Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men Part 12

I turned round to get my back to it, but I thought of it all the same; and as every hair of my moustaches twitched, with the vexation of my thoughts, I observed that my master was pulling and biting at his, and glaring at the fire as if _he_ expected to see--however, I do not trouble myself about the crumples in _his_ rose-leaves. He is big enough to take care of himself. My own grievance I will state plainly and at once. It may be a relief to my mind, which I sometimes fear will be unhinged by dwelling on the thought of--but to begin.

It will easily be understood that after my arrival at my new home, I waited anxiously for the appearance of the mouse; but it will hardly be credited by any one who knows me, or who knew my grandmother, that I saw it and _let it escape me_. It was seated on the sugar-basin, just as the Captain had described it. The torn ear, the jerking tail, the bright eyes--all were there.

If this story falls into the paws of any young cat who wishes to avoid the mortifications which have embittered my favoured existence, let me warn him to remember that a creature who has lived on friendly terms with human beings cannot be judged by common rules. Many a mouse's eye as bright as this one had I seen, but hitherto never one that did not paralyze before my own.

He looked at me--I looked at him. His tail jerked--mine responded. Our whiskers twitched--joy filled my brain to intoxication--I crept--I crouched--I sprang--

He was not spell-bound--he did not even run away. With a cool twinkle of that hateful eye, and one twitch of the ragged ear, he just overbalanced the silver sugar-pot and dropped to the ground, the basin and sugar falling on the top of him with a crash which made me start against my will. I think that start just baulked the lightning flash of my second leap, and he was gone--absolutely gone. To add insult to injury, my master ran in from his bedroom and shouted--"Stealing, Toots? confound you, you've knocked down my sugar-pot," and threw both his hair-brushes at me.

_I_ steal?--and, worse still, _I_ knock down anything, who have walked among three dozen wine-gla.s.ses, on a shelf in the butler's pantry, without making them jingle! But I must be calm, for there is more to tell.

The mouse never returned. It was something, but it was not enough. My pride had been deeply hurt, and it demanded revenge. At last I felt it almost a grievance that I _did_ reign supreme in the Captain's quarters, that the mouse did not come back--and let me catch him.

Besides our in-door man, my master had an Irish groom, and the groom had a place (something between a saddle-room and a scullery) where _he_ said he "kept what the master required," but where, the master said, Terence kept what was not wanted, and lost what was.

There certainly were, to my knowledge, fifteen empty Day and Martin's blacking-bottles in one corner, for I used occasionally to walk over them to keep my feet in practice, and it was in this room that Terence last had conscious possession of the hunting-breeches which were never seen after the Captain's birthday, when Terence threw the clothes-brush after me, because I would not drink the master's health in whisky, and had to take the cleanest of the shoe brushes to his own coat, which was dusty from lying in the corn-chest.

But he was a good-natured creature, and now and then, for a change, I followed him into the saddle-room. I am thankful to say I have never caught mice except for amus.e.m.e.nt, and a cat of daintier tastes does not exist. But one has inherited instincts--and the musty, fusty, mousey smell of the room did excite me a little. Besides, I practised my steps among the blacking-bottles.

I was on the top of the most tottering part of the pile one afternoon, when I saw a pair of bead-like eyes, and--yes, I could swear to it--a torn ear. But before I could spring to the ground they had vanished behind the corn-chest.

This was how it came about that when the Captain's room was cosiest, and he and his friends were kindest, I used to steal away from luxuries which are dear to every fibre of my const.i.tution, and pat hastily down to the dirty hole, where Terence acc.u.mulated old rubbish and misused and mislaid valuables--in the wild hope that I might hear, smell, or see the ragged-eared enemy of my peace.

What hours I have wasted, now blinking with sleep, now on the alert at sounds like the revelries of mocking mice.

When I say that I have even risked wet feet, on a damp afternoon, to get there--every cat will understand how wild must have been the infatuation!

I tried to reason myself out of it. "Toots," I would say, "you banished him from your master's room, and you have probably banished him from Terence's. Why pursue the matter farther? So pitiful an object is unworthy of your revenge."

"Very true," I would reply to myself, "but I want a turn in the air.

I'll just step down as far as the saddle-room once more, and make myself finally comfortable by looking behind the old barrel. I don't think I went quite round it."

There is no delusion so strong when it besets you, or so complete a failure in its results--as the hope of getting relief from an infatuation by indulging it once more. It grows worse every time.

