Uncle Joe's Stories

by Baron Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen Brabourne

She might perhaps, however, have borne it a little longer, had not an event occurred which was really beyond anybody's bearing. One morning, when the worthy couple were at breakfast, the kitten calmly jumped on to the table, seized a piece of bacon which the farmer was about to place upon his own plate, and deliberately carried it off.

After this it was quite evident that she must be got rid of. No man can stand being robbed of his breakfast in such a barefaced manner, and the good farmer spoke up pretty strongly on the subject. As the breed was supposed to be a particularly good one, he did not order the animal to be killed, nor indeed would he have ventured to do so unless his wife had especially wished it, but he expressed himself in forcible terms as to the desirability of its quitting his premises with as little delay as possible.

Mrs. Long had by this time become so entirely of the same opinion, that she resolved to take immediate steps to carry out the joint views of her husband and herself. She accordingly directed that the cart should be got ready the same afternoon, and that Tom the Bailiff should drive her down to Mersham, where she determined to restore the kitten to the Gowers with her own hands.

Accordingly, at the appointed time the cart was brought round, old Dapple, the steady pony, was in it, and Tom prepared to drive. Mrs. Long got in, and the kitten, who had shown an unwonted and marvellous docility in submitting to be placed once more in a basket, was safely deposited in her lap.

Off they went, out of the farmyard into the lane, and taking a turn which brought them near to Aldington Knoll, descended towards the woods through which runs the road from Mersham and Aldington to the canal, and so away across Romney Marsh to Dymchurch.

You must understand that Tom and his mistress were heading away from the canal, only they had come into that road in order to reach the lower part of Mersham, in which was situate John Gower's cottage. So when they came past Aldington Knoll, and descended the hill, the marsh road led back to the left, nearly parallel with that from which they came, whilst they pushed straight forward along the road through the woods.

As soon as they got well into the wood, or rather, into the road on each side of which the wood was wide and thick, old Dapple began to show visible signs of uneasiness. He swerved first on one side of the road, and then on the other, abandoning all the good, quiet habits of a respectable middle-aged pony, and behaving much more like a giddy young colt who had never been broken to harness.

Tom the Bailiff who was a simple country lout, did not know what to make of it, and was both confused and frightened when his mistress began to tell him that it was only his bad driving. But this was evidently not the case. Dapple wanted very little driving at all, and the best "whip" in the world could not have kept him straight when he was in the mood which seemed now to have possessed him. Another cause also disquieted good Mrs. Long.

The kitten began to fidget in her basket in a most unaccountable way, and to give vent to various discordant sounds, whilst the weight upon the good lady's knees, as the basket had been on Mary's arm, was really unpleasantly heavy.

They managed to get through the wood somehow or other, until they were well out of the parish of Aldington and had entered that of Mersham. Here all their troubles increased—the kitten's struggles were more violent than before, and Dapple became perfectly unmanageable, until all at once they perceived a large black cat upon one side of the road, which suddenly darted in front of the cart, and so startled the pony that he shied quite across the road, brought the wheel of the cart over the side of the ditch, and in another moment it was overset and its occupants were tumbled into the brambles and bushes with which the ditch was choked.