Shireen and her Friends Part 22

Well, of course, children, Mrs Clifford was very sorry to lose her dear Edgar, as she called him, so soon again; but she was a brave old lady, and though she cried a little, she gave him a blessing and bade him go.

"Duty must be obeyed, Edgar," she said, "even though hearts should break. Go, my boy, your country calls you."

I don't think, children, there was a much happier cat than p.u.s.s.y Shireen on the day my master left Waterloo Station for Portsmouth, to take pa.s.sage for Bombay in a ship of war, especially when the brave soldier told me that this ship was to be commanded by Captain Beecroft himself.

Indeed, hearing that we were going to India to join our regiment for service in Persia, Captain Beecroft had written to us, offering us a pa.s.sage, and saying he would be very glad indeed to have master once more on board his vessel. And, he added, as master knew none of the officers in the wardroom, he would be happy to have him as a guest in his own apartments.

We had not gone straight to London, I may tell you, Warlock, from Yorkshire. We had a run over to Dublin first to see a friend, and on board the steamer I astonished everybody by my perfect coolness. I even ran right up the rigging into the foretop, and had a look around me, and the sailors all declared I was a ship's cat born and bred.

Well, we had arrived at our hotel in the evening. I may tell you that it stood in one of the princ.i.p.al streets, and right in the middle of it, so that anyone going out by a back window and across the tiles, would have to go a long way round to get to the front door again.

Of course, Warlock, no human being would have dreamt of going out at a back window and along the tiles, and no dog either. But it is precisely what I did when master shut me in the room, and locked me in for safety till he should post a letter.

When he returned, behold! no Shireen was there, and he called me from the window in vain.

The truth is, I had never been to Ireland before, and wanted to see what the Irish cats were like; so I determined to spend a night on the tiles and go home with the milk in the morning.

I can't say, however, that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I found the Dublin cats a rather disreputable gang. They serenaded nervous old gentlemen, and had water and brushes and lumps of coal and the boot-jack thrown at them; they scratched up beds of choice flowers, and they broke into pigeon-lofts, and dove-cotes, and killed and ate the pigeons.

Moreover, they boasted of all these exploits as if they had been the greatest fun in the world. So, on the whole, I was somewhat disgusted.

However, it opened up a new phase of life before me, and so I gained some experience.

But, children, you must not suppose that I, a silken-coated Persian and a brave soldier's cat, kept with this gang all night. I did not, but retired into a garden arbour early in the evening to have a quiet talk with a lady-cat who, it was evident from her voice and manners, had seen better days.

She was a very pretty half-bred Angora, or rather, I should say, she had been pretty once upon a time, but at present her face was thin and worn, her eyes looked world-weary, and her coat hung around her in mats and tatters.

"And so," she said, after we had settled down face to face, "and so you have been far travelled, and come all the way from across the seas?"

"Yes," I answered, "and I am going all the way back again. The fact is, I have no real home, except where master is, and I do not care where that may be, whether on the lonesome moorland, amidst the city's bustle, din, and strife, or far away upon the lone blue sea, I say, that if he be with me I am at home."

"Ah!" sighed the poor waif in front of me. "I wish I had a kind master or mistress, if so you wouldn't find me here to-night. Why, I haven't even a name now, though they used to call me Zulina."

"A pretty name," I said; "but tell me, Zulina, how did so ladylike-looking and evidently amiable a p.u.s.s.y as you become a nomad and a wanderer?"

"Oh, don't call me amiable," she answered: "indeed, I am not. All my amiability, and ever, love, for the human race, has been crushed out of me. Well, once I had a home in the outskirts of this very city, and many home-ties too. It was a pretty house, with gardens all around it, and custom and long residence thereat had much endeared me to it. I knew every hole and corner of it. Knew every mouse-run, the cupboards, and the cosy nooks where I could have a quiet snooze when I needed such refreshment, and the places in which I could hide when hiding became an absolute necessity. I was acquainted with the manner of egress and ingress, so that I felt free and untrammelled, and I was familiar with every sound so that my rest was never disturbed by night, nor my nerves jarred by day.

