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Title: Kittens
        A family chronicle

Author: Svend Fleuron

Author of introduction, etc.: Carl Van Vechten

Translator: David Pritchard

Release date: September 3, 2024 [eBook #74356]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc

Credits: Susan E., Emmanuel Ackerman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KITTENS ***

Transcriber’s Notes

Words in italics are marked with _underscores_.

Words in bold are marked with =equal signs=.

Words in small capitals are shown in UPPER CASE.

Please also see the note at the end of the book.




  KITTENS




  _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

  GRIM: The Story of a Pike

  _Illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop_


  “Will surely become an animal classic
  in the same class as _Black Beauty_, the
  _Jungle Books_ and the stories of Ernest
  Thompson Seton.”
                    --_The Baltimore Sun._

  “_Grim_ is delightful.”
                    --_New York Globe._

  _$2.00 net at all bookshops_


  _NEW YORK: ALFRED A. KNOPF_




  Kittens: A Family Chronicle

  Translated from the Danish of
  Svend Fleuron
  by David Pritchard

  Foreword by Carl Van Vechten

  [Publisher’s Colophon]

  New York   Mcmxxii
  Alfred · A · Knopf




  =COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY SVEND FLEURON=

  COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
  ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

  _Published, January, 1922_


  _Original Title_: KILLINGERNE: EN FAMILIEKRENIKE


  _Set up and printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y.
  Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York, N. Y.
  Bound by the H. Wolff Estate, New York, N. Y._

  MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




  “_The other farm cats’ kittens were born in barn and loft and were
  drowned litter after litter--but she would see that_ her _kittens grew
  to be cats!_”




  CONTENTS


  Foreword by Carl Van Vechten, 13

  =CHAPTER ONE=

  Grey Puss, 21
  The Willow Stumps, 23
  The Kittens, 25
  Grey Puss and her Past, 28

  =CHAPTER TWO=

  The Blind See, 35
  The Father, 38
  The Piebald Devil, 44
  The Rescue of Tiny, 50
  The Flight from the Willow, 55

  =CHAPTER THREE=

  The Burial-mound, 57
  Life in the Burial-mound, 61
  The First Mouse, 64
  The Thief, 67
  Drown the Brute, 71
  A Great Reception, 76

  =CHAPTER FOUR=

  The Trickster, 81
  The Lid of the Well, 88
  The Dragon-fly, 95
  The Old Crow, 97

  =CHAPTER FIVE=

  Big-kitten, 100
  The Conqueror, 104
  Black-kitten, 108
  Miauw-miauw, 111
  Grey-kitten, 116

  =CHAPTER SIX=

  White-kitten, 122
  Tiny, 124
  Red-kitten, 128
  The Great Eating-house, 134

  =CHAPTER SEVEN=

  Box, 139
  Cats of All Colours, 142
  The Life-saving Chair, 148
  The Crow Again, 152

  =CHAPTER EIGHT=

  The Kittens go out Hunting, 158
  The Attack on the Crow’s Nest, 163

  =CHAPTER NINE=

  The Canary, 174
  Box and the Red Communist, 177
  The Smoke-dog, 181

  =CHAPTER TEN=

  The Best Cat, 186
  “Madness” and the Owl, 190
  The Hanger-on, 193
  Grey on the Warpath, 196
  The Thief-cat, 199
  White-kitten and the Calf, 201

  =CHAPTER ELEVEN=

  The Kittens Hunt by Night, 205
  The Death of Box, 208
  Home-sickness, 211

  =CHAPTER TWELVE=

  The Demon Mouser, 213
  Exit Red, 217
  Big-kitten turns Wild Cat, 220
  The Home of the Fisherman, 223
  Black Joins the Army, 229
  “Terror” turns House-cat, 236

  =CHAPTER THIRTEEN=

  Grey Puss’ Future, 242




KITTENS




[Map of Fields]




_FOREWORD_


Those who have been content to regard the cat merely, æsthetically,
as a household ornament, economically, as a mouse-killer, or
fantastically, as an adjunct of witchcraft, will doubtless read this
book with some surprise. For Svend Fleuron has imagined (or observed)
a cat more or less cut off from relationship with men, bringing up
her kittens in the fields, against all the odds that any wild animal,
surrounded by the destructive terrors of nature, has to face. If this
novel were a true picture of human life, it would show, relentlessly
and bitterly, how nature overcame the mother and her children. As,
however, it is a picture of cat life, the end is a happy one. Grey Puss
is successful in the struggle and so are all her kittens. “The other
farm cats’ kittens were born in barn and loft and were drowned litter
after litter--but she would see that her kittens grew to be cats.”

In spite of the complete veracity of this chronicle, I can realize the
shock which the book offers to those uninformed or insensitive persons
who persist in regarding the cat as a soft plaything or a decorative
coward, for, without a touch of sentimentality, Fleuron has very
strikingly portrayed the courage, the resourcefulness, the patience,
and the independence of Grey Puss and her multicoloured brood. They
are forced to battle for their food, to compete with the crow and the
owl, to fight the fox; they are maltreated by the farmhands and pursued
by the dog, Box; even their father makes a frustrated attempt to eat
them; but they emerge triumphantly and each kitten, in his own manner,
succeeds in making his way in the world. It is well to remember that
the picture is not extraordinary or the case abnormal. Eighty out of
every hundred cats, who grow up, make their way valiantly under similar
disheartening circumstances.

Just as certain tame cats sometimes have decided to leave the hearth
for the adventures of wild life, so Grey Puss, who had once been a
children’s pet, occasionally, in spite of rebuffs and the remembered
treachery of man, hankers after domesticity, the milk-pail, the kitchen
stove, and the soft warm hay in the barn. Several of her kittens,
Grey, White, and Tiny, inherit this vague longing and eventually
settle down in human habitations, but human beings, on the whole, play
small and entirely inferior rôles in this fine novel. They seldom step
across its pages and when they do appear, we see, with Grey Puss,
only their feet and their legs as high as the knee. Box, the dog, a
more important character in this essentially feline drama, is painted
as a good-hearted, blundering brute, always in trouble, punished for
following his instincts, and finally meeting his end in an aquatic
encounter with the mother heroine.

The cat as wild animal has been treated in fiction before, notably
by Mary E. Wilkins in _The Cat_, by Charles G. D. Roberts in _How a
Cat Played Robinson Crusoe_, and by F. St. Mars in _Pharaoh_. These,
however, are short stories with a single hero. Fleuron has employed
a broader canvas. His sub-title, _A Family Chronicle_, explains his
scheme. He is writing the story of a family. It would have been easy
to confuse kitten with kitten. Lesser writers in writing about cats
have readily fallen into this error. Fleuron, however, paints distinct
portraits of each separate puss. Each of these kittens differs from
the others not alone in appearance but also in character and each
is confronted with the rewards and punishments of his own vices and
virtues. They emerge at the end of the book as rounded and recognizable
and memorable as any of the characters in _The Way of All Flesh_.
Striped Big, “thick-set and sturdy, with short tail, strong legs, and
a back which merged smoothly into a plump round stomach; big attentive
eyes with intelligence and intensity in their glance; small ears never
at rest ... the master-hunter of the litter,” who becomes a wild cat
in a deer park; Black, the quarrelsome, who “returned snarl and spit
for kind word--and he never hit softly on the nose but scratched so
that it hurt,” who battles with crows and rats, and ends his days in
the barracks among the soldiers; Tiny, the weather-prophet, a timorous
hanger-on, who becomes the pet of a midwife; Grey, “with her quiet,
thoughtful nature, who ponders carefully every step she takes,” catches
fish and eventually goes to live with a fisherman; Red, juggler and
hypocrite, subtle and deceitful, who wins all her triumphs by stealth;
and White, a merry and friendly kitten, who makes a joke of everything;
neither big nor strong, her grace and good humour serve to advance her
station in life: these are Svend Fleuron’s _Kittens_. In the end, Grey
Puss, rid, at length, of the responsibility of this particular litter,
succumbs again to her prize-fighting lover, the great piebald hero,
that rarety, a male tortoise-shell, wooed by the soft seduction of the
dream of renewed motherhood. This, to me, is one of the most delightful
episodes in the history.

Fleuron’s method is realistic and dramatic. He devotes comparatively
little space to descriptions of his characters; he tells us what they
do and feel and they do and feel nothing that it is impossible to
imagine cats doing and feeling. Human characteristics are not ascribed
to them. The philosophy inherent in the book is cat philosophy rather
than the author’s. All this would avail nothing, were it not obvious to
any one who reads a very few pages that Fleuron has observed the animal
very closely and sympathetically. Sentimentality is entirely lacking
from this book, as it should be, but sympathy, we may be sure, is never
very far away.

This novel, I like to believe, will please W. H. Hudson, who,
abhorring the idea of “pets,” enjoys watching an animal living
its own life, unrestrained. Grey Puss and her kittens forge their
own destinies, create their own careers, restricted only by their
respective characters and their environment. Their lives are not
regulated by owners or masters. No more, it is well to remember, are
those of pet cats (The Monsieur Sidi of Côte-Darly has said truly,
_Nous sommes des êtres libres, même dans l’esclavage_), but a house-cat
is accorded a certain protection which, perhaps, softens his real
nature. This, then, marks the great distinction between _Kittens_ and
such a cat biography as Pierre Lôti’s _Vies de Deux Chattes_, in which
the writer very beautifully sets down an account of the lives of two of
his cats: those were _Lôti’s_ cats and in his book he describes, for
the greater part, their relations with _him_. Grey Puss and her kittens
are observed in their relations with nature. Their relations with man
are recorded from their point of view rather than his. This is the new
note in this very authentic cat story, authentic, at least, within the
limitations the author has set himself. In much of the previous fiction
involving the cat, puss has been handled quite in the manner of a Ouida
duchess; _Kittens_ is the feline _Esther Waters_.

                                                       Carl Van Vechten.

  New York.
  September 27, 1921.




CHAPTER ONE


GREY PUSS

The May moon is still shining white and round in the sky; but eastward
beyond the hills, silhouetting a farmhouse roof, the first faint light
of dawn tinges the distant horizon.... Along a hedge leading from the
farm a house-cat comes creeping. At intervals it stops and casts a
watchful glance behind ... then hurries on again.

The advancing day slowly spreads its wakening touch over the land. In
the zenith the sky is already blue, and the stars are going to rest;
but all human talk and noise is still buried in the feather-beds of the
farm ... only a mighty vibrating chorus of invisible larks fills the
air.

The animal is apparently quite an ordinary cat. Its small round head
rests on a thick, shapely neck; the legs are short, the tail round and
smooth, and the curve of the neck graceful and harmonious.

But on the underside pussy is quite bare and naked. Her stomach is
distended from breast to groin like an overfilled sack. The cat has had
kittens in her time; the fact cannot be denied!

The squeak of a mouse from the shadow of the hedge brings her to
an abrupt halt. Her ears spring to a point and appear all at once
disproportionately large, like those of a rabbit. In shape they
resemble lynx ears more than a cat’s; the only thing lacking is the
tuft.

The night-mists roll slowly from the valleys, revealing the green,
dew-spangled blades of the fresh spring crop. Along border and hedge
the wild flowers begin to clothe themselves in the sun’s variegated
hues. The colours, too, in the cat’s coat begin now to be visible.

She is mouse-grey, with black stockings and white shoes. But round her
breast and sides runs--like a mark of distinction--a band of rust-red
fur.

Soon Grey Puss resumes her interrupted journey from the farm; the
mouse has been successfully captured and eaten. At first she had been
tempted to play with it; but the bark of a dog from the direction of
the farm brought other thoughts into her head. She no longer steals
along--but runs....


THE WILLOW STUMPS

At the farthest end of the hedge loom three ancient willow stumps, like
monster mushrooms springing from the ground.

For more than a century they have been regularly clipped, a process
which has given them weirdly distorted heads. In each of their
bowl-shaped tops is ample room for a couple of men.

Black ants live in the trunks beneath, and form paths up the furrowed,
moss-covered bark; on the wind-dried branches and along the withered
twigs the male ants assemble in swarming-time, giving the group of
ancient trees an extraordinarily lifelike appearance.

But spiders spin their webs from every knot and curve, and in them ant
corpses hang thickly in bunches. In one stump a redstart has built its
nest; in another, which is big and full of touchwood, grow burdocks,
mugworts, and nettles.

The old willow stumps are never at rest.... Hairy, yellow-speckled
willow-moths wander all over them from top to root, devouring the
leaves, until, later in the summer, only the stalks are left--then
they spin their cocoons, and one day rise on their soft white wings
to desert the stripped, maltreated larva-trees, the ground beneath
carpeted with their filth.

The central stump, the one with fat, crooked stem, is hollow right down
to the bottom.

Outside the entrance to the hole--a split in the top of the head--grows
a large, thick gooseberry bush, which gives shelter from the wind and
rain, and serves as a perfect door. Once upon a time the bush must have
flown up here as a seed; now it has developed a long, thick aerial-root
which runs down inside, clinging to the wooden wall until it reaches
its mouldering base.

In the thorny branches a linnet has built its circular, down-lined
nest--and here the bird has been sitting fearlessly for eight days and
nights without caring in the least about the old grey cat, which at
this very moment is squeezing its way through the narrow entrance.


THE KITTENS

A shadowy bundle at the bottom of the bole comes to life: human eyes
would have taken it for a number of mouldering sausages lying among
moss and touchwood.

The she-cat cautiously approaches the bundle, letting herself down
backwards by the root of the gooseberry bush--at every third or fourth
step uttering a low, soft miauw.

The bundle becomes conscious of her, and still half asleep, begins to
move.

Now a little leg with tiny, extended claws is stretched into the air,
now a sleepy, yawning head pops into sight. Then the old cat glides
behind the heap and pushes herself carefully underneath.

The young ones, listening delightedly to the soft, ingratiating
miauws, scent immediately the spiced milk-nipples and swarm into her
embrace--with relaxed thighs she cuddles still farther beneath them.
They crawl forward, fumbling blindly and seeking to get hold ... and
she purrs to them contentedly a long, long lullaby.

Outside, the day rises from its cloudy bed on the horizon. The
stork’s cackle resounds from the farmhouse roof; the bird, emitting
a volley of notes, appears simultaneously on the top of the chimney
like a small black paper silhouette. Its crackling castenets wake the
farmyard cocks--and now a running fire is kept up all over the village;
_cock-a-doodle-do, cock-a-doodle-do_. Small strips of cloud which
seemed before so water-logged and grey become fleecy and reddish, while
the horizon is filled like a deep dish with the dazzling shafts of the
rising sun.

Above the fields trills the now visible chorus of larks, and the
waking cattle greet the day with subdued grunts and bellows. Linnets
fly twittering through the air, and a company of peewits flap like a
black, drifting cloud across the sunlit sky. Along the grass-bordered
wheel-tracks the hare comes hopping, his stomach stuffed with food, his
long ears straddled wide; the fellow is courting in these days and has
scarcely time for sleep. He squats down and stares at the big red bull,
wondering where his little, light-footed hare-girl can have gone. The
bull gets up and stretches himself lazily....

Now the edge of the sun appears behind the hills; the partridge whirrs
and the wild ducks in the swamp sweep round in circles. Hedge and fence
are thrown into sharp relief, and thin, crooked shadows from the farm
trees jump up on the white gable of the house.

The horizon is on fire! It is sunrise. The kittens down in the willow
stump have all found their nipples; they lift their tiny paws with joy
and stretch out their little claws; they cling greedily to the old
she-cat’s body and nestle warmly in the shelter of her loins.

Big, the largest, now places a forepaw on either side of his
milk-spring, and pushes and pulls with all _his_ strength, while with
distended nostrils he sucks and squeezes until he gasps for breath and
the milk gurgles in his throat.

Occasionally one of the kittens, its tiny tongue licking its small,
pointed muzzle, thrusts up a red nose for a breathing-space.

No mercy is shown! Another kitten at once seizes the still running
nipple--the poor, greedy one, occupied for the moment in coughing, must
be content temporarily to stand aside.

The happy little mother lies purring with delight over her maternal
duties--and at intervals, when one of her little blind children utters
a tiny miauw, she miauws back tenderly and consolingly.

Old Grey Puss has the sweetest cat-face possible. The chin and lower
lip are white, as is also the upper lip with its shining whiskers.
But above the slightly mahogany-coloured snout she seems almost to be
wearing a mask. It is dead black--and gives a veiled, deceitful look to
the gleaming, golden-yellow eyes.


GREY PUSS AND HER PAST

She had been the children’s kitten; had been petted and played with
and had free run of the living-rooms. She could never forget those
wonderful days--and the room there--just the other side of the
threshold, where no hen or cock, cow or horse, not even Box himself,
ever set foot--where only “humans” came. Old as she was, it still
lingered in her memory.

Often during the chill of spring or the frost of winter she would see
it hovering above her, dreamlike, with its endless bowls of milk and
its everlasting summer.

The days of luxury had lasted little more than a month; after that the
command was “Get out!” And with boot and broomstick she was ruthlessly
expelled.

“Grey Puss is such a thief!” complained the housewife.... “She is
always after the meat and cream on the kitchen table. Grey Puss
_steals_ ... we can’t have her in the house!”

What did she know about human laws? What were meat and cream meant for
if not for a cat?... She took what she could; it was her nature.

After being expelled from the house she began to avoid people; soon
the habit became second nature. From the house she was chased to
the farmyard, from the farmyard to the cow-stall.... The smoke from
the chimney was now the only thing in sight to remind her of her
childhood’s luxury.

She was often to be found of a summer morning basking in the sun
outside the stall. Together with the other she-cats of the farm she lay
here giving suck to a motherless kitten. They shared the child between
them, and fed it alternately, listening the while for the return of the
milk-cart from the fields.

Now they hear it in the distance--yes, that is old Whitefoot’s trot!
And soon afterwards it rattles and bumps into the yard. All the cats’
tails rise straight in the air like trees; their legs grow quite
stiff--the great event of the day is at hand.

The cart has barely stopped before they are up in it; they must
immediately sniff the odour of the sweet, fresh milk.

The foreman of the dairy gives them a little in a bowl to share among
them....

But the bowl is soon licked dry--and now they are on the lookout to get
whatever they can.

The moment the dairyman puts aside an empty pail, a cat pops in like
a flash, head first, and licks it clean to the last drop; they leap up
and hang by their forepaws to the dripping milk-sieve; they do anything
and everything to secure a taste of the delicious milk.

They all allow the foreman to lift them up by the tail; they only
straddle their legs....

“Puss, puss!” cries the good fellow affectionately as he raises them;
and adds to a wondering onlooker, “They know I won’t hurt them!”

Yes, so shamelessly did they soil themselves with milk, that afterwards
they spent hours and hours washing each other clean and dry.

She felt now so utterly out of touch with all that,--that _she_ could
have been a party to such goings on! To permit herself to be lifted up
by the tail--and then, actually, to wash another cat’s kitten!

She still went regularly to the farm, usually in the early morning or
the late evening. But she never ventured out into the open yard, and
was in general very shy of showing herself. She preferred to stand up
in the hayloft and peep through the trap-door into the stall; but the
moment she caught a glimpse of a “human” she vanished instantly.

Whenever one of the farm hands came up to fetch hay or straw for the
cows and caught her unawares, she would hiss at him. Nevertheless, the
foreman, who was fond of cats, always put a little milk in the loft for
her; it remained invariably untouched during the day, but at night it
was drunk up.

“Hanged if I know what is the matter with Grey Puss!” he often muttered
to himself. “I wonder if Box has been chasing her ... she’s so scared;
she’s more like a wild cat, the little fool!”

Yes, _wild_ she had been for a long time! From the cow-stall she
retreated to the loft, where she learned to hide among the beams and
rafters. She got into the habit of climbing trees, walking up and down
thatched roofs, and sleeping behind chimney-stacks.

And as time went on she became more and more peculiar....

She was not like the other farm cats, who let their children be
drowned litter after litter, without doing anything more heroic than
miauw over their corpses. No, she allowed _that_ to happen once, after
which she understood that she had hidden her kittens badly! Of course
they could not be expected to escape by themselves!

The next time she had young she hid them deep down under a heap of
straw; but the foreman’s small boys, who always played in the loft,
heard their squealing and fished them out--and then they were murdered.
One only was left, overlooked in the straw.

Most other she-cats would have been grateful for the survivor and
forgotten the rest. But _she_ did not forget; she went about seeking
and seeking, miauwing and complaining incessantly. Finally she took the
one kitten in her mouth and carried it away to an empty dovecote in a
deserted labourer’s cottage. Here it grew up without seeing a single
“human.” Until one fine morning it was killed by Box....

Now, this spring, when she is once more to have kittens, she hides
inside the old hollow willow out here in the fields.

No living soul shall find her young _this_ time!




CHAPTER TWO


THE BLIND SEE

In addition to Big, who was striped, there were five other kittens
in the litter: a black, a white, a grey, and a red--besides an
indescribable little production about the size of a man’s thumb, with
fur whose colouring resembled patches of all the others put together.

Tiny lay always half smothered under the heap of kittens, and had to
be content with the worst nipple, which, although nearest the mother’s
heart, nevertheless flowed weakly. That he had not long ago been
crushed to death by the others must remain an insoluble mystery!

The little, blind creatures were just developing their sight. The
faint, subdued light here inside the willow stump made this trying
period unusually agreeable. Even when the sun was shining strongly
outside they could lie staring about them without discomfort. Each of
the tiny eyes was covered with a curious bluish film, through the damp,
glazed surface of which the slanting pupils began to push their way.
The eyes appeared extraordinarily large in comparison with the head,
and gave the impression that the kittens were in a state of perpetual
surprise.

On the whole, the babies had grown. True, their coats were not quite
in order, for the fur still stuck out patchily all over their bodies;
but the hair was there right enough, and the colours too ... the white
was as white as day, and the black as black as night; even the cross
stripes on the grey kitten showed up plainly.

Their hindquarters alone remained noticeably undeveloped; they were
still quite conical and stunted, and jerked up stiffly and clumsily
with every movement of the body. It would be a long time before that
part attained perfection.

The imps were still far from being active and graceful! They reeled and
rolled as they crawled over the lumps of touchwood; they could not
jump at all, indeed they could scarcely walk. It seemed as if, once
having acquired eyes, they had neglected everything else. They used
them incessantly ... and were never tired of looking and looking!

They had no opportunity to gormandize. They drank greedily, and soon
sucked old Grey Puss dry. Then she shook them off and closed the
milk-spring. This she effected by rolling herself into a ball and
pressing her forepaws tightly to her breasts--and however much the
little ones exerted themselves to widen the opening with their snouts
so as to get inside and continue drinking, they never succeeded.

Then they had revenge by clambering up and nestling on her back and
neck; where they lay licking their chops.

This sort of thing didn’t upset her in the least. In fact, she was
delighted at being mauled about by her offspring; she stretched herself
at full length, purring and humming the while--she knew now that they
had settled down for a while.

Occasionally she blinked her tight-shut eyelids, twisted her head
round, and fastened her keen, brassy orbs on the long row of funny
little patches of colour on her back. There was every imaginable feline
colour-scheme there, and she studied each one separately, noticing any
peculiarity of colouring or divergence from type....

Extraordinary.... It seemed to her that she had seen all these little
fellows before!


THE FATHER

One afternoon very early in spring a small, snow-white he-cat came
strolling carelessly along the road. His ears were thrust forward,
betraying his interest in something ahead: he meant to take a walk
round the farm, whither the road led ... there was a grey puss there
who attracted him!

He ought to have been more cautious, the little white dwarf! A giant
cat, a coloured rival, with the demon of passion seething in his blood
and hate flaming from his eyes, caught sight of the hare-brained fellow
from afar off and straight-way guessed his errand.

With rigid legs, lowered head, and loins held high, he comes rushing
from behind ... runs noiselessly over the soft grass at the side of the
road and overhauls the other unperceived.

With one spring he plants all his foreclaws deep in the flesh of the
smaller cat, who utters a loud wail and collapses on the ground.

The big one maintains his grip on his defeated foe’s shoulder, crushing
him ruthlessly in the dust. Then he presses back his torn ears, giving
an even more hateful expression to the evil eyes, and lowering his
muzzle, gloatingly he howls his song of victory straight into his
fallen rival’s face.

