house on a summer’s night!“How sweetly the birds are singing, but how much more sweetly they will taste! What a glorious day I had of it yesterday all through! Put in an appearance at the parson’s breakfast-table, just for fashion’s sake, and pretended to drink the milk my kind mistress placed before me. Fairly won the old lady’s heart by rubbing my head affectionately against the canary’s cage. ‘Dear Tom,’ said she, ‘youwould never touch the pretty bird?’ Oh! wouldn’t I, though?“What a nasty old man that Farmer Trump is! I’m sure, if it wasn’t that I have a taste for pigeons, and am a little bit of a Columbarian, I would never have thought of looking at his lot, anyhow. Besides, I had only eaten two when in camehe, and out wentI. Well, if he didn’t take his gun and fire after me. Well, if he hadn’t done anything of the sort, he wouldn’t have shot his bantam cock.“I didn’t go into that milk cellar of my own free will. It was purely accidental. I was chased by a dog, but being in, how could I, being only a thirsty cat, and amid such profusion, help helping myself to a drop of cream? And if the clumsy old dairymaid hadn’t thrown her shoe at me, she wouldn’t have broken the milk-house window. It was no business of mine. I met Master Black-and-tan outside, and warmed him. I gavehimsore eyes. That old shoe brought luck with it, however, for about an hour after I found myself in a large and beautiful garden, filled with beds of the rarest flowers. It isn’t always you get a bed made for you, thinks I; so I scraped about me a bit, and went off to sleep in the sun. Where did that half-brick come from? I wonder. I’m somehow of opinion that it was meant for me. However, if people will use profane language, and heave bricks at the heads of unoffending cats, they mustn’t be astonished if they do smash the cucumber frame.“I find it so much better to live in the free forest, because, if I live in the house, a day never passes that I do not get into a row, and I always get the worst of it. Only yesterday I looked in for a few minutes at tea-time, and there was Dumpling standing, with a yard of tongue hanging from one side of his mouth; and Master must pat him, and call him a fine fellow; then I jumped on the sofa-stool, and smacked him in the face, and Dumpling knocked down the stool to get at me, besides a cup and saucer, with his wisp of a tail, and I bolted through a pane of glass, and got blamed for that. Day before, a mouse was pleased to get behind a china vase, and I had to break the vase to get at it—I got blamed for that. Same day I ran away with a mackerel. That mackerel seemed positively to say, ‘Oh, pussy, do run away with me, and eat me in some nice, quiet corner.’ And I did; and, would you believe it, I was even blamed for that!“I’m going to see Zelina to-night. Zelina is a beautiful black Persian angel, with hazel eyes and flowing fur, and a voice that would lure the larks from the sky. Zelina belongs to the barber, and I met her by appointment in the back garden, and found her very thick with three other fellows. That’s the worst of Zelina. But I fellowed them! For five minutes you wouldn’t have seen either of us for fluff, and at the end of that time little remained of the other cats save the teeth. Meanwhile Zelina looked calmly on. Then I wooed Zelina beneath the moon, and thrashed her, and beat her, and bit her, till at last she consented to fly with me to a foreign shore; but we made such a row that we awoke the brute of a barber, and he threw a basin of dirty water right over us, and there was no more foreign shore thought of. But I’ll see her to-night, sweet Zelina!”I’ll conclude this paper with a rather curious anecdote, told me by Captain A. Brown, late of Arbroath, now of Chatham, Canada. “We have a cat,” says Captain Brown, “who brought up a kitten in a loft above the woodshed, until it was old enough to wean; she then brought it down to run about, but the dog (a puppy) would on every opportunity take the kitten in its mouth and drag it about. This the cat didn’t seem to like, so one day she took it in her mouth, and carried it along, on the top of the fence, to the nearest farm, a quarter of a mile off, where thekitten’s father lived. She placed the kitten at the male parent’s feet, gave it suck once more, then started off home along the fence, and never went near it again.”This anecdote, for the truth of which the captain vouches, clearly proves that pussy has a much larger amount of reasoning power than most people give her credit for. It was just as though pussy had addressed the male cat thus:“I’ve brought you your youngster, Thomas. It cannot live at home for the mischievous puppy. Goodness knows I’ve donemyduty to him as a mother; now, hub, you have a turn. Time about’s fair-play, Thomas; good-bye.”
Before we can thoroughly understand the ways and habits of any animal, we must try, in a manner, to put ourselves in that animal’s place, and thus be able to study life from its point of view.
I don’t believe that God made any creature to be otherwise than happy, and He has endowed each member of His creation with just that amount of reason and instinct which shall enable it to find its food and a place to rest in, make love in its own way, marry after its own fashion—by civil contract—bring up its young, and, in a word, be generally jolly. I found a poor bee this morning getting drowned in the water-butt. “Yes,” I said, “I’ll save your life, but I will give you as a treat to my pet spider.” Man has the proposing, but not the disposing. I laid my bee for one moment on the edge of the butt to dry, when whirr! away he darted through the bright morning sunshine, and my spider had to be content with a bluebottle for breakfast. This spider, I may tell you, is a very large and beautiful specimen, striped and marked like a silver tabby. He lives in an outhouse, and has a web, the network of which is a yard in diameter, with goodness knows how many feet of tack, and sheet, and stay, and guy. And a very amusing rascal he is, and not a bit afraid of me. Nearly every day, I give him a bee with the sting out. (It is in the kaleidoscope of events; that some day I may leave the sting in, just to see how he feels it.) I place the bee in the web, and it is amusing to see how quickly my friend shins up the rigging—he catches the bee by the shoulders, and makes him spin for a few seconds like a top, till he is completely enveloped in a gauzy shroud, and there is a big hole in the web. I tell my spider he shouldn’t make a hole in the web. “Never mind that,” he replies, “soon make that all right,” and sure enough next morning the web is nicely repaired, and the bee nearly eaten. I don’t think he eats all the bee himself. I am convinced that he has a little wife who lives somewhere in a corner, and that every day he is careful to send her a leg, or a wing, or a bit of the breast. Well, he is happy, I know. Hadn’t he a nice private house, without rent or taxes, maybe a wife, and a thriving business, to say nothing at all about the bee. I have studied cats as I have studied that spider. I have imagined myself that spider. I have been, or imagined myself to be, a cat—a Tom, you know, and I can fully understand a pussy’s life and a pussy’s joys and sorrows.
“How different,” I thought, as I mused one morning under a tree, “is the life of a cat from that of a dog. I’m the parson’s cat to be sure, but then I’m my own master. Now, there is the parson’s Saint Bernard dog, Dumpling for instance,—an honest, contented fellow enough, but, bless you, he isn’t free.Iam. Dumpling can’t do as he pleases. I can. I can go to bed when I like, rise when I like, and eat and drink, when, where, or what I choose. Dumplingcan’t. Really I feel I can forgive Dumpling for chasing me into the apple-tree last Sunday when I think of the dull life the dog leads, and how few are his joys compared to mine. Poor Dumpling needs servants to wait upon him, and he can’t even walk a couple of miles, and make sure of his way home, or sure of not getting into a row, or not getting stolen, or something else equally ridiculous. The other day Dumpling actually sat on the door-step for two hours in the rain, till his great shaggy coat was wet through and through, because, forsooth, he didn’t know how to get the door opened. Would I have done that? No. I should have walked up politely to the first kind-faced passenger, and asked that passenger to ‘be good enough to ring this bell for me, please, ’cause I ain’t big enough,’ and the thing would have been done. Could Dumpling unlatch a door or catch a mouse? Could he climb a tree and rob a sparrow’s nest? or could he find his way home over the tiles on a dark night? I would laugh to see him try.
“Now here am I on this bright, beautiful summer morning, as fresh as a daisy, as happy as a king. Catch me sleeping in the house on a summer’s night!
“How sweetly the birds are singing, but how much more sweetly they will taste! What a glorious day I had of it yesterday all through! Put in an appearance at the parson’s breakfast-table, just for fashion’s sake, and pretended to drink the milk my kind mistress placed before me. Fairly won the old lady’s heart by rubbing my head affectionately against the canary’s cage. ‘Dear Tom,’ said she, ‘youwould never touch the pretty bird?’ Oh! wouldn’t I, though?
“What a nasty old man that Farmer Trump is! I’m sure, if it wasn’t that I have a taste for pigeons, and am a little bit of a Columbarian, I would never have thought of looking at his lot, anyhow. Besides, I had only eaten two when in camehe, and out wentI. Well, if he didn’t take his gun and fire after me. Well, if he hadn’t done anything of the sort, he wouldn’t have shot his bantam cock.
“I didn’t go into that milk cellar of my own free will. It was purely accidental. I was chased by a dog, but being in, how could I, being only a thirsty cat, and amid such profusion, help helping myself to a drop of cream? And if the clumsy old dairymaid hadn’t thrown her shoe at me, she wouldn’t have broken the milk-house window. It was no business of mine. I met Master Black-and-tan outside, and warmed him. I gavehimsore eyes. That old shoe brought luck with it, however, for about an hour after I found myself in a large and beautiful garden, filled with beds of the rarest flowers. It isn’t always you get a bed made for you, thinks I; so I scraped about me a bit, and went off to sleep in the sun. Where did that half-brick come from? I wonder. I’m somehow of opinion that it was meant for me. However, if people will use profane language, and heave bricks at the heads of unoffending cats, they mustn’t be astonished if they do smash the cucumber frame.
“I find it so much better to live in the free forest, because, if I live in the house, a day never passes that I do not get into a row, and I always get the worst of it. Only yesterday I looked in for a few minutes at tea-time, and there was Dumpling standing, with a yard of tongue hanging from one side of his mouth; and Master must pat him, and call him a fine fellow; then I jumped on the sofa-stool, and smacked him in the face, and Dumpling knocked down the stool to get at me, besides a cup and saucer, with his wisp of a tail, and I bolted through a pane of glass, and got blamed for that. Day before, a mouse was pleased to get behind a china vase, and I had to break the vase to get at it—I got blamed for that. Same day I ran away with a mackerel. That mackerel seemed positively to say, ‘Oh, pussy, do run away with me, and eat me in some nice, quiet corner.’ And I did; and, would you believe it, I was even blamed for that!
