“I think,” she said, “I know what is coming. You have been out in Persia, and you have fallen in love with some designing minx of a Persian girl, and she gave you that Persian cat—and—and—and—” here the old lady began to tap with her foot against the footstool—“oh, that my brother’s boy should have fallen in love with a blackamoor!”
Edgar at this moment pulled out a case from his pocket, and opening it by means of touching a spring, held out before his auntie’s astonished gaze a charmingly executed miniature portrait of my sweet mistress.
“Is that a blackamoor, auntie?” he said.
“This lovely child! Is this—” she spoke no more for a time.
But my master knew he had gained a point, so he commenced to tell Beebee’s story and mine, from the very beginning to the end, and I assure you, children, when he finished, the tears were silently falling down the furrowed cheeks of the dear white-haired lady.
“Oh, the inhuman monster of a father of the dear girl?” she said, as if speaking to herself.
Then she turned to my master and held out her hand. “Dear boy,” she said, “I am your friend, and if ever Beebee comes to this country, I will try to be a friend and a mother to her.”
Then Edgar got up. He kissed the lady’s white hair, then walked straight away out of the room, struggling hard to restrain the tears that filled his eyes. They were tears of joy though.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Zulina: A Homeless Waif and Stray
Just a few weeks after this, and while reading a letter at breakfast, my master’s face flushed with joy.
There was nobody in the room but me, for the old lady did not come down to breakfast very early.
“Why, pussy Shireen, what do you think?” he cried.
Of course, I couldn’t tell what the matter might be.
“My regiment—the 78th Highlanders—has been ordered to Persia, to give the Persians a drubbing for insolence to our Government, and if I am well enough I must join forthwith. Hurrah! Of course I’m well enough.
“There will be many regiments there as well as ours, but oh, Shireen! won’t it be joyful, and you must come too, pussy. It may seem strange for the captain of a gallant regiment to have a cat as a pet, but what care I? Many a brave soldier has loved his pussy, so you come along with me, and I’ll chance it.
“Now,” he added, “I’ll just write a letter to the War Office, saying that I am well, and burning to join my regiment, then I’ll go down the hill and post it before auntie is up. That will settle it.”
Well, of course, children, Mrs. Clifford was very sorry to lose her dear Edgar, as she called him, so soon again; but she was a brave old lady, and though she cried a little, she gave him a blessing and bade him go.
“Duty must be obeyed, Edgar,” she said, “even though hearts should break. Go, my boy, your country calls you.”
I don’t think, children, there was a much happier cat than pussy Shireen on the day my master left Waterloo Station for Portsmouth, to take passage for Bombay in a ship of war, especially when the brave soldier told me that this ship was to be commanded by Captain Beecroft himself. Indeed, hearing that we were going to India to join our regiment for service in Persia, Captain Beecroft had written to us, offering us a passage, and saying he would be very glad indeed to have master once more on board his vessel. And, he added, as master knew none of the officers in the wardroom, he would be happy to have him as a guest in his own apartments.
We had not gone straight to London, I may tell you, Warlock, from Yorkshire. We had a run over to Dublin first to see a friend, and on board the steamer I astonished everybody by my perfect coolness. I even ran right up the rigging into the foretop, and had a look around me, and the sailors all declared I was a ship’s cat born and bred.
Well, we had arrived at our hotel in the evening. I may tell you that it stood in one of the principal streets, and right in the middle of it, so that anyone going out by a back window and across the tiles, would have to go a long way round to get to the front door again.
Of course, Warlock, no human being would have dreamt of going out at a back window and along the tiles, and no dog either. But it is precisely what I did when master shut me in the room, and locked me in for safety till he should post a letter.
When he returned, behold! No Shireen was there, and he called me from the window in vain.
The truth is, I had never been to Ireland before, and wanted to see what the Irish cats were like; so I determined to spend a night on the tiles and go home with the milk in the morning.