For a good quarter of an hour he continues to martyr his victim, who is
too terrified to move a muscle; he tears the last shred of self-respect
and honour from the coward--then releases him and stalks before him
to the farm, without deigning to throw him another glance. He was too
despicable a rival, the little white mongrel! The big, spotted he-cat
considered it beneath his dignity even to thrash him.

But the little grey puss had other suitors still.... There was the
squire’s ginger cat and the bailiff’s wicked old black one; so that
both daring and cunning were necessary if one’s courtship was to be a
success. At sunset they invaded the farm from every direction, stealing
silently through corn or kitchen garden until they reached the garden
path by the hedge.

The black ruffian, who considered himself the favourite suitor,
arrived, as he imagined, first at the rendezvous. But simultaneously
his ginger rival stuck his head through the hedge bordering the path.
At sight of each other both halted abruptly, thrusting up their backs
and blowing out their scarred, battle-torn cheeks.

For many minutes the two ugly fellows stood glaring silently at
one another.... Then their whiskers bristled, their tattered ears
disappeared, and their eyes became mere slits in their heads; hymns of
hate wailed from their throats, and their tails writhed and squirmed
like newly-flayed eels.

Suddenly the big, spotted cat appears in the garden. Tiger-like, with
body almost brushing the ground, he glides silently past them.

They hate him, the low brute!... He is their common enemy! The sight of
him caught in the act makes them allies in a flash.... They tear after
him and surround him. Then they go for him tooth and nail.

All thoughts of the fair one have gone from their minds. War-cries
cease; gasps and grunts of exertion punctuate the struggle; chests
heave and ribs dilate with compressed air; whilst naked claws are
plunged into skin and flesh. They are one to look at, one circular
mass, as they whirl round inextricably interlocked, puffing their
reeking breath into one another’s faces.

The spotted devil’s powerful hind legs are wedged in under the red
cat’s body. With his forepaws he grips him as if in a vice--and now
thrusting the needle-pointed, razor-edged horn daggers from their
sheaths, he straightens his hind legs simultaneously to a terrible,
resistless, lacerating lunge....

With a stifled hiss of fury the squire’s cat falls back. It limps
moaning from the battlefield, with blood pouring from its stomach.

Now comes the old black thief’s turn! First the hair flies ... it
literally _steams_ from the two rivals as they rush at each other.
Their incredible activity is expressed in every movement.... After
lying interlocked for some time on the ground they suddenly break away,
and, as if by witchcraft, stand on all fours again.

The piebald is winning!

His claws comb like steel rakes. They tear the hair from the
bailiff-cat’s flanks, leaving them bare and shining. The latter often
succeeds in parrying, and returns kick for kick, but his hind legs lack
strength, and he cannot complete a full thrust.

Madness gleams in their eyes; they are beside themselves with frenzy;
fear flies from their minds; they are exalted ... for now they are
_fighting_!

Until a sudden scuffle advertises that the bailiff-cat has had enough.
He tears himself loose and bolts for his life.

The big piebald has won. He shakes himself and rolls over, gives a
couple of energetic licks to his paws, and carefully brushes his
whiskers; then he hastens through the garden up to the farmyard, where
a little later he is to be seen promenading the pigsty roof.

With alert expression and nervously vibrating tail he looks inquiringly
at all trap-doors and open windows. Suddenly he gives a start; there is
Grey Puss on the manure-heap beneath him.

Without a moment’s hesitation he leaps down.... It was the decisive
meeting!

She had always been true to this one lover.... And yet there had been
times when all the gentlemen of the neighbourhood had paid court to
her. Often she had reclined on the planking with one in front of her,
one behind, and three or four in the elder tree above her head.... She
had been literally besieged.

But however many suitors might appear--even though they came right up
from the seacoast and the fishing village--she still loved him and him
alone, the great piebald hero!

He was an exceptional cat: the ears, far apart and noticeably short,
were set far back on the broad head; the neck was thick and powerful,
the body long and heavy. When he ran, he moved with such swiftness that
he seemed to glide, and he could leap two yards without effort.

He was all possible colours--black, red, yellow, and white. A tinge
of green shone in the wicked golden eyes; they sat deep in his head,
so that his cheeks stuck out each side like dumplings.... And in the
middle of his bristly moustache protruded a small lacerated nose, which
was always bright red and covered with half-healed wounds. He was
always at war....

Once he received a deep, horrid bite just under the throat, where he
could not lick it. So he went to his sweetheart; she helped him....

She was faithful and true to him ... but she did not trust _him_ beyond
the threshold.


THE PIEBALD DEVIL

Had she reason to doubt him? He was chock-full of lust and vice, and
great in merit as in fault; nevertheless--had she actual proof for
doubting him?

One night her eyes were opened in the most sinister manner. The last
rays of the setting sun had departed from the fields, leaving them
wrapped in the summer evening’s mist and obscurity. Only some horses
greeted the solitary nocturnal marauder with warm, friendly neighing.

They knew him well, although he was only a cat, whose many-coloured
body seemed grey, like all other cats, in the twilight. In doorway, at
the pump, in yard, and in stable he was their daily companion. How nice
to see him here on the meadow too! “Ehehehe,” they neighed ... welcome
to the tethering-ground!

He ignored them completely, neither breaking his stride, nor wagging
his tail, nor giving a single miauw. Past nuisances like foals which
greeted him boisterously he went unresponsive and bored. He was out
hunting now--nothing else mattered!

With gliding step he passes from clover field to seed ground, jumping
with noiseless, tense spring over brook and ditch. His progress roused
the lark from heavy slumber.

He reaches a copse--and soon afterward is heard the death-shriek of a
captured blackbird. With covetous grasp he seizes his victim, buries
his sharp teeth in its breast, and sucks with long sniffs the warm,
odorous bird-smell....

It was not hunger which drove him to the crime: he has just made a full
meal off a couple of fat mice. But when coming unexpectedly upon the
bird in the copse, he could not control his murderous impulse.

He sits with the booty in his jaws, purring contentedly, and ponders
frowningly where he shall conceal his capture.

The summer moon shines big and round from the pale blue, starless
sky--and white, pink-underlined layers of cloud hover like feathers far
out on the horizon. Warm puffs of wind come and go, enveloping him in
the meadow’s silver mist, making the dim shelter of the hedge seem hot
and oppressive.

His eyes fall on the three ancient willow stumps at the far end of the
field! He, too, knows how rotten and hollow they are, and how well
adapted for a hiding-place. True, it is rather a long way there ...
through the soaking wet rye--but that can’t be helped!

The night is absolutely silent, broken only by the rasping song of the
little reed-warbler from a swampy hole among the rye. The din of the
farm has long since died down; not even the bark of a dog is heard,
and neither water-pump nor wind-motor can summon up another note. How
splendid to have ears, to be able to listen! Now he hears only the
play of the grasshoppers, the love-song of the cock-chafer, and the
high-pitched music of the ant-hills.

Here, behind a knotted root at the base of the largest of the old
willow trees, he conceals the blackbird, afterwards covering it
carefully with earth and moss. Then he reaches his forepaws up to the
trunk to stretch his limbs and sharpen his claws.

He gives a violent start! The scarred, rugged skin on his head wrinkles
thoughtfully, as it always does when something attracts his attention.
His multicoloured tail jerks uneasily, as he peers about him with
uplifted ears.

The subdued rustling and squeaking noises from inside the tree trunk
continue....

Now there is no longer room for doubt....

With a giant leap he springs up the tree, and next moment he is down in
the bole.

Grey Puss is not at home....

The little kittens swarm up to him. Tiny seeks to drink, while Black
and Big make a joyful assault on his swiftly wagging tail. He lowers
his nose to each of the little fellows in turn as if tasting their
smell. Then, as if suddenly gone mad, he begins clawing about in all
directions at the defenceless kittens. Mewing and squealing, they
roll away to all sides like lumps of earth--but the he-cat’s frenzy
increases.

He seizes Tiny by the mouth, fixes an eyetooth in his scruff and
hurtles out of the willow with him. The little tot hangs limp and
apparently lifeless in the jaw of his brutal sire; but, fortunately
for him, the old cat is not hungry, and so is content with burying the
kitten at the foot of the willow, by the side of the dead blackbird.

In justice to the criminal it must be stated that he has no conception
of the enormity of his crime; only when he is on his way up the willow
for the second time is he enlightened--and that in a most ruthless
manner. Two rows of gimlet-pointed claws descend from nowhere and
almost nail him to the bark.... Furious, he turns his visage ... and
the next second all his old half-healed wounds are torn open again!

Grey Puss has surprised him--and recognizes him instantly. So it is
_he_ who comes wrecking her maternal happiness; yes, she thought as
much! And like a vice she clings to his back, biting and scratching and
tearing as he flees panic-stricken along the hedge.

Away, away, home, anywhere!

He is more afraid of Grey Puss’ mother-claws than of the raven’s beak
or the blade of the reaping-machine; he has learnt to his cost that a
she-cat knows not the word mercy when her swollen udders are carrying
milk for her young.

He lacked a conscience, this big, piebald he-cat--and he respected
nothing except his own skin! The egg of the lark, the chick of the
partridge, the young of the hare, were each and all grist to his mill;
he took everything he could find, catch, or steal.

On the rafter at home in the farmyard, where Grey Puss used to lie, he
had been allowed free passage, until the very moment when some small
bundles lay shivering on the hay in the corner. Then the fascination
of his black face and shining coat seemed to vanish; she would not
allow him to approach; he was not even admitted to the barn. If he just
showed himself at the trap-door she would become seized with frenzy,
spring up, and fly at him as if he were a dog! He had always to beat a
hurried retreat!

Did she read his character; did she know that the feeling of paternal
love was foreign to his nature? In any case, she took no risks; she
never trusted him over the threshold....


THE RESCUE OF TINY

Grey Puss’ milk tasted sour for a whole day following the adventure;
she was frightfully restless and upset. Several of the young ones had
wounds and had to be licked. Time after time she ran her glance over
the small, rolled-up patches of colour; greedily her eyes devoured
each little furry coat; but it was with no trace of the sweetness of
recollection or the joy of recognition.

Were they all there ... all? Their villain of a father she had already
forgotten; not until she was giving suck did she become suddenly
nervous. She felt that one of the swollen udders remained swollen, and
now she nuzzled with her nose along the row. Big, Red, White, Grey ...
yes, she found them all! But where was the little piebald one?...

The kittens buried their noses deep in her fur to get a good hold of
the small, sprouting milk-springs. All was quiet inside the willow
trunk; only now and again was heard the sucking of the eager little
lips....

Yes, to be sure, she missed a colour ... missed just that one which--in
spite of all--she unconsciously preferred to all the rest; that seemed
made up of bits of colour from all the other colours.... Then suddenly
a thin, feeble crying reached her ever-listening ears. It seemed to
her to come from under the willow bole. Perhaps there was a crevice in
the nursery?

Cautiously getting up, she begins to scratch a little with her forepaws
in the floor; but finds no hole.

She dismisses the thought that one of the young ones is really missing,
and lies down again and resumes her maternal duties. For a time all is
peace, and she abandons herself completely to the pleasure of being at
the mercy of her kitten flock, but again comes the faint cry for help.
This time it is so heart-rending that she springs up, and then, half
crouching, listens breathlessly.

“Mew, mew!” it tinkles to her from the distant depths. And now she
begins to answer in anxious, encouraging tones, meanwhile pushing her
snout among the young ones to count them. The tinkling from below
upsets and worries her; but presently she stifles her anxiety by
rolling right under the heap of kittens and congratulating herself that
she has so many dear children safe and sound.

Meanwhile from his living tomb by the side of the dead blackbird,
Tiny continues foghornlike, to emit at regular intervals his ceaseless
signals for assistance. He has lain for a long time buried alive;
but, accustomed as he is to having his brothers and sisters on top of
him, the thin layer of moss and earth over him does not embarrass him
particularly. Now he has recovered so much that he can not only squeal
but wriggle also--a fact which serves to increase the air supply in
his lungs, so that his weak cries gain momentarily in strength and
resonance.

Suddenly the heap of earth is swept from him, and he hears his mother’s
soft voice right in his ear. Oh, what a stream of happiness flows
through him! He stretches his tiny body towards the strong, comforting
miauw, and like a freezing man making for the fire, he puts his wet,
earth-cold head against the mother-cat’s soft neck and feels her warm
breath ripple over him.

Grey Puss’ eyes shine green and evil; they speak plainly of surprise
and emotion. She begins purring angrily, so that the young ones inside
the tree lift their ears anxiously and wonder, “What’s happening down
there at the foot of the tree?”

Tiny’s wound is licked, and the mother prepares to return. He must be
carried, of course, ... and the problem is to find a hold which will
not destroy the creature. She tries to grasp him by the scruff, but
here he is so sore that time after time the attempt fails. Cautiously
she presses her teeth into his back and shoulder; but cannot find a
hold, although he seeks instinctively to help her by stiffening his
body as she lifts.

However, it _must_ be done somehow; there is not the slightest doubt
that he is to be carried up! So she opens her mouth wide and puts
her jaws round his neck. Then, disregarding his lively protests, she
cautiously closes her mouth.

He becomes suddenly quite quiet. She needs all her presence of mind to
judge how tightly she may grip him without making it his last journey.

He hangs there in his mother’s jaws and closes his earth-clogged eyes,
clutching her body tightly with his little legs. But he surrenders
himself to her without complaint and without movement, bearing the pain
in blind faith in her omnipotence.

In two jumps she reaches the top, slides down into the bole, and a
moment later deposits him carefully on the ground among the others. A
healing warmth envelops him--and, as the kittens are already satisfied,
he secures an unusually large share of milk.


THE FLIGHT FROM THE WILLOW

Truly that morning the kittens had trembled in the shadow of death!

And Grey Puss always regarded the he-cat as the first betrayer, the
cause of all her subsequent sorrows and misfortunes.

Only a week later a farm hand saw her as she sneaked into the willow.
Putting his ear against the trunk, he heard the kittens stirring, and
so, hanging his hat and coat on a branch, he ran home to the farm to
fetch the dog....

Box was not to be found; and not till the midday meal did he get
hold of him--and when at last the fellow returned to stamp out the
“vermin,” the trunk was deserted and empty.

He explored the neighbouring fields. The dog found the scent at once
and gave tongue--then deep among the corn was fought a terrific battle.
The dog’s barks turned to howls, and soon afterwards Box returned as if
shot from a cannon, with his tail-stump curled between his legs.




CHAPTER THREE


THE BURIAL-MOUND

She came to a mound which rose, peaceful and untrodden, in the middle
of the field. On every side of it corn was growing, but the mound
itself was green with grass and smothered in wild flowers: sorrel
and heather grew side by side with the bright yellow calyx of the
dandelion. A border of blackthorn wreathed the base of the mound, and a
pair of great moss-covered boulders crowned the top.

Grey Puss sat down on one of the stones and stared out disconsolately
over the landscape, whose colours were just retiring for their nightly
rest.

Half unconsciously, she began to scratch among some tufts of grass and
dried leaves which covered a depression in the turf; they came away
very easily. She noticed how quickly she delved deeper and deeper down.

She became thoroughly interested....

She had happened upon an old, thinly-covered fox-hole, and when at last
she had cleared the entrance, a narrow spiral passage lay open before
her. She was accustomed to darkness; and happy at the possibility of
finding a new home for her kittens, she bravely entered the opening.

After a short distance the tunnel made an abrupt turn, continued
downwards in a curve over some enormous boulders--and then plunged
straight into the vault.

Huge boulders with half-hewn surfaces stood as if growing from the
ground. Above them were others of a similar kind, the walls continuing
in an unbroken curve until they met at the top, thus forming the solid
vaulted roof of the sepulchre. In the splits were wedged smaller
stones, the whole making a small square chamber.

Had body-snatchers at some time desecrated this grave? Or perhaps some
lawful visitor on his departure centuries before had neglected to close
it properly behind him! In either case one of the corner stones was
displaced; so much so that a fox had continued his burrow right into
the very burial-chamber.

A gruesome place of death even for a cat to happen upon!

A weird, vicious, humming noise greeted her the moment she thrust in
her nose ... a fluttering of something that was, and yet was not,
surrounded her and filled her ears, nose, and mouth, making her cough
and spit.

Had she been a human being she would have been horrified, and imagined
it to be the ghost of the dead sounding her doom for disturbing its
peace; but she was only a cat, and knew nothing of the beyond.

As she jumped down into the vault, and in so doing brushed the wall
with her tail, the din about her head reached its climax: hundreds of
mosquitoes and bats inhabiting the grave protested vigorously against
her entrance.

She stood for a moment undecided, taking stock of her surroundings....

The floor was firm, and as hard and uneven as a threshing-floor. A
hollow echo vibrated through the air at her every movement, the
hissing of her breath or the grating of her claws.

Just before the sun went down, a thin ray of light filtered through a
crevice in the stones opposite the tunnel. Thousands of tiny points of
light, the watchful eyes of the denizens of the tomb, leaped into being.

Otherwise the shadows prevailed, and were only conquered little by
little by her piercing glance. Later she distinguished fragments of
bones and skulls on the ground, and saw supine toads fumbling their way
along the walls.

In some inexplicable manner a heap of elm leaves had found their way
into one of the corners; they crackled and shrieked “Halt!” when she
trod on them, but promised, nevertheless, a warm and dry couch.

The conditions were acceptable--besides, there was no alternative! As
soon, therefore, as she had remained there long enough to feel at ease,
she made her decision.

Here in the old viking’s tomb she made her home. On the leaves and
fragments of straw she dropped her kittens, fetching them one by one
from their various hiding-places in furrows and behind stones, where
she had been forced to harbour them in her headlong flight from the old
willow stump.


LIFE IN THE BURIAL-MOUND

The fugitive little mother-cat had brought her kittens under cover
just in time. That night a storm broke loose and thunder crashed
incessantly, accompanying heavy showers of rain. Warm, heavy drops
streamed down in bucketfuls; the earth drank until the crevices in its
broken crust were filled to overflowing, while a slimy, bottomless
fluid filled all holes in the roads.

But not a drop found its way down to this century-old sepulchre--the
resting-place was too well built for that!

Towards morning the tempest died down. The June sun slowly swept the
warm, bluish haze from the landscape, and poured its white shining
beams over the fertile green cornfields. Strong, delicious odours, held
in bondage by the mist, are suddenly released, and float through the
air in small, scented clouds.

It was too wet for a cat to venture out; better wait a little and let
the sun dry things a bit!

In the farthest corner, where the darkness is deepest, Grey Puss is
sitting. She relaxes her muscular body completely on the leafy couch,
and stretches her forepaws lazily in front of her. The entire kitten
flock is lying in her lap.

Since daybreak she has had such a nice quiet time; the others have
all been sleeping soundly, tumbled in a heap. But now peace is at an
end; the dear children are all awake, and almost killing her in their
exuberant joy.

Not even Tiny spares her, but seizes the opportunity of pursuing the
exhausted milk-springs. Lying on his back, and using his hind legs as
levers, he toboggans in short slides from one nipple to another. It
couldn’t be true that there was not a drop left!

From the playful horde arise hissing and spitting, punctuated by
occasional dull bumps as they miss their footing and tumble on the
floor. All at once Grey Puss gets up from her corner, walks out into
the middle, and throws herself down in the thin streak of light which
fumbles its way through the roof. Look out--now she is going to play
their favourite game; now they are in for a treat! They shall play
“catch mouse” with the tip of her tail.

Comfortably stretched on her back with all four legs wide apart, she
lies perfectly still, not moving a limb, not a hair. Presently the
end-most tip of her tail begins very, very slowly to wriggle to and
fro; then it falls with a firm little thump on the floor.

It is the signal for the game to begin!

Immediately the tiny, living colours surround the tail. And in turn,
usually two at a time, they make their attempts.

The supple tail-end writhes and squirms at lightning speed over the
floor, the kittens’ eyes following its twists and bends in fascinated
silence. Suddenly it disappears from sight; there is a breathless
pause ... then the furry tip slowly emerges from under the heap of
leaves. They strike at it with their paws, rush at it, catch hold of
it, and--if it unfortunately escapes--rush upon it again. They bite
it, clutch it, shake it.... At last they have secured a firm grip. The
tables are suddenly turned! Now it is the tail which grips and shakes
and rocks _them_ to and fro in the air; they are fighting with a real,
live, reckless enemy of equal strength, and are permitted to experience
the joy of victory.

No spitting or growling is heard; all takes place in dead silence--only
the smacks of the tail and the bumps of the paws betray the presence of
living beings. They are like shadows tumbling about....

The game goes on in half-hour spells--until exhaustion overtakes first
one, then another, and sleep again sweeps them together into a lifeless
heap.

Now Grey Puss gets up and makes for the entrance--it is her turn to
play “catch mouse.”


THE FIRST MOUSE

Several weeks pass happily....

The corn round the burial-mound ripens, and all sorts of grasses
compete to lengthen its luxuriant green covering. The stones on the
top become more and more hidden from the field-path below.

The lark comes and trills at sunrise and midday; and in the evening the
whinchat twitters its mournful song. The little, low grass mound has
not yet betrayed its secret....

The kittens in its bowels are now about twice the size of moles; their
bodies have become a trifle longer and more elastic, and on their
short, plump hindquarters the worm-like appendages of childhood are
beginning to thicken into soft, furry tails. Their eyes shine like
stars, and on each of the small, bullet-shaped heads a little wrinkled
snout forms a centre for a bunch of stiff, shiny whiskers. It is about
time, the old cat thinks, that they begin to take solid food.

At first she brings them eggs and unfledged birds, which their baby
jaws soon learn to masticate. Later on their diet becomes coarser and
more varied.

Early one morning she appears with a small, greyish-brown creature in
her jaws, its white stomach shining like a puddle of water reflecting
the sun. Its short, little forepaws with the pink claws hang limp in
surrender, and its long hind legs stick out stiffly like stilts. A
thin, hairless tail dangling like a broken straw completes the picture.

The kittens at once respond to their mother’s food-signal, and, falling
over one another in their eagerness, rush headlong to the entrance.

With their small behinds stiffly elevated, they rub themselves
affectionately against the old cat’s legs and body; she positively
disappears in a forest of tails. Purring loudly, her head erect, she
remains standing before them, turning and twisting the interesting
creature to give them a full view of the spoil.

At last, after what seems an endless wait, each receives his mouthful.

Big crouches on his haunches and plays delightedly with the mouse’s
tail, which he holds in his paws. When, at a smack from him, it gives
a jump, his eyes glow and he hops round his new toy on his hind legs.
Suddenly he runs away to a corner and begins digging a hole--Grey Puss
sees that he has his father’s appetite!

The first few times she herself kills the mouse with a bite, but later
on the young ones are permitted to share in the fun. Soon also she
allows them to play a little with the unfortunates, so that they may
learn the first principles in the art of trapping. To encourage them
still further to forage for themselves, she buries her victims round
about the base of the burial-mound.

The struggle for food has left its mark upon the little mother-cat. She
has become noticeably thinner, and her coat no longer has its glossy
sheen. The crowd of rapidly growing children, who make constantly
increasing demands on her skill, is telling on her strength. It
is almost impossible for her to secure all the mice necessary for
them--and therefore, in her dilemma, she sometimes leaves the straight
path of virtue and does what second nature urges her.


THE THIEF

One day about noon she is skirmishing in the neighbourhood of the farm.

She lies hidden in the grass, her head in the air, keeping sharp look
out for booty. In each of the pancake-coloured orbs lies a vivid
coal-black streak which divides the pancake into two halves. Cunning
and deceit stream from her eyes.

Behind the garden hedge bordering the loose, dry, potato-planted
earth a farm hen clucks her thirteen chicks together. The hen has
just finished an exhaustive scratching of the soil--and now is taking
a simultaneous sun and sand bath, lying luxuriously with widespread
wings, her plump, featherless belly fully exposed. The hen is
asleep--her head, with its anæmic comb, sticks up stiffly in the air.
Her eyes are fast shut.

