Shireen got up and stretched herself now.
“I’ll go on with my story another night,” she said.
Then she jumped upon Colonel Clarkson’s knee.
“How fond that cat seems to be of you,” said Ben.
“Ah! yes, poor Shireen! She dearly loves both me and my wife. As for Lizzie and Tom, well, she adores them. But Tom here is such a good lad, and never pulls her about, for I have told him that pussy is very old, and, heigh-ho! I daresay we’ll miss her some of these days.”
“But we can lift Tabby, can’t we, uncle?” said Lizzie.
“Well, I do think Tabby rather likes being teased just a very little, and I’m sure she would stand from you, Lizzie, treatment she would soon resent if Uncle Ben or I were going to resort to it.”
“Getting late,” said Uncle Ben, starting up. “But,” he added, “somehow when the wind roars as it does tonight, and takes my thoughts away back to the stormy ocean, I cannot help talking.”
“Won’t Cockie get wet?” said Mrs. Clarkson. “Hadn’t you better leave him here tonight?”
“Bless your innocence, my dear Mrs. Clarkson, the bird would break his heart.”
“Coakie wants to go home!” cried the cockatoo.
It will be observed that the bird called himself Coakie, not Cockie.
But Ben produced a big red handkerchief, and simply tied Cockie up as if he had been a bundle of collars going to the wash.
He placed the bundle under his arm, bade everybody good-night, then walked boldly forth into darkness and storm.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: “Away, Lifeboat’s Crew!”
The house where the Clarksons dwelt, with the two dear little orphans Lizzie and Tom, and to which Uncle Ben so often found his way, was a fine old place. It stood high on a great green brae, not far from the forest and sea, and had been at one time a real castle, for our friends only occupied the more modern portion of it. All the rest was in ruins, or nearly so.
It was within sound of the roar of a cataract, which could be heard ever and ay in drowsy monotony, except on stormy nights, when the wild wind, sweeping through the tall dark pine trees that grew on a beetling cliff top behind the ruin, quite drowned even the voice of the linn.
It was a rare old house and ruin for cats and children to play about; for there was not only quite a jungle of cover for birds of every sort, but the ivy itself that covered some of the sturdy grey walls gave berth and bield to more than one brown owl.
It was perhaps the noise made by the owls that gave rise to the notion, ripe enough among the peasantry, that the old Castle was haunted.
Lizzie and her brother both believed in this ghost. They made themselves believe, in fact, because it was romantic so to do.
There were fine old-fashioned walled-in gardens and lawns to play in besides, so that on the whole it was a kind of ideal place.
There was one peculiarity about the lawn that I should tell you of. The Colonel would not have it kept closely shaven, he loved to see the daisies growing thereon, and many a pink, crimson, or yellow nodding wild flower as well.
So all the summer long it was beautiful, and even in autumn too.
Lizzie and Tom were such gentle children, that none of the creatures of nature which visited the lawn, seemed to be one whit afraid of them. In fact, they—the children—were part and parcel of all that was beautiful in nature around them.
The mavises sang to them nearly all the year through, sometimes even in snow time. So did cock-robin, because he was always fed, even in summer. Lizzie and Tom knew where his nest was in a bank of wild roses, and robin appeared rather pleased than otherwise to have them come quietly round and take a peep at his yellow-throated gaping gorblings of youngsters.
“It takes me all my time,” cock-robin told Lizzie, “and all my wife’s time too, to feed them. Oh, they do eat and eat and eat to be sure. It is just stuff, stuff, stuff all day long; one beetle down the other come on, so that I haven’t time to sing a song to you. But wait till winter comes, and the youngsters are up and away, and won’t I just sing!”
There was a saucy rascal of a blackbird that used to run about on the lawn gathering food, quite close to the children. When Shireen, Tabby, and the rest were there the blackbird used to come even closer, in order that he might nod his head and scold the cats.
But Dick would cry “Eh? Eh? What d’ye say? What is it? You r-r-rascal!” and sometimes even fly down to offer him battle.