“I’m going to see Zelina to-night. Zelina is a beautiful black Persian angel, with hazel eyes and flowing fur, and a voice that would lure the larks from the sky. Zelina belongs to the barber, and I met her by appointment in the back garden, and found her very thick with three other fellows. That’s the worst of Zelina. But I fellowed them! For five minutes you wouldn’t have seen either of us for fluff, and at the end of that time little remained of the other cats save the teeth. Meanwhile Zelina looked calmly on. Then I wooed Zelina beneath the moon, and thrashed her, and beat her, and bit her, till at last she consented to fly with me to a foreign shore; but we made such a row that we awoke the brute of a barber, and he threw a basin of dirty water right over us, and there was no more foreign shore thought of. But I’ll see her to-night, sweet Zelina!”
I’ll conclude this paper with a rather curious anecdote, told me by Captain A. Brown, late of Arbroath, now of Chatham, Canada. “We have a cat,” says Captain Brown, “who brought up a kitten in a loft above the woodshed, until it was old enough to wean; she then brought it down to run about, but the dog (a puppy) would on every opportunity take the kitten in its mouth and drag it about. This the cat didn’t seem to like, so one day she took it in her mouth, and carried it along, on the top of the fence, to the nearest farm, a quarter of a mile off, where thekitten’s father lived. She placed the kitten at the male parent’s feet, gave it suck once more, then started off home along the fence, and never went near it again.”
This anecdote, for the truth of which the captain vouches, clearly proves that pussy has a much larger amount of reasoning power than most people give her credit for. It was just as though pussy had addressed the male cat thus:
“I’ve brought you your youngster, Thomas. It cannot live at home for the mischievous puppy. Goodness knows I’ve donemyduty to him as a mother; now, hub, you have a turn. Time about’s fair-play, Thomas; good-bye.”
Chapter Thirteen.Sagacity of the Cat.“The dignity of life is not impairedBy aught which innocently satisfiesThe humbler cravings of the heart; and heIs still a happier man, who, for the heightsOf speculation not unfit, descends,And such benign affections cultivates,Among the inferior kinds.”Wordsworth.I think many of the miseries which the “harmless necessary cat” has to endure in this wicked world of hers and ours would be mitigated if not entirely removed, were we only to take the trouble to study and consider what a wonderfully reasoning and sensible little thing she is. “Leave the study to old maids,” I think I hear some manly (?) reader exclaim. But why to old maids? It is you who are unkind to pussy, and regardless of her comforts, and not old maids. And indeed, indeed now, I never for the life of me could see why any stigma should attach itself to an old maid any more than to a cat. Most of the old maids I have known were very agreeable persons indeed, and I’ve spent many a quiet and enjoyable hour with old maids over a cup of homely tea. My two maternal aunts are old maids, they even plead guilty to the soft impeachment, but cheerier bodies you wouldn’t meet anywhere. They go three times to the kirk on a Sunday, to be sure, and wouldn’t cook a meal on that sacred day for a world. But just see them on a week-day, look at their bright smiling faces—what odds if they do try to appear a few years younger?—and ah! just see them go through the intricate figures of the mazy Reel o’ Tulloch, and hear them crack their thumbs, and cry “hooch!” you wouldn’t say old-maidendom was so very dreary after that. It isn’t always a woman’s fault if she can’t get married: many, whose early affections have been blighted, would not marry if they could, for haven’t they got a posy somewhere, a locket with a face, a lock of hair, and a faded ribbon which erst was bonny blue—relics of lost love, around which cling sweetest memories of the past? Besides, have not unmarried ladies more opportunities to taste the sweets of doing good, and, better still, more time to cherish hopes of happiness hereafter, which are worth a world of wedded bliss?Cats then, like old maids, are fifty times worse than they are painted, and the reason why people don’t like them is because they don’t understand them. I have at this moment a large and beautiful tabby, and I positively rejoice that that cat is so fierce to everyone but me, because before I got her she was subjected to the most barbarous treatment, neither fed, nor housed, nor watered, and I believe I was the first person from whom she ever got a word of kindness. No wonder that at first she did not understand my meaning. But she does now, though she never will be tame; but if I am asleep she mounts guard on the table near me, and her purring chant is speedily turned into a low, ominous growl if any one but touches the handle of the door. Does she know that I am asleep, and that one in sleep is helpless as regards defence? I’m sure she does, for—Cats know the nature of sleep in others.—A friend of mine has a pussy, Kate to name, who has been early trained to habits of cleanliness. When Kate wishes to get out at night she goes to her master’s bedside, and mews loudly and entreatingly. To see how she will behave, sometimes her master pretends to be fast asleep, and snores loudly. “Oh!” thinks puss to herself, “this will never do;” so she invariably stands upon her hind legs, and pats his face with her gloved hand. When he gets up, she trots pleasantly before him towards a little window, which he opens for her, and admits her into the garden. The same cat for many years used to seat herself regularly every night on a chest of drawers, waiting patiently till the door of the adjoining cupboard was thrown open for her: this cupboard was a very prolific hunting-ground of pussy’s. When she had kittens, and they were able to eat, she used to bring all the mice to them, and present them with that fond “murring” mew which all cat lovers know so well.Everybody knows that cats can open doors if left off the latch, and also that they soon get up to the mechanism of the old-fashioned hand-and-thumb latch; they open this by springing up, and holding on to the hand portion with one arm, while they press down the thumb portion with the other foot.A lady friend of mine has a large Tabby Tom who can open a room door, by standing on his hind legs and turning the knob with his teeth. This is clever, but cats even know how tofastendoors, at least some do; and this samelady was once ina cupboard, when one of her pussies came and turned on the button latch of the door, and made her a prisoner for some considerable time!In a small village which I know, there is an old woman who lives by keeping lodgers of the more humble description. As these have often to get up and be off early in the morning, the woman always gives them strict injunctions to shut the door when they go out, for fear of thieves. One morning a lodger had forgotten to obey his landlady’s instructions. Pussy, however, had witnessed the infraction of the rule, and walked directly to her mistress’s bedside, and began to mew most plaintively. Nor would she be content till the woman got up, when the cat led her directly to the door. Pussy wouldn’t go out, but so soon as the door was shut, led the way again back to bed,singing. Old women’s cats are nearly always wiser than others—they get more care taken with their training, and more comfort and love. They know all the ways, likes, and dislikes of a beloved mistress, and study them just as they do their own. Indeed, some of the things I have known old women’s cats do are unaccountable in any other way, but the belief that they are possessed of a very high amount of intelligence and reasoning power. No wonder our ignorant ancestors believed them possessed of devils.You see it is just like this—when you once get a cat to love you, you, and you only, will become the study of her whole life. She soon finds out what pleases you, and what vexes you, and also what you love, and, whether that be dog or child, she will love it too, to please you.Cats will often, very often—just like dogs—lead those they love to places where something or some creature is in danger. It may be, as happened to myself once, while residing in Lincoln, two summers ago, when a cat came towards me out of an entry, and, as plain as any animal could speak, gazed up into my face, and cried: “Come, oh come and help me?” I followed, and she led me down the garden to a closet, through which her kitten had dropped into the cesspool below. Now just think for one moment of the amount of sagacity shown in this case! Piteously the little kit had mewed to her mother: “Mother, mother, come and help me?” Pussy’s answer had been: “My dear, I can’t, but I’ll soon find those who will.” And that was precisely my answer to the mother cat, when I saw the state of affairs, and I kept my word.And once again a pussy—this time my own—led me a long way from my work to a distant outhouse to see her kits. After she got me to the spot where they were, she rolled on her back and held them up one by one to be admired.I knew the case of a cat bringing her mistress hastily to a room where her sick child lay. The child had rolled on to the floor, and would have been smothered, except for pussy’s timely aid.Some will hardly credit this, because they do not see the working of the internal machine—pussy’s mind—nor know the motive power—love, love, love.Amor vincit omnia.
“The dignity of life is not impairedBy aught which innocently satisfiesThe humbler cravings of the heart; and heIs still a happier man, who, for the heightsOf speculation not unfit, descends,And such benign affections cultivates,Among the inferior kinds.”Wordsworth.
“The dignity of life is not impairedBy aught which innocently satisfiesThe humbler cravings of the heart; and heIs still a happier man, who, for the heightsOf speculation not unfit, descends,And such benign affections cultivates,Among the inferior kinds.”Wordsworth.
I think many of the miseries which the “harmless necessary cat” has to endure in this wicked world of hers and ours would be mitigated if not entirely removed, were we only to take the trouble to study and consider what a wonderfully reasoning and sensible little thing she is. “Leave the study to old maids,” I think I hear some manly (?) reader exclaim. But why to old maids? It is you who are unkind to pussy, and regardless of her comforts, and not old maids. And indeed, indeed now, I never for the life of me could see why any stigma should attach itself to an old maid any more than to a cat. Most of the old maids I have known were very agreeable persons indeed, and I’ve spent many a quiet and enjoyable hour with old maids over a cup of homely tea. My two maternal aunts are old maids, they even plead guilty to the soft impeachment, but cheerier bodies you wouldn’t meet anywhere. They go three times to the kirk on a Sunday, to be sure, and wouldn’t cook a meal on that sacred day for a world. But just see them on a week-day, look at their bright smiling faces—what odds if they do try to appear a few years younger?—and ah! just see them go through the intricate figures of the mazy Reel o’ Tulloch, and hear them crack their thumbs, and cry “hooch!” you wouldn’t say old-maidendom was so very dreary after that. It isn’t always a woman’s fault if she can’t get married: many, whose early affections have been blighted, would not marry if they could, for haven’t they got a posy somewhere, a locket with a face, a lock of hair, and a faded ribbon which erst was bonny blue—relics of lost love, around which cling sweetest memories of the past? Besides, have not unmarried ladies more opportunities to taste the sweets of doing good, and, better still, more time to cherish hopes of happiness hereafter, which are worth a world of wedded bliss?