I can’t say, however, that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I found the Dublin cats a rather disreputable gang. They serenaded nervous old gentlemen, and had water and brushes and lumps of coal and the boot-jack thrown at them; they scratched up beds of choice flowers, and they broke into pigeon-lofts, and dove-cotes, and killed and ate the pigeons. Moreover, they boasted of all these exploits as if they had been the greatest fun in the world. So, on the whole, I was somewhat disgusted. However, it opened up a new phase of life before me, and so I gained some experience.
But, children, you must not suppose that I, a silken-coated Persian and a brave soldier’s cat, kept with this gang all night. I did not, but retired into a garden arbor early in the evening to have a quiet talk with a lady-cat who, it was evident from her voice and manners, had seen better days.
She was a very pretty half-bred Angora, or rather, I should say, she had been pretty once upon a time, but at present her face was thin and worn, her eyes looked world-weary, and her coat hung around her in mats and tatters.
“And so,” she said, after we had settled down face to face, “and so you have been far traveled, and come all the way from across the seas?”
“Yes,” I answered, “and I am going all the way back again. The fact is, I have no real home, except where master is, and I do not care where that may be, whether on the lonesome moorland, amidst the city’s bustle, din, and strife, or far away upon the lone blue sea, I say, that if he be with me I am at home.”
“Ah!” sighed the poor waif in front of me. “I wish I had a kind master or mistress, if so you wouldn’t find me here tonight. Why, I haven’t even a name now, though they used to call me Zulina.”
“A pretty name,” I said; “but tell me, Zulina, how did so ladylike-looking and evidently amiable a pussy as you become a nomad and a wanderer?”
“Oh, don’t call me amiable,” she answered: “indeed, I am not. All my amiability, and even, love, for the human race, has been crushed out of me. Well, once I had a home in the outskirts of this very city, and many home-ties too. It was a pretty house, with gardens all around it, and custom and long residence thereat had much endeared me to it. I knew every hole and corner of it. Knew every mouse-run, the cupboards, and the cozy nooks where I could have a quiet snooze when I needed such refreshment, and the places in which I could hide when hiding became an absolute necessity. I was acquainted with the manner of egress and ingress, so that I felt free and untrammeled, and I was familiar with every sound so that my rest was never disturbed by night, nor my nerves jarred by day.
“And out of doors too, Shireen, everything about the dear old place was familiar to me; the trees on which the sparrows perched, the field where I often found an egg, the meadow where the wild rabbits played, and the paths by which I could reach it in safety.
“But I was taken away from this home by a mistress who used to profess such love for me, and removed to a town more than twenty miles from Dublin. My new home too, was right in the center of the town, and everything about it looked strange and foreign to me. But so long as I felt sure my mistress loved me, I did not care, so I began to learn the place by heart, as it were, and all the outs and ins of it.
“But lo! what was my astonishment to hear my mistress say one day:
“‘I don’t think we can put up with that cat now in this new house. I think we had better give a boy sixpence to drown it tomorrow morning.’
“That night I left the house, an
d the ungrateful mistress I had loved so well and dearly. I left the house, and the town too, and wandered on and on nearly all night, and at early dawn I was back again at my dear-loved home.
“I had forgotten there were strangers there now. And they treated me as a stray cat, and drummed me out when I dared to put my nose over the threshold.
“What could I do, Shireen? I could not endure the pangs of hunger, and though I hung about the garden of my old home for days, and made many a plaintive but useless appeal to the new-comers, I was forced at last to cast aside the mantle of virtue and become a thief. Yes, I even broke into the new people’s pigeon-loft and stole a bird. Then I took to this evil existence, and since then, alas! I have never been inside a human habitation except to steal.”
“Well, Zulina, it is very sad,” I said; “but I think you should try to reform even yet, and some kind lady might take pity on you.”
“No, no, no,” sighed Zulina, “I am but a homeless waif and stray, and my fate, I fear, will be to die in the street, or be torn to pieces by dogs.”
“I’m going to hope for better things for you, Zulina,” I insisted. “But good-bye. Yonder is the grey dawn stealing up into the sky, and I think I hear the milkman’s cry in a distant street. I must try to find my master’s hotel. Good-bye.”