The wind carries to Grey Puss fragments of dear, home-like sounds; but
they do not, as in former times, soothe her nerves. On the contrary,
they rouse and excite her with the promise of food. She creeps nearer
and nearer in short bursts towards the sleeping hen. Each time she
stops to listen--but hears only the chicks enjoying life: her blood
races.

Is it tame, that one sitting there? She has forgotten; she no longer
distinguishes between tame and wild! She distinguishes only between
what is good, and what is not good, for her children to eat.

The soft, pregnant signs of June meet her eyes on every side. Between
fresh green oatfields and succulent clover-carpets the rye whitens and
blackens. There along the hedge by the old willows the line of cattle
stretches; and down in the meadow, where calves and foals play in their
pens, the long-nosed stork walks sunning himself.

The heavy-laden milk-cart drags itself through the stifling noon
homeward to the farm. In front of it two red-cheeked, heavy-bosomed
girls are seated; an old cow follows tottering behind.

Grey Puss’ opportunity has come--she makes a lightning spring
forward....

With a resounding “cluck” the hen jumps up, puffs out her feathers
and spreads wide her wings. Her anxious cry of alarm rings over the
potato-field, whither she rushes feverishly to collect and protect her
children. Grey Puss with a plump young cock in her jaws disappears
with a mighty spring among the rye.

A quarter of an hour later she emerges from the hawthorn clump at the
base of the burial-mound. The swallows are making their sweeping curves
round about the top, veering and shrieking incessantly--there must be
something up there to attract their attention!

The furry inhabitants of the mound, who have been lying in a group
sunning themselves, see the old cat approach, dragging the great
chicken after her; she holds it by the neck, its body and long, naked
legs hanging limp and pitiful to either side.

Big, the glutton, at once seizes hold of a wing, and, with closed eyes,
grinds and tears the soft-stemmed feathers, making a great deal of
noise about it.

Big’s assault causes the chicken to swing towards him; at this, Black
begins to feel nervous about his share of the spoil--with a jump he
runs forward and hangs tightly to one of the legs.

With flattened ears and wide-stretched paws Black tugs with all his
might. His neck is stretched forward and the front part of his body
raised, but his stomach and hind legs drag along the ground. He resists
strenuously and takes a firm hold--he will take care that Big doesn’t
steal all the spoil; or if he does, then he must pull _him_ along too!

Grey Puss has let go her hold of the neck and now stands with
the chicken’s head in her mouth; she also will make certain of
something--and she likes the head best of all.

Now the remaining kittens come forward. Grey buries her little black
muzzle in the chicken’s body-feathers. Following her custom, she goes
very cautiously to work, and sniffs for a long time before taking hold.
But Red, who is more impetuous, digs away with her foreclaws, trying
to make a hole as quickly as possible; and, having at last succeeded,
she--eagerly assisted by White and Tiny--pulls out endless lengths of
warm intestines.


DROWN THE BRUTE

Chicken after chicken kept vanishing from the farmyard ... mysteriously
... without trace.

The farmer’s precious racing-pigeons also disappeared, stolen, one
by one, in broad daylight. Some of their feathers were found by the
fence--it was there that Grey Puss lay in ambush, and fell upon the
birds before they had time to rise in the air.

They kept watch for her early and late--and the farmer often did sentry
duty half the day with loaded gun; he would settle her, sure enough....

But she was cunning and cautious--and the hours of vigil too long for
the farmer! So they decided to set a trap.

She walked straight into it! That was not surprising, for she was
completely without experience of traps.

There she was; at last they had the criminal!

“The grey she-cat! Yes, I thought as much!” shouted the farmer,
swearing.... Yes, he remembered that gourmand well!

It was she who ate only the heads of rats. And once, two years ago, she
had been found with a chicken in her jaws. She would have been shot
there and then, had not the foreman sworn that the chicken was dead
before she found it. Well, now at last they knew the truth--the beast
must be drowned!

Grey Puss suspected no evil when she was taken to the scullery, which
she knew so well, and released from the trap. Furthermore, thirsty
and ravenous as she was, she accepted their hospitality in the form
of a large bowl of milk.... They thought she should have something in
reserve for her long journey.

She sat down, cat-like, with her tail curled round her behind, and in
a moment of weakness allowed her former friend, the foreman, to stroke
her back.

Just as she was finishing and was contentedly licking her mouth, stiff,
horny fingers grabbed her and picked her up as if she had been a
kitten. Other fingers opened a black abyss beneath her--and, with Box
yelling and leaping round her, she was thrust quickly into a sack.

For the first time she began to suspect something wrong. She struggled
violently and clutched with her claws--but down she went nevertheless.

She scratches madly at the sack.... Her twenty crescent-shaped claws
stick out through the canvas in white clusters. However much they shake
she won’t go to the bottom, but remains obstinately clinging half-way
up the side. It dawns suddenly upon her that the humans have deceived
her by their unusual kindness; now at last is confirmed what she has so
often suspected, that humans, when they try, can be even more cunning
than she.

All is pitch-black around her.... Her pupils contract, and her sight,
which has always served her so well, now works a veritable miracle: she
sees right through the canvas, sees clearly the gleam of water appear
beneath her.

When they swing her to and fro, in just the same way as the wind has
so often swung her in the treetop, it becomes more difficult to see;
everything grows dark again.

Suddenly she is falling ... yes, she feels at once that she is falling!
She clings even more frantically to the side of the sack.

But the sack is falling too! She withdraws her claws from the canvas
and holds out her paws ready to land, just as she used to do in
the old days when she was kicked through the trap-door in the loft.
Suddenly she feels something hard and cold touch her.... She is not
alone in the sack--she has a comrade!

The comrade is a brick....

The next moment she reaches the water! An ice-cold shower streams in
on her, with a smell so horrible that she quite forgets to shiver. She
is on the point of suffocation, and leaps up and down the sides of the
sack like a fly in a bottle....

The sack is a new one. It has been sacrificed specially for her; they
don’t want to see _her_ again! But just as the canvas has hitherto
defied her claws, so, to a certain degree, it defies the water; she
still finds a little air to breathe, in her mad death-dance in the
dark....

All the time she tears at the sack.... She is lucky, and makes an
opening in the seam. She struggles through, comes to the surface, sucks
in air, sees land, and paddles hurriedly to the bank.

The farm hand who was sent to drown Grey Puss obeyed the order much
against his will. He had been a sailor in his younger days, and knew
what a lingering torture death by drowning was.

Why were land-crabs always so keen on this way of ending life? Because
mankind had a natural tendency towards cowardice and laziness, he
supposed. To smash a cat’s skull or put a bullet through a dog’s brain
demands an effort--besides, it was unpleasant to see the expression in
the victim’s eyes! No, it was so much easier to drown the thing....

“I’ll be hanged if this isn’t the last time!” said the man
shamefacedly, as he watched the sack disappear from sight; and
immediately swung round on his heel and walked away.

So that no one saw the little head which pushed its way breathlessly
through the green duck-weed; nor the thin, bedraggled body which a few
moments later stood shaking itself dry among the weeds.


A GREAT RECEPTION

Grey Puss went straight home to her kittens, and that by the main road.

No sneaking along the ditches or crawling through the furrows, as so
often before when dragging her spoil. No, to-day she came empty-handed,
alas! besides being battered and breathless. She ran with all her might!

A great reception awaited her.

A whole long night and the half of a day she had been away--what a
relief when she appears; thank goodness she has come back at last!

Big, the strong man of the litter, rushes ecstatically to meet her,
and flings both paws round her neck, dragging her tired, wet head from
side to side until he nearly kills her with joy. The other kittens
run straight to her udders, each trying to drink the most milk in the
shortest time.

Quite bewildered, but without further thought of her experience, Grey
Puss sits down and gathers the little kittens in her arms, while
Big, filled with holy zeal, begins licking her wet black and damp,
bedraggled coat with his tongue.

It is true that as a rule a cat washes her kitten, but with Grey Puss
things are reversed: Big makes his mother’s toilet daily--and is,
moreover, so generous with his tongue that he washes all the kittens
too.

And now on this occasion, when his kind mamma--besides arriving
depressed and without her customary miauw-signal--has come home soaking
wet, the son’s energy knows no bounds.

Unfortunately, although going over her twice, he finishes washing his
mother before the children have completed their drinking operations;
and so is compelled to find another outlet for his exuberance. He
rushes round and round the room at full speed....

The fact of the whole family being in his path does not deter him in
the least. He jumps recklessly into their midst, and “takes off” again
with a long jump from his mother’s forehead.

Later, upon making the discovery that two of the little ones have
become separated from the rest, he thinks at once of something new: he
plays “catch mouse” with them....

In a flash he has captured Black under one paw and White under the
other, and holds them pressed down ruthlessly to the ground. Black
spits and bites recklessly at his captor, but the good-natured little
White only cries miserably. A moment later Big gets a good box on the
ears from the old cat’s paw.

He was so very robust--just like his father!

       *       *       *       *       *

After that day Grey Puss never dared venture into the farmyard, not
even by night; she considered herself banished once for all....

She became a total outcast, spitting and swearing at man’s approach.
“Fiew!” she would hiss, crouching back, as if pulled from behind; and
then turn and vanish in a flash.

She forgot her happy days of kittenhood and went back to nature and
independence, her claws turned against every living being.

It was not an easy path she had chosen. The work of catching and
killing at times entailed almost insuperable difficulties.

After all, what wild-beast attributes were needed to capture a little
half-tame mouse or pigeon in a barn; to sneak in and lick up milk from
the stall; to dig out bloater-heads from the manure-heap? No, _now_ she
had to begin all over again and practise the most elementary things:
to creep noiselessly forward, make her spring, and disappear like
lightning.

       *       *       *       *       *

She adopted the method the retriever employs to carry small birds, and
applied it to mice. As soon as the rodents were caught and killed, she
arranged them in a row on the ground; and then packed them side by side
in her mouth, so that only the heads and tails hung out.

One morning she took a hare home to the young ones, and, a few days
later, a full-grown weasel--tangible proofs that she had learnt now to
overpower and kill the most refractory opponents.

After a short time she learned even to bring down the swallow as it
swept with dazzling speed over the earth.




CHAPTER FOUR


THE TRICKSTER

On the top of the mound the kittens are playing, in and out among the
old tombstones.

The sun has risen. It shines in long, golden stripes on the stones
and lights up the deep, gloomy sepulchre; pools of water glisten, and
fields and meadows are already green-white with light.

Big sits on his haunches with a clover stem in his claws. He looks as
if he is studying the flower, while at the same time he nips off the
leaves one by one with his sharp little teeth. The others watch him,
gaping with astonishment.

Suddenly he throws the stalk away and leaps over the heads of the
others.... One of the granite stones at that moment reflects the sun
and attracts his attention; he can never look at a stone without
at once making a dash to reach the other side of it and hide. His
disappearance is so provoking that a couple of the others cannot resist
jumping up and joining in the game.

They gallop after him, and now they play hide-and-seek round the
stones, until Big takes advantage of his long start and climbs into an
old empty pail in an adjacent thicket. His playmates run about all over
the place looking for him....

Shortly afterwards the jester’s white socks peep over the edge of the
pail; a pair of yellow-grey ear-tips follow--and now springs into sight
a happy, laughing cat-face!

Black’s claws begin to itch; he wants very much to play, but in his own
manner. He has been up to the clover stem and smelt it carefully; he
has also taken it between his paws, but thrown it away contemptuously.
A plant stem, a mere flower, seems to him quite useless; a thistle,
on the contrary, which pricks his nose when he smells it is much more
exciting. He can at any rate get angry with it.

Suddenly he sees Red and Big engaged in an angry wrestling match,
while White and Grey stalk them from opposite sides.

With a spring he is upon them; flings himself first upon White, turns
her head over heels, and then falls upon Grey. In a furry, fighting
ball they roll over and over down the hill....

Grey gets on top, and Black suddenly realizes that he is getting the
worst of things. He at once brings his hind legs into play and claws
his adversary’s stomach and nose mercilessly--in real earnest with
naked claws!

Grey wails miserably, and at the sound the whole flock comes rushing
forward with joyous recklessness. But Black does not wait for the
assault; with doubled-up body and curved tail, he stalks sideways
towards them. They expect him to jump, but instead he sticks his claws
right into their eyes.

But the battle is too unequal; Black has to retreat hurriedly. He
flees to the top of a small aspen, creeps out along one of its upper
branches, and from there jumps into the hawthorn thicket encircling
the base of the hill. He does not stop even there, but continues his
flight through the thicket all the way round the hill. Every thorn that
pricks him teases him and fills him with delight. He crawls from branch
to branch like a great black caterpillar, while the others, who have
long since forgotten all about him, go on with their game.

       *       *       *       *       *

The rays of the morning sun sweep gleaming over the fields; the barley
shines like spun silk, the oats like molten silver, while lake and pond
and pit lie like mirrors. The buzzing of flies and the humming of bees
rise incessantly into the hot, motionless air; above the burial mound
the gnats dance in a swarm. The air is filled with sounds: the sweet
trilling of the larks; the snorting of the harnessed horse from the
road; the bleating of calves and the rattling of pails from the distant
farm....

A halt has been called in the game; the tired kittens are resting....
Grey and Red, who had got the worst knocks, sulk together with their
tails encircling their little round behinds.

Then Big Puss gets up.... The others half raise their sleepy eyelids;
what on earth is he going to do now?

With the side of his paw he begins softly patting a little lump on the
ground; the loose mould slides forward and the bump collapses.

At this he goes suddenly mad with excitement. Holding his forepaws
stiffly in front of him, he leaps forward, like a monkey on a stick,
in a series of jumps, at each plunge pushing up a little mouse-grey
cushion of sand, which he simultaneously flings behind him with the
backward sweep of his paws.

His brothers and sisters are now thoroughly roused; their eyes, which
but a short time before were dull and bored, shine eagerly, their
curled-up backs straighten out, and their paws are held stick-like in
front of them, ready for the new, fascinating game.

He really is an Edison-cat, is Big Puss! There they had all been
sitting bored to death, and now ... now he comes and makes grey mice
spring up out of the ground and then disappear again! They must try the
new game at once....

The next moment the six little splashes of colour are again rushing
round like mad.... Even Black has jumped down from his branch to the
ground, where he is soon busily engaged in crouching and leaping,
creating and destroying the new little, maddening, earth-born mice. A
splendid game for little pussy-cats!

The midday sun pours its hot breath down upon the earth; the air
quivers out there above the fields as if boiling. The sand and stones
are burning hot....

But the grass shines smilingly back at the sun, and the rye bursts into
flower.

The kittens lift their heads as they hear a rustling in the corn: along
the secret path which has gradually formed itself, Grey Puss returns
home with her catch.

Not chicken for dinner to-day, but--herring! The fishmonger’s cart
upset last night at the turn of the road, and dropped a box of splendid
fresh herrings. Grey Puss, who had stuffed herself to bursting-point on
the spot and dug down half a score besides, appears now with a couple
hanging out of her mouth.

At first this new kind of food is greeted with contempt; it is cold
and slimy--and doesn’t smell! But when the mother starts munching, the
young ones soon follow her example, and join in the feast.

Delicious food! After the first taste each of them grabs a big lump;
even Tiny, who has never taken kindly to solid diet, displays unusual
eagerness. He devours not only his own share, but in addition, is
foolhardy enough to covet some of Black’s.

Then, for the first time in his sheltered life, the little kitten sees
the furious, grinning face, and the flattened, pressed-back ears, of
an angry cat. And when, in spite of these, he continues innocently to
reach in under the head, and is even lucky enough to pull out a piece
of herring, down flashes a vicious forepaw, and he feels the scratch of
a sharp, curved claw upon his tender nose.

Tears of pain spring to his eyes as he recoils, mewing piteously; while
Black resumes his meal, emitting at intervals weird, muffled noises
like threatening thunder.


THE LID OF THE WELL

As soon as the after-dinner siesta was at an end, Grey Puss, contrary
to custom, called her kittens together with soft, alluring miauws, and
took them for the first time along the secret, winding path she had
trodden through the corn.

In the baking sunshine, while the countryside was enjoying its
Sabbath-day’s rest from toil, she led them out to a large,
sweet-smelling haystack. Farther they were not allowed to follow her.

She placed them in a hollow, which she made deep and roomy, at the
foot of the stack. It was as if she understood that they needed to
see something fresh and for a time get right away from their gloomy
grave-home. They spent the afternoon lying together in the sweet
yielding hay.... Presently the babies fell asleep, and Grey Puss stole
away.

Oh, the luxury of lying at rest on a summer day, dozing in the soft,
warm breeze as it sighs between hill and dale; to escape for once from
one’s tail and the never-ceasing crawling of one’s paws; to float body
and soul along a broad, shining river of light and not know a single
want or care!

The whisper of the reeds from the pond, the song of the larks from the
heavens, the whistle of the wild chervil stems, and the rustle of the
osier leaves, unite in a hymn of peace, caressing and soothing the
slumberers’ ears--until the booming of a passing bee calls them back to
consciousness for two long, drowsy seconds....

“Ears--must you hear? Eyes--must you see? Nose--must you smell?”

“No, no--just rest, slumber, sleep....”

The fluff of the dandelion floats slowly past; over them chases the
swift, scythe-winged swallow; while the lark’s eternal, monotonous song
slowly mends the thread broken by the kittens when they fell asleep.

They wake; glide imperceptibly from the far into the near; yawn and
stretch each limb; and finally open their eyes, saturated with the
sweetness of that kind of repose which urges instant action.

The heat of the sun toasts them until their fur sparkles.... They get
up and look at once for something to do.

       *       *       *       *       *

Not far from the stack was a large liquid-manure well with a rotten,
worm-eaten lid.

In places the lid dipped dangerously; it was a wretched bridge over a
dangerous well--but it could bear a little kitten’s weight, surely?

Flies gathered in masses on the sun-baked lid, forming black, restless
shadows on its tarred-felt covering. Big-kitten saw at once that they
offered sport. And he soon found it just as nice to eat them as it was
exciting to catch them.

He had not been at it long before the others followed suit. But no one
could compete with him in accuracy; he displayed at once the master
hand....

Sitting quietly on his tail, he brought down his paw with unerring
accuracy, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, upon every
fly that ventured within range.

White, wishing to emulate his performance, came and sat beside him;
but before very long had to acknowledge that the new game was more
difficult than it appeared.

She then tried crawling on her belly in pursuit of the restless
creatures, and managed indeed to approach quite near to them; but each
time she made her spring they flew away too soon.

Grey and Red were more fortunate. Each one took up a position on the
lid, and with raised paw waited until the fly of its own accord came
within striking distance. In this way they managed to catch a few
flies, but far from all; Red was especially erratic, and missed two or
three shots out of every four.

Black, on the other hand, after a little practise, proved himself an
excellent shot; but, unhappily, he struck with such violence that the
victim was smashed into a black spot, the edible fragments of which
were buried in the tar.

Fly-catching did not interest Tiny. He hopped and jumped in happy
ignorance on the yielding well-cover, playing prettily with his
own tail. He also derived much pleasure from a rickety old
hoisting-apparatus, climbing gaily up and down the disused pump-spear.

Round the rotten cover grew a border of sweet-smelling wild camomile,
in the midst of which stuck up a few stray blades of rye. An occasional
bee or butterfly, attracted by the scent, settled on the odorous blooms.

When a little pearl-winged “Blue-bird” appeared dancing above them, the
kittens all deserted their fly-catching and with one accord sprang high
in the air after it.

On this occasion Black disappeared abruptly and mysteriously into the
bowels of the earth! A little dust from the broken board rose in the
air behind him.

The others continued the chase, and Big-kitten succeeded in capturing
the butterfly; he was lucky enough to clap his paws upon it as he
clutched wildly in the air. In the silence following the capture, it
was carefully and thoroughly investigated. The wings came off, and the
body came in two ... and Big, in his scientific ardour, even tried to
find out what was inside!

They missed Black occasionally; but after all, there was plenty without
him!

Exhausted with fly- and butterfly-catching, the children lie down on
the lid and rest in the sun, listening with puzzled frowns to a new
and strange sound which comes from beneath them. It sounds like a toad
splashing through wet grass in the rain....

Black-kitten paddles round in the filthy liquid manure. He has not the
slightest notion of what it is he is treading in; but he uses his legs
vigorously, for otherwise his nose complains that it lacks air. He has
several times reached the walls and sought vainly to escape; but now
luckily he stumbles against the wooden pump, the wood of which offers a
better surface for his claws than the hard, unyielding bricks.

He pulls himself up out of the cesspool and climbs towards the streak
of light, until he reaches a cross-piece, where he is able to snatch
a breathing-space. He whimpers and miauws, summons up strength, and
climbs farther--and as there is ample space between pump and lid, owing
to the straw that once supported the pump in the hole having almost
rotted away, he suddenly dumbfounds his callous relatives by pushing up
his head into their midst.

It is the only part of him which is still at all recognizable: the rest
of his black fur has become quite brown! He looks like a chocolate
cat--but he smells otherwise! His brothers and sisters shrink back from
him, and spit and hiss as if he were a stranger.

When Grey Puss later on miauwed herself into view with a captured
mouse and warm milk, he was at last declared genuine, and in addition
enfolded in her arms. But Big shirked his washing duties that
afternoon! He licked his mother, it is true, but only on the neck and
in the ears; no one else received attention from his lavish tongue.

The clever little cat-mother, realized quite well what had happened,
and at once shifted her family from their dangerous summer-house
back to their old home. Well satisfied with the security of the
burial-mound, she left her children clustered round the giant stones
enjoying the sunset, while she herself curled up in the entrance hole
and fell asleep.


THE DRAGON-FLY

A red-gold beam of light came from heaven, poured over the landscape
through a mighty window in the clouds, and tinged with mauve the heavy
well-lid’s brittle edges. It lit up Grey Puss’ colours and the kittens’
glossy coats: Black remained black and Grey remained grey; but Red
turned to deeper red and White changed to gold.

The evening breezes began to blow, setting the ryefield’s crowded
stalks a-whispering, and carrying in their wake the strong, delicious
odour of new bread. The aspen leaves blinked and waved, sending the
departing summer day a last farewell.

A large brown-gold “bird,” with four wings and a long, stiff tail, came
pitching with jerky, irregular flight towards the kittens. The lure of
the chase seized them all, and they crouched down among the stones and
waited....

The dragon-fly turned with a crackling sound; White and Tiny shrank
back; Grey drew his hind legs farther in under him; Black’s tail
thickened and his hair rose. Only Big-kitten’s fighting lust remained
unshaken; he gathered himself together for a spring, and the others
noticed that his eyes shone with a curious flickering gleam.

The next time the dragon-fly swooped, White, Red and Tiny bolted
hurriedly into cover. Grey felt shaky, but stood his ground bravely,
while Black hissed, and lunged with his paw.

The dragon-fly pitches farther ... and, rolling perilously over as it
turns, makes a wide circle through the gold, flaming light crowning the
sea of rye ... then comes crackling swiftly back again, fleeing already
from the approaching twilight. But this time the insolent, many-winged
“bird” does not escape! While Black snorts and strikes with his paw,
Big leaps aloft and hangs his claws together on the luckless creature
in its flight.

It was Big-cat’s first important catch. And it was devoured with
general satisfaction, especially its fat, large-eyed head.


THE OLD CROW

Thus continued week after week the happy family life on the mound.

Still no sign of any danger from without. The corn is now so tall
that no “human” would think of tramping through it merely to approach
a common, tumble-down burial-mound. It forms a stormless ocean round
their island home.

The merry, light-hearted little pussies now begin to show signs of
growth. Their faces are larger and more intelligent, their bodies
smooth and supple, their legs disproportionately long, and their tails
less short and scraggy. Each kitten’s character and personality grows
more apparent with every day that passes.

When evening comes they creep away from the mound to play, and all
night long they prowl about near their home, exploring the immediate
neighbourhood. They examine carefully everything of interest they find,
and are soon well acquainted with the mouse’s hiding-place and the
small bird’s favourite haunt.

In addition they make longer expeditions--sometimes in twos and threes,
sometimes alone--down across the fields, through the plough-furrows,
and along the hedge and ditch.