Cats then, like old maids, are fifty times worse than they are painted, and the reason why people don’t like them is because they don’t understand them. I have at this moment a large and beautiful tabby, and I positively rejoice that that cat is so fierce to everyone but me, because before I got her she was subjected to the most barbarous treatment, neither fed, nor housed, nor watered, and I believe I was the first person from whom she ever got a word of kindness. No wonder that at first she did not understand my meaning. But she does now, though she never will be tame; but if I am asleep she mounts guard on the table near me, and her purring chant is speedily turned into a low, ominous growl if any one but touches the handle of the door. Does she know that I am asleep, and that one in sleep is helpless as regards defence? I’m sure she does, for—
Cats know the nature of sleep in others.—A friend of mine has a pussy, Kate to name, who has been early trained to habits of cleanliness. When Kate wishes to get out at night she goes to her master’s bedside, and mews loudly and entreatingly. To see how she will behave, sometimes her master pretends to be fast asleep, and snores loudly. “Oh!” thinks puss to herself, “this will never do;” so she invariably stands upon her hind legs, and pats his face with her gloved hand. When he gets up, she trots pleasantly before him towards a little window, which he opens for her, and admits her into the garden. The same cat for many years used to seat herself regularly every night on a chest of drawers, waiting patiently till the door of the adjoining cupboard was thrown open for her: this cupboard was a very prolific hunting-ground of pussy’s. When she had kittens, and they were able to eat, she used to bring all the mice to them, and present them with that fond “murring” mew which all cat lovers know so well.
Everybody knows that cats can open doors if left off the latch, and also that they soon get up to the mechanism of the old-fashioned hand-and-thumb latch; they open this by springing up, and holding on to the hand portion with one arm, while they press down the thumb portion with the other foot.
A lady friend of mine has a large Tabby Tom who can open a room door, by standing on his hind legs and turning the knob with his teeth. This is clever, but cats even know how tofastendoors, at least some do; and this samelady was once ina cupboard, when one of her pussies came and turned on the button latch of the door, and made her a prisoner for some considerable time!
In a small village which I know, there is an old woman who lives by keeping lodgers of the more humble description. As these have often to get up and be off early in the morning, the woman always gives them strict injunctions to shut the door when they go out, for fear of thieves. One morning a lodger had forgotten to obey his landlady’s instructions. Pussy, however, had witnessed the infraction of the rule, and walked directly to her mistress’s bedside, and began to mew most plaintively. Nor would she be content till the woman got up, when the cat led her directly to the door. Pussy wouldn’t go out, but so soon as the door was shut, led the way again back to bed,singing. Old women’s cats are nearly always wiser than others—they get more care taken with their training, and more comfort and love. They know all the ways, likes, and dislikes of a beloved mistress, and study them just as they do their own. Indeed, some of the things I have known old women’s cats do are unaccountable in any other way, but the belief that they are possessed of a very high amount of intelligence and reasoning power. No wonder our ignorant ancestors believed them possessed of devils.
You see it is just like this—when you once get a cat to love you, you, and you only, will become the study of her whole life. She soon finds out what pleases you, and what vexes you, and also what you love, and, whether that be dog or child, she will love it too, to please you.
Cats will often, very often—just like dogs—lead those they love to places where something or some creature is in danger. It may be, as happened to myself once, while residing in Lincoln, two summers ago, when a cat came towards me out of an entry, and, as plain as any animal could speak, gazed up into my face, and cried: “Come, oh come and help me?” I followed, and she led me down the garden to a closet, through which her kitten had dropped into the cesspool below. Now just think for one moment of the amount of sagacity shown in this case! Piteously the little kit had mewed to her mother: “Mother, mother, come and help me?” Pussy’s answer had been: “My dear, I can’t, but I’ll soon find those who will.” And that was precisely my answer to the mother cat, when I saw the state of affairs, and I kept my word.
And once again a pussy—this time my own—led me a long way from my work to a distant outhouse to see her kits. After she got me to the spot where they were, she rolled on her back and held them up one by one to be admired.
I knew the case of a cat bringing her mistress hastily to a room where her sick child lay. The child had rolled on to the floor, and would have been smothered, except for pussy’s timely aid.
Some will hardly credit this, because they do not see the working of the internal machine—pussy’s mind—nor know the motive power—love, love, love.Amor vincit omnia.
Chapter Fourteen.Cats Feeding the Sick.“Ma conscience! mither, it kens its name?” Such was the exclamation of a little ragged and kilted urchin, in the remote Highlands of Argyllshire, as he heard me call my dog to give him a drink. The day was exceedingly warm, and we had had a long walk over the mountain, and had been kindly invited into a shepherd’s hut, and asked to partake of a draught of cool, sweet whey—the very best of summer beverages. Nero was having a “talkee-talkee” with some rabbits, and didn’t see his whey until I called his attention to it; hence the wondering urchin’s exclamation.“Hoo shouldna he?” said the mother; “poor wise-lookin’ beast. Ise warrant he kens mair than that.”The idea of even a child thinking it strange Theodore Nero (the Newfoundland champion) should know his name was so amusing that I gave the boy “twa bawbees” on the spot.And just on a par with this boy’s ignorance, is the unbelieving ignorance of some people who doubt everything they cannot understand, however well authenticated. This doubting implies an assumption on their part that the knowledge they possess is the highest attainable, that their minds are, in fact, complete in themselves. It is people of this class—fools—who doubt the existence of even a Supreme Being. I read in a late number of theLive Stock Journalan account of a cat, which, seeing its master sick in bed, and unable to move, brought a mouse to him, and on her master pretending to eat it, the same day brought him a striped squirrel; and every day, until he got well, brought “game” of some sort and laid them on his bed.I believe I, myself, was the first who everdaredto publish a case of the same kind. The story was this: A poor ploughman, who lived in a little hut at the foot of the Moffat Hills, in Scotland, fell sick of a long, lingering illness—and when the poor are ill they are poorer still; it is then the shoe pinches. This poor man had nothing in the house but meal and milk. The doctor said he must have wine. His wife pledged her marriage-gown to get it. The doctor said he must have meat. That was beyond their power to procure. But a merciful Providence had willed the man should live; and one day the little tortoiseshell cat, which was a great favourite with the poor ploughman, and had been very dull and wretched since his illness, brought in a rabbit—a thing, mind you, she had never done before—and placed it on the bed. She appeared to brighten up as she saw it skinned and cooked by the ploughman’s wife, and partaken of by her sick master. And next day she brought another, and so on, almost every day, a rabbit or a bird, until her master was well, afterwhich she brought no more. I took very considerable pains to test the truth of this story, and went to some expense about it as well, and found it in every whit true as first related to me. (See “Cats,” by same Author. Dean and Sons, Publishers, 160a, Fleet Street.)Since then I have had one or two cases precisely similar to the above, in which cats brought their “game-bag” to the bed of a sick master or mistress.It is indisputable, then, that such things have been done over and over again. And now the question comes to be, how are we to account for it? In ancient times, these poor, affectionate pussies would doubtless have been condemned to death as being witches in feline form.In our own day such cases are usually put down to a special interposition of Providence. Now, without doubting for a moment that there is a Divinity which shapes the end, we must remember that that Divinity works more by simple laws than miraculous means, and consequently endeavour to account for the occurrences in a natural way.Cats, we know, after they have weaned their kittens, are in the habit of bringing them mice, etc, by way of food. This we do not think at all strange, and we put it down to that much-abused term—instinct. But the following anecdote shows, I think, something higher than mere instinct, and will help us to understand why the cat will bring food to a sick master or mistress.A certain cat had kittens. They were all drowned except one, which, of course, became a great pet with pussy, who, after putting it through a course of milk, put it through a course of mice, according to the custom of country cats. The kitten grew up into a fine large Tom, and was big enough to thrash his mother, which I’m sorry to say the unfilial rascal sometimes did. But a day came when he had need of that mother’s love. Tom had his leg torn off in a trap, and was confined to his pallet of straw for several weeks, and never, one single day of his illness, did his mother miss bringing her wounded son either birds or mice, until he was able to run once more, though on three legs, to go and hunt them for himself. This cat is living still, I believe. It is quite evident that a cat’s affection for, and attachment to, a beloved master, are quite equal to their love for a grown-up son, and the same feelings which prompt her to minister to the latter when ill, and unable to move, would cause her to attend on the other.Cats easily know when any one they love is sick or ailing. I returned home a few years ago, after an absence of some six months, very bad indeed. I thought I was a “gone coon,” as the Yanks say, and didn’t feel to have any more flesh on my ribs than there is on those telegraph wires. Well, my pet cat was rejoiced to see me, and hardly ever left my room. She would never leave me, it is true, but still there was something very strange in her behaviour. For she must have seen something strange in my appearance. Whether she took me for an impostor or not, I cannot say, but she always sat facing me whenever I was seated, seldom taking her eyes off my face, and her brows were lowered as if she were angry with me about something. What were pussy’s thoughts? I asked this question one day of my father’s housekeeper. “The cat kens ye’er no lang for this warld,” said Eppie; “gin I were you, I’d just mak’ my callin’ and election sure.” Calling and election! How I hated the old rook! Cats have an idea that when any one is ailing, itmustbe for want of food. Poor things! How often they suffer hunger and privations themselves, goodness only can tell! This idea is not confined to cats alone. Dogs, at least, I know possess the same notion. I could give many anecdotes to prove this, but as this book is presumably on cats, I must only give one.An Inverness-shire student was returning from the south, and with him his faithful Scottish collie. In the Highlands there are generally two roads, the high and the low; the low road being the longest and of course the safest, and the high much shorter, but usually leading through some ugly bits of country, which are far from safe even by day, and much less by night. It was a beautiful night, quite clear and starry, with just the slightest crust of snow on the ground, barely enough to darken the heather. But such being the case, the student thought he could easily venture to cross by the hills, and thus save a mile or two. Early next morning, a woman at a neighbouring farm was surprised, while baking bannocks, by the entrance of a strange collie. The collie did not use much ceremony, but simply stole the largest bannock, and fled. This, of course, was not thought much of. The dog was hungry, and the morning cold, and he was welcome to the bannock, although it would have been more satisfactory for both sides had he asked for it. The same dog returned, however, in a few hours, and his behaviour was so strange that one of the family was induced to follow him. The dog led him a long way over the mountains, and at last brought up at the foot of a precipice, near a stream, where “something dark was lying.” This something dark was no other than the poor student, who had slipped his foot on the previous night, and tumbled over the rock. He was at first supposed to be dead, but soon revived, having merely fractured a thigh, and become insensible from the cold; but the strange part of the story is to come—the bannock, all untouched, reclined against the student’s cheek,placed there by the dog. (At page 83, volume three, “Annals of Sporting,” an instance of collie-dog sagacity very similar to this is given.)Not only do cats know sickness in others, but they are acquainted in some way with the mystery of death. Observe a cat, for instance, that has played with a mouse until she has killed it. Just see the critical way she turns it over and over with her foot, and glares into its glazing eyes. She wants to make sure the wee thing is not shamming; but, being satisfied, mark her as she coolly stretches herself, or walks slowly away from her victim, as much as to say: “Well, I’ve had half an hour’s good fun, anyhow. Might have eaten it as long as it was alive, though; but I can’t bear a dead mouse. So it’s just as broad as it’s long.”