There was no song more sweet in the summer evenings however, than blackie’s.
The owl kept his song till midnight, and a very dreary one it was!
But strangely enough, some may think it, yet it is nevertheless most true, wild pigeons built their nests in the pine trees, close to the wall in which the owls had theirs. These pigeons knew, though gamekeepers don’t, that these owls lived on young rats and mice and not upon birds.
Squirrels used to run about the lawn with their long brown beautiful tails behind them, early in the morning; and they built in trees also.
Then there was a white-breasted weasel, that would often come quite close up to Lizzie and Tom, and stand on one end to look at what they were doing.
On this particular year, autumn lingered long on the hills and forests and fields all around the children’s beautiful home. It was, Uncle Ben said, a real Indian summer, so soft and warm and mellow, that neither he nor the Colonel ever cared to be much indoors.
“Well,” said Warlock, one afternoon out on the Colonel’s lawn, while Lizzie and Tom sat at some distance making a garland of gowans for the dogs’ necks, and the old sailor and soldier sat in their straw chairs, peacefully smoking and yarning—“Well, Shireen, although I have never been to sea myself, considering that the land and the lovely hills and woods are good enough for me, I dearly like to hear about it, so just heave round with your yarn, as Uncle Ben yonder says.”
“Yes, with pleasure,” said Shireen. “Let me see though, where did I leave off?”
“Why you left yourself sitting on the bulwark of the old Venom, catching flying fish.”
Oh, yes, so I did, Warlock. My memory is just getting a little fickle now, while yours is supple and green. Well, the voyage south was continued, slowly though, because we kept in towards the green-wooded coast, you know, in order to hunt for slave-ships. And several times Tom Brandy and I had to be blown out of the gun with a fuse before the men could load it. I always knew what was going to happen when this took place, and ran aft right speedily and got down below to my master’s bed; because do what I might, I could never reconcile myself to the noise of those terrible guns.
Master I could see, much to my joy, was getting better and stronger every day. But he often spoke to me about my mistress Beebee, and always said that he would, at all risks, prevent her from being sold to the Shah.
One day he went so far as to say, “Dear pussy Shireen, your mistress is much too good and too beautiful for a fellow like the Shah. Let him be content with the slaves he has. He is only a savage himself, at the best, and rather than he should have your sweet mistress, I will go back to Persia and carry her away.”
My life on board the Venom was now a most happy and pleasant one; but often and often, Warlock, I dreamt that I was back again in the land of the lion and the sun, in beautiful Persia, and that I was sitting as of old in the turret balcony, with my darling mistress. Then I would awake and find myself far away on the dark blue sea.
No, I should not say dark blue sea, because the Indian Ocean is more lovely far than turquoisine.
Tom Brandy and I would sit for hours on the bulwarks, which I used to call a fence, looking at the sea. The flying fish knew far better than to come on board the vessel during the day, but there always was something or other to be seen in the ocean. At times, especially on calm days, it would be a shoal of silvery whitebait. And such a shoal! Oh, Tabby, it would have made your mouth water to look upon it. We could see first far ahead of us, a dark patch upon the bright blue water, and when we c
ame nearer, that part of the sea would be all a-quiver, as if it were raining hard there and nowhere else. But soon the shoal opened out in all its beauty of silvery life and loveliness. I’m not a poet, only a Persian cat, else I could describe it better.
“Oh, rats!” cried Warlock, “never mind the poetry.”
Another sight we used to see would be a shoal of dolphins.
“Chasing the whitebait, I suppose?” This from Warlock.
“I didn’t say so, Warlock.”
But very prettily they used to come along on the top of the water. They would be so far away at first that they looked like tiny black ticks on the horizon, but soon they were near enough to us, and we saw that they were monsters. Oh, a hundred times as large as you, Warlock, or all of us put together. They came up head first, and went down head first, just skylarking and playing and skipping like lambs on the leas. And the water all around them was lashed into foam. Wasn’t I afraid, did you ask me, Vee-Vee? No, not a bit, because Tom told me they were as harmless as cows.
