Of the eggs of fowls some cats are exceedingly fond, and if they once acquire a taste for this particular luxury, nothing can ever break them from it, and they will always find ways and means of indulging in the propensity. A cat of my acquaintance used to content herself with two, or at most, three a day. She belonged to a grocer, and was quite honest with regard to everything else. It was the shopkeeper himself who was to blame for this fault in poor pussy: for in unpacking his eggs he would occasionally drop one, then call pussy’s attention to the fact, saying, “Here, pussy, you take that.” So in process of time the cat took rather a penchant for eggs. She would jump on the counter whenever the whim struck her, and take an egg from the basket; then, with a face beaming with mischief, she would proceed to make a mouse of it, paw-pawing it until it rolled over on to the floor, as if by the merest accident in the world. Then it was amusing to see the air of astonishment pussy adopted, as she peered wonderingly over the edge of the counter, as much as to say,—“Hullo! broken? Here, pussy, you take that.” And down she would jump and lick it up.
CHAPTER VI.
[See [Note F], Addenda.]
A CAT THAT KEEPS THE SABBATH.
Yes, far-seeing reader, you are right, it is a Scotch cat. In England a deficient educational scheme is dead against the chance of any such anomaly. In some parts of bonnie Scotland you “daurna whistle on the Sabbath,” the dogs “daurna” bark, the cows “daurna” low, and the cock is confined beneath a barrel, to prevent him giving expression to his independence. England is looked upon as a poor benighted country, living in darkness and ignorance; and a tourist is termed a “poor daft Englisher,” or a “gangrel body.” But now for the cat.
This pussy completes a family circle, who dwell in a remote village of Forfarshire. It is the only live stock they possess, is an old old-fashioned cat, and of course a great pet. It has a daily round of duties, from which it never varies any more than the clock does. It sleeps with the children, and gets up at the same hour every morning. It first strolls round all the rooms, watching for a little every mouse-hole, where it has ever killed a mouse. It then goes to its mistress’s bedroom, wakes her and sees her dressed, trots before her to the door and is let out, coming in at the same hour every day for breakfast, and showing signs of indignation if its porridge and milk are not ready waiting, or if they are too hot, which it ascertains by a preliminary touch with its toe. Breakfast over, comes a long hour’s sleep before the parlour fire in winter, or in the sun in summer-time. Then comes the time for the forenoon constitutional—a mere walk for pastime; true, if a sparrow pops down before its nose, it is nimbly caught and eaten; but at this early hour pussy prefers lighter amusements,—catching butterflies, turtle-turning frogs, climbing trees, or dancing ghillie-callum on the back of the shepherd’s unhappy collie-dog. She is always at home a quarter of an hour before her master, with whom she dines. Reinvigorated by the mid-day meal, pussy now starts on a hunting expedition, the scene of action being a wood about a quarter of a mile from her residence. Here this cat stays bird-catching among the trees, until the sun sets and there isn’t a bird to be seen, and then comes trotting home. A drink of sweet milk forms a light but nutritious supper, and not a bad narcotic; then this methodical puss curls herself up at the “bairnies’” feet, and sings herself and them to sleep. Such is pussy’s week-day work, never varying, day by day and year by year. But on Sunday she does no work, and neither fights nor hunts, but keeps the house, dumb and demure, like the pious little puss she is; musing with half-shut eyes over the fire, or basking in the sunshine on the garden walk.
What an example to the wild strath-vagrant, Sabbath-breaking cats of other places! Early to bed and early to rise, who can doubt this pussy’s wisdom? Who can doubt that in her rural home—
“She’ll crown, in shades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease.”