“Ma conscience! mither, it kens its name?” Such was the exclamation of a little ragged and kilted urchin, in the remote Highlands of Argyllshire, as he heard me call my dog to give him a drink. The day was exceedingly warm, and we had had a long walk over the mountain, and had been kindly invited into a shepherd’s hut, and asked to partake of a draught of cool, sweet whey—the very best of summer beverages. Nero was having a “talkee-talkee” with some rabbits, and didn’t see his whey until I called his attention to it; hence the wondering urchin’s exclamation.
“Hoo shouldna he?” said the mother; “poor wise-lookin’ beast. Ise warrant he kens mair than that.”
The idea of even a child thinking it strange Theodore Nero (the Newfoundland champion) should know his name was so amusing that I gave the boy “twa bawbees” on the spot.
And just on a par with this boy’s ignorance, is the unbelieving ignorance of some people who doubt everything they cannot understand, however well authenticated. This doubting implies an assumption on their part that the knowledge they possess is the highest attainable, that their minds are, in fact, complete in themselves. It is people of this class—fools—who doubt the existence of even a Supreme Being. I read in a late number of theLive Stock Journalan account of a cat, which, seeing its master sick in bed, and unable to move, brought a mouse to him, and on her master pretending to eat it, the same day brought him a striped squirrel; and every day, until he got well, brought “game” of some sort and laid them on his bed.
I believe I, myself, was the first who everdaredto publish a case of the same kind. The story was this: A poor ploughman, who lived in a little hut at the foot of the Moffat Hills, in Scotland, fell sick of a long, lingering illness—and when the poor are ill they are poorer still; it is then the shoe pinches. This poor man had nothing in the house but meal and milk. The doctor said he must have wine. His wife pledged her marriage-gown to get it. The doctor said he must have meat. That was beyond their power to procure. But a merciful Providence had willed the man should live; and one day the little tortoiseshell cat, which was a great favourite with the poor ploughman, and had been very dull and wretched since his illness, brought in a rabbit—a thing, mind you, she had never done before—and placed it on the bed. She appeared to brighten up as she saw it skinned and cooked by the ploughman’s wife, and partaken of by her sick master. And next day she brought another, and so on, almost every day, a rabbit or a bird, until her master was well, afterwhich she brought no more. I took very considerable pains to test the truth of this story, and went to some expense about it as well, and found it in every whit true as first related to me. (See “Cats,” by same Author. Dean and Sons, Publishers, 160a, Fleet Street.)
Since then I have had one or two cases precisely similar to the above, in which cats brought their “game-bag” to the bed of a sick master or mistress.
It is indisputable, then, that such things have been done over and over again. And now the question comes to be, how are we to account for it? In ancient times, these poor, affectionate pussies would doubtless have been condemned to death as being witches in feline form.
In our own day such cases are usually put down to a special interposition of Providence. Now, without doubting for a moment that there is a Divinity which shapes the end, we must remember that that Divinity works more by simple laws than miraculous means, and consequently endeavour to account for the occurrences in a natural way.
Cats, we know, after they have weaned their kittens, are in the habit of bringing them mice, etc, by way of food. This we do not think at all strange, and we put it down to that much-abused term—instinct. But the following anecdote shows, I think, something higher than mere instinct, and will help us to understand why the cat will bring food to a sick master or mistress.
A certain cat had kittens. They were all drowned except one, which, of course, became a great pet with pussy, who, after putting it through a course of milk, put it through a course of mice, according to the custom of country cats. The kitten grew up into a fine large Tom, and was big enough to thrash his mother, which I’m sorry to say the unfilial rascal sometimes did. But a day came when he had need of that mother’s love. Tom had his leg torn off in a trap, and was confined to his pallet of straw for several weeks, and never, one single day of his illness, did his mother miss bringing her wounded son either birds or mice, until he was able to run once more, though on three legs, to go and hunt them for himself. This cat is living still, I believe. It is quite evident that a cat’s affection for, and attachment to, a beloved master, are quite equal to their love for a grown-up son, and the same feelings which prompt her to minister to the latter when ill, and unable to move, would cause her to attend on the other.
Cats easily know when any one they love is sick or ailing. I returned home a few years ago, after an absence of some six months, very bad indeed. I thought I was a “gone coon,” as the Yanks say, and didn’t feel to have any more flesh on my ribs than there is on those telegraph wires. Well, my pet cat was rejoiced to see me, and hardly ever left my room. She would never leave me, it is true, but still there was something very strange in her behaviour. For she must have seen something strange in my appearance. Whether she took me for an impostor or not, I cannot say, but she always sat facing me whenever I was seated, seldom taking her eyes off my face, and her brows were lowered as if she were angry with me about something. What were pussy’s thoughts? I asked this question one day of my father’s housekeeper. “The cat kens ye’er no lang for this warld,” said Eppie; “gin I were you, I’d just mak’ my callin’ and election sure.” Calling and election! How I hated the old rook! Cats have an idea that when any one is ailing, itmustbe for want of food. Poor things! How often they suffer hunger and privations themselves, goodness only can tell! This idea is not confined to cats alone. Dogs, at least, I know possess the same notion. I could give many anecdotes to prove this, but as this book is presumably on cats, I must only give one.
An Inverness-shire student was returning from the south, and with him his faithful Scottish collie. In the Highlands there are generally two roads, the high and the low; the low road being the longest and of course the safest, and the high much shorter, but usually leading through some ugly bits of country, which are far from safe even by day, and much less by night. It was a beautiful night, quite clear and starry, with just the slightest crust of snow on the ground, barely enough to darken the heather. But such being the case, the student thought he could easily venture to cross by the hills, and thus save a mile or two. Early next morning, a woman at a neighbouring farm was surprised, while baking bannocks, by the entrance of a strange collie. The collie did not use much ceremony, but simply stole the largest bannock, and fled. This, of course, was not thought much of. The dog was hungry, and the morning cold, and he was welcome to the bannock, although it would have been more satisfactory for both sides had he asked for it. The same dog returned, however, in a few hours, and his behaviour was so strange that one of the family was induced to follow him. The dog led him a long way over the mountains, and at last brought up at the foot of a precipice, near a stream, where “something dark was lying.” This something dark was no other than the poor student, who had slipped his foot on the previous night, and tumbled over the rock. He was at first supposed to be dead, but soon revived, having merely fractured a thigh, and become insensible from the cold; but the strange part of the story is to come—the bannock, all untouched, reclined against the student’s cheek,placed there by the dog. (At page 83, volume three, “Annals of Sporting,” an instance of collie-dog sagacity very similar to this is given.)
Not only do cats know sickness in others, but they are acquainted in some way with the mystery of death. Observe a cat, for instance, that has played with a mouse until she has killed it. Just see the critical way she turns it over and over with her foot, and glares into its glazing eyes. She wants to make sure the wee thing is not shamming; but, being satisfied, mark her as she coolly stretches herself, or walks slowly away from her victim, as much as to say: “Well, I’ve had half an hour’s good fun, anyhow. Might have eaten it as long as it was alive, though; but I can’t bear a dead mouse. So it’s just as broad as it’s long.”
