THE YELLOW CAT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XXIV, 14 December 1895, Page 740

THE YELLOW CAT.

Brat (my Irish terrier) loathed the yellow cat. Of course I think he has a perfect right to his own sentiments and feelings about her and do not expect him to change them. But I insist that he shall let her alone, and refrain from chivvying or worrying her. So when in direct defiance of my commands he yields to the impulse of the moment and gives chase to her, and comes back to me waggling all over with apologies, I sternly resist his blandishments and administer a castigation. When we have made it up we generally talk it over. ‘ I am really very sorry it has happened again,’ says Brat, • but I simply can’t stand that cat. I tried very hard not to chase her this time ’ (which I knew to be perfectly true, as I had watched him quivering with suppressed emotion as she walked towards him) ; but the idiotic thing bottled under my very nose, and before I knew where I was I was after her, and she had flown up a tree.’ ‘ I should like to know what’s the good of that cat !’ he said a little later. ‘ I have told you again and again,’ I reply, * that she kills mice.’ ‘Asif I couldn’t kill mice,’ he says with scorn, ‘ a jolly sight better than a cat, too —quickly and neatly. Why, the way that cat kills a mouse is enough to make anyone sick ! Plays with it and tortures it, and kills it by inches, and then eats it I Ugh ! I’d clear the house of mice in a jiffy if you’d only let me sleep in the passage instead of out in the stable. Of course I don’t particularly care about killing mice. It isn’t sport. But if you want them killed you’ve only to say the word and give me an opportunity.’ And on another occasion : ‘if you knew the things I know about that cat,’ he said, ‘ you would have let me worry her long ago. Why, the language she uses is something awful !’ Though I would not for the world admit it to Brat, I eel that there is a certain amount of truth in what he

says about the cat, and to a degree I share his sentiments about her. At the same time there are things about her that I cannot help admiring—her cold reserve and decorous behaviour under all circumstances, and the astounding independence with which she lives her own life and thinks her own thoughts. Before I made her acquaintance she used to live in the stable, and was, I believe, the property of the stable boy. She must have had some sort of fellow-feeling for him, for when he left she, as it were, packed up and moved into the kitchen, and a sort of bond of union grew up be tween her and the cook. Its basis seemed to be an understanding that they should let each other alone. They never spoke to each other, as far as I could hear. They just lived together in the kitchen, and respected each other’s independence. But one felt that they thoroughly understood each other. It would have been intolerable to that cat to have been asked questions as to where she had been or where she was going, or what she was thinking about. The cook felt this instinctively and acted accordingly. And it would have been irritating to the cook if the cat had walked about and got in her way and tripped her up when she was at her work. The cat knew this, and avoided it. When I went into the kitchen to order the dinner I generally found her rolled up asleep in a small wicker chair with a cushion on it, that she had entirely appropriated to her own use. Very occasionally, and only when there was no cooking going on, I found her sitting bolt upright on the hearth, gazing pensively at the embers, and looking as if her mind was far away in the regions of abstract thought and only her outward form decorated the hearth. But whatever her attitude, it was always one of dignified repose. The peaceful current of her life was undisturbed for two years. At the end of that time the cook married and went away. On the day on which she walked away in her wedding garment a new cook walked in and took her place. The cat sat up and gazed steadfastly at the

new arrival for about a minute, and then, having apparently satisfied herself that she was not the sort of person she could stand, got up and walked deliberately and firmly out of the room. As far as I know she never set foot in the kitchen again. The new cook informed me that the day after she arrived she had met her in the garden. * She walked alongside of me quite friendlylike,’ she said, ‘ till I stooped down to stroke her, when she suddenly went for me and clawed hold of my legs so vicious that she almost drew blood, and then bolted away into the bushes with her tail up, and I never saw her again.’ After that she disappeared entirely for three weeks. Then one morning when we were sitting at breakfast she appeared at the dining-room window and made a face that looked like a * meeow. ’ We let her in at once. She looked wretchedly thin and miserable, and had scratches on her face as if she had been in the wars, and also she had completely lost her voice, for though every time we caught her eye she looked as if she wanted to say something, all she did was to open her mouth and make a noiseless face at us. We provided her with a saucer of milk and some fish at once. She devoured them eagerly, and then walked round the table shooting her head and back up at any hand that showed a tendency to pat her, purring hoarsely, and every now and then gazing at us and making the same noiseless remark she had made at first, and showing signs of gratitude and feeling that I had not deemed her capable of. I gathered that what she was trying to say was something to this effect : ‘ I have had a horrible time, and can stand it no longer. You must let me stay here.’ So I told her that she might as long as she behaved herself and did not interfere with Brat. She gave a responsive purr when I said ihis, and jumped lightly up on to a corner of the sofa, where, after sitting lost in deep thought and gazing at vacancy for a few minutes, she curled herself up and went to sleep. The next six months of her existence were passed principally on the corner of the sofa, where she was unmolested, and where I had ample opportunity of observing her ways. Her daily routine never varied. She fed —she performed her toilet—she slept. The performance of her toilet had a fascination for me. She did it with such scrupulousness, attending to every part of her person in turn. First, silting up, she would wash her head and face all over with her hand. Then stretching herself full length on the sofa she would lick herself from her neck down, back and front, ending up with her legs. Not a square inch was neglected, but it always seemed to me she bestowed an undue share of attention on her right leg which she would hoist over her shoulder and groom with an energy that appeared to me a little overdone—but perhaps my observations were at fault. As I said, she spent a peaceful six months on the sofa. Brat accepted the situation, and let her alone, and she seemed quite happy. Then the even tenor of her life was again disturbed. It is my almost invariable habit to go into the kitchen every morning when I order the dinner. But, being more than usually busy on one occasion, I sent for the cook to attend on me in the diningroom. As she stood before me discussing joints and vegetables, I noticed that the cat had awakened, and was sitting bolt upright, gazing at her with an expression of mingled horror and surprise. ‘Good Lord!’ she seemed to say, ‘that woman again. I hoped she was dead.’ So marked was it, that the cook noticed it ; for after returning the gaze fora minute she said, ‘lean’t abide that cat,m’m. Nasty vicious thing ! She’d go for me again if I gave her the chance.’ The animal gave a slight start, as if she understood the purport of the words, bristled slightly, and then, as if to say, ‘ No ; I really can’t stand this !’ jumped off the sofa, walked stiffly out of the window on to the lawn, and disappeared round the corner of the house. From that day to this she has not shown her face. I have given orders that when next she calls she shall be encouraged with milk and fish and treated kindly—but it is three months now since she went off, and I begin to think she has gone for good. She wanted but little here below, that cat —one chair or the corner of a sofa, and to be let alone and not to have the companionship of those she loathed forced upon her. It seems hard that that little was denied her. But such is life !