It was a long distance round, but my instinct was unerring, and finally I found myself trotting up the correct street, and soon after sitting in the area doorway.
Down came the milkman with his rattling cans, and in a minute or two, Biddy, with her hair in papers, and looking very sleepy, opened the door.
While Biddy and the milkman were interchanging a few courtesies, I slipped quietly into the house and made my way as fast as I could upstairs to the second floor.
I soon spied my master’s boots, and mewed at the door.
It was opened in a moment, and in I popped, purring as loudly as I knew how to.
“Oh! Pussy, pussy,” he cried, as he picked me up, “I thought I would never see you more, and I was quite disconsolate. You went out by the back and over the tiles, and now you’ve come in at the front; how did you find your way round?
“It is instinct, instinct, I suppose,” he added. “He who guides the great fur seals back through the stormy seas, through hundreds of miles of darkness and mist to their far northern islands in June, He guided you.
“‘Reason raise o’er instinct if we can,
In this ’tis God directs, in that ’tis man.’”
Well, Warlock, we left Dublin, and at last found ourselves at Waterloo Station.
The train was in, and I was in also. I was in a basket, and I didn’t half like it.
I heard my master say to a railway porter, “Take charge of that basket for a few minutes, porter, till I go and buy some newspapers.”
Five minutes after this, when Edgar returned, he met that railway porter, and he was looking very disconsolate indeed.
His hands were bleeding, and he carried an empty basket.
“Oh! Sir,” he cried, “your cat has gone. The basket was not securely fastened, and as soon as you left she wriggled out.”
“But why, man, didn’t you stick to her?” cried master.
“I tried to all I could, I do assure you, sir; but she bit me and tore my hands, then jumped down and disappeared in the crowd.”
“Well, come along and take my things out of the compartment where we put them, for I shan’t go by this train.”
“I’m so sorry, sir. But she’s only a cat, sir. You could get another.”
“Do as you’re told, porter, please,” said my master imperiously.
Without another word the porter followed him to the first-class compartment, and there they found me cozily snuggled up among the rugs!
(This incident occurred just as described, the dramatis personae being the author and his own far-traveled cat Muffie Two.)
Master was delighted, and gave the porter half-a-sovereign to heal his wounded dignity, and his still more wounded fingers.
My children, I traveled many and many a thousand miles with master after that both by sea and by land, but never again did he insult my amour propre by putting me in a creel.
At this moment Lizzie and Tom joined the group of old friends on the lawn. Tom threw himself down on the grass, and began to twine the garland of gowans he had been making around the neck of Vee-Vee, the Pomeranian dog.
Vee-Vee was Tom’s favorite, and never a night would the boy go to bed without him.
No, Vee-Vee did not sleep in the bed, but on a couch in the same cozy little room. He was exceedingly fond of the boy, a proof that love begets love, and of course the doggie would be always first awake in the morning, but he would not stir until Tommy did. As soon, however, as the little lad sighed, his first waking sigh, Vee-Vee jumped joyfully up on the bed, and his delight was simply wonderful.
How nice to be awakened thus by one who loves you, even if it be but a dog.
Vee-Vee was quite as rapturous in the welcome with which he used to greet Tommy’s home-coming, if he happened to be away all day.
During the lad’s absence the dog would refuse all food, and simply lie in the hall with eyes open and ears erect until he heard his little master’s voice or footstep; then he would spring up quite beside himself with joy, his bark having a kind of half hysterical ring in it, as if tears were hindering its clearer utterance.
Vee-Vee now seemed rejoiced to get the garland of gowans. It was a mark of favor on the part of Tommy that he acknowledged by licking his hands and cheek.
Meanwhile Lizzie had brought out a rug to place on the grass, that she might sit thereon, and so save herself from the damp.
As she was spreading it on the green sward something tumbled out.
That something was Chammy.
“Oh, Chammy, Chammy!” cried Lizzie delighted, “we thought you were dead. Where will you hide next?”