Chapter Fifteen.Tom, Timby, and Tom Brandy.“The best-laid schemes o’ mice and menGang aft agley,An’ leave us nought but grief and painFor promised joy.”Burns.And if the schemes of mice and men often “gang agley,” it is not to be wondered at that the sagacity of the domestic cat is sometimes at fault. A very large and beautiful cat, belonging to a lady in Dumbarton, was very much attached to its home—more so, perhaps, in this case, than to its mistress, for one day, much to pussy’s disgust, disreputable-looking men in aprons—so pussy thought them—came to the house and began to remove the furniture. Pussy sat on the hearthrug, washing her face with a spittle and musing. “I’ve been so happy here,” she was thinking; “I know every mouse’s hole in the house, and the places in the garden where I can hide to catch the sparrows, and the gaps in the hedge through which I can bolt when that Skye-terrier chases me, and the whitethorn bush beneath whose scented boughs I meet dear Tom in the moonlight. Oh! the thoughts of leaving Tom—no, I cannot, will not, leave the old house. Missus can hang herself if she likes. Happy thought, I’ll hide—hide in the linen drawer, till this cruel war is over, and then come forth, mistress of all I survey.” And so she did; but, unfortunately for her calculations, the chest of drawers was moved as well; and when at last she did “come forth,” much to her bewilderment she was in a house which she had never seen before in her life.The following anecdotes may not be thought uninteresting; they are taken almost at random from hosts of others in my possession, or, if there has been any choice in the matter, they have been chosen because the three cats, whose stories here are told, lived in widely different parts of the globe, clearly proving that a cat is a cat all the world over. We’ll give the English cat the preference. There is nothing very wonderful in his history. Tom was born and bred in Gloucestershire; he was presented to his master and mistress, the former of whom was a schoolmaster, when quite a little kitten, and soon became a great favourite with both. Tom, who was a tabby, soon grew in strength and beauty, until there were few male or female cats in the neighbourhood who did not own him lord and master. But Tom was so fond of his owners that he spent but little time either fighting or courting, much to his credit be it said. About this time, his master and mistress used to make frequent visits to a neighbouring village. Tom was not permitted to accompany them; but, whatever time they returned, by night or by day, wet weather or dry, poor Tom always met them nearly a mile from their own house.Tom was remarkably fond of the schoolchildren, and every day, as regularly as the clock struck twelve, at which hour the school was released for the forenoon, Tom presented himself all ready for a romp. The family dinner-hour was one o’clock, and Tom never failed to attend. There was a knocker on the door, and whenever pussy found the door closed, he used tojump up and knock, just as he had seen strangers do.Tom knew the days of the week, for he was never known to set out for school on Saturdays or Sundays, for the simple reason that he knew the school was closed.Another strange trait in Tom’s character was his fondness for poultry. “He would feed withvery youngchickens, and with the ducks and hens, never attempting to molest the weakest of them, but would even yield to them, and frequently leave the choicest bits for them.” Tom’s life was a very happy one until his owners removed to Leamington. Here, in the same house with him, were a parcel of rude, badly-bred children, who persistently ill-treated the poor cat, till at last Tom was missing; and it was found he had taken up his abode in a fowl-house among his old friends. This was rather a down-come for the poor cat, and he must have felt as wretched as a human being whom, after living for years in luxury, misfortune had at last condemned to the poor-house. Being removed back to his owner’s house, and the children still continuing their persecutions, Tom fled to the woods and became a bandit, and no doubt met with a bandit cat’s death, and died in a trap. So we leave him.Tom Brandy was an Australian miner’s cat. The miners baptised him inaguardiente, and hence his name. He was a beautiful large black cat, with one white spot on his chest, invaluable as a hunter, and came down like a whirlwind on every dog he saw. He was a good example of the travelling cat; he would follow his master every Sunday in Melbourne to church, hide in a neighbouring garden till the preaching was over, and then trot home behind him. He would lead like a dog in a string. Tom’s travelling carriage was an old gin case. Into this Tom would jump whenever he saw preparations made for striking the tent, and lie there without ever appearing, at times for a whole day, until the new camping-ground was reached. Yes, a wild life Tom led of it in the Australian bush. When Tom’s master left for “merrie England,” Tom proved himself just as good a ship cat as he had been a miner’s puss. Only, mind you, Tom liked his comforts when he could get them. It was no business of his if his master and family chose to be intermediate passengers. He knew better, and attached himself to the cabin, although, to show he did not forget his owners, he used to pay them a visit every evening, to see, I suppose, if they had everything they wanted. On the arrival of the ship at Birkenhead, the purser, after offering two pounds for Tom in vain, stole Tom Brandy; but Tom was at his master’s house that night, nevertheless.Tom’s future home was Montrose, where he lived for two years happy enough, after which he mysteriously disappeared, and was not seen again for nineteen months. Where had he been? What had he been doing? How had he lived?N’importe! Tom Brandy turned up again very thin and very angry, and wanted to fight everybody save his own master. Tom lived happy ever after—that is, for three years, when he laid down upon a shelf and died like a Christian. And the days and years of Tom Brandy’s life were sixteen and over, and he weighed a little under seventeen pounds.Timby is also a Tom cat, and lives at Dunbeath Castle, Caithness; a pretty black-and-white animal, weighing about ten pounds. Timby is the coachman’s cat; and as his master lives in a retired part of the country, the two are naturally very much attached to each other. Timby follows his master round the grounds and policies just like a dog. When little more than a kitten he proved himself a perfect Nimrod among cats, brought down birds from the highest trees, tore up moles from their tunnels, and was death upon rats and mice wherever he saw them.Since he has grown up to years of discretion, Timby has learned to despise such paltry game as mice or rats. The Highlands of Scotland, as the reader doubtless knows, are infested with rabbits, and many a poor farmer is ruined by them; and these Timby makes his special quarry. It is his habit to stay out all night, and he seldom appears without a coney in the morning. If his master will accept the rabbit, Timby is very much pleased. If his master won’t, and pushes it away with his foot, “Oh, very well,” says Timby, “I’ll have the rabbit; you have that herring of yours—I question if it will keep another day;” and he trots off with his prey.Three years ago his master got a nice retriever dog, and to this dog Timby was at first exceedingly cruel, but latterly he grew very much attached to it; and as often as he can spare a rabbit he brings it to the dog’s kennel, and seems pleased to see him devour it.Like my own cat or cats, Timby will defend his master with his heart’s blood. One day when Mr McKenzie, Timby’s master, was trying a new terrier with a rabbit, Timby, who had followed unperceived, as soon as he heard the rabbit scream, doubtless came to the conclusion that his master was in danger, and sprang fiercely on another dog which Mr McKenzie was holding. The battle was short and bloody, and the poor dog had to retire very much worsted. Another day, when the coachman and his cat were lying together on the grass, a friend came up, and was just in the act of throwing himself on the turf likewise, when Timby flew upon him and lacerated his face very severely, and it was with some difficulty his master got him off.Timby goes regularly to the sea with his master to swim the dogs, but does not himself take the water. But in coming home a rabbit is often started. Then away go the dogs, and away goes Timby, and, strange as it may seem in rabbit-coursing, Timby would gain as many, if not more, points than the terriers. However, there is no sort of spirit of rivalry betwixt them, and if the dogs choose to beat a field for rabbits, Timby stands by to catch them; again, when the dogs prefer to “lay by,” Timby with pleasure goes and beats the field for them.If Timby knows there is any vermin in a burrow, he has patience enough to wait till he secures it! and he has been known to lie near a holefor nine hoursin a stormy day, before his patience was rewarded.
“The best-laid schemes o’ mice and menGang aft agley,An’ leave us nought but grief and painFor promised joy.”Burns.
“The best-laid schemes o’ mice and menGang aft agley,An’ leave us nought but grief and painFor promised joy.”Burns.
And if the schemes of mice and men often “gang agley,” it is not to be wondered at that the sagacity of the domestic cat is sometimes at fault. A very large and beautiful cat, belonging to a lady in Dumbarton, was very much attached to its home—more so, perhaps, in this case, than to its mistress, for one day, much to pussy’s disgust, disreputable-looking men in aprons—so pussy thought them—came to the house and began to remove the furniture. Pussy sat on the hearthrug, washing her face with a spittle and musing. “I’ve been so happy here,” she was thinking; “I know every mouse’s hole in the house, and the places in the garden where I can hide to catch the sparrows, and the gaps in the hedge through which I can bolt when that Skye-terrier chases me, and the whitethorn bush beneath whose scented boughs I meet dear Tom in the moonlight. Oh! the thoughts of leaving Tom—no, I cannot, will not, leave the old house. Missus can hang herself if she likes. Happy thought, I’ll hide—hide in the linen drawer, till this cruel war is over, and then come forth, mistress of all I survey.” And so she did; but, unfortunately for her calculations, the chest of drawers was moved as well; and when at last she did “come forth,” much to her bewilderment she was in a house which she had never seen before in her life.
The following anecdotes may not be thought uninteresting; they are taken almost at random from hosts of others in my possession, or, if there has been any choice in the matter, they have been chosen because the three cats, whose stories here are told, lived in widely different parts of the globe, clearly proving that a cat is a cat all the world over. We’ll give the English cat the preference. There is nothing very wonderful in his history. Tom was born and bred in Gloucestershire; he was presented to his master and mistress, the former of whom was a schoolmaster, when quite a little kitten, and soon became a great favourite with both. Tom, who was a tabby, soon grew in strength and beauty, until there were few male or female cats in the neighbourhood who did not own him lord and master. But Tom was so fond of his owners that he spent but little time either fighting or courting, much to his credit be it said. About this time, his master and mistress used to make frequent visits to a neighbouring village. Tom was not permitted to accompany them; but, whatever time they returned, by night or by day, wet weather or dry, poor Tom always met them nearly a mile from their own house.
Tom was remarkably fond of the schoolchildren, and every day, as regularly as the clock struck twelve, at which hour the school was released for the forenoon, Tom presented himself all ready for a romp. The family dinner-hour was one o’clock, and Tom never failed to attend. There was a knocker on the door, and whenever pussy found the door closed, he used tojump up and knock, just as he had seen strangers do.
Tom knew the days of the week, for he was never known to set out for school on Saturdays or Sundays, for the simple reason that he knew the school was closed.
Another strange trait in Tom’s character was his fondness for poultry. “He would feed withvery youngchickens, and with the ducks and hens, never attempting to molest the weakest of them, but would even yield to them, and frequently leave the choicest bits for them.” Tom’s life was a very happy one until his owners removed to Leamington. Here, in the same house with him, were a parcel of rude, badly-bred children, who persistently ill-treated the poor cat, till at last Tom was missing; and it was found he had taken up his abode in a fowl-house among his old friends. This was rather a down-come for the poor cat, and he must have felt as wretched as a human being whom, after living for years in luxury, misfortune had at last condemned to the poor-house. Being removed back to his owner’s house, and the children still continuing their persecutions, Tom fled to the woods and became a bandit, and no doubt met with a bandit cat’s death, and died in a trap. So we leave him.
