Rough-Hewn

by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"Oh!" cried the girl again, and covered her face with her hands.

Neale saw at last what she saw, a lean yellow cat crouching in ambush in a corner between a dormer window and a sky-light. As he looked the cat sprang up suddenly, a streak of murdering speed high into the air, and seized an incautious swallow swooping too low.

The two men at the window looked at the girl, shrugged their shoulders again and went back coolly to their work. The comedy was finished. What could any one do about it? Most evidently nothing. The man lifted his broom to sweep. The boy stooped to take up his water-pitcher. The girl took her hands from her face, and turned away from the window. Neale had expected to see her look agitated and excited; but her pale face was set in an expression of unsurprised endurance. It was evident that she too perceived that there was nothing to do about it.

"Well, there was something to do about it!" thought Neale wildly, feeling a fury of resentment at the two men. He'd show them!

He sprang past the girl with a great bound to the window and saw that, as he thought, a slope of tiled roof lay below it, the slope so gentle, the tiles so rough that it would be quite easy to keep his footing on it, although the drop to the court below would be dizzying if he stopped to look at it. But he did not stop to look at that, or anything but the cat, slinking slowly off across the roof beyond, the swallow in her mouth.

He took one long step out over the low window-sill and stood on the tiles. He heard the girl behind him give a cry, and it sped him forward. He ran along the narrow slope of tiles, one hand on the wall to steady himself till he could, with a leap, reach the roof where the cat was making off towards the ridge-pole with her prey. Here it was easier, a wide stretch of tiles over which he could really run.

The cat heard him, saw him, paused an instant, dazed by the suddenness of his appearance, turned her head and flattened herself for a leap forward. But his leap was quicker than hers. He reached her, and pounced on her with a swoop that was part of the forward rhythm of his running, pounced, seized her firmly, and forced open her jaws. The swallow dropped out on the tiles, wet and ruffled, its eyes closed, its poor, slim, gleaming head bent limply to one side as if its neck were broken.

Neale stooped and picked it up, stroking it pityingly and smoothing its pretty, rumpled plumes. He had been too late after all. But as it lay in his hand it seemed to him he felt its delicate body stir. Perhaps it was only half dead with fright. Did it move a little or had he imagined it? As he stood astride the ridge-pole of the roof, the level rays of the early sun shone straight into his eyes so that he could not see whether the bird's eyes had opened or not. He turned his back to the sun and held his hand, with the bird in it, closer to his face. Why, yes, the eyes were open, soft dark eyes that looked wildly and despairingly into his. The intensity of that sudden look gave him a start. He opened his fingers and the bird burst out of his hand with a loud beating flutter and soared up into the air. Neale threw back his head to watch it, moved almost to a shout of exultation as the twittering flock swooped past his head.

Then he saw that the cat was calmly making her way back to her ambush corner. "Hey, there!" he shouted gaily at her, and, sprinting along, snatched her up. "You're going back down cellar to catch rats, kitty mio," he told her aloud, laughing. He was astonished at his own high spirits. High up on the richly colored old roof, close to that glorious sun with the swallows dashing, twittering about his head, the rescued one among them, he could have flung his arms about and danced for sheer lightness of heart.

What he did was to tuck the protesting cat under his arm and make his way back with considerably more caution than he had gone up. The passage along the narrow slope of tile below the window was worse than he had thought, made him a little sick to face. A damn-fool performance anyhow, he reflected, picking his steps, looking carefully away from the sheer black drop to the stone-paved courtyard below him. A very damn-fool performance for a serious-minded man of twenty-six to go careering over roofs like that.