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....