Tom Brandy was an Australian miner’s cat. The miners baptised him inaguardiente, and hence his name. He was a beautiful large black cat, with one white spot on his chest, invaluable as a hunter, and came down like a whirlwind on every dog he saw. He was a good example of the travelling cat; he would follow his master every Sunday in Melbourne to church, hide in a neighbouring garden till the preaching was over, and then trot home behind him. He would lead like a dog in a string. Tom’s travelling carriage was an old gin case. Into this Tom would jump whenever he saw preparations made for striking the tent, and lie there without ever appearing, at times for a whole day, until the new camping-ground was reached. Yes, a wild life Tom led of it in the Australian bush. When Tom’s master left for “merrie England,” Tom proved himself just as good a ship cat as he had been a miner’s puss. Only, mind you, Tom liked his comforts when he could get them. It was no business of his if his master and family chose to be intermediate passengers. He knew better, and attached himself to the cabin, although, to show he did not forget his owners, he used to pay them a visit every evening, to see, I suppose, if they had everything they wanted. On the arrival of the ship at Birkenhead, the purser, after offering two pounds for Tom in vain, stole Tom Brandy; but Tom was at his master’s house that night, nevertheless.
Tom’s future home was Montrose, where he lived for two years happy enough, after which he mysteriously disappeared, and was not seen again for nineteen months. Where had he been? What had he been doing? How had he lived?N’importe! Tom Brandy turned up again very thin and very angry, and wanted to fight everybody save his own master. Tom lived happy ever after—that is, for three years, when he laid down upon a shelf and died like a Christian. And the days and years of Tom Brandy’s life were sixteen and over, and he weighed a little under seventeen pounds.
Timby is also a Tom cat, and lives at Dunbeath Castle, Caithness; a pretty black-and-white animal, weighing about ten pounds. Timby is the coachman’s cat; and as his master lives in a retired part of the country, the two are naturally very much attached to each other. Timby follows his master round the grounds and policies just like a dog. When little more than a kitten he proved himself a perfect Nimrod among cats, brought down birds from the highest trees, tore up moles from their tunnels, and was death upon rats and mice wherever he saw them.
Since he has grown up to years of discretion, Timby has learned to despise such paltry game as mice or rats. The Highlands of Scotland, as the reader doubtless knows, are infested with rabbits, and many a poor farmer is ruined by them; and these Timby makes his special quarry. It is his habit to stay out all night, and he seldom appears without a coney in the morning. If his master will accept the rabbit, Timby is very much pleased. If his master won’t, and pushes it away with his foot, “Oh, very well,” says Timby, “I’ll have the rabbit; you have that herring of yours—I question if it will keep another day;” and he trots off with his prey.
Three years ago his master got a nice retriever dog, and to this dog Timby was at first exceedingly cruel, but latterly he grew very much attached to it; and as often as he can spare a rabbit he brings it to the dog’s kennel, and seems pleased to see him devour it.
Like my own cat or cats, Timby will defend his master with his heart’s blood. One day when Mr McKenzie, Timby’s master, was trying a new terrier with a rabbit, Timby, who had followed unperceived, as soon as he heard the rabbit scream, doubtless came to the conclusion that his master was in danger, and sprang fiercely on another dog which Mr McKenzie was holding. The battle was short and bloody, and the poor dog had to retire very much worsted. Another day, when the coachman and his cat were lying together on the grass, a friend came up, and was just in the act of throwing himself on the turf likewise, when Timby flew upon him and lacerated his face very severely, and it was with some difficulty his master got him off.
Timby goes regularly to the sea with his master to swim the dogs, but does not himself take the water. But in coming home a rabbit is often started. Then away go the dogs, and away goes Timby, and, strange as it may seem in rabbit-coursing, Timby would gain as many, if not more, points than the terriers. However, there is no sort of spirit of rivalry betwixt them, and if the dogs choose to beat a field for rabbits, Timby stands by to catch them; again, when the dogs prefer to “lay by,” Timby with pleasure goes and beats the field for them.
If Timby knows there is any vermin in a burrow, he has patience enough to wait till he secures it! and he has been known to lie near a holefor nine hoursin a stormy day, before his patience was rewarded.
Chapter Sixteen.Some Traits of Feline Character.We all know that almost any dog that has lived a reasonable number of years, and isn’t a kennel dog, but one of the family, as it were, understands pretty nearly all that is said in his presence, if it at all concerns him. My Theodore Nero is exceedingly ’cute in this respect. When I have to go out without taking him along with me, he will lie listening attentively, with just half an eye open, till he finds out in what particular direction I mean to go. After I leave home he tries every trick and wile to get round the servant, and generally succeeds; so that, on turning a corner of the road, ten to one I find the identical dog I left asleep in the parlour, coolly waiting for me. Indeed, I have often to leave my orders about him in bad French, as my wife doesn’t understand good Gaelic. I get to windward of the dog that way, and, I fear, sometimes to windward of the wife too; the haziness of my French leaving the one just as wise as the other.Till very recently, some people wouldn’t even admit that a cat could know its own name; some people get wiser every day, and I, for one, believe that cats know fully as much of what we say as dogs do. As an instance of this, I give you the following anecdote, which may be entitled:A Cat with a Conscience.—A certain Mr Coutts, of Newhills, Aberdeen, is very fond of both cats and poultry, and studies the tricks and manners of both. He recently had a hen with a large brood of chickens, the number of which day after day became lessened by one at least. The place was always searched, but not the slightest trace of a dead one could be discovered. The poor cock was blamed, ravens were suspected, and hawks deemed guilty; but still there was some mystery about it, and the chicks went on getting fewer and fewer. About this time it was observed that whenever the subject was brought up, the favourite cat seemed all at once to grow exceedingly uneasy and restless, and finally bolted off through the nearest open door. This naturally aroused suspicion. Pussy was watched, and found one day in the very act of walking away with a chicken.I have another anecdote, something similar, of a cat called Polly. Polly had one failing, although otherwise a virtuous cat, and extremely honest—she could not resist the temptation of stealing a bit of cheese, whenever she could do so unperceived. But note the slyness of this pussy: she could never be prevailed upon to touch cheese, even if offered to her in the presence of any one of the family, evidently reasoning thus with herself: “If I pretend I can’t eat cheese because it disagrees with me, they will never blame me for stealing it, and I shall often find myself locked in the same room—glorious thought!—with a whole Cheddar.”It is a well-known fact that dogs often take particular dislikes to certain people. They appear, in many cases, to be much better judges of character than we ourselves are. I believe this instinct, or whatever else it is, is not confined to dogs alone, but is equally shared by other animals. Cats, I know, possess it in a very remarkable degree. They know by some means, which I will not pretend to understand, those individuals who have a soft side towards them. Why, for instance, did that strange cat at Lincoln single me out from dozens of people who were on the street, and ask me to go to the rescue of her kitten?Why do cats often pass other people by, and come up to me on the pavement, requesting me to ring the bell, that they may get in out of the wet? There are two strange cats who sleep in the sun almost daily in a corner of my front garden. If any one comes along they bolt at once, but when I pass up and down, they merely look at me and lie still; and I never speak to them, unless, perhaps, just a passing word. But, what is still more strange, Theodore Nero walks up and down past them without causing them the slightest alarm. Yet, what a tremendous monster he must appear to them! They just look at him, wonderingly, as much as to say: “Oh, you great, good-natured-looking brute, however you can catch mice and sparrows enough to fill your enormous stomach, I can’t tell?”I know a lady who is very fond of cats, and when out walking or shopping in town, it is quite a usual thing for her to be accosted by some poor half-starved waif or stray, and very often she goes into a shop and buys food for them, for which, no doubt, they are grateful, and for which, no doubt, she will one day receive her reward from Him who careth even for the humble sparrows. This lady was passing a house one time where a poor cat was confined, the usual occupants having gone to the seaside, and left pussy shut up in the empty house. As soon as she stopped at the door of the house, the cat’s cries were quite pitiable to hear. As soon as this lady left the door, the cries ceased, only to be renewed whenever she returned. But pussy did not make the same noises when others stopped in front of the door.A Cat deserting one Home for another.—A tortoiseshell-and-white cat, belonging now to a friend of mine, came into his possession in rather a singular way. The cat was originally the property of a neighbour of my friend, whose house was on the opposite side of the street, and about thirty yards off. There she stayed, apparently perfectly contented and happy, until she became the mother of four kittens. Then, for some reason or other known only to herself, she determined to shift her quarters, and one day my friend was astonished to see Kate, as she was called, march into his house with a kitten in her mouth, which she deposited in a safe and comfortable corner, and then set off for the others, which she brought one by one. Remember this, the cat had never been in my friend’s house before! Kate’s kittens were taken back again to her old home, and Kate marched them all over again to the home of her choice. And this was done every day for a whole week.“It’s no earthly use, you know,” Kate seemed to say. “What I says I means, and what I does I sticks to.”And so my friend had to adopt both Kate and her family, previously having failed in an attempt to starve her out, for Kate had adopted a system of house-to-house begging, but always came home in the evening.This cat for fourteen years used to sit patiently on the arm of her master’s chair until dinner was done and she was helped.It is exceedingly rude, I know, to doubt a lady’s word, butcan you believewhat follows? ’A lady assures me that she has such an inexplicable and innate antipathy to cats, that if she enters a strange room she can tell at once if there is a cat there, whether she sees it or not. And if a cat is carried suddenly into a room where she is, she “faints dead away.”Another lady friend of mine, who is very fond of animals of all sorts, while living down in Brighton last October, was hastening home one evening just about dusk, when she suddenly found that she was not alone, but accompanied by some little black creature, which, immediately she came under the gas-lamp, she found was a poor little stray kitten. As this wee puss bounded into the house as soon as the door was opened, of course she believed it belonged to the house. Going to her bedroom to dress for dinner, there was little Miss Puss sitting on the bed singing, and apparently perfectly satisfied with her new quarters, for the lady soon found it did not belong to the house.Pussy was treated to a saucerful of milk, and then sent adrift out into the street, chased out with a broom, in fact, for the housemaid hated cats. This kitten didn’t mean to be put off like this, however. She stopped out all night, certainly, but quietly came in with the charwoman at five o’clock in the morning, and came directly to my friend’s bedroom. There is no getting rid of a cat when it once concludes to board itself upon you, and this little waif soon established herself for good at Ashburnham House. But here is the strange part of the business. She seemed to know that my friend Mrs W. was only a visitor here, and constantly showed great discretion, by sticking close to her apartments and back-yard. Just once she ventured down to the kitchen, and the old residential cat bit a piece out of her ear. “If that is how you treat visitors,” said kitty, “I’ll stick to my own rooms in future.” And so she did.It is sometimes rather a difficult thing finding suitable apartments when you are accompanied with pets. It takes considerable tact, I can assure you, to convince Mrs ’Arris, or whatever is the name of your intended landlady, that your Newfoundland is so clean that you never can see even a hair on the carpet; that your Pomeranian is an angel in canine form; that your Persian cat wouldn’t steal, if surrounded even by the most tempting viands; that your macaw doesn’t scream loud enough to give all the terrace “an ’eadache;” and that your white rats never escape and run all over the house. Mrs W. had some difficulty about her kitten when she went to the lodgings she had taken at Norwood.“I certainly did expect,” her landlady observed, “a lady with birds, and a mouse, and a very large dog; but a cat I couldn’t have, because I’ve one of my own.”Mrs W. of course promised all sorts of impossibilities regarding her pet, and her landlady finally gave in.But, strange to say, this very house became the kitten’s future home, for the landlady’s grandchild struck up a friendship with the wee pussy, and when the child fell sick, the kitten would hardly ever leave her little crib, nor would the child bear Miss Brighton, as she called her feline favourite, out of her sight for a single moment. Who shall say how far the simple companionship, of this loving and affectionate wee kitten, might not have tended to the child’s restoration to perfect health?