One day they make their first important catch--a mouse which has been
left, half-crippled, by a crow. Grey hears the mouse first, Big springs
upon it, while Black deals it a blow which makes it roll over. Red
almost succeeded in bolting off with it, but White and Tiny blocked
the road. Who finally _ate_ the mouse could not be decided. One thing,
however, they were all agreed on: a moment later there was no mouse
left!

Some time afterwards, Black, who always preferred prowling about alone,
was passing the place where the mouse had been slaughtered when he met
the original captor of the mouse, long since digested.

It was a grey bird with black wings, and a black, long-nosed head. It
fluttered superciliously backwards and forwards from one molehill to
another. Several times it turned its head and looked attentively at
the kitten; and, when Black continued to creep along in its wake, it
hopped up on an adjacent molehill to get a closer view of its pursuer.

This put Black on his mettle! He dropped flat to the ground and crawled
forward on his stomach; but just as he arrived within springing
distance it spread its wings and flapped with ostentatious slowness to
another molehill.

Thus ended Black’s first encounter with the cunning old crow.




CHAPTER FIVE


BIG-KITTEN

Thick-set and sturdy, with short tail, strong legs, and a back which
merged smoothly into a plump, round stomach; big, attentive eyes with
intelligence and intensity in their glance; small ears never at rest;
this was Big!

He was the born master-hunter of the litter, and spent nearly all his
time lying in wait on his belly, his tail stretched out behind him. He
captured in a flash every bit of fluff carried past by the wind; he
pursued passionately every butterfly and bird that came near him. When
one of his brothers or sisters got up and walked away, Big-kitten would
look up with a start and steal cautiously in the wake of the “meat.”...

He was always the one to start a new game ... and he commenced every
game of “tag” with a leap right over his playfellow; a deliberate
insult which emphasized his opponent’s inferiority.

Although Big was still only a little half-grown fellow, his paws itched
with the lust of the chase, and in his mind smouldered a constant
desire for adventure. During the noonday hour of rest he would push out
recklessly from the island-fortress, and, when the weather was dry and
warm, creep far away out along the hedge and ditch bordering the corn.

Inbred in him was the ability to make use of every scrap of cover
offered by Mother Nature, whether a tiny depression in the ground, or a
tuft of grass, behind which he would hide and listen patiently before
proceeding on his way. With doubled-up legs and body dragging along the
ground he could creep for half-hours at a time, hiding in a bush or
copse when he wished to rest or stretch his muscles.

His movements were so light and deft that he barely disturbed the
grass--no shaking flower or trembling stalk ever betrayed _his_
passage!

One day he went farther than usual along the ditch.... He had found a
splendid hunting-ground! Flies and swallows swept over him in crowds.
Now he _must_ do something big!

He exerted all his powers to the uttermost: lifted his feet high to
avoid scraping and rustling, crawled up at frequent intervals on stones
to look around, and often sat still listening with his head stretched
high above the grass. His ears were instantly directed towards every
sound, while simultaneously he crouched ready to spring....

His efforts were crowned with success; he came upon a weird, earth-like
little animal which sat digging at a hole. He should have sprung upon
it at once, but he hesitated. Then the earthy one started up and ran
off, disappearing with a final hop into an adjacent bush.

In the bush sat a young starling with broken wing, enjoying the view,
and under the impression that it had reached safety at last.

Not many days before it had slipped out of its nest; the down of
childhood still lingered on its body. What a long, long time it had
already lived, thought the little fellow!

How it had wonderingly stared out of the nest, peeping through the
branches after its mother as she flew away in search of food!...

With what a shiver of dread it had, one fine morning for the first time
in its life, set foot upon the ground!... There was something about
the ground which frightened it dreadfully; true, the earth could not
run and jump, but nevertheless the little bird didn’t feel at all safe
there. It longed to go aloft--aloft and flying!

The first minor difficulties were soon overcome. It learnt to glide
through the air from branch to branch. Then suddenly it found itself
really flying, able to turn and twist and sweep round in curves, to
swerve upwards in spirals and suddenly turn and corkscrew down again.
It had become master of its destiny--the world was big and the earth
beautiful, for real _life_ had begun.

Then one day it had flown into the farmer’s kitchen garden, which
twinkled with flowers glowed with fruit; red and tempting they lay
upon the ground, for it was strawberry season. There came a shot!

Something queer happened: all at once, after a loud noise, it found
itself unable to rise and fly aloft; it could only hop clumsily in the
air.

It ran and ran, tearing away in the direction of the long-drawn whistle
of terror which the other birds uttered as they flew away. Now it sat
quite still under the bush, awaiting the inevitable doom which comes to
every crippled bird.

For days it had hopped about, getting farther and farther out into the
field....

Big-kitten made very short work of it; his victim sat waiting as if put
there for him by the Creator. To capture it was child’s play.

Thus did the world with its colours and sounds vanish from the
consciousness of the little brown starling.... Sharp teeth buried
themselves in its neck and greedy lips sucked its blood.


THE CONQUEROR

Big-kitten would not devour his booty on the spot. In addition to
being a great hunter, he was very fond of bragging of his exploits. He
started, therefore, on the return journey at once, in order to display
his booty outside the cat borough.

Forward through the green grass he treads, slowly and carefully. His
white forepaws appear first ... as if feeling their way; then follow
the round head, plump body, and gently swishing tail. His jaws seem
enormous, and his neck looks swollen--but this is because he is
carrying the bird in his mouth.

He grips it by the middle; head and neck dangle down on one side, legs
and tail stick out on the other; while along the ground drag its limp
wings, on which his forepaws keep treading and delaying his progress....

Presently he puts his burden down for a breathing-space--now he picks
it up again; his hairless little red nose-tip flattens out, and his
yellow, slanting eyes close viciously as he crunches it in his teeth.

As it happens, none of the others are outside the hole when he arrives,
so that he receives no immediate applause; he therefore begins to run
about miauwing, which soon fetches out the whole band. They shall view
him as conqueror!

With the young starling dangling from his jaws and his tail hoisted
proudly he swaggers in among them. He twitches a wing tantalizingly
under their noses, making them snap jealously at it. At last he lies
down and devours his booty with exasperating calmness and deliberation.

However, the young starling is more than he can manage at one sitting,
and when he is satisfied he begins to play with the remains.

Unfortunately, of course, it is dead; but he does everything possible
to make it _seem_ alive!

He takes it between his forepaws and casts it high in the air, then
catches it with a deep, savage growl. He puts it in front of him and
gives it a push, causing it to jerk forward. This stimulates his
imagination enormously; he thinks the bird is about to escape, and
quickly thrusts his claws into it.

Again, with rapid touches of his paws he brushes the starling towards
him, at the same time jumping back quickly--and now in his haste he
rolls over backwards and lies there, juggling ecstatically with the
dead bird.

Surrounding him, but hidden behind stone and hillock, his brothers and
sisters, with ears stiff and whiskers quivering, wait and watch ...
perhaps a miracle will happen and the bird fly towards one of them....

Just then a sea-gull comes sweeping past the mound, and, startled at
seeing the kitten flock just beneath it, drops a jet of white, which
hits the victor on the forehead and nose....

Big makes a leap upwards at the sharp-shooter, and afterwards, feeling
the need of a good wash, forgets for a time all about the starling.

When he returns it has vanished! Tiny sits with a most innocent
expression on his face, and Red had a feather in his whiskers!

He ought really to have trounced the two impudent brutes; but it was
beneath his dignity--besides, he was full to the brim. He could go out
into the field and catch another one if he liked--he was quite certain
he could!


BLACK-KITTEN

This was a fellow to be handled carefully!

He returned snarl and spit for a kind word--and he never hit softly on
the nose, but scratched so that it hurt. He did not understand fun,
but took everything in dead earnest; and in consequence was always
quarrelling with his brothers and sisters. They knew him well enough
by now, and only as a last resource, when there was nobody else about
to play with, would one make the best of a bad job and take Black. In
revenge he mixed in a game of his own accord whenever it suited him,
and that in a most aggressive and unpleasant manner.

He was strong and well built; but he had large paws--and worse still,
an ugly face!

A high-arched forehead protruded abruptly over unusually deep-set eyes.
The eyes themselves were golden-green in colour--and some thing angry
and evil perpetually obscured their glance, like a murky cloud over
a clear horizon. And the wildness in the eyes was emphasized by the
almost constantly pressed-back ears.

He was extremely skilful at climbing trees! His insulting and
provocative behaviour often resulted in a general assault upon him, and
when things became desperate he invariably went aloft.

To get up was easy enough--all the kittens could do that; but none
of them could come down like Black. The others slid and scrambled
down, thereby ruffling their fur and blunting their claws; he, on the
contrary, had the real tree-climber’s blood, having inborn in him the
art of descending in successive jumps, a number of short falls, which
he checked at the right moment by sticking all four batches of claws
into the tree-trunk.

As time passed, he became as much at home in the trees as a marten, and
could spring from top to top with the skill and agility of a squirrel.
It is doubtful whether any other cat than he could have escaped from
the manure-well.

Just as the secret of Samson’s strength was hidden in the giant’s
growth of hair, so was Black’s concealed in his claw-daggers; he spent,
indeed, every spare moment in sharpening his claws!

He was nearly always to be seen by the old gate-post, where he squatted
down and reached up with his forepaws, listening contentedly to the
scratching of his claws on the hard, bone-dry wood. He always finished
off by stropping them, stroking them forwards and backwards over the
corner of the post until they were as sharp as shoemakers’ bradawls.

None of the others possessed weapons like these!

And as he grew up and began to catch things, he deceived by means of
them even experienced old birds! Thus, one day an old male sparrow
taking a leisurely dust-bath fell a victim to his precocity. The
sparrow, with the wisdom of his years, thought, “Piff! it’s only a
kitten!” And it flew up just in time to escape--if Black _had_ been an
ordinary kitten!

But that was its mistake--just as the chameleon with its lightning-like
tongue reaches the distant insect, so did Black at the critical moment
succeed in thrusting forward his claws and reaching the bird.

These terrible claws of his in reality made his forepaws abnormally
long--a fact which his brothers and sisters also had long since
discovered!

When Mother Puss sat dissecting her spoil and Black-kitten came too
near, she used at first to lash out at Master Impudence. But Master
Impudence lashed back! It was as if he said, “You must make room for
me, too!” And the old she-cat soon learned to respect him for his
swift, scratchy boxes on the ear.

In general he was timid and solitary.... The moment the kittens heard
people on the field-path near by, he would arch his back, thicken his
fur, and hurriedly run to cover.


MIAUW-MIAUW--MIAUW-MIAUW

Black made one of his first expeditions at the time when the wheat
was just high enough to hide him. He sauntered defiantly through it,
caring not a jot whether the ground beneath were wet or dry. Long, dark
cloud-shadows came hurtling along and surrounded him; the bluish-green
wheat became black, making it impossible to distinguish him as he
crawled through its depths.

But once, when the sky was clear and the sun unrolled its carpet
of light before his eyes, he caught sight of a little brown speck
among the green stems. His legs disappeared in his fur, and his body
lengthened out, as he pushed chin, neck, belly, and tail slowly along
the ground.... Now he could see that the spot was a bird, so fat and
heavy that it weighed down the thistle-top on which it sat.

Suddenly came a hoarse scream from the air: “Kra, kra!”

Soon afterwards a peewit fluttered round his ears. It had come from
behind and caught him in the act; he had been so absorbed in his sport
that he had forgotten to keep a look out.

He refused to flee; he just sat there slashing with his tail while the
wide-awake flying-corps of birds did sentry duty above!

Two crows hung low on flapping wings just over his head, scolding and
cursing him until his hair vibrated with fury. The pair of peewits
goaded him to frenzy by attacking alternately from behind and before,
while the stupid larks came and sat on the gate-post not far off to
watch the fun.

He had to give up all hope of that speck on the thistle-top; but
just to have seen it and to have got so near to it seemed to him,
nevertheless, something of an adventure.

For a long time he wandered about in vain, sniffing the flowers, but
at last, just by a heap of stones, he found a new brown speck. Had he
been experienced and realized what he was after, he would perhaps have
hesitated; as it was, he rejoiced in happy ignorance, and sprang.

The brown speck--which was a young weasel out on the same errand as
himself--sprang with a whine into the air. It was instantly fully alive
to its danger! Although thin as a lath and not longer than a mole, it
showed him at once by its grin that it possessed teeth by no means
inferior to his own.

But Black did not mean to be cheated of his spoil a second time; he
attacked suddenly and recklessly, metamorphosed in a flash from a black
shadow into a living, vicious beast.

With hair on end and eyes gleaming phosphorescent in the twilight, he
made his spring.

The young weasel jumped aside, giving him at the same time a sharp
little nip in the neck. Its methods resembled rather those of a
pole-cat; for it did not attack openly, but kept darting in from the
side and from behind with quick, cunning little feints.

The little vermin was possessed of a devil; but Black for the moment
was possessed of two! He could be a young tiger when he chose--and,
undaunted by the wound in his neck, he dealt the weasel a lightning
blow with his forepaw, following it up with a murderous bite through
the snout which rendered his enemy helpless.

The weasel writhed frenziedly in his grip; but the tiger-kitten
killed it off-hand, as if it were a mere mouse. He thought that his
spoil smelled rather strongly; but he was too young and hungry to be
dainty....

He picks it up and makes for home ... arrives via ditch and furrow in
the vicinity of the burial-mound. Anyone on the field-path? He is quite
close to it, and knows he must cross it. In the ordinary way he prefers
walking along it, but not when carrying booty. Supposing one of his
brothers or sisters should meet him and try to take it from him! He
wants to enjoy his meal in peace--with hide and hair and intestines and
all! He has no wish to fight twice over for the same spoil; nor does
he want to lose his feast and spoil the pleasure of victory by being
compelled to share with others.

The electric sheen in his black fur becomes more brilliant, and his
eyes strain forward on the alert, as he steals cautiously along
absorbed in his thoughts of his victory and the feast to come.

Again comes that hoarse “kra-ing” from the air!

The previous day he had been shown the necessity of concealment when
tracking his game; now he was to learn that it was even more necessary
after the game was caught.

That fool of a crow has once more sneaked up behind him! It hangs over
his head jealous of his prize, while it advertises to the whole world
what he has in his mouth.

His triumph is to be marred, then, after all!

From all directions stream his brothers and sisters, headed by old
Mother Grey Puss; she approaches with electrified back-fur anxious as
to what may be the matter.

They come nearer, but they cannot understand what he is doing! He sits
doubled over something he is trying to hide. His ears are flattened and
his eyes glitter with anxiety, and they can hear from afar off how he
snarls and threatens.

Now Grey Puss herself dares not approach nearer; his multifarious
noises of warning become more and more continuous....

The frightened kittens press closer to her; the entire family is
overawed and silent; for the first time they hear an angry he-cat’s
sombre, booming music. “Su-wau-wau-wau ... mau, mau, mau....”

And he gnashes his teeth until it harmonizes with the plashing of his
slaver.


GREY-KITTEN

Such a short-legged little cat was surely never seen before! She
seemed rather to crawl and glide over the ground than to walk. She had
inherited her mother’s disproportionately large hare-like ears, and
had a far keener sense of hearing than any of the other kittens. The
slightest sound brought her head up with a jerk, her ears directed
instantly in the exact direction of the sound, while cunning and deceit
flashed into her usually trustful eyes. Hers was a quiet, thoughtful
nature, which apparently never waxed very enthusiastic over anything;
it was as if she pondered carefully every step she took!

She could sit still for hours at a time, with her tail curled carefully
round her neatly gathered paws, and watch the doings of the others.
An enormous degree of patience and the ability to wait characterized
her nature; they all thought she slept, but it was not so; she saw and
heard everything.

She often crept round the foot of the mound and down along the ditch
and fence--and whenever she found a little hole in the earth which
looked as if it were inhabited, she would sit down and watch, if
necessary for hours. This monotonous waiting for game suited her nature
perfectly; however bad the state of the ground or of the weather,
it made no difference to her--she bore it all with good-natured
indifference.

Lying thus in wait was a treat to her. Her sense of hearing was so
keen that she found sufficient entertainment in listening to the
subterranean rumblings of her prey. Minute linked itself to minute with
lightning speed; and although to an onlooker it seemed that nothing in
the world was happening, in reality she was experiencing thrills of
anticipation all the time.

She was also an expert at catching dragon-flies, although indeed in
another manner than brother Big. She could, as it were, hypnotize them
down to her. When a dragon-fly was performing acrobatics above her
head, she just sat still and stared and stared, until presently the
insect, whether attracted by her colouring or by her eyes, came so
close that she had only to put out a paw and knock it down.

       *       *       *       *       *

One evening, while the setting sun bathes the burial-mound in its red
splendour, and the giant stones shine as if coated with pink enamel,
she creeps out to the field.

The windows of the farm flash with light, and over the white, bulging
summer clouds falls a scarlet, claret-bordered veil. Everywhere she
goes she hears the munching of grass: horses and cattle are feeding
after the day’s exertion....

She peeps to the right; to the left--and listens.

Then sits down softly--and listens, listens.... Is there anything? No!
Then forward, silently forward....

With crouching loins and curved tail, but with chest raised and neck
stretched high, she writhes through the grass, as if treading on flames.

A sudden halt--a careful investigation! No; false alarm again! And Grey
creeps along until she finds another mouse-hole....

The twilight falls, and the great black maybugs begin to wind their
sound-threads round her. A horse has dropped some manure close to where
she sits--the mice like making their holes under that!

The dike-chat flutters past with its young. The little grey birds are
swallowed up in the darkness, leaving behind only a flicker from their
white tails.

The slim young hare hops with supple grace across the field, stopping
to sniff at each root and plant....

Grey sits patiently before her mouse-hole, listening to the
faint scratching of its owner’s feet deep down in the earth. The
minutes race; her mind is utterly absorbed with the one thrilling
subject--mouse!

Presently a distant rumble rises to her ears; grains of sand are
rolling down the tunnel. The sound, which no human ear could hope to
distinguish, increases in volume until it culminates in a faint flap: a
baby mouse with thin white legs and a tail three times as long as its
body crouches curled up at the entrance!

Without straightening its body, it begins at once to propel itself
forward through the grass-stems, looking for all the world like a
living bullet on legs....

Now the noise of its running has stopped ... the mouse swarms up
and down the straws, so that they whine like violin-strings in the
cat’s ears. Her soul is a sound board on which each whine impinges,
magnified and vibrating.... In the most approved fashion she creeps
upon her prey, and, in spite of a clumsy spring, manages to nail it
down under her paw....

It was Grey-kitten’s first mouse; and she felt she would never tire
of gazing at it. Her tail wriggled without ceasing and her eyes shone
with delight ... to think that those tiny mouse-legs could make such a
frightful to-do!

She could not bring herself to eat it, but must keep it to rejoice over
on her way home. Every few minutes she stopped, dropped the luckless
victim in front of her, and began to play with it.

And, like Big, she was stupid enough to appear with it before the whole
family; even going so far as to throw it down on the ground for general
admiration.

She paid dearly for that! She never did it again!




CHAPTER SIX


WHITE-KITTEN

When the wind brought word of human beings on the field-path, the
kittens always stopped their play.

Grey Puss had warned them in their earliest days to beware of people,
and as a rule her angry growling called them down into the hole. Now,
however, when she spent less and less of her time at home, and the
kittens were left to themselves, their behaviour varied according to
their natures.

Big Puss and Tiny still ran for the hole; Black thrilled--he sank down
on his loins and dragged himself along the ground, keeping a sharp
lookout and disappearing periodically with a spitting noise. Grey and
Red as a rule remained placidly lying still; but White stiffened her
tail with delight and trotted to and fro, mewing and purring.

She was a merry and friendly little kitten, who made a joke of
everything. Her strong desire for amusement and her inability to
appreciate the stern realities of life expressed themselves at a
very early stage of her existence. Just as she regularly seized the
opportunity of chasing her mother’s tail, so did she often make a
plaything of the old cat’s nipples, a sacrilege which more than once
lost her her due share of milk.

She was not specially big or strong in appearance, but doubtless her
grace and good humour would carry her far in the world.

She spent most of her time making her toilet. She could not bear the
smallest piece of fluff on her coat without at once licking it off. If
so much as a single hair of hers smelled slightly, she felt upset until
she had succeeded in removing the cause of her indisposition. During
her idle hours--and they were many--she would sit a little apart from
the others, spit on her paw, with which she would wash her breast and
stomach, freshen up her eyes, smooth the fur on her face, and make a
parting right across the middle of her forehead.

In her charming little cat-face, with its soft, affectionate
expression, were set two glistening, watery-blue eyes, which slanted as
prettily as those of a clean and well-groomed little Geisha girl.

In company with Tiny she still took suck from her mother, and there was
as yet no sign of this form of nourishment being abandoned. Being so
much together with her little brother, she did her best to chum up with
him. But the latter, who was cleverer than he looked, realized too well
the disadvantage of such an entanglement, and rejected her advances
point-blank; she should rather do as he did, find a big brother with
whom to join forces.


TINY

Tiny was, neither in appearance nor reality, a Hercules, being thin and
stunted, with a large head and big, intelligent eyes.

For the most part he lay still and slept. He had an attitude of his own
which he preferred when resting: doubled up, with his hind legs well
under his body, and his absurdly big head between his paws. It seemed
almost as if he were trying to shut his ears against the ceaseless
hurly-burly around him.

He gave rather the impression of being slow-witted and sedate; but in
reality he was not such a fool as he appeared.

For example, he possessed one unique characteristic: he was an
infallible weather-prophet!

His talent in this direction, however, would have remained quite
useless had he kept his prophecies to himself; but, on the contrary,
the moment a change of weather was impending, he could not resist
giving vent to his feelings. The others then knew at once what to
expect.

For example, supposing he felt rainy weather approaching, he would walk
about shaking himself, dragging his tail, and mewing continuously. Then
he would seek out a good hiding-place where he could lie in warmth and
shelter when the rain came.

But when fine weather was to be expected, he would appear with tail at
the perpendicular, purring and humming with satisfaction.

In reality he was not only a professor of weather, he was more: he was
a regular little meteorological observatory! Possibly the terrible
treatment once meted out to him in his earlier days by his brutal
father accounted for his weak, supersensitive nerves.

Brother Black--the fighter--whose frequent mad expeditions he followed
at a distance in order to be at hand at the right time to beg his
livelihood, soon learned to utilize his small brother’s eccentricity.

Black preferred hunting at nightfall; but if, during the day, when
crouching at his gate-post stropping his claws, he observed Tiny
walking about miauling and crying, he knew at once he must get away as
early as possible: it would rain that night.

Black could never resist Tiny’s cadging. His admiring looks and
respectful mien were too much for the fierce warrior.

In addition, the little fellow suffered seriously from vomiting. The
excess of feathers and the insufficiency of meat comprising his diet
soon ruined his digestion; he had to go out and chew harsh, bitter
cock’s-foot grass the moment he awoke.

In spite of this, he was the sole humorist of the family--thanks to his
unusually long tail, the vigour of which was so extraordinary that it
gave the impression of being a separate personality. He would wipe his
paws on it, or twist it right round his neck; it was a constant source
of amusement; he could even play “postman’s knock” with it.

But on the whole, his abilities and characteristics were much below the
average, and he might safely be expected to turn out a failure.

When, by chance or design, he _did_ go out on his own, he succeeded
occasionally in making a catch of some sort by means of his abnormally
acute powers of observation.

Thus, one day he saw a yellow-hammer settle in a tuft of withered
grass; he hurried to the spot--and gulped down a most delicious omelet!

Another day he met a bunting fighting with a lark. By tacit
understanding the hedge belonged to the bunting just as the field
belonged to the lark, and neither permitted the other to trespass in
his sphere of action--so they fought, and whirled round and round,
until they both lay dead-beat in the grass.

Such a battle Tiny was a master-hand at turning to his own advantage.

He began to consider it worth while to slip out and look round. There
was always something or other to be caught!


RED-KITTEN

Whatever doubt there may have been as to Tiny’s being a sly puss, it
was quite certain that Red-kitten was a deceitful hussy!