But Chammy gathered himself slowly up and crawled away, one leg at a time, to look for a fly.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: “When the Fur Begins to Fly”
Nobody had ever been heard to call Cracker a pretty dog or a bonnie dog. He was sturdy and strong, and nearly, if not quite, as large as a Collie. His legs were as straight as darts, and as strong as the sapling pine tree. Then his coat—ah! Well, there is no way of describing that with pen and ink or in print either. It was rough though not shaggy, and every hair was as hard apparently as pin-wire.
In the matter of coats, in fact, Nature had, while dressing Cracker, adhered to the useful rather than the ornamental. He had apparently come in the afternoon for his coat, and nearly all the other dogs had been before him. Collie had been fitted with his flowing toga, the Poodle with his cords and tassels, the Yorkshire terrier with his doublet of silk, and many others with coats as soft and smooth as that of a carriage horse, and poor Cracker, the Airedale terrier, had almost been forgotten.
“Your coat, Cracker?” Nature had said. “Oh, certainly. I’m really afraid, however, that you have come rather late in the day to be dressed with anything like elegance.”
“Oh!” Cracker had put in, “I ain’t a bit particular. Anything’ll do for Cracker, so as it is thick enough to keep out a shower with a shake.”
So Nature had simply gathered up the sweepings of the shop, the cabbage and clippings, so to speak, and mixed them all up into a kind of shoddy, and dabbed Cracker all over with that, going in, however, for a few finishing touches of gold about the muzzle, the chest, and legs.
And good honest Cracker had given himself a shake, and said, “This’ll do famous,” then trotted off to do his duty and his work, which, to his credit be it said, every dog of this breed knows well how to get through.
Well, one sunshiny day, when the old friends, including even Chammy, who was lying in the limb of a dwarf holly, were assembled on Uncle Ben’s lawn, Ben himself and the Colonel blowing clouds in their straw chairs, and Lizzie lying with a book in Ben’s hammock, who should come through the gateway but
towsy Cracker himself.
He was a brave dog this, and just as modest as brave, for the two good qualities always go hand-in-hand. So he advanced in a bashful, hesitating kind of way, as if he felt he ought to apologize for his presence on the lawn at all, but didn’t know exactly how to begin. He was smiling too, a very broad smile that seemed to extend halfway down both sides.
Vee-Vee and Warlock jumped up at once growling and barking, and ready to defend the family circle with their lives if there was any occasion, but seeing it was only Cracker, they ran to meet him, and give him a hearty welcome.
Then Cracker advanced, shaking his droll old stump of a tail, and Shireen herself arose and rubbed her back against his legs.
“No,” she said, “you certainly don’t intrude, Cracker, and we only wish you would come oftener than you do.”
“Well, seeing as that’s the case,” said Cracker, “I’ll make one this afternoon at your little garden party. But I’m not much used to refined society, I bet you. More at home in a stable than in a drawing-room; the riverside and moor or the forest is more in old Cracker’s way than fountain, lawn, and shrubbery. But, la! Shireen, whatever is that lying along that branch? It isn’t a big snail and it ain’t a large slug, sometimes grey and sometimes green. Well, of all the ugly—”
“It’s a friend of ours,” said Shireen, interrupting Cracker, “and, I assure you, Chammy won’t hurt anything or anybody except the flies and mealworms.”
“Well, well,” said Cracker, “wonders’ll never cease, but if I had met a beast like that in the woods, I’d have bolted quick, you bet, and never turned tail till safe in my kennel again.”
“And now, Mother Shireen, let us have some more of your story,” said Vee-Vee.
“Ah! Yes,” said Tabby; “but what a pity Cracker didn’t hear the first part.”
Well, said Shireen, we arrived at Portsmouth, I and my master as safe as anything, and after dinner proceeded on board.
The Hydra was the name of the war ship on which we were to sail for India’s distant shore. She was a fine craft of the kind human beings call a corvette. I was not long in perceiving that she carried many long black guns, but was glad to learn soon after my arrival, that as we were going to make a very quick passage out to Bombay, these awful guns would hardly ever be fired.
The Second Cat Megapack: Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New Page 38