“Is he gone?” said my mother anxiously, when he returned. And we bairns were all in tears.
“Gone, ma’am?” replied Hughoc; “aye, if he had been a horse, and, beggin’ your pardon, a deevil forbye, the river would hae ta’en him doon,—sic a spate (flood) I never saw in my born days.”
Notwithstanding all this, Gibbie was at that moment finishing the contents of his saucer, and drying his wet sides before the sitting-room fire, and when we entered, he was singing a song to himself, like the ancient philosopher he was. But the poor cat lived but one short week longer. He died, as bardie Burns has it, “a fair strae death” in his own nook, and was slowly and sadly laid to rest, beneath an aged rowan tree at the end of the garden. And the berries on that tree grew redder ever after, at least we thought so; but we never dared to taste or touch them, they were sacred to the memory of poor dead and gone Gibbie.
In the meantime the plague of rats continued unabated, and their ravages seemed rather to increase than diminish. But their reign was nearly at an end. One day my father received the joyful intelligence that a splendid young lady-kitten, was in need of a comfortable home—salary no object.
Away with a basket trudged my little brother and self, and after a long walk came to young pussy’s residence, and had the satisfaction of finding both kitten and mistress at home. The former, indeed a beauty, and faultlessly marked, was engaged alternately in drinking butter-milk, and washing her face before a small looking-glass.
“Aye, my bonnie bairn,”—I was the bonnie bairn, not my brother,—“she’s a perfect wee angel, and ye maun be good till her; ye maunna pu’ her by the tail, and ye maun gie her lots o’ milk, and never let her want for a lookin’-glass.”
We promised to grudge her nothing that could in any way conduce to her happiness and comfort, and were allowed to carry her off. Before we reached home, we had taken her from the basket, and with all the solemnity the occasion demanded, baptized her in a running stream, and called her name Muffie. Once fairly established in her new quarters, the kit lost no time in commencing hostilities against the rats, and blood, not butter-milk, became her war-cry. One day as she sat admiring herself in the glass, a large rat unexpectedly appeared in the kitchen; and although but little larger than himself, Kittie at once gave chase, not only to his hole, but into his hole. For the next three minutes the squeaking was quite harrowing to listen to; but presently pussy re-appeared stern foremost, and dragging with her the rat—dead. This she deposited before the fire, growling whenever any one went near it, as much as to say, “Lay but a finger on it, and you yourself may expect to pay the same penalty for your rashness.” The little thing, indeed, seemed swelling with pride and importance, and must have felt considerably bigger than an ordinary sized ox, and as fierce as a Bengal tiger. In one moment she had bounded from kit to cat-hood. Buttermilk and a looking-glass! Bah! Blood alone could satisfy her ambition now.
Little Muffie was left that night in sole charge of the kitchen, and next morning, no less than five large rats, lay side by side on the hearth, as if waiting a post mortem, and wee pussie, with her white breast dabbled in gore, exhausted and asleep, lay beside them. In less than a week, she had bagged upwards of forty, and no doubt wounded twice that number. And now fear and consternation began to spread in the enemies’ camp. Such doings had never been heard of among them, even traditionally. The oldest inhabitant shook his grey muzzle, and gave it up; but added,—
“Friends, brethren, rodents! it is time to shift. No one knows whose turn may come next. True, it is a pity to leave such jolly quarters, when everything was going on so pleasantly. We have seen our fattest wives and our biggest braves borne off; our helpless babes have not been safe from the clutches of that dreaded monster, with the ferocity of a fiend in the skin of a mouse, and lest worst befall us, go we must.”
And go they did.