"And out of doors too, Shireen, everything about the dear old place was familiar to me; the trees on which the sparrows perched, the field where I often found an egg, the meadow where the wild rabbits played, and the paths by which I could reach it in safety.

"But I was taken away from this home by a mistress who used to profess such love for me, and removed to a town more than twenty miles from Dublin. My new home too, was right in the centre of the town, and everything about it looked strange and foreign to me. But so long as I felt sure my mistress loved me, I did not care, so I began to learn the place by heart, as it were, and all the outs and ins of it.

"But lo! what was my astonishment to hear my mistress say one day:

"'I don't think we can put up with that cat now in this new house. I think we had better give a boy sixpence to drown it to-morrow morning.'

"That night I left the house, and the ungrateful mistress I had loved so well and dearly. I left the house, and the town too, and wandered on and on nearly all night, and at early dawn I was back again at my dear-loved home.

"I had forgotten there were strangers there now. And they treated me as a stray cat, and drummed me out when I dared to put my nose over the threshold.

"What could I do, Shireen? I could not endure the pangs of hunger, and though I hung about the garden of my old home for days, and made many a plaintive but useless appeal to the new-comers, I was forced at last to cast aside the mantle of virtue and become a thief. Yes, I even broke into the new people's pigeon-loft and stole a bird. Then I took to this evil existence, and since then, alas! I have never been inside a human habitation except to steal."

"Well, Zulina, it is very sad," I said; "but I think you should try to reform even yet, and some kind lady might take pity on you."

"No, no, no," sighed Zulina, "I am but a homeless waif and stray, and my fate, I fear, will be to die in the street, or be torn to pieces by dogs."

"I'm going to hope for better things for you, Zulina," I insisted. "But good-bye. Yonder is the grey dawn stealing up into the sky, and I think I hear the milkman's cry in a distant street. I must try to find my master's hotel. Good-bye."

It was a long distance round, but my instinct was unerring, and finally I found myself trotting up the correct street, and soon after sitting in the area doorway.

Down came the milkman with his rattling cans, and in a minute or two, Biddy, with her hair in papers, and looking very sleepy, opened the door.

While Biddy and the milkman were interchanging a few courtesies, I slipped quietly into the house and made my way as fast as I could upstairs to the second floor.

I soon spied my master's boots, and mewed at the door.

It was opened in a moment, and in I popped, purring as loudly as I knew how to.

"Oh! p.u.s.s.y, p.u.s.s.y," he cried, as he picked me up, "I thought I would never see you more, and I was quite disconsolate. You went out by the back and over the tiles, and now you've come in at the front; how did you find your way round?

"It is instinct, instinct, I suppose," he added. "He who guides the great fur seals back through the stormy seas, through hundreds of miles of darkness and mist to their far northern islands in June, He guided you.

"'Reason raise o'er instinct if we can, In this 'tis G.o.d directs, in that 'tis man.'"

Well, Warlock, we left Dublin, and at last found ourselves at Waterloo Station.

The train was in, and I was in also. I was in a basket, and I didn't half like it.

I heard my master say to a railway porter, "Take charge of that basket for a few minutes, porter, till I go and buy some newspapers."

Five minutes after this, when Edgar returned, he met that railway porter, and he was looking very disconsolate indeed.

His hands were bleeding, and he carried an empty basket.

"Oh! sir," he cried, "your cat has gone. The basket was not securely fastened, and as soon as you left she wriggled out."

"But why, man, didn't you stick to her?" cried master.

"I tried to all I could, I do a.s.sure you, sir; but she bit me and tore my hands, then jumped down and disappeared in the crowd."

"Well, come along and take my things out of the compartment where we put them, for I shan't go by this train."

"I'm so sorry, sir. But she's only a cat, sir. You could get another."

"Do as you're told, porter, please," said my master imperiously.

Without another word the porter followed him to the first-cla.s.s compartment, and there they found me cosily snuggled up among the rugs!

[This incident occurred just as described, the _dramatis personae_ being the author and his own far-travelled cat m.u.f.fie Two.]

Master was delighted, and gave the porter half-a-sovereign to heal his wounded dignity, and his still more wounded fingers.