Thomasina - The Cat Who Thought She Was God

by Paul Gallico

  Some of them reached to his ears and were to the effect that if he could not or would not cure his own child’s little pet, why then he could not be the doctor he was supposed to be and a pity to take one’s own dear little thing to him, only to have him recommend to put it away. And furthermore, if his own child would neither speak to him nor have any dealings with him in his own home, as everyone knew was the case, there must be something very black indeed about the man and even more than met the eye at first.

  Irritation, anger, shame, and frustration had further caused a deterioration in the behavior of MacDhui toward his clients and patients and made him the more truculent, bullying, short-tempered, and argumentative. He spoke in even a louder, more rasping tone and seemed to be looking for veiled insults or allusions in the most innocent remarks, until even the summer visitors thought him a most peculiar and unpleasant man, but since there was no other veterinarian within miles, they had to bear with him when their dogs acquired summer mange or suffered a sting from an insect or a bite from some bad-tempered local animal.

  But this was not the case with some of the townspeople who knew of the woman known as Daft or Mad Lori who lived by herself as a recluse up in the glen, talked with the Little Folk and the angels and had a way with winged and four-footed creatures that assuredly was not quite of this earth. Hence the silver Mercy Bell attached to the covin oak outside the little cottage rang more frequently now, as former clients of the animal doctor made the pilgrimage to the lair of the so-called Red Witch of Glen Ardrath.

  And thus inevitably, through whispers of these pilgrimages, Daft Lori swam into the ken of Andrew MacDhui as either a rival or a nuisance who must be dealt with.

  He had heard of her, of course, but merely as a kind of local character, boasted of by the town, like Rab McKechnie, who when sufficiently drunk could recite the poetry of Bobby Burns from memory by the hour and would take it into his head to do so outside the Queen’s Arms, his favorite pub, or old Mary who went about the streets picking up bits of paper and string. Lori had long been accepted as a kind of fixture and curiosity, about whom no one really bothered except to regale a visitor with the story of the witch woman who dwelled in a wild glen up the mountain side, who conversed with the spirit, understood the language of the animals, and frightened little boys and girls, who mortally feared to approach anywhere near to her cottage.

  Occasionally such a visitor shopping in the grocer’s or chemist’s or dry-goods emporium might encounter a quiet young woman with red hair and wide-spaced greenish eyes, plain-seeming, but if one looked again, revealing a great sweetness of expression, without ever guessing or even surmising that this might be the Red Witch herself, Daft Lori McGregor down from the hills on one of her rare excursions into town to lay in needed supplies for herself and her four-footed companions and patients.

  But Mr. MacDhui had never encountered her, for Inveranoch was a largish town and their paths were unlikely to cross. Nor had he ever felt any curiosity about her, since local wonders or freaks are never as interesting to those who live close to them.

  But now it was whisper, whisper, whisper. A word dropped here, or there, snatches of gossip picked up by large-eared Willie Bannock, whose loyalty to his employer remained undimmed, snatches of sentences overheard. “Oh, aye, there’s nae doot she has a way wi’ the wee beasties. The touch o’ her hand to its head is enough to set an old dog a-dying to frisking like a pup,” or, “They say she’s a powerful one wi’ spells, and dangerous if crossed”—and again—“Ring her silver bell o’ maircy and she’ll nae turn a sick animal frae her door, nor will she have so murkle’s a farthing for her pains. The wild beasts of the forest feed frae her hauns . . .”

  Mr. MacDhui thought of these things with waxing indignation as he drove his jeep on one of his back-country rounds of sanitary inspection, passing the gypsy encampment that still remained in the meadow at the foot of Glen Ardrath.

  The smoke rose into the misty morning air from the horseshoe of wagons and caravans drawn up at one end of the field, brightly colored garments fluttered from wash lines, and a farrier was shoeing a horse, for MacDhui could hear the distant metallic beat of his hammer.

  At one end of the encampment was a row of wagons that had been converted into cages for the containment of wild animals, but as yet there appeared to have been no attempt made to exhibit them.

