CHAPTER IX.
[See [Note I], Addenda.]
TENACITY OF LIFE IN CATS.
“As many lives as a cat,” and “a cat has nine lives,” are sayings which we hear almost every day. The truth of the latter we must all acknowledge; not indeed as regards the imputed plurality of lives in the cat, but, as illustrative of the extreme tenacity of the one life she possesses. As an Irishman would say, pussy may be many times “kill’t,” but only once “kill’t entirely;” or, as a Zanzibar nigger would have it, she may be often-times dead, but only once “gone dead.”
Joy was a farmer’s cat, a beautifully-marked lady-tabby. She was extremely fond of horses, used to jump on their backs, and often sleep there at night. She was consequently nearly always in the stable. One day, however, one of her pets kicked her,—accidentally it is to be hoped, but so severely that one of the men found her, lying cold and stiff beside the wall. He lifted her up and laid her on the dunghill, until he should find time to give her a decent burial. Here the poor animal lay all day in the sun, and here she was found at milking-time, by a kind-hearted servant girl. Thinking she perceived some tokens of life about it, and remembering the proverb, she took the pussy into the kitchen, and rolling it carefully in a flannel petticoat, placed it in front of the fire. When she came in from milking, she was rejoiced to find that pussy was so much better, as to be able to lift her head and taste a little warm milk. With three days’ careful nursing the cat recovered. She lived to a goodly old age, but abjured the turf,—she never backed a favourite again.
Another cat, found in a trap, was cruelly beaten about the head by a brutal keeper, until the blood gushed from both ears. He finally cut off the poor thing’s tail as a trophy of his bravery, and left her on the ground for dead. Her mistress, hearing of what had happened, was soon on the spot, and carried home what she thought was the dead body of her cat. She tried every means of resuscitation, nevertheless, and in three weeks had the satisfaction of seeing pussy as well as ever, and as full of fun; only it was now a Manx cat, an artificial one. Pussy must often have seen her own tail hanging on the game-keeper’s wall, in company with a dead hawk, an owl, and a few hoody-crows. The man had the tail frizzed up to make it look big; and pointing it out to many a cockney sportsman, used to relate a story of a dreadful encounter he had with a “real wild cat, sir,” which he at last slew; “and yonder,” he would always add, “hangs the buffer’s tail.”
A man going one morning into his dovecot, which in this case was an attic at the top of a house eight-storeys high, found his own cat killing the pigeons right and left. Greatly enraged, he kicked the animal through the open window. On going down shortly after, rather ashamed and sorry for what he had done, he was greatly surprised to see pussy gather herself up, and slink in at the back door. Apparently she was none the worse of her rather hurried descent from a height of over fifty feet.
In the case of the cat which the keeper “kill’d,” there was no doubt fracture of the skull. In the following case, the apparent death was no doubt due to severe concussion of the brain, or stunning.
A boy in going to school one day, saw a large cat sitting not far from its master’s door. Without meaning to hurt the pussy, but with that recklessness of consequences which characterizes most school-boys, he picked up a stone to have “just one shy at her.” He struck her on the head, and pussy dropped to all appearance as dead as the stone itself. Afraid of the consequences of detection, he picked the cat up and threw it in a cornfield not far off. As murderers are said to haunt the scene of their guilt, so the boy every morning, for the three following days, found himself irresistibly drawn towards the field of corn, and every morning there lay his victim stark and still. On the fourth morning, however, she was gone; and in returning from school the same evening, the boy’s astonishment was very great indeed, on seeing the identical cat, washing its face at its master’s door, as if nothing had ever occurred to annoy it.