Her coat alone stamped her as a mountebank, being fox-red in colour,
with bright yellow stripes which turned to rings round her legs and
tail.

Her body also was unique, being long, thin, and supple, and gave as she
walked, like a freshly stuffed sofa.

She had a mania for stretching herself, as if she _could_ not get her
body slim and supple enough. None could compare with her in activity;
she was incessantly playing tricks on the others--and when they
attacked her she could easily wriggle out of their clutches, even Black
and Big being unable to hold her.

A gymnast, a juggler, was Red!

In addition to her bodily virtues she had tall, slim legs, which, when
necessary, enabled her to escape from the swiftest opponent by sheer
speed.

She was still quite young when Box one day surprised her in the middle
of the field; but, thanks to her speed, she saved herself at the last
moment by scrambling up on a straw thatch, her mouth extended and the
water running down her red tongue. Had there been a man on the scene he
would have said that it was the first time he had seen a cat _sweat_!

Her cunning, flame-coloured eyes are seldom really open; she usually
goes about with them screwed up, as if desiring to conceal their
lowering, deceitful glance.

She is always to be seen sneaking round stones and molehills, and
likes jumping out suddenly and unexpectedly. When the others play
puss-in-the-corner, she prefers to lie in ambush and spring upon the
nearest from behind, knock him down, and maul him about.

She beats all the others in cunning, and they do not like her to be
near when they are eating; they know from experience her extraordinary
skill in stealing.

On the day Mother Grey Puss brought home the herrings, each kitten was
apportioned a lump of the delicious food. Big, who had received the
head, sat a little apart from the others, nibbling it thoughtfully.

There was still a piece of the jaw left; it lay just in front of him,
as with closed eyes he swallowed blissfully a tasty mouthful. When he
opened his eyes again the herring jaw was no longer there--and a red
tail-tip vanished silently behind the nearest boulder.

Nature, as a rule, equips each of her creatures generously with at
least one special talent; and, provided only it uses that talent, the
struggle for life is an easy one.

And Red’s talent was--thieving!

One can never take her by surprise: she possesses extraordinary
decision of character, coupled with extreme cautiousness; and she never
resorts to force until her prey is at her mercy. Her daily struggle for
food and her constant intercourse with her talented brothers, whose
highly specialized skill in trapping was so much superior to her own,
have developed her inbred tendency to steal, whenever _her_ special
characteristics make it possible.

She is an expert at starting a quarrel when the others sit devouring
their spoil; and while they fight, she fishes in troubled waters. She
hunts indeed, but after her own fashion; and most of her spoil is
second-hand!

Her sympathies are unstable; she lacks personality! Sometimes she helps
Black against Big, at others Grey against Black; being always on the
side of the one who owns nothing against the one who has for the moment
something to steal.... She is in favour of common ownership, and is the
red communist of the litter!

But she is an adept at dissembling; she is not only a great juggler,
but also a great hypocrite ... her tail betrays this, for in the most
exciting moments it is as stiff as a poker!

In the long run, however, the narrow bounds of catborough do not offer
sufficient scope for her predatory instincts, and she is compelled to
eke out her spoils. When Big, Black, and Grey, with White and Tiny in
tow, slink out in the gloaming over field and meadow and follow the
twisting, irregular paths of the village copse, Red lounges through the
field until she meets a human track.

Experience has taught her that such a track usually leads to a place
where there is something to be picked up ... some cast-away food-paper
or other, which, on investigation, often proves to contain tasty
morsels, such as herring-bones, cheese-rind, or scraps of fat.

Sometimes, also, an old wooden clog or a pair of cast-off stockings lie
on the ground near by, but they appeal to her less, and serve only to
increase her faith in human footsteps.

But it happens, too, that the tracks lead to dainties such as would
make even gourmands like Big and Black turn blue in the face with envy!

The errand boys of the neighbourhood are very keen on wandering round
the hedges for birds’ nests--not to destroy them, but merely to feel
the thrill of peeping at the eggs. Red, aided by her cunning and her
deductive faculties, finds every single one of these nests!

On one occasion she raided a lark’s nest. All night long she had
followed a human “spoor,” which led over grass and clover and turnips.
At a certain place the track stopped and turned off abruptly towards a
clump of white marguerites.

Three nights in succession she came across the same lonely track, and
found it stop on each occasion exactly at this place. And yet there was
nothing there; that was peculiar!

She examined the immediate surroundings even more thoroughly, poked her
nose in the steaming scent-waves--where human foot stood long in one
place, the scent was warm; she knew that well enough!

At this a bird sprang up. She thrust her teeth into the nest and
lapped down the nearly full-grown young greedily....

She had been right after all; food always flowed where human footsteps
trod!


THE GREAT EATING-HOUSE

During the long, still evenings sounds could always be heard far away
in the huge “stone-heap” where most of the tracks found by Red sooner
or later ended. Often she approached courageously quite close and sat
outside listening. Perpetual noise and disturbance reigned within;
shrill whines, deep bellows, crowings, and cacklings penetrated its
walls. A strong animal smell, as if the stone-heap were wrapped in an
enormous food-paper, permeated the surrounding atmosphere.

One evening, as she sat hidden in the corn, she saw a man, with clogs
clattering and forepaws covered with fur, come out and walk past.

The stableman had Box with him....

The dog scented cat, and caught a glimpse of red fur--and now Red had
to gallop for her life through the corn.

Long-legged Box had almost overtaken her when she ran up into the
top of a small willow tree, where, by exerting all her strength, she
managed to hang fast, swaying to and fro. Box executed a wild war-dance
round the trunk, leaping up as high as he could; when he grew tired of
that, he turned his back to the tree and howled towards the farm for
help....

Suddenly he hears a noise behind him. He whirls round, but can see
nothing on account of the thick corn. He throws a glance up at the
willow-top. It is empty!

At last he realizes what has happened. The red scamp has outdone him;
with nose to the scent he rushes after....

The spoor leads into a ditch--and Box follows!

Now through a culvert under a road--and Box rushes at full speed into
the culvert! It is lined with stones, and narrow--_too_ narrow for the
dog’s well-nourished body; he sticks fast, and can move neither forward
nor back.

He has not even room left to bark; his ribs are gripped as in a vice;
it is all he can do to manage a feeble, frightened whine.

All that evening he remains a prisoner in his stone cell; during
the night the water rises and covers his paws--until at last, late
next afternoon, his body has become so emaciated that he succeeds in
squeezing backwards out of the trap.

Delighted, he runs home at once to the farm, where, however, he is
subjected to the additional humiliation of being well scolded for his
absence. How had his lordship enjoyed himself all that time? He had
perhaps been making love in the next parish? Or had he been camping out
with the fisherman’s yellow mongrel? Yes, he was a Don Juan, that’s
what he was; a thoroughly wicked fellow!...

“Be careful!” he was threatened vaguely. His place was in the farmyard
at night to keep guard!

Next day he was chained up.

       *       *       *       *       *

One would think that Red would have been so frightened by this narrow
escape that she would have avoided the farm and its surroundings for
the future; but it was far from being the case--that sort of mishap
had no effect on her at all.

In fact, with her system of going to work, such things were sure to
happen; no need, therefore, to take them too seriously!

A few evenings later she is sitting again at the edge of the cornfield,
and as nobody comes out and no dog chases her away, it is obvious that
she is meant to gain admittance!

She creeps along the garden fence and sneaks calmly past the stall to
the manure-heap, where she spends the whole night in undisturbed peace
ransacking “the big food bag.”

She came back night after night; and became more and more daring....

One morning early, the housewife coming suddenly into the larder,
discovered a strange cat sitting on one of the shelves, eating. She
grabbed the broom and lunged out after the brute, but in her excitement
aimed so badly that she transformed a large bowl of cream into a
cataract!

Now the farmer’s wife became really angry! If that red devil stole
cream, she’d soon begin taking puddings and meat....

She hit about her wildly and futilely.... While Red escaped by the
grating through which she had come.

       *       *       *       *       *

“_Was_ it a cat?”

The good woman became suddenly doubtful when she had cooled down.
Nobody round about owned such a cat, as far as she knew....

Was it not rather a young fox she had seen?...




CHAPTER SEVEN


BOX

Box was a mixture of every possible race of dog.

His head was pointed, but his ears, nevertheless, long and drooping,
resembling those of a Gordon setter. His short, thick, bulldog neck was
joined to a retriever body, from beneath which shot out four long, thin
greyhound legs, and behind which dangled a long, thin, mop-ended tail.

His eyes were wolf-like and shifty, and blinked treacherously when he
looked at one. Any attempt to pat him was repulsed with a growl and an
evil suspicious glance.

His coat was doubtful; but his mind was definite enough: quarrelsome,
ferocious, and snappish--ready to attack anyone or anything upon the
slightest provocation!

He had never been able to stand cats, a trait doubtless inherited from
some aristocratic, sensitive-nosed ancestor.... From his very earliest
days he had found it impossible to be on friendly terms with such musky
beasts.

In addition he hated sheep, and loathed the odour of cows and the stink
of swine; but however much his aristocratic instincts were offended, he
was always conscious at the back of his mind of a certain agreeable,
_meaty_ smell about them. The cat’s scent, however, was sour and old;
it smelled of mouse, which he despised from his birth.

Besides, they were always wanting to share his food with him--a habit
to which he objected strongly. They thought him asleep when--as
occasionally happened--he dozed over a bone at noon outside his kennel;
but he was wide awake enough, and knew exactly what their game was!

He really belonged to the farmer’s wife, and was always released at her
request. He then tore round doing his amiable best to exterminate the
farm’s feline inhabitants.

The foreman is sitting milking in the stall, when he is suddenly
overturned and kicked into the gutter. The cows roar frenziedly....
Box has just rushed by in pursuit of a cat!

As soon as the foreman has picked himself up, a clog comes hurtling at
Box--and just as he is disappearing crestfallen through the door, a
milk-stool catches him in the rear.

After this exploit he seldom ventured inside the stall-door; but
the foreman knew well enough when the ruffian stood outside peering
through the chink, for the stall-cat’s tail always swelled and stood to
attention immediately.

One day he surprised the good wife’s favourite kitten, a little white
he-cat, as it lay sleeping in the barn; it was too slow in waking, and
was captured. The farmer chased him with a shovel, and succeeded in
recovering the kitten, but it was dead. There was nothing to do except
break the news to his wife, and bury the corpse.

After that outrage Box was chained up for a very long time indeed. But
gradually his madness subsided so much that he learned to recognize
the “musk animals” attached to the farm; and although he could not of
course regard them as friends, he yet respected them for the sake of
the general peace.

But beyond the bounds of the farm, out on the road and in the fields,
he showed no mercy. Every cat he met there was his sworn enemy--and he
was master-hand at running them down and killing them.


CATS OF ALL COLOURS

Among the wheat, which is now almost ripe, flame the poppy-torches ...
the blue-stalked corn is so thickly massed that Grey Puss disappears
completely in its depths.

The seething of the rye from the adjacent field fills her sensitive
ear; it is the keynote of the summer music.

Out on the grass between the heaps of hay Box sits majestically on his
tail. He has accompanied the men working in the fields, and he feels
himself one of them, especially taking into consideration the important
nature of his sentry duty.

He has just been trying to facilitate the farmer’s ploughing by digging
a deep hole in search of a mole. But the ground is too dry and the
work on the whole too tedious--he doesn’t care about it any more! Then,
far away out on the road he sees a man walking, and so barks at him for
a time.

In this manner he is constantly useful!

At last he feels he would like a trot round.... Scarcely has he crossed
the potato-field when two partridges come running towards him. Wow! he
is upon them with a jump--and after them in the direction in which they
shoot away on their stiff, short wings!

Then he catches sight of an animal emerging from the corn. It creeps
along, its body close to the ground.... It smells, he notices; ha, cat
... cat!

Box has forgotten the partridges and races after puss. But it is
difficult for him to make progress, for the corn is thick and is higher
than the cat’s back. Only with extreme difficulty is he able to follow
the scent.

Grey Puss for the time takes things easily.... She canters quietly
away from the direction of the burial-mound. Several times she passes
ditches and bunches of thistles where she could easily have lain in
ambush and attacked the dog; but she knows Box well enough from old
times, and does not take the pursuit very seriously.

For a time they play hide-and-seek; then the affair bores her, and she
turns and makes a bee-line for home.

The children, not realizing the state of affairs, swarm out to meet her.

They see gliding towards them a daylight-coloured dog with big lumps of
night stuck to its coat. Its legs move very quickly, and its tail whips
and whistles like the wind. It comes with wide-open jaws, and tongue
hanging out of its mouth. “Ha, ha, ha!” it gasps, as with half-shut
eyes it sniffs eagerly through its big, split, padded snout.

Box suddenly sees the kittens. He literally quivers with ferocity; but
before he can reach them the entrance-hole is deserted.

For a long time he remains standing outside, barking and scratching up
the ground--then he rushes home to the farm and whines and jumps about;
he has something to tell--and he makes a jump towards the field; he has
seen cats out there, cats of _all_ colours!

Grey Puss pondered a while over the occurrence--this Box, near whose
kennel she used to sleep, on whose straw she had lain, and whose food
she had sometimes shared, what did he want here sniffing at their
mound? She could easily understand all the others, her natural enemies
in the fields; but this dog, who, like she, had once been in favour
with “the cunning ones”--was he friend or was he foe?

       *       *       *       *       *

One still, sunny morning she lies by herself at the edge of a ditch,
listening to the cows’ eternal chewing of the cud, when the sound
suddenly ceases.

She wonders why the cows stop eating--and when, in addition, one or two
of them begin to run about, she puts up her head--and sees Box lurch
out of the corn towards her....

During the whole of the week she has been persecuted by the dog and
chased about like a fox. Just as well have it out with him now as later!

For awhile she retreats before him, but upon reaching a small mound
she sits and composedly awaits her pursuer.

The plump hooligan, who has lost sight of his quarry behind the waving
grass, comes along, his nose close to the ground, fully occupied with
following the scent....

So unexpectedly has Grey Puss changed her tactics that he cannot make
up his mind to stop, but swerves to one side as if about to run past.
She turns as he swings round, thus keeping her face steadily to the
foe....

It is quite a new experience for Box to see a cat sit and wait to be
taken in his jaws.

He prefaces his attack with a volley of hoarse dog-oaths....

Grey Puss stands with head low and mouth open; dull thunder rumbles
from her throat, and her tail whips restlessly from side to side....

Box, who is unfortunate enough to have the sun full in his eyes, opens
his jaws wide and makes a ferocious snap; which the cat evades with a
high jump which terminates on his back. Facing backwards on him, she
lets fly with fore and back claws simultaneously, combing his flesh
time after time from neck to tail.

He howls, and shakes himself, and throws himself down, and rolls over
and over; but the moment he rises to his feet, Grey Puss is on his back
again.

The ruthless cat-exterminator is driven almost out of his wits with
pain, and rushes blindly away, burning with lust for revenge, and
raging impotently at such treatment from a much-despised cat, whom he
now tries to convince in a plaintive whine that he never meant the
slightest harm.

Twice he succeeds in shaking off the vile she-devil; but she is utterly
relentless--and so, when the old manure-well appears in sight, he turns
there instinctively for help. Without hesitation he tears at the crazy
lid with his strong, sharp claws--and plunges through head first, while
Grey Puss hops off like the flick of a whip.

A dull plash follows, and a tall spurt of red-brown fluid, emitting an
insufferable smell, rises behind him....

Grey Puss sneaks round the opening listening to his splashings; then
when no more Box appears, she returns straight home to her kittens.


THE LIFE-SAVING CHAIR

In the evening, when the men were returning from their work, they heard
a miserable howling and splashing from the old manure-well in the
field. They stopped and listened; they seemed to know the sound. Wasn’t
it Box’s voice?

One of them went nearer, and saw at once from the state of the boards
that someone had recently fallen through.

The moment Box heard help approaching, he began barking loudly. Thanks
to his long stilts, he had, fortunately for him, been able to reach the
bottom; but he could not escape unaided from the foul cesspool.

The man called to the others, and they hastened to help the unfortunate
bather.

An old fire-hook, attached to a bucket which was used to hoist manure
when the pump went on strike, was let down, and Box was not long
getting into the “life-saving chair.”

His lacerated and bleeding back was covered with a generous layer of
frightful-smelling muck; nevertheless, he felt deeply hurt when his
rescuers repulsed his eager, well-meant thanks for the service they had
rendered him.

“Puh! Box ... you pig!” they shouted, kicking out at him with their
wooden clogs as he rushed forward to embrace them.

And on arrival at the farm he was, without the slightest warning,
thrice swilled over with pails of horrid, icy-cold water.

And, to add insult to injury, he was forbidden admission to the house
for several days afterwards....

After this, “Dirty-pig Box” superseded the usual call of “Good Box” ...
dirty-pig Box who fell in the cesspit!

       *       *       *       *       *

Grey Puss is ruler of the fields; no other animal than Box dare face
her claws.

Once there came a fox; but Grey Puss settled with him long ago.
Prowling about one night he found the cat-family’s delicious scent;
followed it up to the burial-mound, and stuck his nose in the entrance
... spitting and wheezing noises exploded from every hole and crevice!

When he ventured farther, a claw-speckled wild beast flew out and
slashed at his head before he had time to bite. He had seen the
spitting fury plainly--but now after the impact he could not catch a
glimpse of it, although his nose and ears told him plainly that it was
still just in front of him.

Reynard shook his head and blinked his eyes incessantly, but without
effect; he remained steadily blind. The blood poured down his face--and
in the entrance before him stood Grey Puss, with back and belly arched
like a tightly strung bow. Her murderous claws had mutilated her
opponent terribly--both his eyes were torn out....

It would have been a life of idyllic peace for Grey Puss if only that
stupid Box had kept away....

Her old sweetheart, the kitten’s father, seldom leaves the shelter of
the farm nowadays, and never ventures as far as the old willow stumps,
let alone the burial-mound. Besides, the mother-cat no longer has
reason to fear him; he won’t try to eat his children now that they are
so big!

She has long since banished from the fields the numerous other cats
from the village and the neighbouring farms. The mere sight of such a
sleek, milk-fattened house-cat, who hunts and kills only for the sport
of the thing rouses a furious hatred in her breast. Besides, she is
just a wee bit jealous of their sheltered, luxurious lives!

It irritates her that she is forbidden access to the sweet milk-pails,
and that she is homeless, and doomed to eternal wandering. The shelter
of the barn, the warmth of the stall, the peaceful gloom of the loft,
have never lost their attraction for her....

During the day she now leaves the kittens to take care of themselves,
and spends most of her time sleeping under a hedge or fence near
by, lulled by the rustle of the leaves and the soft rasping of the
corn-stalks. At nightfall, however, she returns regularly to the
mound, bringing always some dainty or other with her. Then the young
ones jump and dance round her in delight, pulling and biting at her fur.

But in the depths of the night, some stray wayfarer, hurrying home
with lighted lantern along the road, sometimes sees a cluster of fiery
balls glowing in the darkness of the hedge. Two by two they hang, as if
fastened to the wall of gloom....

It is Grey Puss out hunting at the head of her band of kittens!

She catches hares, so big that she cannot drag them with her, but must
tear them asunder on the spot and parcel them out among the youngsters.


THE CROW AGAIN

The kittens are now compelled more and more to find their own food;
and in consequence are often reduced to a very meagre diet. Maybugs,
grasshoppers, and snails float about inside each of them!

Occasionally, however, the old cat gathers her flock around her.

When she has made an exceptionally big catch, which she herself cannot
eat up, she miauws them together for a great banquet. They behave in
exactly the same way as when they were small kittens: each of them
grabs a lump, and sits down gnawing it, always on the alert, growling,
scowling, and spitting--and, if necessary, fighting.

Black, especially, has developed extensively in the matter of
quarrelsomeness--and he is now the terror of his brothers and sisters
on account of his strength and brutality. He deprives both Grey and Red
mercilessly of their portions; he is not even afraid of letting Big’s
back make the acquaintance of his claws; which results as a rule in
that portion, also, dropping from its rightful owner’s jaws.

And if his claws do not suffice, his strong, pointed teeth are brought
into play, and infallibly succeed in convincing his victim that _part_
of the spoil is not what he is after; he wants the lot!

Naturally, everyone protests--and as a rule Big springs at his throat;
but when it is a question of fighting, Black is all there. He bites
hard, and has a habit of following it up at once with a second bite, if
the first does not take immediate effect.

As a result, he can take whatever liberties he chooses! One never knows
what he will do next: he tackles things which no ordinary cat would
dream of attempting; all his brothers and sisters, except Tiny, fight
shy of him.... As soon as they see him they shriek out “Fiew!” And
“fiew” is the cat language for “madness.”

Every morning and evening he takes his usual walk. Unseen and unheard,
he approaches his quarry, and before the luckless mouse or bird dreams
he is near, he is upon it with a spring. He never plays with his
victim, but disposes of it at once. Not until late in the morning does
he return home, for he never goes to rest except on a full stomach.

Just as Big is the scourge of all birds living in the field, so is
Black the scourge of all those living in hedge or wood. He wanders
from tree to tree, and not even the densest thicket can resist his
progress. He glides through the thorny, jealous heart of a hawthorn
copse like a panther, insensate and invulnerable. Tears in skin or
snout please him and urge him to greater efforts; it is as if his body
cannot feel pain. Black as the branch itself, he lies stretched at full
length, searching out the little birds’ homes--and once he catches a
glimpse of wings settling in hiding-place or treetop, he never rests
satisfied until he has made closer, thorough investigation.

But the old crow defies his strength and skill. It plays him all manner
of tricks, and uses every imaginable opportunity to bespatter him with
the foulest language.

One day it added to these an unspeakable insult!

It is early dawn.... All the birds are still half asleep, and flutter
clumsily as they flee from his path. Even the lark makes such a din in
rising that Black gives quite a jump.

He arrives with a young rat in his mouth at the entrance of the
village wood, when suddenly his old enemy the crow attacks him in his
usual unexpected, disconcerting manner.

He drops the rat for a moment and makes a foolhardy dash at the bird;
but it merely spreads its wings and, floating leisurely sideways a
short distance, settles on a big stone....

He would just run over there and shift the ugly devil!

His temper begins to get the better of him and he becomes more and more
foolhardy; the rat must look after itself for a bit, while he gives
that beast a real scare for once in its life! He races like a mad thing
after the bird, from grass tuft to mound, from stone to stone--and when
the cunning old crow has tempted the inexperienced hot-head far enough
away, it flaps back over his head and bags the spoil of war.

That _was_ a surprise; nay, more, an event unparalleled in the black
cynic’s whole experience! His back rises and his hair stands on end
with fury; but it does not bring back the young rat from the air.

       *       *       *       *       *

Nevertheless, in spite of all, he felt very proud of himself. Big-cat
could catch birds and Grey could catch mice; but _he_ could catch
rats....

His short, strong jaws could inflict a terrible bite--and his teeth
gradually became his most formidable weapon. It seemed almost as if
there were weasel’s blood in him, so quickly did he fix in his teeth;
and he employed just the animal’s tactics: spring and bite--and then
back out of reach again.

As soon as he found that rats had teeth, he began to use this method of
attack regularly.

Grey Puss often sat looking doubtfully at him.... No, she was sure he
was not quite cat-normal in the head!




CHAPTER EIGHT


THE KITTENS GO OUT HUNTING

Grey Puss had not been home for two whole days and nights.

And the unaided efforts of the kittens to secure food had not resulted
in anything more satisfying than the usual maybugs and dragon-flies,
with some extra big grasshoppers.

This morning it is such fine day weather that, after having waited
in vain till sunrise for their mother’s return, they resolve to set
out on a hunting expedition alone. Necessity is teaching even these
four-month-old babies self-reliance!

They start all together and wind their way successfully through the
corn; they reach a ditch, and soon after a road--faster and faster they
go....

Big is the leader. Red follows close behind, ready to help in the event
of her brother being specially lucky. She seconds him carefully; stops
instantly when he stops; crouches when he crouches. All the time her
flame-coloured eyes sweep round searchingly--and she wears her most
knowing expression. Farther back comes Grey with her long hare’s ears
thrust forward, her whole attention directed far ahead. She moves
forward in spasms, sinking down every other moment to the ground to
listen.

