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!