We all know that almost any dog that has lived a reasonable number of years, and isn’t a kennel dog, but one of the family, as it were, understands pretty nearly all that is said in his presence, if it at all concerns him. My Theodore Nero is exceedingly ’cute in this respect. When I have to go out without taking him along with me, he will lie listening attentively, with just half an eye open, till he finds out in what particular direction I mean to go. After I leave home he tries every trick and wile to get round the servant, and generally succeeds; so that, on turning a corner of the road, ten to one I find the identical dog I left asleep in the parlour, coolly waiting for me. Indeed, I have often to leave my orders about him in bad French, as my wife doesn’t understand good Gaelic. I get to windward of the dog that way, and, I fear, sometimes to windward of the wife too; the haziness of my French leaving the one just as wise as the other.
Till very recently, some people wouldn’t even admit that a cat could know its own name; some people get wiser every day, and I, for one, believe that cats know fully as much of what we say as dogs do. As an instance of this, I give you the following anecdote, which may be entitled:
A Cat with a Conscience.—A certain Mr Coutts, of Newhills, Aberdeen, is very fond of both cats and poultry, and studies the tricks and manners of both. He recently had a hen with a large brood of chickens, the number of which day after day became lessened by one at least. The place was always searched, but not the slightest trace of a dead one could be discovered. The poor cock was blamed, ravens were suspected, and hawks deemed guilty; but still there was some mystery about it, and the chicks went on getting fewer and fewer. About this time it was observed that whenever the subject was brought up, the favourite cat seemed all at once to grow exceedingly uneasy and restless, and finally bolted off through the nearest open door. This naturally aroused suspicion. Pussy was watched, and found one day in the very act of walking away with a chicken.
I have another anecdote, something similar, of a cat called Polly. Polly had one failing, although otherwise a virtuous cat, and extremely honest—she could not resist the temptation of stealing a bit of cheese, whenever she could do so unperceived. But note the slyness of this pussy: she could never be prevailed upon to touch cheese, even if offered to her in the presence of any one of the family, evidently reasoning thus with herself: “If I pretend I can’t eat cheese because it disagrees with me, they will never blame me for stealing it, and I shall often find myself locked in the same room—glorious thought!—with a whole Cheddar.”
It is a well-known fact that dogs often take particular dislikes to certain people. They appear, in many cases, to be much better judges of character than we ourselves are. I believe this instinct, or whatever else it is, is not confined to dogs alone, but is equally shared by other animals. Cats, I know, possess it in a very remarkable degree. They know by some means, which I will not pretend to understand, those individuals who have a soft side towards them. Why, for instance, did that strange cat at Lincoln single me out from dozens of people who were on the street, and ask me to go to the rescue of her kitten?
Why do cats often pass other people by, and come up to me on the pavement, requesting me to ring the bell, that they may get in out of the wet? There are two strange cats who sleep in the sun almost daily in a corner of my front garden. If any one comes along they bolt at once, but when I pass up and down, they merely look at me and lie still; and I never speak to them, unless, perhaps, just a passing word. But, what is still more strange, Theodore Nero walks up and down past them without causing them the slightest alarm. Yet, what a tremendous monster he must appear to them! They just look at him, wonderingly, as much as to say: “Oh, you great, good-natured-looking brute, however you can catch mice and sparrows enough to fill your enormous stomach, I can’t tell?”
I know a lady who is very fond of cats, and when out walking or shopping in town, it is quite a usual thing for her to be accosted by some poor half-starved waif or stray, and very often she goes into a shop and buys food for them, for which, no doubt, they are grateful, and for which, no doubt, she will one day receive her reward from Him who careth even for the humble sparrows. This lady was passing a house one time where a poor cat was confined, the usual occupants having gone to the seaside, and left pussy shut up in the empty house. As soon as she stopped at the door of the house, the cat’s cries were quite pitiable to hear. As soon as this lady left the door, the cries ceased, only to be renewed whenever she returned. But pussy did not make the same noises when others stopped in front of the door.
A Cat deserting one Home for another.—A tortoiseshell-and-white cat, belonging now to a friend of mine, came into his possession in rather a singular way. The cat was originally the property of a neighbour of my friend, whose house was on the opposite side of the street, and about thirty yards off. There she stayed, apparently perfectly contented and happy, until she became the mother of four kittens. Then, for some reason or other known only to herself, she determined to shift her quarters, and one day my friend was astonished to see Kate, as she was called, march into his house with a kitten in her mouth, which she deposited in a safe and comfortable corner, and then set off for the others, which she brought one by one. Remember this, the cat had never been in my friend’s house before! Kate’s kittens were taken back again to her old home, and Kate marched them all over again to the home of her choice. And this was done every day for a whole week.
“It’s no earthly use, you know,” Kate seemed to say. “What I says I means, and what I does I sticks to.”
And so my friend had to adopt both Kate and her family, previously having failed in an attempt to starve her out, for Kate had adopted a system of house-to-house begging, but always came home in the evening.
This cat for fourteen years used to sit patiently on the arm of her master’s chair until dinner was done and she was helped.
It is exceedingly rude, I know, to doubt a lady’s word, butcan you believewhat follows? ’A lady assures me that she has such an inexplicable and innate antipathy to cats, that if she enters a strange room she can tell at once if there is a cat there, whether she sees it or not. And if a cat is carried suddenly into a room where she is, she “faints dead away.”
Another lady friend of mine, who is very fond of animals of all sorts, while living down in Brighton last October, was hastening home one evening just about dusk, when she suddenly found that she was not alone, but accompanied by some little black creature, which, immediately she came under the gas-lamp, she found was a poor little stray kitten. As this wee puss bounded into the house as soon as the door was opened, of course she believed it belonged to the house. Going to her bedroom to dress for dinner, there was little Miss Puss sitting on the bed singing, and apparently perfectly satisfied with her new quarters, for the lady soon found it did not belong to the house.
Pussy was treated to a saucerful of milk, and then sent adrift out into the street, chased out with a broom, in fact, for the housemaid hated cats. This kitten didn’t mean to be put off like this, however. She stopped out all night, certainly, but quietly came in with the charwoman at five o’clock in the morning, and came directly to my friend’s bedroom. There is no getting rid of a cat when it once concludes to board itself upon you, and this little waif soon established herself for good at Ashburnham House. But here is the strange part of the business. She seemed to know that my friend Mrs W. was only a visitor here, and constantly showed great discretion, by sticking close to her apartments and back-yard. Just once she ventured down to the kitchen, and the old residential cat bit a piece out of her ear. “If that is how you treat visitors,” said kitty, “I’ll stick to my own rooms in future.” And so she did.
It is sometimes rather a difficult thing finding suitable apartments when you are accompanied with pets. It takes considerable tact, I can assure you, to convince Mrs ’Arris, or whatever is the name of your intended landlady, that your Newfoundland is so clean that you never can see even a hair on the carpet; that your Pomeranian is an angel in canine form; that your Persian cat wouldn’t steal, if surrounded even by the most tempting viands; that your macaw doesn’t scream loud enough to give all the terrace “an ’eadache;” and that your white rats never escape and run all over the house. Mrs W. had some difficulty about her kitten when she went to the lodgings she had taken at Norwood.
“I certainly did expect,” her landlady observed, “a lady with birds, and a mouse, and a very large dog; but a cat I couldn’t have, because I’ve one of my own.”
Mrs W. of course promised all sorts of impossibilities regarding her pet, and her landlady finally gave in.
But, strange to say, this very house became the kitten’s future home, for the landlady’s grandchild struck up a friendship with the wee pussy, and when the child fell sick, the kitten would hardly ever leave her little crib, nor would the child bear Miss Brighton, as she called her feline favourite, out of her sight for a single moment. Who shall say how far the simple companionship, of this loving and affectionate wee kitten, might not have tended to the child’s restoration to perfect health?