A little behind her saunters dreamy little White; she glances
carelessly about her at the larks, bumble-bees, her sisters ...
anything.

Last of all, far behind the rest, looms “Madness,” shadowed by
Tiny--surnamed “Terror.”

“Terror” has of late risen more and more in his brother’s estimation;
the cunning little weather-prophet exercises a wonderfully soothing
influence on the ever-angry warrior. Possibly it is because the little
fellow never with so much as a scowl or an arching of the back dares to
oppose him, but when attacked instantly rolls over abjectly in the dust.

Black likes the little coward’s companionship. It is true that he
preferred hunting alone--he was naturally of a solitary disposition
and could not work in a crowd; but, on the other hand, it was always
pleasant to have someone upon whom to vent his anger when his hunting
was a failure.

The dawn is beginning to break!

Behind a group of long, irregular clouds which stretch in streaks right
across the heavens, the rising sun’s reflected rays shine red and gold.
But below the clouds all is darkness, from the depths of which loom the
vague outlines of the immediate foreground.

White daisies twinkle round the thickets and wallflowers border the
rye-field, while snakeweed and cornflowers shine forth along hedge and
path.

A little reed-warbler gives a voice to a hole in the swamp and
sings and trills in thin staccato. The sight of an insect causes it
simultaneously to increase its volume of sound and to curve upwards
from the ground. For a moment it hangs with outspread wings motionless
in the air--then sinks slowly and gracefully, singing all the time.

White watches the bird’s movements lazily; her interest is so small
that her tail-tip scarcely curls.

The fly is not captured, nor was that really the little songster’s
intention.... The insect had merely roused its desire to leave its
gloomy hole and climb up into the fresh air and sunshine.

But now partridges begin to lend the fields voices; yellow-hammers
twitter in the hedges; starlings in the village wood; linnets in the
depths of the hawthorn thicket.

In a patch of weeds near one of the swamps a sucking-calf wakes from
its slumber. It has a skin like a lion and a pair of glittering-black,
leopard’s eyes; but in other respects could not possibly be mistaken
for a beast of prey. Although they have never seen such a creature
before, the kittens practically ignore it; except for White, who feels
enormously attracted the moment she catches a whiff of the sweet
cow-smell.

The calf is still so feeble that it cannot stand upon its legs. Its
eyes follow the small white visitor languidly, as the kitten with
arched back and rigid tail rubs herself affectionately against its neck.

White delights in the warm animal-odour which streams in over her;
closer and closer she presses herself against the calf, miauwing all
the while coyly and ingratiatingly.

The flies assemble in multitude on the baby calf’s wrinkled, red skin;
White catches a score of them with ease, and thereby satisfies her
appetite; then, discovering a thick layer of milk scum on her host’s
muzzle, she cautiously licks that off too. Finally she curls herself up
between the animal’s legs and goes to sleep.

The others continue hunting....

Scattered about at irregular intervals in the form of a fan, they
spread themselves out over the landscape.

On arriving at a wheat-field bordering the little village copse, Big
and the thief-cat find fresh human “spoor” on a narrow, winding path.
Anything human repels Big--but Red follows them up towards the farm....
Suddenly a flock of sparrows buzz out from a hedge and settle in the
wheat. A thrill runs through Big; his eyes gleam with the lust of the
chase--and he follows noiselessly in their wake.

Grey has long ago heard the squeak of a mouse in the hedge, and found
an inhabited mouse-hole near which he sits in ambush.


THE ATTACK ON THE CROW’S NEST

Black, shadowed by “Terror,” walks straight towards the village copse;
a little wilderness of elms and ashes, with a thick undergrowth of
nettles, meadow-sweet, and buttercups. A flower-bedecked box-thorn
hedge guides them from the fields into the twisting wood-scented
tunnels, where a subdued greenish glimmer succeeds the strong white
light of the meadow.

From a poplar over in the corner are heard gurglings and flutterings;
the young crows, already big and able to fly, are receiving their first
beakful of breakfast.

Black and Tiny sit down and listen eagerly.... Suddenly an old
she-hare, homeward bound, comes running along the path towards them.
At the sight of the giant animal “Terror” rushes off into hiding, but
Black puts on his war-paint and stands his ground: he raises his back
and shows his teeth, hoists his tail and erects a stiff bulwark of
“brushes” all over him.

The hare stamps his forefoot on the ground; then vanishes like the wind.

Before Black has quite recovered from this shock he gets another: his
enemy the old crow has spotted him, and hangs poised in the treetop.

A horrid red-green haze overspreads “Madness’” eyes; he shakes and
quivers all over his body each time the bird utters its loud, grating
cry.

He _hates_ that crow! His skill in climbing; his courage in attack;
his swiftness of spring; are useless against it. Noisy and bragging,
conscious of its enemy’s powerlessness, it balances high up in the air,
shouting to the whole world that he, the cat, is about, that he is on
the warpath!

Black’s whiskers quiver; he growls with suppressed savagery and
passion.... How he would like to catch that crow; torture it, eat
it--eat it very slowly!...

Now he slips into hiding in a burdock clump and waits patiently for the
squalling devil’s curiosity to subside.

A blackbird whistles from a willow and a magpie warbles from the copse;
he follows carefully by means of sounds what is happening ... and when
all is quiet again, he sneaks on once more--with his faithful follower
at his tail-end.

A strong, earthy smell mingled with the scent of flowers fills the
tunnels. The two cats have constant difficulty in breathing, and again
make towards the outskirts of the copse.

“Madness” is already making for the boundary-hedge when he suddenly
sees a young crow, with something heavy in its beak, flap into the top
of an elder tree. His glance grows as black as a thunder-cloud--and
without a second’s hesitation he leaps back from the hawthorn and
gallops to the tree.

“Terror” patters in his wake ... until he reaches the root of the
elder, where he sits up on his hind legs and watches the ascent.

Black climbs rapidly with short, agile springs. When he is half-way up
the young crow flies away to another treetop....

Black tries to follow by means of the lateral branches, but finding
none of these strong enough to bear, he is compelled to descend to the
bottom and begin all over again at the next tree.

The pursuit is carried on noiselessly. The bird has no suspicion that
it is being pursued; otherwise its wild war-cry would begin instantly.

The elders are half grown and rather difficult to climb. Nevertheless,
the cat’s zeal is unabated; although he has soon cantered up and down
three of them--but then, trees are for him nothing more formidable than
extra steep hills.

In the fourth elder he gives up, and hangs panting, with claws anchored
in the stem--while brother Tiny waits below, wildly excited as to the
result of the expedition.

Very often whilst waiting in this same manner “Terror” has received
his--in _his_ opinion--well-earned reward in the shape of a dropped
egg; or a wretched fledgling bird, which, horrified by the sight of the
two evil, greedy eyes rising over the side of the nest, has flapped
vainly into space on its half-formed wings, leaving Black to devour
its helpless brothers and sisters. All such windfalls Tiny takes as
thank-offerings from his big brother and promptly puts them out of
sight....

Was dear old “Madness” about to make another haul? The poltroon knows
well that in any case there is nothing to do but sit and wait!

Whilst doing so, he dares not for his life make a sound--not the least
hint of a “miauw!” Once, long ago, he did so--the next moment “Madness”
left his ambush and fell on him tooth and nail. Tiny supposed at first
that he was being attacked in mistake for the quarry. Would he be
eaten? But no, he should only keep his mouth shut!

After a long “breather,” the climber unclamps himself and resumes his
progress through the treetops. He comes soon to a place where the trees
stand extra close together, so that Tiny constantly receives twigs
and bits of bark in his face. Under this treatment the little rogue’s
keenness gradually diminishes--nothing good to eat comes down!

By chance Black stumbles on the tree where the crow’s nest is situated.
Walking along a cross branch he lowers himself into it. It is
beautifully soft and comfortable--but, alas! long since empty. A good
idea strikes him ... the sunshine is so gloriously warm up here ... why
not take his midday nap in the nest!

He lies down and, shutting his eyes, falls into a half-doze, without
taking the slightest regard for Tiny, who sits patiently waiting below.
Comfortably rolled up on his side, his nose thrust between his thighs,
he is wafted dreamily through space.

The sun goes gratefully down, saturating his coat with warmth and
filling his mind and body with content. The rushing of the wind and the
sighing of the long curved branches add to the sensuous enjoyment of
his slumber....

He has always loved thus to swing and sway. At home at the burial-mound
his favourite position is right at the very top of the little,
wind-blown poplar. On the occasions when he has quarrelled with all
the rest he likes to creep up there, and sit like a marten, with
his paws drawn well in under him. For hours at a time he sits there
with wrinkled scruff and half-shut eyes, enjoying the view out over
the undulating land. At long intervals he lowers his head and peeps
solemnly down, like an owl waking from sleep.

“Terror” finds the wait endless!

And the only explanation he can think of for his brother’s lengthy
residence above is that he has found something exceptionally good.
“Terror’s” large, wondering eyes sparkle with anticipation and
excitement ... at the worst he is sure to get a few bones or feathers!

He keeps scratching his claws impatiently on the tree-trunk; attempts
also to clamber up, but soon gives it up as hopeless.

Suddenly his spine tingles with fear; he hears the old crow’s hateful,
angry shout--he scurries away and hides in the cornfield.

Black, also, jumps up hurriedly. He leaps out of the nest and clings to
the trunk beneath, while with flattened ears he peers scowlingly into
the air....

Yes, there is the beast, hanging above him with its black wings
outstretched. It opens its beak and shrieks mockingly down at him. It’s
black, glittering eyes follow him viciously, totally unabashed by his
own raging, murderous glare.

“Madness” reaches a difficult fork in the tree and hesitates....

The crow instantly seizes the opportunity!

Conscious of its superiority in the air, it hurtles down upon him.
The cunning bird has long ago noticed that Black is an earthbound
animal--and now he has been so foolhardy as to leave the ground and
venture up into his opponent’s hunting-ground--yes, into its very
nest--he should soon be made to regret his insolence!

The old crow is also strongly influenced by the prospect of an easy
victory and a good feast afterwards. With all its might it fastens its
claws in the black cat’s shoulder.

The shock shakes Black from the fork, but he does not lose his balance;
he just slides down backwards until he reaches an out-jutting branch.
Clinging to this with his forepaws, he uses his back legs to such good
effect, that the crow is forced to let go his hold.

The kitten feels no fear; on the contrary, he is filled with hate. The
fury of madness flames in his eyes, and a white scum begins to froth
round his mouth.

The crow sits just before him on the branch, making vicious pecks at
his nose and eyes in the hope of overbalancing him. Suddenly Black
gathers his back legs beneath him and, in the same moment that his
enemy makes a fresh dart at him, launches himself forward.

The old crow is swept helplessly backwards by the reckless fury of the
assault. The next moment they are both whirling through the air towards
the ground.

Black, however, knows nothing of this. He is utterly engrossed in the
large, warm piece of meat, into which he now plunges his hind claws
also, biting and tearing all the while at the bird’s neck-feathers with
his short, pointed teeth.

They crash to the earth ... but continue fighting with unabated fury,
wrestling and rolling over and over, feathers and fur-tufts flying in
all directions.

The crow caws hoarsely, and struggles to break away from the kitten,
whose fighting prowess it has so disastrously underestimated.

With widespread tail-feathers and frantically flapping wings it tries
in vain to regain its feet, and shake off its maddened little opponent.
It bites and pecks unceasingly at Black’s fur, aiming cunningly at
the soft places; for it knows by instinct the cat’s most vulnerable
points--eyes and nose.

But Black does not budge until the last breath is squeezed from the
crow’s lifeless body.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Madness,” having killed his foe, straight-way sits down and begins
gnawing its head. At the sound of the crunching several of the other
kittens, who have watched terror-stricken the great black clump flutter
through the air, understand at last the nature of the situation.

Big rushes to the spot with giant leaps; Grey sneaks cautiously after
and springs upon the spoil, as if she herself had made the coup.
“Terror” swaggers from his hiding-place and fixes his teeth in a wing,
the toughness of which almost shakes his conviction that he is the very
devil of a fellow!




CHAPTER NINE


THE CANARY

Round the outskirts of the farm the wallflowers crowd in full bloom,
flaming and glowing in the nearly risen sun.

A little fox-coloured cat curls in and out among the flowers, sniffing
the yellow goose-grass and the purple thyme. With its own inimitable
deftness it avoids the dew.

It follows a human “spoor,” the pursuit of which its big brother has
long since abandoned on account of its acid smell.

Red reaches a garden; she enters--and now she scents spoor after spoor,
all of which lead along the hedge towards a heap of branches, where
they stand still for a long time.

She makes, as usual, a thorough investigation, sniffing each single
stone and leaf; but this time she is unlucky, and fails to remark
a little grey-brown partridge, which now, for the third year in
succession, hatches its eggs under the branches on the opposite side of
the hedge.

Here, in the leafy soil, the bird has formed its nest. The maid had
found it one day when hoeing the weeds from the path, and now she goes
there every day to look after her bird.

The ceaseless, soothing rustle of the poplar-leaves and the hollow,
satisfied purring of the rye filter through the hedge and distract the
scavenger’s attention. Then she surprises a dragon-fly with the morning
dew still on its wings....

Suddenly a burst of chirping and whistling streams out from an open
window: a bright yellow canary hops joyfully in its wire-bound cage.

Not a single “human” to be seen or heard! Red leaves the dragon-fly
to work out its own salvation and wriggles like a worm towards the
unsuspecting bird.

But how can she capture it?

Ah, that is _her_ specialty! Out in the wilds she fails time after
time; she is not quick enough, not bold enough, not sure enough! She
does not understand how to _work_; but she is a genius at thieving!

The fear of detection stimulates her special powers and characteristics
to an incredible degree. During these brief periods she becomes far
more cunning and far more ferocious than any of the other kittens.

If only the bird could fly up and away--she would be foiled at once!
Or if it could only keep calm and remain sitting in the middle of its
perch in its safe, wire-bound cage--all her efforts would be useless.

But the terrified canary begins to flutter about wildly--and Red’s
tactics make her still more confused.

The cat keeps jumping from one side to the other; and then up on the
top of the cage and down again....

The more maddened and confused the poor bird becomes, the calmer and
more composed is the cat. With cold-blooded precision she waits until
her victim comes within reach, then thrusts her strong paw against the
cage. The thin wires separate, and through the aperture her scythe-like
claws impale the canary and haul it towards her. One mouthful and it
is gone!

Now for flight....

Like a streak of sunlight she glides along the window-sill and leaps
to the ground--while sparrows from the gutter fight for the yellow
feather, which the warm summer breeze loosens from her whiskers and
bears aloft.

Once in the garden she gets up speed, scurries along the hedge, through
into the cornfield, and so along the hedge again.

But why run? No shout or bark breaks the silence ... it does not look
as if mankind’s four-legged police have seen her this time!


BOX AND THE RED COMMUNIST

Red became more and more reckless--and the wretched Box, who often saw
her from his kennel, suffered the agonies of Tantalus!

His defeat in the manure-well had not reformed the cat-nihilist. He was
still in the mood for war, and bent upon taking a bloody revenge.

For two whole weeks he has been chained up--but now the farmer’s wife
herself resolved to take him in hand. His constant assaults on all
cats, and especially his occasional outbreaks on her own, have for a
long time given her great annoyance.

Every day he spends several hours sitting in a basket of hay in the
kitchen together with five little newly-born kittens, which crawl
squeaking round his legs and body. By this treatment they hope to make
him accustomed to cats!

He is watched very closely; the slightest suspicious movement on his
part brings a crack on the head from ladle or poker. The little ones
also treat him with the utmost disrespect: they hiss at him and spit
right in his face!

When the “lesson” is over for the day and he is shut out of the
kitchen, his sensitive mind is in such a turmoil that he scarcely
knows what he is doing. The most weird things happen: he sees cats
everywhere--the sun itself turns into a huge, shining cat-face--and
with hair on end and tail between his legs he makes a frantic charge
towards it....

One day just after his lesson Box meets a little red cat-devil out in
the garden with an eel-skin in its mouth.

Black cats and grey cats were bad enough--but _red_ cats turned him
into a raving maniac!

He chases after the thief, who makes for the rye-field. The cheeky
little red-skin does not trouble to abandon her “catch,” and even has
the sangfroid to stop in her flight to dig it down!

The delay was almost fatal--and had she not been lucky enough, when
crossing a strip of fallow ground on her way to the cornfield, to run
across Grey Puss, who was stalking young peewits, there is little doubt
as to how things would have ended.

The old she-cat, realizing the state of affairs, unhesitatingly takes
her kitten’s place. She runs right across Box’s nose and inveigles
him after her into the cornfield. To do battle in the open is not her
intention at all; she knows far subtler tactics!

Once among the corn, she quickly contrives to lose sight of the dog;
and then lies down in ambush, waiting an opportunity to attack in the
rear.

Box is not smart enough to suspect her design. Feeling, as always,
that he is the undisputed lord of the fields, he rushes about barking
angrily and aggressively. Matters are taking their usual course, he
thinks!

That devil of a cat has of course hidden herself somewhere, and
imagines _his_ nose cannot find her--as if a cat were not the simplest
of all creatures to track down.... Why, every straw touched by a cat
simply stank!

Box is easy to deceive, and runs right into the trap set for him by the
little field tiger.

He has not the slightest idea how it happened--but this he _knows_:
that the clawed she-devil is sitting on his back again, and is already
tearing his skin to shreds.

His howls are so loud, and Grey Puss’ growls so deep and threatening,
that they are heard at the burial-mound. The kittens start up from
their day-doze and, fully understanding what is taking place, begin
to strut about with stiff legs and erect tails, uttering little
half-growls at intervals. “Madness” goes one better: he makes off
through the corn towards the scene of action....

He is a real little cat-sportsman!


THE SMOKE-DOG

The nihilist was really beginning to reform. What the farmer’s wife
failed to achieve with her dog lessons, Grey Puss succeeded in doing
with her needle-like claws.

But Box had his allies!

One Sunday afternoon, when the farm hands felt the time hang heavily,
one of them suggested a visit to the burial-mound. Box was always
running out there and barking at something--probably there was a fox in
the hole.

To be prepared for emergencies, one of the men snatched up an armful of
hay, and off they went, the dog dancing excitedly in front. Box, who
understood at once what was on foot, felt fearfully important--and the
moment the mound came in sight he set up a mighty war-cry; and by so
doing gave the kittens plenty of warning.

For a long time the inhabitants of the mound lay listening to the loud
barking; then they heard the dull tramp of “humans,” and a little later
the crackling of hay--and now a huge, foul-smelling creature entered
the tunnel.

Slowly and silently it crept forward; dirty and grey, it swayed and
swelled; soon it completely filled the passage.

Grey Puss growled threateningly and crouched low on the ground, her
face towards the oncoming monster. Big-kitten lay at her side, ready to
lend instant assistance; while “Madness” hissed and bared his teeth,
prepared to fight to the death.

He had fought with moles, with rats, and even with a crow--but never
with an opponent which stared so keenly back as this one. Although he
could not see its eyes in the gloom, the smoke-dog’s glare made his own
smart until they watered, so that he had to keep wiping them dry with
his forepaw.

Now the mysterious beast was upon them! “Madness” saw his mother spring
to her feet--and he rushed valiantly towards the enemy, his mouth
opened wide to seize it by the throat. Instead, he himself was seized
by the throat! He had to open his mouth still wider; he felt as if his
tongue were being torn out; he coughed and spluttered; a suffocating
feeling racked his nose; he could not draw breath; his nostrils
pricked and smarted as if clutched by the monster’s invisible claws.
Snorting and sneezing, he turned and fled for his life.

He has managed to escape; luckily the monster could not hold him! Also,
it does not drive him to frenzy, like that confounded old crow, by
jabbing at his tender whiskers all the time. It is more merciful, and
allows him to retreat in peace.

He regains his breath and is almost himself again. He rubs his head
well with both forepaws and prepares for another attack. This time he
is _determined_ not to run away--and he shakes his head up and down to
see where he is.

Fortunately for little “Madness” as well as for “Terror,” who together
with Grey and White lay crouched in a corner of the tomb, their eyes
flashing green with fright ... fortunately indeed for the whole happy
family, the “smoke-dog” abruptly ceased barking its stinking breath
down towards them.

The bundle of hay brought by the labourers was consumed. They could
have procured more easily enough--for there was plenty of corn round
the hill, and it lay in sheaves--but they had found out by now that
smoke was there in abundance--what was lacking was a draught to carry
the smoke down into the hole.

And besides, what if they did manage to suffocate the beast--they would
never be able to get it out and skin it; so that there would be no pelt
to make an odd shilling or two out of! What was the _use_ of it all?

Well, after all, they had killed time for a couple of hours ... and
they threw themselves on their backs and began to play with Box,
stroking his back and ears. Yes, he was a fine dog! “Here, Box,
Box!”--and they smacked their trouser-legs--“seize cat, seize cat!”

       *       *       *       *       *

That day was the last the kittens spent in the old viking-grave!

Just as once before in their lives Grey Puss had rescued them from the
willow stump, so did she rescue them now from the burial-mound.

This time it was so simple! They knew all about it in advance--and she
had only to place herself at their head and lead on....

They left the Hill Farm’s fertile fields, and crossed right over to the
other side of the village. There, near a disused peat-pit, they found a
dilapidated turf-house, in the deserted loft of which they made their
home.




CHAPTER TEN


THE BEST CAT

Big-cat knew the neighbourhood thoroughly for a distance of at least
two miles in every direction.

Along fence and ditch, which were his hunting-paths, he crept in search
of his prey....

Then he disappeared in a cornfield, and commenced his laborious
stalking operations, the thick forest of corn-stalks making constant
demands on his skill.

The green, brown-jointed stems stood quivering and swaying in the wind;
their withered, rust-spotted leaf-tips scratched his nose and poked him
in the eyes, while inflicting constant torture to his soft, sensitive
moustache. But once in the field he was unmindful of such trifles, and
with noiseless steps he stole along utterly absorbed, like the true
sportsman he was, in the breathless exaltation of the chase.

He was alone with Nature ... and in his ears sounded her unique
harmonies: the swishing of the wind through the poplar-top--that
full, rich music with its sharp undertone which could only be fully
appreciated by senses as finely attuned as his--and the thin, eternal
seething of the barley or the rattling of the oats, were to him the
earth’s song of love; he was its best cat, its greatest and happiest
hunter!

He felt in touch with Nature; inspired by her music to great deeds....
Tiny red ladybirds with black-spotted body-shields wandered up and
down the corn; and when he stopped to think, or to peer ahead through
the waving green multitude of straws, he could see the little red
fox-tongue of the poppy and the rough-haired cornflower’s deep blue
snake’s-eyes. At intervals the white marguerite flashed like a lark’s
breast momentarily into view, fixing his gaze for one fleeting moment
with hypnotic attraction.

The depths of the corn vibrated with mystery.... Sounds which lived
and died before he could guess their maker, thronged his ears on every
side! _Uncanny_ things happened out here in the jungle of the summer
corn--he felt sure of it!

A sudden rustling followed by a crashing retreat sounds in front of
him; it is the corn shrieking under the foot of a fleeting hare!
Presently a loud turmoil in the air breaks for the moment Nature’s
harmonious melody: he starts up, and the nervous twitching of his
whiskers betrays his overwrought condition; soon he hears the warning
call of an approaching partridge--and now he recognizes the noise, and
sits down again while his sensitive nerve-strings gradually resume
their normal vibration.

Finally, when a long-legged frog, panic-stricken at his approach, leaps
with its cold body right into his face, he has, fortunately, recovered
from his previous shock, and continues calmly on his way.

A large flock of tame pigeons from the farm sweep past just overhead,
bringing a glow to his eyes. Soon afterwards he hears the flap of
their wings as they land among the peas. In the flock are white, red,
and blue pigeons....

His body sinks to the ground. Now is the chance to prove that he is a
born master-hunter. He feels his pulse hammer and his heart thump!

After a quarter of an hour’s stalking he pokes his head out of a heap
of cut-down peas. He is panting for breath with a half-open mouth, and
his eyes shine with a greenish light. His muscles are tense to the
uttermost--the great thing now is not to surrender to his exhaustion
and so spoil everything he has already done....

