CHAPTER XX.
[See [Note S], Addenda.]
PUSSY AND THE HARE.
In the parish of P——, Aberdeenshire, there lived some years ago a crofter and his wife, and a little boy their only son. A fine she-tabby cat who nightly sang duets with the kettle to welcome the master home, was the only other member of the family.
One day, while roaming over the moorland in search of birds’ nests, the boy found a young hare, sound asleep among the heather. Such a prize was worth any number of birds’ eggs, and the lad carried it tenderly home and presented it to his mother, and it was that night placed in a box in the cow-byre. Next morning it was gone—puss had eaten it no doubt, and no one could blame her. Pussy had had kittens, only a day or two before, and they had all been drowned. For about a week after the disappearance of the hare, it was observed, that pussy was not so regular in her attendance on the house as usual. She never lay by the fire—the kettle might sing its duets by itself; she ate her meals hurriedly and greedily, and then escaped out.
“It’s the hare she ate that’s no agreeing wi’ her,” said the goodman. “There’s mair in it than that,” said the canny goodwife; and, with a woman’s instinct, she followed pussy out and up into the hay-loft; and, lo and behold! there lay the cat, in a snug little bed, suckling the lost hare, and singing as sweetly as a linnet. Pussy reared the hare, and they became inseparables. At breakfast pussy always waited until the hare had finished, and when there happened to be broth for dinner—a dish the hare did not relish—the cat never failed to beg for a piece of bread, which she carried at once to her strange foster-child. The cat and hare went everywhere together; sometimes indeed they might be seen fully a mile from home. This cat was a famous hunter, and always brought her dead rabbits home. It was funny, at times, to see the pair coming from the fields at even, the cat with her dead quarry in her mouth, creeping stealthily along, her eyes in every direction, and the big hare, rather out of breath, bringing up the rear, and looking very foolish, as if he didn’t exactly know what it all meant, and rather deprecated the cat’s conduct than otherwise. This cat could fish; for one day a gentleman hooked a large salmon in the river, and after running it for nearly two hours his line broke and he lost it. Now, this salmon was found next morning on the cottar’s door-step. The cat and hare were both present; and as there is no account on record of hares fishing, we think the credit of the capture must be given to pussy. For two years this strangely matched couple were friends, and bosom companions, for they slept together. But, one fine summer’s day they were lying in front of the house half-asleep in the sunshine,—the hare at one side of the door, pussy at the other, and the cottar’s wife knitting between them.
The whole scene was one “of peas,” and might have remained so, only tragedy, in the shape of farmer Dick’s big, disreputable collie, was at that precise moment peeping round a corner and taking stock.
“Hullo!” said the dog to himself; “it’s a—no, it isn’t; yes, it is; hang me, if it isn’t—a hare—as cheeky as you like too. I’ll teach him.”
And he did. The poor hare never required another lesson. Nor did pussy lose any time in giving the dog one. Rendered frantic by her poor friend’s death, she sprang on his back and tore him with tooth and nail. One of the dog’s eyes was entirely destroyed; and it need not be added he ever after gave that house a wide berth. After the untimely fate of her foster-child, pussy was extremely disconsolate, moping about and never caring to leave the house. She had not long to mourn for him however, for some months after she fell a victim to her own curiosity; for, like women, cats are extremely prying.