But, my children, there were creatures in that deep sea of turquoisine that were very far indeed from being harmless. These were the sharks.
There were always one or two down there that the doctor fed. They used to know the doctor, and floated alongside the ship, while he threw down pieces of fat to them, and sometimes a ham bone.
The doctor said those tigers of the ocean used to swallow whatever was thrown overboard, even if it were only an empty medicine bottle.
Sometimes they looked very lovingly at the doctor, and this officer would tell me they were asking him to throw over a cat for them to swallow. They said they had never eaten cat, but felt sure that it must taste very nice indeed.
But little did we think that one day we would be in danger of our lives from those awful monsters.
Only it wasn’t by day, but by night, and a clear and beautiful night it was too, with the moon shining as brightly almost as it used to shine over the woods around my Persian home.
Tom and I had been sitting on the bulwarks as usual, expecting a flying fish to come on board. But they could see us too distinctly, so they kept away.
There was very little wind that night, just enough to fill the sails, and carry us along about five knots an hour.
It was a few minutes past midnight, and the watch had been changed, and stillness reigned everywhere. I think I must have fallen asleep and been dreaming, for I started in fright when one bell was struck loudly and clearly.
I started so that I missed my balance, and fell with a plash into the sea. Next moment Tom Brandy uttered a plaintive howl and dashed in after me. I am sure that the poor fellow had no idea of trying to save my life, he only wished to share my fate.
I heard a shout just after Tom came down. For a man in the watch, hearing the plash in the water, immediately concluded that someone had fallen in, and raised the alarm.
“Man overboard! Away, lifeboat’s crew!”
The shout was taken up and repeated fore and aft, down below and on deck as well.
Then something came rushing down into the sea from the stern of the ship, and fell into the water with a strange hollow ring.
The officer of the watch had let go the lifebuoy, but so quickly that he had forgotten to light it. His neglect to do so probably saved our lives.
The lifebuoy is made of two empty copper balls, with an arm of wood between. From this rises a short mast, on the top of which a beacon burns. Now had this been lit, Tom and I would have burned our paws when we scrambled up the little mast.
I never knew I could swim till then, but I can assure you, Warlock, it didn’t take Tom Brandy and I long to reach that lifebuoy, and there we clung till the boat came.
It was not long, perhaps, till the boat did arrive, but to me it seemed like a hundred years, for the sea all around us appeared to be alive with awful sharks. Tom told me afterwards my eyes must have multiplied their numbers, and that there were only just the doctor’s two tame ones.
Well, Warlock, tame or not tame, they wanted to tear Tom and me to pieces, and were terribly disappointed when the men took us on board and the boat went rushing back to the Venom with us rescued pussies.
When the captain heard of what he called the gallant rescue, he ordered the main brace to be spliced, and so the men all had a glass of grog for saving our lives.
But next day the seaman who had struck the bell which so startled me, informed the boatswain that he was positive both cats did not fall off the bulwarks, but that I only had missed my hold and tumbled into the sea. He looked quickly towards the bows he said, and for a second or two saw Tom Brandy there safe enough. Then he heard his cry, and saw him deliberately spring into the sea after me.
The boatswain told all this to the men and also to the officers, and after that Tom became indeed a hero on board the ship. My master spoke of presenting him with a handsome collar of solid silver. The armorer said if my master Edgar would let him have the silver, he would very soon make it and engrave it also; he received a large silver spoon, and so heartily did he work, that in less than a week Tom was wearing his collar.
But, children, continued Shireen thoughtfully, although Tom Brandy looked somewhat dignified in his silver collar, it is rather a risky ornament for a pussy to wear. For a cat friend of mine in the country being presented with a lovely morocco leather collar by his own mistress, who thought a great deal of him, disappeared soon after in the most mysterious way. A whole week passed by and poor Clyde didn’t appear. Then one day a boy rang the doorbell, and asked to see Clyde’s mistress. He thought he had found the missing cat he said.