  The gypsies apparently had been making character with the police, at any rate there had been no complaints. The women told fortunes with greasy packs of tarot cards; others derived an income from the sale of tin and copper utensils, at which, as followers of the ancient gypsy trade of Calderai or tinkers, they were adepts. The townspeople remained aloof and suspicious, but the summer trippers, failing to observe the dirt and primitive cruelty and bestiality behind the color of the encampment seen against the stark Highland background, thought them romantic.

  Driving along the road that led upcountry into the hills, MacDhui looked dourly upon the encampment; he had no use for foreigners and they were dirty. Besides, through gossip with the farmers in the neighborhood, he knew more about this band probably than did the police. There was a bear trainer in their midst, a big, drunken brute of a fellow, probably a descendant of those gypsies known in the Balkans as bear drivers, and characterized usually by their cruelty to their animals, and later they were planning to give some sort of show or performance to lure the summer visitors, judging they were far enough out of town not to attract the attention of the police.

  Whatever, it was none of MacDhui’s business. If the police were up to their duty, he felt they would have cleaned out the nest long ago, denied them permission to camp, and sent them on their way to infest some other community. But shortly thereafter occurred the incident which drove all reflections upon gypsies from his mind and furnished him at last with out-and-out corroboration of the gossip that had been reaching his ears with regard to the witchwoman who was said to have a way with sick animals and was not averse to practicing.

  On a rocky trail between Glen Ardrath and Bannockstyle, a farm hamlet further up in the hills, the veterinary encountered a tow-polled gad boy employed by one of the farmers, driving a curve-horned, dappled Ayrshire cow ahead of him with prods of a long gad pole cut from an ash sapling.

  MacDhui pulled up his jeep, leaned therefrom, and addressed the boy in the vernacular: “Hello there, young Jock. Where are ye gaun wi’ Fenner Kinkairlie’s Roselle,” MacDhui knew the name, pedigree, and markings of every cow, bull and plow horse in the district.

  The boy stopped likewise and gave the veterinarian that cold, unswerving Highland gaze indicative of that independence that considers any question an intrusion. After reflection he decided to reply, for as a matter of fact he was more than a little uneasy because of his errand and glad of a chance for a word with his interrogator.

  He intoned in a shrill, high-pitched voice, “Yin milchkye’s gone off. She wis drony last nicht and this maimen Fermer Kinkairlie says her clushets are as dry as a toom whuskey bottle and nae mair to be had frae yin than the ither.”

  MacDhui snorted. “Did ye think then to restore her by running her aboot the country like a fox hunter? I am well come then and will have a look at what ails the beast.”

  The lanky, straw-headed gad boy looked alarmed as MacDhui made preparations to descend from the jeep with his bag and backed to the cow. “Na na!” he cried, “ ’Tis not you that’s wanted. I’m tae lead her tae the Red Witch o’ the glen, says the fermer, for what’s to do, and he’s gi’en me the siller to pay her. ’Twill be bogle-wark, I don’t doot, and I’m no much of a one for dealins wi’ the evil eye. D’ye ken this Daft Lori? Wad she be putting a spell upon me?”

  Outrage exploded in a roar from MacDhui. “Faugh! Are ye all daft yersel’s? Has Fermer Kinkairlie taken leave of his senses? Ye’ll draw pints o’ beer from yin kye’s clushets sooner than a drap o’ milk from the word o’ some loony auld spaewife back in the glen!”

  A stubborn look came into the la
d’s face. “Aweel, I ken ony what the fermer said. I’m nae ower liking the errand mysel’! I’ll make the sign so, a’ the time I’m in her sight—” and he made a fist, with his thumb and little finger extended.

  MacDhui bawled, “Be off with you. I’ll call in and have a word with the fermer and we’ll see who’s to be called for ailing beasts about here—”

  Farmer Kinkairlie was a rugged, stocky man with one of those large shaggy heads that looked too large for the body it topped. He was a pipe-sucker and a reflector-before-replying kind of man who knew his own mind and his rights and was not afraid to speak out. MacDhui, when he wheeled his jeep angrily into the forecourt of the farm where he found him hosing down his cow byre in sanitary enough fashion, accomplished nothing with abuse, shouting, and threats.