Chapter Seventeen.Love of Children and Affection for Owner.There is hardly a domestic animal we possess that is not fond, to a greater or less extent, of children. How carefully a horse will pick his steps if a child happens to fall amongst his feet! I saw a bull one day escape, wounded and furious, from a killing-house, and dash madly along the turnpike road. He knocked down and injured several people, who could not get quickly enough out of his way; then there stood, paralysed with fear, and right in the wild brute’s path, a child of tender years, which everyone who saw it gave up for lost; but the bull, who did not hesitate to attack grown-up people, suddenly veered to one side, and left this child unhurt!My large Newfoundland dog is in the habit of careering along the street with a speed which, considering his size, is quite incompatible with the safety of the lieges. Policemen, especially, very often find themselves in the line of his rush, and Nero never hesitates to run clean through these men, so to speak, leaving them sprawling on the ground with heels in air; but the other day this dog, on suddenly rounding a corner, found himself confronted with four little toddling infants, who, hand in hand, were coming along the pavement. There was no time to slacken speed, and to proceed was certain death to one or more of the poor children, and what do you think this noble fellow did? why lifted himself clean off the pavement, and sprang high and clear over their heads.The same dog was once in a hotel, when a friend of mine offered him a biscuit. Master Nero wasn’t hungry; he would neither eat the biscuit from my friend’s hand nor from my own, but when the landlord’s pretty little daughter came running in, and threw her arms about his neck, and caressed him, he hadn’t the heart to refuse the biscuit fromherhands, and even accepted several from her, although still refusing them from us.But the domestic cat is,par excellence, the playmate and friend of childhood. What is it, indeed, that pussy will not bear from the hands of its little child-mistress? She may pull and lug pussy about any way she pleases, or walk up and down the garden-walk with it slung over her shoulder by the tail. If such treatment does hurt the poor cat, she takes good care not to show it. It is amusing enough sometimes to watch a little girl making a baby of her favourite pussy. They are wearied with gambolling together on the flowery lawn, and playing at hide-and-seek among the shrubbery, and pussy “mustbe tired,” says little Alice. Pussy enters into the joke at once, and seems positively dead beat; so the basket is brought, the little night-cap is put on, the shawl is carefully pinned around its shoulders, and this embryo mamma puts her feline baby to bed and bids it sleep. There is always two words, however, with pussy as regards the sleeping part of the contract, for little Alice never can get her baby to close more than one eye at a time. Pussy must see what is going on. Anon the baby “must be sick,” and pussy forthwith appears as if she couldn’t possibly survive another hour. Bread pills are manufactured, and forced over the poor cat’s throat, she barely resisting. Then lullabies, low and sweet, are sung to her, which pussy enjoys immensely, and presently, joining in the song herself, goes off to sleep in earnest.And Alice, pussy’s friend, although at times she may use the furry favourite rather roughly, is kind to her in the main. Doesn’t pussy get a share of Alice’s porridge every morning? doesn’t she sup with Alice every night? and do you think for one moment Alice would go to bed without her? Not she. And still this cat, may be as savage as a she tiger, to every one else in the house save to her little mistress. Just let you or me, reader, attempt to hold her up by the tail—well, I would a hundred times rather you should try it than I.The very fact, I think, that faithful pussy is so fond of our innocent children, and so patient and self-denying towards them, is one reason why we should be kind to her, and study her comforts a little more than we do.But probably one of the most endearing traits in the character of the domestic cat is her extreme attachment to, and love for, the person who owns her. If you once get your cat to really love you, no matter how fond she may be of the home where she was born and reared, she will go with you, if you but say the word, to the uttermost parts of the earth. My poor old favourite, Muffle, has travelled many, many thousands of miles with me by sea and land, and always watched over both me and my propertywith all the careand fidelity of a Highland collie. Been lost, too, she has, many a time in the midst of big bustling cities which were quite strange to her—been lost, but always turned up again.I know of many instances in which cats have so attached themselves to their owners, that, when the latter have died, they have refused all food, and in a few days succumbed to grief, and gone, I fondly hope, to meet the loved one in a world that’s free of care.“But the largest cat,” writes one of my numerous correspondents, “I ever saw belonged to my mother’s mother, and was wise and sedate in proportion to its size. Its good mistress was often distressed with palpitation of the heart, and during the silent hours of night paced the bedroom floor in pain—but not alone, for the faithful creature would walk slowly at her side, seeming by his look to pity her condition, and when she lay down he would still stand sentinel at her head. He never could be persuaded to leave the house while she lived, yet a few hours before her death he suddenly took flight, but only to the lower apartments, which my parents occupied, and from which he never stirred again.”I never think, somehow, that a fireside has the same cheerful look of an evening unless there be a cat there, to sit on the footstool, and sing duets with the tea-kettle.And I do not wonder at old women, whose friends have all long since gone before, and who have no one left to care for them, getting greatly attached to a faithful pussy; for people must have something to love.“But, fancy loving a cat!” I think I hear some churl remark.Yes, cynical reader, and I have, myself, before now, often shared my heart with stranger pets than cats; and I don’t mind betting you that what I have left of it is bigger than yours now.Figuratively speaking, I think a man’s or a woman’s heart is like a blacksmith’s arm—it grows with use.
There is hardly a domestic animal we possess that is not fond, to a greater or less extent, of children. How carefully a horse will pick his steps if a child happens to fall amongst his feet! I saw a bull one day escape, wounded and furious, from a killing-house, and dash madly along the turnpike road. He knocked down and injured several people, who could not get quickly enough out of his way; then there stood, paralysed with fear, and right in the wild brute’s path, a child of tender years, which everyone who saw it gave up for lost; but the bull, who did not hesitate to attack grown-up people, suddenly veered to one side, and left this child unhurt!
My large Newfoundland dog is in the habit of careering along the street with a speed which, considering his size, is quite incompatible with the safety of the lieges. Policemen, especially, very often find themselves in the line of his rush, and Nero never hesitates to run clean through these men, so to speak, leaving them sprawling on the ground with heels in air; but the other day this dog, on suddenly rounding a corner, found himself confronted with four little toddling infants, who, hand in hand, were coming along the pavement. There was no time to slacken speed, and to proceed was certain death to one or more of the poor children, and what do you think this noble fellow did? why lifted himself clean off the pavement, and sprang high and clear over their heads.
The same dog was once in a hotel, when a friend of mine offered him a biscuit. Master Nero wasn’t hungry; he would neither eat the biscuit from my friend’s hand nor from my own, but when the landlord’s pretty little daughter came running in, and threw her arms about his neck, and caressed him, he hadn’t the heart to refuse the biscuit fromherhands, and even accepted several from her, although still refusing them from us.
But the domestic cat is,par excellence, the playmate and friend of childhood. What is it, indeed, that pussy will not bear from the hands of its little child-mistress? She may pull and lug pussy about any way she pleases, or walk up and down the garden-walk with it slung over her shoulder by the tail. If such treatment does hurt the poor cat, she takes good care not to show it. It is amusing enough sometimes to watch a little girl making a baby of her favourite pussy. They are wearied with gambolling together on the flowery lawn, and playing at hide-and-seek among the shrubbery, and pussy “mustbe tired,” says little Alice. Pussy enters into the joke at once, and seems positively dead beat; so the basket is brought, the little night-cap is put on, the shawl is carefully pinned around its shoulders, and this embryo mamma puts her feline baby to bed and bids it sleep. There is always two words, however, with pussy as regards the sleeping part of the contract, for little Alice never can get her baby to close more than one eye at a time. Pussy must see what is going on. Anon the baby “must be sick,” and pussy forthwith appears as if she couldn’t possibly survive another hour. Bread pills are manufactured, and forced over the poor cat’s throat, she barely resisting. Then lullabies, low and sweet, are sung to her, which pussy enjoys immensely, and presently, joining in the song herself, goes off to sleep in earnest.
And Alice, pussy’s friend, although at times she may use the furry favourite rather roughly, is kind to her in the main. Doesn’t pussy get a share of Alice’s porridge every morning? doesn’t she sup with Alice every night? and do you think for one moment Alice would go to bed without her? Not she. And still this cat, may be as savage as a she tiger, to every one else in the house save to her little mistress. Just let you or me, reader, attempt to hold her up by the tail—well, I would a hundred times rather you should try it than I.
The very fact, I think, that faithful pussy is so fond of our innocent children, and so patient and self-denying towards them, is one reason why we should be kind to her, and study her comforts a little more than we do.
But probably one of the most endearing traits in the character of the domestic cat is her extreme attachment to, and love for, the person who owns her. If you once get your cat to really love you, no matter how fond she may be of the home where she was born and reared, she will go with you, if you but say the word, to the uttermost parts of the earth. My poor old favourite, Muffle, has travelled many, many thousands of miles with me by sea and land, and always watched over both me and my propertywith all the careand fidelity of a Highland collie. Been lost, too, she has, many a time in the midst of big bustling cities which were quite strange to her—been lost, but always turned up again.
I know of many instances in which cats have so attached themselves to their owners, that, when the latter have died, they have refused all food, and in a few days succumbed to grief, and gone, I fondly hope, to meet the loved one in a world that’s free of care.
“But the largest cat,” writes one of my numerous correspondents, “I ever saw belonged to my mother’s mother, and was wise and sedate in proportion to its size. Its good mistress was often distressed with palpitation of the heart, and during the silent hours of night paced the bedroom floor in pain—but not alone, for the faithful creature would walk slowly at her side, seeming by his look to pity her condition, and when she lay down he would still stand sentinel at her head. He never could be persuaded to leave the house while she lived, yet a few hours before her death he suddenly took flight, but only to the lower apartments, which my parents occupied, and from which he never stirred again.”
I never think, somehow, that a fireside has the same cheerful look of an evening unless there be a cat there, to sit on the footstool, and sing duets with the tea-kettle.
And I do not wonder at old women, whose friends have all long since gone before, and who have no one left to care for them, getting greatly attached to a faithful pussy; for people must have something to love.
“But, fancy loving a cat!” I think I hear some churl remark.
Yes, cynical reader, and I have, myself, before now, often shared my heart with stranger pets than cats; and I don’t mind betting you that what I have left of it is bigger than yours now.
Figuratively speaking, I think a man’s or a woman’s heart is like a blacksmith’s arm—it grows with use.