The pigeons rise and float round in a circle--a habit they have--and
the next moment a dazzling white turbit flaps within reach.

No need for him to spring; he just lashes out and hooks three of his
curved claws into its breast! The claws go in easily enough; but they
will not come out again so willingly! In fact, the more frantically the
victim struggles to get loose, the more firmly his nails seem to hold;
they literally stick to everything they touch. Now his jaws flash
forward with their strong muscles--and the pigeon gives up the ghost at
the first bite!

With the spoil in his mouth Big-cat retires hurriedly into a recess
between two burdock plants; here he devours his catch.


“MADNESS” AND THE OWL

In the evening it is brother Black’s turn!

Reckless as “Madness” was in the daytime, it was nothing to what he
became when darkness fell. The moment the sun had set, his claws itched
to be out on the warpath....

At first he captured maybugs and grasshoppers; but when the darkness
began to gather he prepared for serious work. From the top of the
turf-house roof or from the brow of some hill he peered out over the
landscape, listening: were there “humans” or dogs about?

Worming and creeping between molehills and grass-stems he made his way,
stopping at frequent intervals to look round or listen. Where did the
lark go to bed? Where did the partridges assemble? He was not in the
least afraid of weasels and stoats; he let fly at them with his claws,
spitting and hissing....

One night when the sky is lowering and the clouds are scudding he goes
out as usual. He moves along on his soft, noiseless paws like a part
of the silent darkness itself. The owl over in the village copse hoots
hideously, making other creatures rush into hiding; but Black does not
hide; the sound makes his blood rage!

He steals into the copse, choosing the leafless places near the
boundary hedge and along the paths. “Ow!” Now he will be quite lame and
crippled; for he is compelled to remain motionless and silent at the
very moment he steps on a sharp-pointed stone.

The next second he is crouching flat on the ground, his ears directed
ahead.... Something is moving in front of him!

Oh, it is only the little baby hare which he has seen several times
already! It gambols round him--until the owl dives out of the darkness
and blots out the hare with its black wings. Then it utters that
diabolical shriek again. Black goes mad; it calls to him, he feels; it
_pulls_ him ... and he hurls himself forward--to be reduced to sheer
spitting and spluttering at the sight that confronts him.

A cat like himself, but with feathers and wings, rolls a beaked head
forward out of the bundle before him! It hoots mournfully, like the
wind sighing among the giant stones--and tears his nose with its
claws....

Black, also, blows himself out and glares fiercely at the enemy, while
his tail whips restlessly to and fro. He is suddenly a _cat of nine
tails_ standing there! What is more, his body does not stand on all
fours; only the two hind legs and the left forepaw bear its weight--his
right forepaw is, as usual, slightly raised ready for his lightning
spring!

Then his face twists sideways, and he intones the war-chant which he
has inherited from his father: “Auw-auw-auw--o-o-o--ttt!”

Can he capture spoil by hanging back and hesitating? Can he gain meat
by being afraid and running away?...

His thoughts drive him to frenzy!

He flies at the owl, and transfixes one of its ears. He attacks
again--and the flying cat decides that things are getting too warm. It
swings itself up to a branch and begins also to wail its war-cry:

“Auw-auw-auw....”

“Oo-oo-hoo-oo....”

“Tt-ttt....”

During the pauses Black devours the best parts of the hare.


THE HANGER-ON

Black is a fighter: brave, daring, sometimes foolhardy; but “Terror”
is, and always will be, a hanger-on.

When all danger is past, and the owl has flown away, he sneaks forward
and receives his usual share of the booty. He assists the angry warrior
in every possible manner: licks his wounds, rubs him dry, and offers
him his stomach as a nose-warmer.

Unfortunately for the little fellow, he does not understand in the
least how to profit by the talents bestowed on him by Mother Nature;
neither as humorist nor as weather-prophet can he earn his daily bread.

All the more desperately, therefore, he clings to his brother;
seeking, by means of constant vigilance and servility, to make himself
indispensable to the fighter.

A few days later they are both lying asleep under a hedge, when
“Terror” hears a twittering and sits up. Raising his head, he peeps
cautiously out over the grass, and sees a blackbird catching worms on
the turf.

Just then another blackbird joins the first, forcing Tiny to duck down
hurriedly.

While still in his hiding-place, he turns his head slowly to one side,
pushing his ears at the same time, if possible, still farther forward.
The slightest movement, he knows, is dangerous if done openly....

Now he is ready to let his yellow orbs, like twin searchlights, sweep
in a new direction; again he sticks up his head.

“Hurrah!” He almost jumps with joy at the sight that meets his eyes.
The freshly harvested pea-field before him is literally carpeted with
small hedge-sparrows! Oh, how his heart beats! He can feel its ticking
in every toe-tip ... small hedge-sparrows, the best of all! Um-m-m!

His sinews twist and stretch in sympathy with his mental exaltation,
and his coat bulges with his expanding muscles.... Blackbirds on one
hand, sparrows on the other--and now a little dike-chat just overhead!
He can’t resist craning his neck to watch the little dear.... How his
stalking qualities are being tested to-day!

But it is too big a job for “Terror”; he must wake Black--and he
touches the slumbering god gingerly with his paw.

“Madness” laboriously raises one sleep-laden eyelid; and at first is
inclined to thrash the other for his supposed clumsiness. But upon
catching sight of his assistant’s strained expression he understands
that something good to eat must be in the neighbourhood.

He jumps up and looks round.

Then, to Tiny’s almost tearful amazement and disappointment, the great
man, instead of holding a council of war, curls up again and goes to
sleep.

Black is an old hand; he knows that birds are best stalked after dark!


GREY ON THE WARPATH

Over hill and dale as far as the eye can reach stretch line after line
of stacked-up corn-sheaves. The golden oats and the light-yellow barley
and wheat, have fallen asleep at last--heavy and listless under the
clear, blue harvest sky. The spring’s soft call to growth and love,
the summer’s vibrant note of lust and passion, have worked their will
and ripened every ear. Out here in the fields, in Nature’s sun-baked
forcing-house, are none--_none_ who have not found and drunk to its
dregs the strong, sweet wine of fruitful life. They have sprung into
being, grown up, fructified--now they bring forth their seed and yield
themselves to fate....

One sunny afternoon, while the spiders spin their webs and the
pimpernels blink their little red flowers, Grey sets out hunting
through the rye stubble.

Suddenly she hears the squeak of a mouse from a heap of rakings--and
becomes instantly stiff and rigid, her ears forward and tail bent.

The mice are indeed holding a feast in the rakings; the company is
joyous and boisterous at the sight of such a good spread.

With shining eyes Grey cautiously lifts her forepaw and moves it
slowly, very slowly, forward; silently she puts it down on the
ground--and now she brings her back leg forward too, raising it high in
the air to avoid the stubble. But just as she is about to put it down,
the mice become suddenly silent--and she has to remain for a long time
in her uncomfortable position.

At last the happy squeaking begins again--and Grey completes her step
and commences a fresh one.

It takes her a whole quarter of an hour to move two yards; but to her
it seems no longer than a minute.

When stalking, she falls into the most extraordinary attitudes: she
crooks her back, stretches forward her neck, and curls like the bed of
a stream round stray stones and loose ears of corn; but at last she is
so close that the mouse-feast is directly under her nose.

Noiselessly she leaps forward ... plunges into the heap of straw;
makes one swift, fatal stroke with her forepaw--and pulls out a small,
earth-coloured mouse, which she puts straight into her mouth.

As she walked away she felt and looked very proud of her victory.
True, she would have liked to torture her victim; but she had been too
ravenous to wait!

It was soon an everyday event for Grey to capture a mouse! She, the
little, short-legged, big-eared kitten, who was herself rather like a
big rat, had become indeed the terror of the small nibblers.

But she had another string to her bow!

For hours she would lie in wait by the side of the big bog-pool, and
fish the gleaming shell-fish out of the water with lightning strokes
of her paw. Regularly in the early morning she would creep down to the
pond, and sit on the extreme edge, without paying the least attention
to the splashing of the small waves. On one occasion she even plunged
head first into the water--and came up again with a large, wriggling
carp in her mouth.

She was not only a mouse-cat, but a fish-cat too!


THE THIEF-CAT

While the others sneaked round in copse and cornfield, following their
crooked, winding hunting-paths, Red-kitten usually made a bee-line to
the nearest house or farm. Sometimes, at rare intervals, she ventured
into the village itself. She liked best to approach by means of the
high road and the path through the churchyard ... but it had to be very
late at night, when it was quite dark!

In broad daylight she preferred keeping under cover as much as
possible, and following cattle-paths, wheel-tracks, and ditches. The
nearer she approached to the village, the shorter and slower became her
steps--until at last she sat down to consider matters and spy out the
land.

She was cautious almost to absurdity; but caution as well as courage
were necessary if she were to succeed. She knew that the village
bristled with obstacles: dogs by the dozen to chase her, and other cats
who would bar her progress from sheer evil nature and jealousy. But
life is full of such worries!

She had developed a taste for “kitchen-game”: roast herring and lumps
of eel, boiled meat and delicious-smelling ham! She found that kind
of thing much easier to capture than mice or birds. She regarded
cream, especially, as a great delicacy--and her red-striped coat could
therefore often be seen where this brand of “kitchen-game” lay in
hiding.

The bailiff kept a sharp lookout for her. Once he kept watch the whole
day from morning till evening outside his back door, where an old,
dilapidated meat-safe of his had recently been plundered. In it lay a
freshly roasted pork chop, the smell of which he hoped would attract
the thief.

About noon, however, the bailiff became hungry and went indoors to
refresh himself after his morning’s tedious exertions--and when he
came out again half an hour later to resume his watch, he was just in
time to see the “red devil” vanish through the garden with the pork
chop in her jaws.

Red had scented the “kitchen-bird” in its cage on the wall and had
broken her way in; well for her that she had heard the footsteps in
time....

Whenever she found anything that suited her fancy she took it at
once. To do otherwise, it seemed to her, would be stupidity--and of
_stupidity_ no one had yet accused the thief-cat!


WHITE-KITTEN AND THE CALF

In the neighbourhood of the pool also, where the red baby calf was
tethered, autumn began to wave its withered hand. The great burdock
plants were dying of consumption; their huge flat leaves were faded and
contracted. When White brushed against them in passing, they crackled
irritably.

White-kitten came down almost daily to the pool; the little red
ruminant and she became quite friendly after a while. They rubbed
noses together and galloped away at full speed, the calf in front with
its stiff, clumsy hops, and White just behind.

One day, as the calf rose to its feet, the kitten seized hold of the
tuft at the end of its tail and let herself be dragged some distance
along the ground.

After that, “joy-rides” at the end of the calf’s tail became one of her
greatest delights.

She knew exactly when the calf’s owner--the small farmer from the
cottage by the side of the bog--came out with the milk-pail; but she
had not yet summoned up courage to greet him. But as soon as the man
went away again she sneaked forward to lick up any stray milk scum.

She felt enormously attracted by the man--and long after he had left
she wandered about feeling a strange longing to make his acquaintance.

One day she found an old brown switch, which had been thrown on the
field one winter with the manure, and had now taken root in the earth
with its weather-beaten remaining twigs sticking up in the air.
White-kitten ran and rubbed herself against this broom every time the
man had been with the calf!

In spite of the wild environment in which she had grown up, White was
quite tame. Her dreams always centred round what seemed to her the
greatest luxuries in life: dry shelter and delicious heat. Although she
had never been inside a house, she was constantly obsessed with the
idea of a warm stove with glowing sides, before which she lay curled up
roasting herself.

One morning, when the crofter was bringing milk to the calf, she could
hold back no longer. She left the shelter of the dock-leaves and hopped
quickly past him--but stopped for a moment before bolting into cover
again.

The man called to her as she went; and then, softening his voice and
drawing out the sound alluringly, he repeated, “Pu-s-s! Pu-s-s!”

It was the first time the kitten had ever heard these human sounds--and
the new, delightful music charmed her. She felt her trust in mankind
growing....

And the next time the man called she went nearer still.




CHAPTER ELEVEN


THE KITTENS HUNT BY NIGHT

The September moon rises red-gold and majestic from the mists of the
horizon, and lights up the harvested fields where the five big kittens
are stalking their prey. They no longer hunt in a body, but are spread
out all over the field, working independently....

A soft, many-hued light bathes the undulating hills; only the hollows
and valleys are gloomy and colourless. Voices from the surrounding
homesteads echo through the motionless air, mingling with the mooing of
calves and the bleating of lambs. The guns of the duck-shooters drone
faintly from the marsh. But here among the barley stubble where the
partridge coveys settle, all is still and silent....

Along one of the many paths left by the broad wheel of the
reaping-machine Grey-kitten glides, her whole soul absorbed in the
rustling of invisible mice....

Big is out after partridge; he hugs the edge of the ditch, stopping
frequently to peer over the tall golden-rod and the knap-weed’s empty
pods. He sees the coveys of partridge running to and fro among the
rakings; the young males are quarrelling, while the old cock looks on
and crows. His aim now is to find out where they mean to “pack” for the
night.

Black hangs about near a drain-pipe in which lives a fox-cub, with whom
he hopes to pick a quarrel! In the wood a few days ago the cub had
bagged a sparrow from right under his nose--an event which upset the
kitten so terribly that he has quite lost his appetite!

A little way off a flock of terrified sheep stand gaping at him; they
have heard his weird hissing and spitting....

But on the top of the hill Tiny sits on a stray sheaf and makes a grab
with his paws at every maybug that hums its way past. He is waiting
patiently for Black and Big to make a haul--when he hopes to get
something more satisfying to eat.

The moon, which immediately after rising had dived into some black
clouds, now thrusts its yellow-green face from its sombre garments and
stares fixedly at White-kitten, who has just finished a cheese-rind
left behind from the harvesters’ lunch.

White then discovers a tuft of grass, on which an old woman has
recently been sitting--and begins rolling over and rubbing her back on
the place.

Red is nowhere to be seen--probably out on one of her usual thieving
raids in the village.

The full moon again veils herself; and then, peeping out for a moment,
silhouettes the form of an old cat on the turf-house roof. The cat
scrambles down the thatch and leaps to the ground--then sneaks off in
the direction away from the kittens.

The kittens are now seldom seen together: each spends the day according
to his bent, flitting along ditch and hedge, or nosing around farm and
outhouse. They all find their own food, using the means best suited to
their different natures and capabilities.


THE DEATH OF BOX

Grey Puss becomes lazier and lazier, and no longer takes the slightest
interest in her offsprings’ food difficulties. Whereas formerly she
used often to go hungry herself in order to feed her kittens, she now
almost invariably devours her catch herself. Yes, it has even happened
that, upon surprising one of the children with an extra tempting mouse,
she has taken rather than given! She behaves all at once as if she were
not their mother at all.

       *       *       *       *       *

Through the regiment of withered thistle-tops lining the path by the
marsh she patters peacefully along to the broad high road, where her
grey coat soon disappears in the twilight.

From the opposite direction Box comes walking dejectedly. He is now no
longer the terror of the cat neighbourhood; and besides, at the moment
there burns inside him the strong but unsated fire of love. After a
three days’ fruitless vigil outside the vicarage gates of a distant
village he is now returning home.

Without thought of evil he slinks leisurely along the main road towards
home, and has just reached the bridge over the stream when he finds
himself suddenly face to face with the “claw-beast,” who emerges from
the shadow at the side of the bridge with the intention of crossing
the road. Box, from force of habit, gives the alarm, and charges
courageously forward--the cat straightens her legs and becomes all at
once big and glistening, at the same time exploding with spits and
hisses....

When too late Box recognizes the ferocious creature!

He has lately succeeded in convincing himself that he no longer cares
for gadding about the fields after cats and other “vermin.” And now,
suddenly remembering his dearly bought experience in connection with
this field-tiger’s claws, he makes his good resolution an excuse for
shunning the she-devil. The stream is handy--and he is not afraid of
_water_.

True, his canine self-respect protests, but only for a moment; a
glimpse of the curved yellow-green claws, whose capacity for inflicting
pain he knows so well, gives him a sudden sinking feeling--and the next
moment he has plunged into the water.

But he is mistaken in thinking that Grey Puss will not follow him!

The brave little mother-cat, overwrought as she is with the strain and
anxiety of the summer, is transformed into a fury at the sound of her
old tormentor’s ill-natured bark; she springs after him, just as in his
time he has sprung after her--and seeing him like a little floating
island beneath her, she is seized with the devilish inspiration to land
on that island.

With a beautifully judged spring she lands with all four claw-bunches
smack on the dog’s forehead; and he disappears in a long, sudden dive
which stifles his howls of misery.

Now follows an extraordinary life-and-death struggle!

Box is quite mad with terror....

Every time he shows himself above water the cat climbs up on his back
from behind and scratches and bites him so mercilessly that he has no
choice but to dive again.

He treads water, bristles up, and arches his back; while Grey Puss
spits, gurgles, and splutters. He makes an attempt to bite; but a claw
plunges into his snout and stops there....

He puts up a forepaw to free his snout; but a lightning bite paralyses
the paw....

He is breathing water now instead of air. ... He is slowly losing
consciousness--but the claw still hangs fast....

He flounders no longer; he sinks, but this time he does not rise....
The poor old cat-nihilist is reformed at last!


HOME-SICKNESS

Now that Box was dead Grey Puss had only mankind to fear!

She hated mankind, which surpassed even her in cunning and
rapacity--and yet, she could never forget that she had once been a
member of the human household.

Mankind was her strong, invincible rival! Once for all, on the occasion
when it had lured her into the sack and flung her into the water, it
had imbued her with such terror of its incredible treachery that she
could not bear to hear, smell, or see it. But none the less in the
depths of her soul she admired it immensely....

She hated it, so that she could have torn its throat asunder, and
yet she loved it so intensely that she erected her tail and purred
contentedly at the mere thought of rubbing her back once more against a
pair of trousered legs.

This never-ceasing struggle between her own personality and the
instinct inherited from a thousand generations of man-serving ancestors
was at times so intense that on many a still, dark night she had
sneaked home to the farm fully determined to remain; but at daybreak
the rough sounds of wooden clogs and men’s voices broke the spell, and
she had fled again to the fields....




CHAPTER TWELVE


THE DEMON MOUSER

The crofter lived down by the marsh, where he owned some fields with
blackish-brown soil, which he was ploughing for the autumn sowing....

The ploughing progressed spasmodically; for he had only one horse, and
that a small one, that had to stop every few minutes for breath.

“Get along!” said the man to it lethargically.... “Gee up!”

But the horse declined; it considered that it should be allowed a
little longer respite.

“Gee up!” came the order again--and now the man took hold of the reins
which hung loose on the horse’s back.

The nag continued to breathe heavily. The whip had to be produced.

“Get along!... Gee up!”

The old crock lunged out behind and gave a hop into the air--the
preliminaries to starting.

At last they got going again.... Slowly, very slowly, the ploughshare
pushed up the wet earth. The horse pulled itself together and strained
at the harness until the traces quivered; it lunged with its legs and
threw its weight forward, making the plough go faster and faster, so
that the little man had to hurry to keep pace, and once or twice had to
run.

Things went like a house afire for about twenty yards; then the horse
stopped abruptly--time for another rest!

“First-rate!” thought the crofter--and rested also.

Thus, each perfectly understanding the other, they ploughed away
patiently the whole day long....

One evening the crofter stopped earlier than usual.... The heavens were
ablaze and the horizon seethed with flame; the last remnants of day
were being cremated!

Having settled his assistant comfortably in the stall, he set out over
the hill to a meadow where he had grazing rights.

A little later he appeared again leading a small red cow-calf, his bent
back and bowed legs silhouetted gnome-like against the sunset.

The weather was too cold now, besides being too rough and stormy, to
leave young cattle out after dark!

       *       *       *       *       *

After bolting the calf in, he stands a moment outside his door and
reads from a scrap of newspaper. Suddenly he notices a slight movement
at his feet, and, looking down, sees a little white kitten with arched
back and lifted tail rubbing itself affectionately against his wooden
clogs.

“Well I never! Where did you spring from?”

White becomes nervous at hearing a human voice and hops away a little.
The crofter bends down and makes coaxing noises to her.

She comes nearer again, and now she feels a hand grasp her round the
body--how deliciously it tickles!...

       *       *       *       *       *

The little farmer’s house, which formed one with the stall and barn,
was overrun with mice. Of an evening when he sat reading they would
often come peeping over the edge of the table and crawl over his
trousers.

He never told how they behaved when he was in bed!

At intervals he brought the farm-cat into the rooms; but it never had
the faintest notion of what was required, and rushed about terrified,
knocking everything down until it was let out again.

White-kitten, therefore, was not unwelcome!

She behaved at once as if she had lived in a house all her life! She
learned to chase after mice on the chest-of-drawers without overturning
the shell-mounted frame containing the photograph of the man in his
soldier’s uniform, and to catch flies on the table without stepping
into the dripping-dish or tea-mug.

She was industrious, affectionate, and anxious to please, besides
which, she knew when to keep out of the way when not wanted. In fact,
she behaved in every respect just as the slave nature in man prefers
his dependents to behave!

The mice soon disappeared completely! Not because they were captured,
but because they could not endure the constant persecution....

And White was named the “demon mouser!”


EXIT RED

Sulphur-yellow, gall-green shafts mingle with the scarlet of the
sunrise, and slowly wrest a large quadrangular farmhouse from the
cloudy October dawn’s foul wet mists.

Outside the cow-stall, an old-fashioned milk-jar with its narrow neck
appears out of the grey dawn. The milk-woman uses it every morning to
take a pint of milk home to her children. A few traces of milk still
cling to the bottom--enough, at any rate, to tempt a sweet-tooth!

The woman is inside milking, when Red comes sneaking along the barn,
catches sight of the jar, sticks her nose in, and smells distinctly the
milk on the bottom. She rests her forepaws on the round, bulging body
of the vessel, and tries hard to push her head through the narrow neck.

After several attempts she manages, by turning her head vigorously from
side to side, to slide it in, her ears pressed tightly back and her
furry cheeks brushing the smooth earthenware.

She has succeeded--and she licks the jar cleaner than it has ever been
before since the day it was made.

Then she prepares to retreat. But now, suddenly, she cannot get her
head out; her thick neck and gristly ears are wedged fast! She becomes
flurried ... and instead of trying to wriggle out gently, she begins to
tug and wrestle; with the result that she fixes her frightful mask more
firmly still. She topples over on her side, and rolls about clawing
dementedly at the stone cobbles--until at last she regains her feet and
staggers blindly into the yard.

The weird figure is soon seen from one of the windows. Now they’ve got
her at last!

They recognize her at once--so a sack is soon fetched and slipped over
her hind parts. For now she shall be drowned!

Just then a rag and bone man turns into the yard.

Once or twice a year he comes and buys old rags and bottles, and all
sorts of worthless rubbish.

The fellow at once notices the cat’s shining fox-red coat--and the
quick-witted farmer conceives a brilliant idea. The fellow has cheated
him so many times; now he shall be paid back in his own coin!

With a cautious tap of the hammer he releases the cat from the jar....

“Do you want to buy a splendid mouser?”

“You bet I do!” replies the ragged one ... it was just what he was
looking for.

The farmer piled on the agony. “Yes, she’s a record killer! You will
scarcely believe it, but just before you came into the yard, she nearly
strangled herself capturing a mouse which had dived into this milk-jar!”

The rag and bone man was completely taken in; he bought the cat eagerly
and immediately.

He put Red in his sack, and the two thieves left the yard together.


BIG-KITTEN TURNS WILD CAT

One autumn evening, as huge, billowy clouds are drifting across the
orange-gold western sky, Big-cat wakes in his lair and feels the call
to action. The noise of day has died from the fields, and the cows with
their watching eyes have gone to rest for the night....

He slinks across naked, deserted fields, where the wild camomile lifts
its cheerful face above the white-grey stubble. Like all great hunters,
he feels the need of a constant change of hunting-grounds; hence his
journey through the cold, dry September night, lighted by the pale,
shining, half-grown moon.