  “Mon,” Farmer Kinkairlie admonished the irate veterinarian, “ye’ll bairst a blood veesal wi’ sic choler.” He let the smoke of his pipe curl up about his head while he contemplated MacDhui, continuing, “Yon coo nae has ony disease reportable under the Acts of the county. ’Tis a matter between me and her whaur I send her when her milk fails.”

  MacDhui, calming some manner beneath the man’s demeanor, said, “Yer richt, Kinkairlie—I had no cause to shout at ye. But I don’t know what’s got into you all of a sudden, all of you. You’ve been glad enough of my services in the past, without turning the pages back to medieval superstition and sending to a warlock when a cow dries up.”

  The farmer was not mollified. He sucked at his pipe for so long that MacDhui thought he was never going to speak. Finally he said, “Aweel, Meester MacDhui, times change. Pairhops they’re changing back again. For yin thing, they’re no’ so altered that I let any mon come here and tell me my business, no more do I pit my nose in yours. If you see onything here to rant aboot, sanitarywise, speak up, otherwise I’ll thank ye to remove yer presence from the premises, since I have nae sent for ye—”

  For an instant, MacDhui towered over the smaller farmer, a burly, menacing figure, red beard thrust forward, knotted fists thrust into the pockets of his leather jacket, eyes glaring. But the little man stared him back, and in another moment MacDhui felt that pipe smoke would be blown into his face, so he left off, turned on his heel, packed himself into his jeep, and roared forth from the farmyard. There was nothing to be done with Highlanders and no use wasting your breath upon them, once their minds were made up.

  However the woman known as Daft Lori was another matter and with her MacDhui meant to deal as swiftly as might be.

  When he entered his surgery Willie Bannock was busied with preparing sections for microscopic examination and had nothing to say. MacDhui scrubbed himself, donned his white coat, and thrust his head in through the door of the waiting room, but there was no one there but the Reverend Mr. Peddie with his pug dog Fin, who was wheezing, belching, and rolling up the whites of his eyes in his usual distress. The roly-poly little minister was himself looking sheepish and ill at ease to be back with his pet.

  MacDhui waved his friend inside the surgery, frowning at the empty waiting room, unaware of the incongruity of his emotions; he was angry when it was full, and now put out when it was empty. He did not chaff Peddie this time but automatically reached up to the shelf and took down the familiar bottle of medicine.

  Truth to tell, he was glad to see his friend, for he felt that if anyone were able to tell him something about the mysterious woman who lived in the glen, it would be the minister. He and Peddie had not encountered one another since the week before, when the dominie had briefly reported his failure to move or influence Mary Ruadh and had suggested that MacDhui let time take its course for the moment and in the meantime have the child looked over by the local practitioner as a precautionary measure. The veterinarian had taken the first bit of advice but not the second.

  MacDhui came at once to the crux of the matter he had so definitely established that day. “See here, Angus,” he said, “do you know anything about a half-witted woman by the name of Lori, who lives somewhere up in the glen and pretends she is a witch?”

  The minister sat down. He had been expecting this query for some time. Now that it had come he hoped he would be able adequately to deal with the situation. Before he replied he uncorked the bottle and trickled a little of the liquid into the side of his dog’s mouth to ease its gastric disturbance, patting its back and round stomach until it brought up a resounding belch, which brought a smile of relief to the little clergyman’s face as well as to the wrinkled black countenance of the dog. Some of the sweetness of the smile still lingered at his lips as he replied, “I do not think she is half-witted, Andrew. Withdrawn, perhaps, in the modern sense of one who has found a world that is preferable to our own. And certainly she is no witch.”

  “Ah! Then you do know of her. Well, there must be some reason she is known as Daft Lori. And whatever, she is practicing veterinary medicine without a license and it must cease. This morning I encountered one of my clients sending a cow to her for a spell to cure dried-up clushets. And I suppose you did not fail to notice that my waiting room this morning is not exactly overpopulated. Well, I believe this woman is responsible.”