“Where, my dear boy, where?” cried Mrs. L—
“Up in a tree, far down in the wood, ma’am.”
“And why didn’t you bring him? I’ll go with you, and we must get him, and I will pay you well.”
“Can you climb trees?” she added.
“Like a squirrel,” he said boldly.
The tree was soon found, and up swarmed the boy.
“It is Clyde right enough!” he shouted down; “but she’s been and gone and hung herself.”
“Oh, poor pussy! Is she dead?”
By this time the lad was coming down the tree with pussy under his jacket.
“Never a dead is she, ma’am, but awfully thin.”
She was indeed thin, and a miserable time she must have spent. A branch of the tree had got caught in the collar, and there the poor cat was hung up by the neck, and but for the boy, who perhaps had been birds’-nesting, she would have been slowly starved to death.
That’s the worst of a dandy collar. But nothing ever happened to Tom Brandy on board the ship.
Well, in due course the Venom arrived safely in port, and was paid off. And I assure you, dear children, the day I parted from Tom Brandy I was very sorry indeed. But, you see, he wasn’t my master’s cat, and so couldn’t go with us.
Indeed Captain Beecroft had taken a real fancy for Tom, and being like many sailors, just a little superstitious, he thought that if he parted with pussy, all his good luck would go also, so he determined to stick to him.
Arrived on shore, we, that is my dear master and I, went to Yorkshire to live for a time with an aunt of his, about the only relative he had alive.
Mrs. Clifford was an exceedingly nice old lady, and very fond of cats, as every nice old lady is, you know, Warlock. She took quite a fancy to me at once, and I had the run of the house and gardens, and a fine old-fashioned place it was. There were several other cats here and dogs too, but we lived like a happy family just as we all do here.
“Now, pussy Shireen,” said master to me one evening, “I don’t know what I shall do. I think more and more about your beautiful mistress that the Shah is going to claim, every day of my life; and I think, too, of the vow I made to protect her from the terrible fate that awaits her. But oh, pussy, I’m almost in a fix, for I must tell aunt about Beebee, and, very nice though she is, I do not know how she may take it; I am entirely dependent upon
her, and what is more, I am her heir.”
“But tell her I must, Shireen, even if she cuts me off with a shilling. I still have my sword, you know, pussy.”
I rubbed my head against his hand, and sang loud and long.
He understood me, and took me up in his arms and kissed me on the head.
“Yes, Shireen,” he said, “I still have you, and we shall never part, I do assure you, unless I am slain in battle, and even then you will be by my side.”
Then he started to his feet.
“Come, Shireen,” he said bravely, “the more I think about it, the worse it will be. I will go and seek my aunt now in her own room, and tell her all about it.”
I trotted along the passage with him, and soon we came to Mrs. Clifford’s door.
“Come in,” she cried. “Come in, Edgar,” for she knew it was his knock.
“Sit down, my child, by my chair.”
So Edgar took a low stool by her knee just as he used to do when a boy, and the kindly white-haired lady passed her hand through his hair.
“Just like old times, isn’t it, Edgar?”
“Yes, auntie; but I have come to speak to you about Shireen.”
“About your beautiful pussy?”
“Yes. Look, auntie.”
Edgar, as he spoke, took me up and exposed my gum.
“Do you see that brilliant red flashing little spot, aunt?”
“Yes, my dear boy. Let me get my glasses. Why, I declare, Edgar, it is a brilliant, a ruby, and though small, it looks like a priceless gem.”
“And so it is; and the person who had it put there is a still more priceless gem to me.”
“I don’t understand you, Edgar; you always were a strange child.”
“Well, shall I tell you the story of the ruby?”
Mrs. Clifford folded her mittened hands in her lap, and looked, or tried to look resigned.
The Second Cat Megapack: Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New Page 37