Over hill and along hawthorn hedge he hurries; catches a lark in her
nest, and a mouse by a daring leap from a post--and at daybreak lies
down for his day’s rest behind a yellow grass-tuft in a dry, secluded
gravel-pit.

Towards noon he is awakened by the sound of paws in the shingle. He
should just have remained lying still among the grass--which was
grey-yellow and withered black in colour, and not unlike his own
marking--but he forgot himself and ran.

The big, spotted hound got quite a shock; he stepped for a moment and
looked back. Two men with guns, one of whom was “Uncas’” master, were
approaching, talking together and pulling at their pipes.

Uncas seized his opportunity and tore after the cat.

The men began shouting and whistling; but as far as the dog was
concerned the die was cast. Nothing could stop him now--away he went at
a wild gallop!

Just ahead, the river flows in a long, graceful curve, its cold, black
waters scaring the yellow autumnal landscape.

Big knows the river well; he knows, too, that not even _his_ jump can
clear it. He therefore makes for the wooden bridge.

The main road crosses the bridge....

When the cat is half-way over, he feels the woodwork vibrate in
a curious manner beneath his feet; he sees a spitting, humming,
machine-animal whizzing towards him....

Just behind him is the dog, barking excitedly....

For a moment Big-cat hesitates; then, seeing no alternative, leaps
bravely between the iron railings and falls with a splash into the
river.

He sinks like a stone through the water, but the moment it closes over
his head he commences kicking instinctively with his legs. At last he
gets air again; he sees the sky above him. He swims mechanically--but
believes that he is running through the water....

The motor-cycle rushed on over the bridge--the dog crossed its path; a
howl, a crash, oaths and curses....

Meanwhile a dripping, bedraggled cat galloped away across the fields.
He shook himself, and ran, and then shook himself again.... He has
managed to come out on top as usual!

He kept on at full speed until he reached the boundaries of a large,
private wood some distance away, by which time his fur was quite dry
from his exertions. After several vain attempts he succeeded in scaling
the tall, wooden palisade surrounding the wood, and, plunging in among
the trees, soon came to a tumble-down game-keeper’s hut, in the loft of
which he remained in comfort for a week.

From here he made excursions in all directions; but the old willow
stump and the long, winding hawthorn hedge were no longer in sight to
remind him to return, and with the disappearance of these and other
landmarks the threads that bound him to his home snapped for ever.

He drifted farther and farther away out into the wide world, and
finished his career as wild cat in a distant deer park.


THE HOME OF THE FISHERMAN

After leaving the village the main road rose over the brow of the hill
and ran down again between rich, fertile fields until it crossed the
river which hugged the valley.

At the bottom of the hill a small, idyllic brook had once flowed into
the river, but it had dried up, leaving behind only the shallow
watercourse, which now served as a drain.

The road crossed the river by means of a flint-paved bridge, and swung
round a fisherman’s cottage before continuing farther across country.

The fisherman had been a widower for thirteen years, and he had lived
in the house for twenty--so that he knew its ins and outs fairly well.
A small garden and a few rods of ploughed land supplied potatoes for
him and oats for his horse. Three or four times a week he drove round
the countryside selling the fish he caught in the fjord. It was a long
way for the horse to pull--sometimes as much as twenty-five or thirty
miles a day; but in return the beast was often allowed to slack for
several days on end.

The gables of the building faced east-west, and all its doors and its
small windows opened towards the south.

The west end, which was nearest the road, formed the stall and
pigsty--in which a pig was always grunting. The outhouse, consisting
of woodshed and barn, was situated on the east, from which direction
the winter storms usually raged. Between the two nestled the inhabited
quarter, comprising corridor, tiny kitchen, and living-room.

For seven years it had been vouchsafed the fisherman to live in this
room with his wife; then she died, leaving behind her seven children,
who had long since deserted the parental roof. From the quiet, peaceful
countryside to which their father clung with his whole nature, they
had emigrated to the big town, which they could not imagine themselves
leaving.

“I’ve had enough of all that fuss with children,” said the fisherman.
“Thank goodness it’s over and done with!”

Now he lived totally alone. He kept the house in order himself, and
made the food himself--and smoked his way with cheap tobacco through
the long, winter evenings.

It was quite cosy in the living-room, where a pair of large pictures
of himself and his wife when young hung on the wall, and where the
inevitable soldier-photographs of the boys--who all later on became
navvies or brick-layers--stood upon the chest-of-drawers. In the
window beneath the short cotton curtains stood well-tended pot-plants
on neat wooden stands.... It was all meagre enough, but decent and
orderly.

In addition to the horse, which was the old man’s jewel, and the pig,
which was treated as a son, he owned a little dog called Bibs. The
latter guarded the house when his master was away.

Bibs reigned in the living-room. Outside--in the stall, barn, and
loft--a cat was in command; but in reality the post was vacant, for old
Peter, with his pale, lack-lustre eyes and moth-eaten tail, was now
so decrepit and worn-out that he could no longer hear whether mice or
other vermin scratched or not.

For fourteen years the cat had lived with the fisherman, who alleged
that he was so intelligent that he understood what was said to him.
For instance, if the cat sat by the stove and the man bent down and
shouted, “Peter, get out!” he got up and went out.

He always ran to meet the fish-cart when it came home from the
fishing-place laden with eels or herring--and as reward the fisherman
would fling him a squab or a dab, or perhaps a small eel. He could
recognize the horse’s trot from a great distance, and when it came in
sight he miauwed with delight, opening his mouth so wide that one could
see far down into his stomach.

In his palmy days he used to run a mile along the road to meet the
cart--but now he could only manage a couple of hundred yards.

Peter was the apple of the fisherman’s eye, and Grey would never
have found favour with him had not the old cat himself received his
successor, when she suddenly walked in one freezing autumn morning,
with the utmost graciousness.

For Grey-kitten was a lady, and old Mr. Peter’s ingrained tendency
towards gallantry acquired new life at the sight of the pretty, little,
long-eared pussy-cat. A golden gleam filled the fellow’s pale eyes, and
the fisherman often saw the stiff, rheumatic old tyke sitting for hours
at a time under a tree up which his new, agile little lodger had fled.

But one day when it is raining hard, Grey-kitten cannot escape from the
old stink-pot; she has to run up into the hayloft.

Peter crawls up the ladder in pursuit, and Grey springs out of the
window on to a headless poplar growing beside the house.

Peter, forgetting his age, makes a rash leap after her ... but misses
his footing and falls into the water.

However, he is quickly on land again, where he sits down and waits
faithfully under the tree in which the object of his senile affection
is enthroned.

He shakes with cold, but endures bravely--and when the fisherman
returns home in the evening, he finds his old comrade still sitting
there, stiff and dead....

       *       *       *       *       *

After that Grey inherited his office as a matter of course, and as
time passed succeeded in discharging it entirely to her master’s
satisfaction.

She was called “Puss” and “Pussy-girl”--and she had a busy time ridding
the old, neglected hovel of mice. She soon made herself at home in
the stall, barn, and loft, which were just as dark and dirty as the
burial-mound and the willow bole.

One day, only six months later, she came running with her tail proudly
hoisted, to meet the old fisherman as he was driving home, and jumped
up beside him in the cart. And then, after the horse had been put in
the stall and the fish-boxes unloaded, she was given two or three
little eels or dabs.

Fish had always been her favourite food!


BLACK JOINS THE ARMY

At last “Madness” has succeeded in coming to grips with the young
fox....

They do battle on a grassy field, bounded on one side by yellow straw
and on the other by dried-up, rust-coloured clover.

Black crouches on three legs, swaying his doubled-up body, and prepares
to give Reynard a sample of his patent attack, when suddenly the earth
shakes with the beat of a horse’s hoof.

The beats come nearer ... and become quicker and quicker.

The two madcaps call a truce and listen....

The hoof-beats are coming straight towards them--and now they can see
the head of a horse with its rider.

The young fox slips instantly into the nearest ditch--its instinct is
sure--but Black, who feels bound to find a wood or tree, tears off
along the path. With tail on one side he chases along, easily visible
among the withered grass.

The horseman is an artilleryman from an adjacent garrison town, a young
sergeant out exercising his colonel’s horse. The poor beast was so
seldom allowed to let himself go--here was a splendid chance....

The speed of the cat, as it gallops along the path, infects the man; he
digs his spurs deep in Tambourine’s sides, and away they go as hard as
the horse can pelt.

Black puts his ears back and makes springs fully three times his own
length. He feels like a hare in front of an express train. His eyes
are magnetized to the smooth, open path before him; he cannot, if
he would, leave it to plunge aside into the corn. A tree he _must_
have--and trees are not found until the hedge is reached; already he
can see one; his claws itch to bury themselves in its bark!

Suddenly he rolls over and over! His brain, which keeps running on
trees, has just time to complete the thought, “Now, you’ve fallen
down!” when a kick on the head knocks him senseless. He remains lying
in the path, his whiskers twitching, his legs kicking spasmodically....

Tambourine, who has joyfully given every muscle full play during his
reckless gallop, jumps clean over his victim, causing the supple rider
to fling himself backwards in the saddle. The man catches a glimpse of
what has happened, pulls up, turns, and dismounts.

“What a shame! Poor little beast!”

He picks up the cat by its tail between his forefinger and thumb, and
turns its body round. It bleeds neither at the nose nor at the mouth,
but it does not move a hair. The sergeant feels it to see whether any
bones are broken, then holds it by the scruff and examines its yellow
eyes. Yes, it must be dead, after all--probably from a hoof-kick....
Well, to blazes with the beast!

He is just about to fling it in the ditch when the cat’s smooth,
jet-black coat catches his attention!

“By Jove, what a splendid skin! That’s sure to be useful!” And without
further ado he opens the left saddle-bag and lets the lifeless
“Madness” sink to the bottom.

The old saddle-bag is worn thin, and the inside seam nearest the horse
is gaping; but what does it matter--a cat, and what’s more, a dead cat,
is safe enough there!

And the man pulls the strap extra tight.

Tambourine has been ordered a good run this morning, so that he shall
go quietly at the next morning’s general inspection--and when at last,
sweating and frothing with dilated nostrils, he is walking homewards
towards the barracks, the reins hang loose on his neck.

Suddenly he feels some pointed “spurs” prod him in the side....

The skittish thoroughbred, who shies at a mere touch of the curb, now
receives one “spur” jab after another! He gives a leap, and bucks
sideways like a flash of lightning, and the sergeant, who is totally
unprepared, reels out of the saddle.

“Madness” has recovered consciousness, and, true to his nature, pays
back the horse in his own coin. His disturbed state of mind, rendered
still more frantic by the darkness of the saddle-bag, finds the
necessary outlet in his claws and teeth.

Meanwhile, Tambourine, riderless and with flapping reins, gallops
away to the barracks, where he is captured. He had probably bolted
from the sergeant, they thought, while that worthy was swallowing a
“corpse-reviver” at an inn!

“Give him a good rub down and afterwards let him have some water!”
comes a roar from the office where the “Staff” sits and administers. He
has heard the horse thundering round for some time, and now sticks his
fat, bald head through the door....

The long-aproned stable orderly bangs his heels together with a “Very
good, sir!” gives the hunter a couple of soothing pats on the flanks,
and leads him away.

But the orderly nearly had a fit when, unsaddling the horse, he saw a
coal-black cat flash out of one of the saddle-bags and leap towards
him; he thought it was the evil one himself....

With a furious hiss “Madness” sprang over the man’s shoulder, ran along
the side of the manger, and leapt out in the middle of the stable....
He was in a terribly battered state, and felt utterly confused by his
new surroundings. The fall from the tree, which was the beginning of
his misfortunes, seemed to have spirited him into another world. He hid
himself in a corner under some hay, and spat out venomous oaths at all
who approached.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the sergeant returned home he came very near smashing in
“Madness’” head with his sword--not unnaturally his feelings towards
the cat were the reverse of friendly! But the battery commander, who
came in at the moment and heard the story, regarded the black devil as
sent from heaven.

Weren’t the old barrack stables simply swarming with rats and mice? It
would be a splendid thing to have a cat which was worth its salt!

The tall, bony battery commander stood looking down searchingly at the
savage, coal-black beast as it crouched glaring at him with its wicked,
yellow-green eyes.... Suddenly with a ferocious scowl he thrust his
long, heavy riding-boot right in the cat’s face.

But neither the scowl nor the boot frightened Black: a claw transfixed
the patent leather, while sharp fangs bit into the uppers....

“Damn it, if he isn’t a soldier!” exclaimed the commander--and the
cat’s fortune was made.

       *       *       *       *       *

Living among these strong, healthy men Black performed prodigies of
valour....

He wasn’t satisfied with catching one rat at a time--but usually
managed one with each claw-bunch. Indeed, occasionally when someone
took the trouble to shift the oat-bin for him, he had been know to
secure a third with his jaws. He became less wild after a time, and
would even allow himself to be stroked and picked up--and here, where
the idea of madness was unknown, he was christened anew: they called
him “Fizz.”


“TERROR” TURNS HOUSE-CAT

At the cross-roads some way from the village lived the midwife.

She was a slim, fair person, with large eyes and thick, curly hair.

She was not so fearfully old; but neither was she so fearfully young;
in short, she was a lady in the prime of life.

She had never taken a husband to herself, although there had been
plenty of suitors--the snug little home and the smart, pretty girl were
tempting enough for anyone.

Why she had not married was the secret of her life; and everyone in the
neighbourhood had tried to guess it!

       *       *       *       *       *

One evening in late autumn, when storm and rain raged without, there
came to her a little kitten in the last stages of exhaustion, which
crept into the shelter of the outhouse and next morning introduced
itself to her as a new arrival into the world.

It was extremely timid, but starving and hungry--it gulped down
everything she placed before it.

She saw that it was a little spotted he-cat with almost as many colours
as the rainbow, and with a tail so long that it could wind it round the
neck like a feather-boa.

The midwife adopted “Terror,” not because she was particularly fond of
cats, but because of late she had begun to feel so terribly lonely....

       *       *       *       *       *

After Black’s departure from home Tiny had a very rough time. He was
soon pursued by hunger, and there was no one there to help him, for
his other brothers and sisters had also left. Even Grey Puss, who
occasionally let him share her spoil, had vanished without trace.

One day, just as he is sneaking through the doorway of the
turf-house--under whose mouldering thatch he still remains--he finds
himself suddenly face to face with a tall, two-legged being who is too
big for him to see all at once. The man throws his coat over him and he
disappears as into the blackest night. He is squeezed and stifled, and
meanwhile carried along--until at last he succeeds in diving head first
through a long, dangling nozzle--a coat-sleeve.

Then he ran, and ran--and never knew what fate he escaped!

He hid in a turnip-field, where for a time he dragged out a wretched,
half-starved existence. His lonely expeditions in company with Black
had taught him to avoid the dwellings of mankind; and it was not until
hunger conquered fear that he dared to enter the cottage.

His position as midwife’s cat suited “Terror” down to the ground--his
complete inability to earn his own living excused him from rendering
his mistress the slightest assistance!

Later on, the midwife discovered that she had a living barometer in the
house--a fact which raised his value in her eyes enormously! She always
consulted him before setting out on her duties.

As regards his humorous tendencies, they too came into their own--but
not before a very painful accident occurred.

One day when the wind was playing with the outhouse door, “Terror”
suddenly felt the door bite his tail! He whirled round immediately and
let fly with his claws--that helped matters. The door opened its mouth
and he was free!

But in spite of that, the tail still felt as if it were held fast; he
ran round and round with a pain all over his body--and later on a red,
swollen ring appeared round the appendage.

At last the tail-end withered away and fell off; and where the red ring
had been, a tuft of hair sprouted over a black spot.

Tiny-kitten had become still tinier!

But his luxurious mode of living made his stomach fat and his body
broad and short--which, taken in conjunction with his extra hairy ears
and his stumpy tail, gave him a strong resemblance to a young lynx. The
good midwife’s clients, who not infrequently suffered from the most
frightful delusions, often mistook him for one in their excited state
of mind....

Many an idle evening in the cottage by the cross-road did the still
pretty spinster sit in cosy companionship with the kitten, thinking
over her life’s secret. Should she have married Thorkild Skov after
all--he was now a well-to-do butcher? Or Frederik Hansen--he was now
owner of Hill Farm? Or ... ah, she had had so many wooers once upon a
time!

No, no, she thought, jumping up restlessly--far better off as she was!
All that terrible fuss over the arrival of each little citizen into the
world, with which she had been in such close contact since her early
girlhood, had quite frightened her.

She sat down again and fell into deep thought, her hand gently stroking
“Terror’s” soft fur, as he lay purring on the sofa at her side....

And yet--she sighed deeply--and yet, she wished in spite of all that
she had not been so afraid of _life_!




CHAPTER THIRTEEN


GREY PUSS’ FUTURE

The late autumn showers were beginning.... Heavy, violet-blue clouds
swollen with moisture drifted about--and often two rainbows stood
simultaneously one behind the other in the sky.

Grey Puss could no longer forage in the fields--it was wet and muddy
everywhere.

The wretched wild bees, whose earth-hive she had dug up, hastened to
cover their remnants of honey with layers of moss....

The chirp of grasshoppers and the buzzing of mosquitoes no longer
filled the night air; unquiet and discomfort reigned in their stead.
The cows mooed for shelter and the young cattle coughed and sneezed
with cold--whilst the bulls in the meadows boomed deeply and mournfully.

The fields became more and more deserted, and the ditches and hedges
more muddy and bare; only the shelter in the lee of the rising stacks
grew and grew.

Mice were also scarce! The lucky ones had completed the miraculous
journey with the wagon, hidden in the middle of the sheaves, after
having successfully evaded the eagerly sniffing noses of the farm dogs.
The others were now emigrating towards the big “human” dwellings....
They scented the warm, heavy odour from the stacks and followed in the
wake of the corn.

And Grey Puss followed in the wake of the mice; and came each evening a
little nearer to the farm ... the dear old farm with its dry beams and
warm, quiet barns.

She longs to move among the cobwebs in the loft once more, to hear the
everlasting rushing of the wind through its thatch. Most of all she
thinks of the pot-bellied, piebald tomcat, whose drawling, wailing
love-song seems to her irresistibly alluring. With every day that
passes she seems to hear his pleading voice more and more plainly, and
she sees him in her mind’s eye with his restless, swinging tail and his
wild, burning eyes....

One October evening, when all colours have withered from the marshes
and the deep, black shadows along the tufted banks make the water gleam
still more brightly, Grey Puss slinks home through the fields towards
Hill Farm.

All day the long waggons have rocked their loads of yellow turnips
along to the shelter of the poplars, where the turnip-heaps grow in
size and number.

She watches the tame cats sit in ambush at the foot of the stacks.
They have only to sit there and doze, and the mice, which are not yet
accustomed to their elevated residence, will tumble down on their heads.

Listen! The children are singing in the farm.... “Three blind mice; see
how they run.”... Dear little children, who used so often to play with
her when she was a tiny kitten in the house, and give her sweet milk to
drink!

But now the dog is barking ... a new Box probably--one she has not yet
seen. And clogs clatter suddenly on the bridge--no, no, she _can_ not,
she _dare_ not--she must go out to the fields again....

But she longs....

In the turf-house loft, as well as in the burial-mound, and down in the
willow bole--where she has also paid a visit--all is cold and lonely
and full of damp and discomfort.

She longs for the spacious, broken-down farm loft, where the
moss-covered thatch clings to the broad, low chimney-stacks; where the
clay-lined walls are warping and the small-paned windows hang askew.

_There_ is her real home, the home of her race....

The new farm-buildings, where bricks replace clay and wood, don’t
attract her; they are much too cold, and too clean! No; where there are
hatchways instead of doors, hooks instead of locks, pegs and staples
instead of keys, that is where she feels at home. She can always be
relied upon to find her way in through some split in the roof, some
air-hole in the wall....

And the “cunning ones”? Oh, perhaps it would not be so bad to live
among them again, after all!

Yet another week she hesitates on the threshold--then one afternoon
her longing for the room, with all its sweet memories of kittenhood,
overwhelms her....

A storm raged over the fields! It swept hissing along the shaggy
ditches and writhed screaming and whistling through hedge and fence.

At one moment whitish-grey, swollen masses of cloud came pouring like a
flood of liquid lead across the sky, to fling down a shower of seething
rain ... at another the clouds split and parted, and the sun created
heaven out of chaos: a strip of blue appeared, a stream of dazzling
light--and the earth broke into a smile of joy!

For one short minute the farm’s white gables and moss-green roofs with
their frame of yellow poplar-tops sprang into life and colour....

Then the picture broke, shattered into a thousand fragments; the white
gable, the whole farm, sank into the ground--and once more the rain
fell in torrents.

A storm raged over the fields; all creatures fled for shelter--and Grey
Puss had to hie her to the willow bole.

She shivered as she sat there with eyes half-closed and tail curled
round her paws.... She was day-dreaming: it is early spring, and she
lies in the shelter of the kitchen garden, sunning herself and rolling
to and fro on the warm ground. Suddenly her old prize-fighter is
sitting before her! She goes crazy with delight, and rolls with still
greater abandon from side to side on her back.

He sits before her ready to spring....

       *       *       *       *       *

A new, violent shower drummed on the old willow bole’s withered bark
and tore her from her dreams. Wet spray from the raindrops splashed in
her eyes....

She had never been a mother to kittens ... she had never had a grudge
against the “cunning ones!” She thus deadens her conscience, for she
is drawn irresistibly to the place where she was born and bred--to the
shelter of the stall, the barn, or at a pinch, the roof.

That evening a red, flaming shaft of sunlight pierces the ragged
horizon. Long, black wisps of cloud hang across the heavens and draw a
veil over the frost-moon’s cold, curved sickle.

At midnight she makes her return to the farm, following the familiar
path over the pigsty roof, through the trap-door, and up into the loft
over the cow-stall. She feels the warm air enfold her; the sweet,
delicious odour of hay and fresh, dry straw meets her nostrils. The
soothing chewing of the cows sounds beneath her....

There comes a rustling in the straw--and the multicoloured he-cat steps
forward and greets her with every sign of delight. He springs towards
her and strokes his cheek lovingly along her side right from her neck
to her tail.... She is welcome to the farm; she is _home_!

As she gazes at him, it seems suddenly as if the whole kitten flock is
standing before her.

She sees them all in him: Black’s temper, Tiny’s fur, Big’s strength,
and White’s cunning. Like Grey, he is patient and shrewd; and fully as
reckless, if not so active, as Red.

“Auw-auw ... ooh ... uuh!”

       *       *       *       *       *

And she fell in love with him once more--the dear, old spotted darling!




Transcriber’s Notes

Standardized hyphenation to the dominant style used within the
book.

The Preface in the original book was printed in italic with titles
in roman text--this has been reversed in this version of the eBook.

Spelling, punctuation, accents, and grammar have been preserved as
printed in the original publication except as follows:

1. Page 35: Changed pronoun from “she” to “he” referring to Tiny:
“That he had not long ago been crushed to death by the others must
remain an insoluble mystery!”

2. Page 54: Changed . to , after “of course”: “He must be carried,
of course, ... and the problem is to find a hold which will not destroy
the creature.”

3. Page 75: Changed the word “breath” to “breathe” in this phrase: “she
still finds a little air to breathe”.

4. Page 87: Changed the word “mowing” to “mewing” in this phrase:
“Tears of pain spring to his eyes as he recoils, mewing piteously”.

5. Page 104: Changed “it” to “if” in this phrase: “his victim sat
waiting as if put there for him by the Creator”.

6. Page 122: Changed “Big-puss” to “Big Puss” for consistency as used
throughout the book.

7. Page 145: Changed the word “occurence” to “occurrence” in this
phrase: “Grey Puss pondered a while over the occurrence”.

8. Page 171: Changed “his” to “this” in this sentence: “Black, however,
knows nothing of this.”

9. Page 183: Removed duplicate “for” from this phrase: “fled for
his life.”

10. Page 195: Changed ending quotation of “Madness’ to “Madness” for
consistency with other names.

11. Page 201: Changed pronoun from “his” to “her” referring to red
kitten: “with the pork chop in her jaws.”





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