“A little sore throat, perhaps?”
“No, no, Tom was never better in his life.”
“Then, my good woman, excuse me if I seem rude; but why—why on earth does he wear a cravat out of doors?”
“A cravat!” cried she. “Our Tom wear a cravat!”
Then the pleasant little woman laughed till her pleasant little sides shook and the tears ran out of her pleasant little eyes; and her laughing was so pleasantly infectious that I was constrained to join her, and we both laughed till roof and rafters rang again. It was pleasant, though I did not know what I was laughing at; only I had a slight inkling that somehow or other I had made a mighty fool of myself. When at last she did get a word out, it was,—
“Oh! sir, you’re an awful gowk.[3] It was an eel.”
An eel, was it! The cravat was an eel! And I was “an awful gowk!” Well, I always guessed I was; but then she said it so pleasantly, and as soon as she said it off she went again. I thought it was time I was going off too; so bidding her good morning, I did, and left her laughing—such a pleasant little woman!
Millers’ cats in the country are, almost without exception, fond of taking to the water in pursuit of prey. I know an instance of a cat bred and reared at a flour mill: it was a universal custom with this pussy to watch by the dam-side, where she might have been seen at any time either in winter or summer. She used to run along the edge of the water in full tilt after a trout until it stopped; then, seeming to take aim for a few seconds, she would dive down like an arrow from a bow, and never failed to land the fish. She was also great in catching water-rats, which she seized and killed as eagerly and speedily as any English terrier would.
But not only can cats swim and fish, but they have been known to teach their offspring to do so; and a knowledge of the gentle art has been transmitted in some cat families down to the third and fourth generation.
At the mill of P——, in Aberdeenshire, some years ago, there lived a cat, an excellent swimmer and fisher, and as fond of the water as an Irish spaniel. When fishing, she did not confine herself to any one portion of the stream; and whether deep or shallow it was all one to pussy. The boys, too, of the neighbourhood were not long in finding out, that, by whatever part of the rivulet they saw the miller’s cat watching, there they would find trout in greatest abundance.