  For all his experience in dealing with human beings, Peddie was baffled as to how to remove the scales from the eyes of one who was so willfully blind to his own failings and shortcomings. To show him the truth would only lose him a friend. He saw the gulf between his MacDhui and himself over this point not so much as a flaw in character as rather a classic example of the difficulties to be compounded through living in an accident-created pilotless world rather than a God-created and directed one. To Mr. Peddie, who was a profound theologist as well as a simple man, atheism carried its own punishment; the unbeliever seemed almost to be carrying about a built-in rod. But he knew too well that this was no time to voice such an opinion. And so he asked merely, “What is it you propose to do?”

  “The simplest thing, I suppose, would be to turn her over to the police, or make a complaint to them. There are severe penalties for practicing medicine, veterinary as well as human, without a license.”

  Mr. Peddie for the first time looked uncomfortable. “Dear me,” he said, “I think that might be most ill-advised. Lori, you know, has never taken a penny for anything she has ever done to help anyone. I should not, if I were you, appeal to the police.”

  The stubborn chin came out. “And why not? Is there a law, or is there not? Is a man to give a lifetime to study and work to be undermined by some creature who takes it into her head to spoil and pamper animals, or brews stinks out of herbs? I think not.”

  Mr. Peddie sighed. “The law is indeed the law. That has always been the trouble with it. But you see, the police happen to think highly of Lori because she is a good woman, a really good person, and in the line of their duties they come in contact with so many persons who are not. Thus they would be prejudiced . . .”

  “You mean they would refuse to do their duty when called upon?”

  “Oh no. Not our police. They are staunch men with a true Scots sense of duty, only—”

  “Only what? If I charged this woman with . . .”

  “Yes, yes, of course. But let me put it to you this way.” Here Mr. Peddie paused to gather Fin to him, holding the pug dog upside down and cradled in his arms like a baby, or a small, blackfaced pig, and no one could have managed to look more ridiculous, the white eyes of the dog, rolling adoringly out of the background of the minister’s dark clothing, the legs spraddled wide as Peddie gently massaged his stomach, and yet such was the man’s presence and inner gentleness, that no one but he could have managed to look so unridiculous as he outlined his parable.

  “Mrs. Clachan says to her neighbor Mrs. Culross, ‘ ’Tis a chill and a sore throat I am suffering from this morning, Mrs. Culross: I can hardly get around on my two legs to do my work from the misery of it—and all the washing piling up.’ Mrs. Culross asks, ‘Look you, Mrs. Clachan; have you ever tried Evans’ mixture? It’s the grand cure for just such a complain
t as you are speaking of. Six months ago when I felt a chill coming on, it had me on my feet in no time. I believe I still have a half bottle of it in the cupboard beneath the stairs. Let me fetch it for you.’ ”

  Mr. Peddie turned his dog over and moved his massage to the end of the spine whence the corkscrew tail began bringing a look of most ineffable bliss to the animal’s face. He continued: “She does so and Mrs. Clachan, who was suffering from nothing more serious than a severe case of washing piling up, partakes of some of the mixture, feels her stomach warmed and her head slightly addled due to the high percentage of spirits in the stuff, and gets on with it, cured. Is Dr. Strathsay to bring a suit against Mrs. Culross for practicing medicine without a license?”

  He paused for a moment to let the idea percolate through his friend’s skull and then concluded, “No, friend Andrew, you would not look well in court, bristling and blustering against a woman who, the police would report, had done no more than help out a lonely shepherd or crofter with a sick or injured animal or given some child or woman advice about a dog or cat that needed worming.”

  MacDhui snorted, half in acquiescence, half in disgust. “Yes, yes,” he said, “I suppose you are right. Women are always objects of sentimental favoritism. Well, then you must go since you know her so well.”

  “Oh,” Mr. Peddie replied, “as for that—I do not know her at all well. No one does.”

  “Eh, what? But this is nonsense, Angus. Somebody must. She must have come from somewhere, or have some story—”

  Mf. Peddie mused for a moment and murmured half to himself, “Must everyone?” and then answered, “I suppose in a way they must, but it seems a pity. Her name is Lori McGregor. The crofter’s cottage and barn in the glen had been deserted for years. She came there one day, but no one knows from where—or ever asks. She is a weaver. Perhaps she is one of the last of the fates, separated from her sisters—”

  MacDhui snorted again. “Well, you’re just the one then to reason with her. These psychotics will often hearken to a dominie where—”