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.