One day I was stealing away as usual, when I caught my master's eye with a peculiar expression in it. He was gnawing his moustaches too. I am very fond of him, and I ran back to the chair and looked up and mewed, for I wanted to know what was the matter.

"You're a curious cat, Toots," said he; "but I suppose you're only like the rest of the world. I did think you did care a little bit for me.

It's only the cream, is it, old fellow? As a companion, you prefer Terence? Eh? Well, off with you!"

But I need hardly say that I would not leave him. It was no want of love for him that led me to the saddle-room. I was not base enough to forget that he had been my friend in need, even if he had been less amiable to me since. All that evening I lay on his breast and slept. _But I dreamt of the mouse!_

The next morning he went out riding.

"He will not miss me now," thought I. "I will devote the morning to hunting through that wretched room inch by inch, for the last time. It will satisfy me that the mouse is not there, and it really is a duty to try and convince myself of this, that I may be cured of an infatuation which causes annoyance to so excellent a master."

I hurried off as rapidly as befitted the vigour of the resolution, and when I got into the saddle-room I saw the mouse. And when the mouse saw me he fled like the wind.

I confess that I should have lost him then, but that a hole on which he had reckoned was stopped up, and he had to turn.

What a chase it was! Never did I meet his equal for audacity and fleetness. But I knew the holes as well as he did, and cut him off at every one. Round and round we went--behind the barrel, over the corn-chest, and then he made for the middle of the room.

Now, amongst all the rubbish which Terence had collected about him, there were many old articles of clothing belonging to the Captain, including a pair of long riding-boots, which had been gathering mildew, and stiffening out of shape in their present position ever since I came.

One of these was lying on the floor; and just as I was all but upon the mouse, he darted into the boot.

A quiver of delight ran through me. With all his unwonted sagacity, Master Mouse had run straight into a trap. The boot was wide, and head and shoulders I plunged in after my prey.

I scented him all the way down the leg, but the painful fact is that I could not quite get to the bottom. He must have crouched in the toe or heel, and I could get no farther than the calf. Oh, if my master's legs had but been two inches shorter! I should have clawed into the remotest corner of the foot. As it was, I pushed, I struggled, I shook, I worried the wretched boot--but all in vain.

Only when I was all but choked did I withdraw my head for a gasp of fresh air. And there was the Captain himself, yelling with laughter, and sprawling all over the place in convulsions of unseemly merriment, with those long legs which--but they are not his fault, poor man!

That is my story--an unfinished tale, of which I do not myself know the end. This is the one crook in my luxurious lot--that I cannot see the last of that mouse.

Happily, I don't think that my master any longer misunderstands my attachment to the saddle-room. The other day, he sat scribbling for a long time with a pencil and paper, and when he had done it, he threw the sketch to me and said, "There, Toots, look at that, and you will see what became of your friend!"

It was civilly meant, and I append the sketch for the sake of those whom it may inform. I do not understand pictures myself.

Those boots have a strange fascination for me now. I sit for hours by the mouth of the one where he went in and never came back. Not the faintest squeak from its recesses has ever stirred the sensitive hairs of my watchful ear. He must be starving, but not a nibble of the leather have I heard. I doze, but I am ever on the alert. Nightmares occasionally disturb me. I fancy I see him, made desperate by hunger, creep anxiously to the mouth of the boot, p.r.i.c.king his tagged ear. Once I had a terrible vision of his escaping, and of his tail as it vanished round the corner.

But these are dreams. He has never returned, I suspect that the truth is, that he had a fit from fright, in the toe of the boot, and is dead.

Some day Terence will shake out his skeleton.

It grows very cold. This place is full of draughts, and the floor is damp.

He _must_ be dead. He never could have lasted so long without a move or a nibble.

And it is tea-time. I think I shall join the Captain.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE HENS OF HENCASTLE.

(_Translated from the German of_ VICTOR BLuTHGEN.)

What a hot, drowsy afternoon it was.

The blazing sun shone with such a glare upon the farmyard that it was almost unbearable, and there was not a vestige of gra.s.s or any green thing to relieve the eye or cast a little shade.

But the fowls in the back yard were not disturbed by the heat the least bit in the world, for they had plenty of time in which to doze, and they were fond of taking a _siesta_ in the hottest place that could be found.

Certainly the hottest place that afternoon, by far, was the yard in which they reposed.

There were five of them--a c.o.c.k and four hens. Two of the hens were renowned throughout the whole village, for they wore tufts of feathers on their heads instead of the usual red combs; and the c.o.c.k was very proud of having such distinguished-looking wives.