It is a common thing for a she-cat, if her kittens are all drowned, to take to suckling a former kitten—even a grown-up son has sometimes to resume the office and duties of baby to a bereaved mother, and is in general no ways loath to do so. There is a horrid cat in a village in Yorkshire, who, every time his mother has kittens, steals them, taking them one by one to the cellar, and eating them. When there are no more to eat, filial piety constrains him to suckle his dam, until she deems it fit that he should be weaned. He has been weaned already four times, to my knowledge.
If a kitten has been given away, and for some reason or other returns again to its mother’s home, the first thing that mother does is to give him a sound hiding, afterwards she receives him into favour, and gives him her tail to play with by way of solatium. Mothers will sometimes correct their very young kittens; for instance, if it squeals when she wants to get away for a short time, two or three smart pats with a mittened paw generally make it go fast asleep.
The cat’s love of fun is perhaps one of the most endearing traits in her character. Who has not laughed to see the antics performed by some pet cat, whom its mistress wished to bring into the house for the night. Pussy has been walking with her mistress in the garden; but the night is fair and moonlit, and she hasn’t the slightest intention of coming in, for at least half-an-hour yet. So round the walks she flies, romping and rollicking, with tail in the air, and eyes crimson and green with the mischief that is in them; always popping out when least expected, and sometimes brushing the lady’s very skirts. Now she walks demurely up to her mistress, as if soliciting capture, and just as she is being picked up,—“Ah! you thought you had me, did you?” and off she scampers to the other end of the garden. Anon, she is up a tree, and grinning like an elf from the topmost branches; and no amount of pet names, blarney, or coaxing will entice her down or into the house until, as they say in the north, her ain de’il bids her. Pussy’s fondness for frolic has led to strange results sometimes, as the following will testify:—
In an old-fashioned house, in an old-fashioned parish, in the county of Aberdeenshire, there lived, not many years ago, a farmer of the name of D——. His family consisted of his wife, two marriageable daughters, and a beautiful tabby cat. This cat was well fed and cared for, and being so, was an excellent mouser. Indeed, it was averred by the farmer that no rat would live within a mile of her. The house stood by itself some distance off the road, but, though surrounded by lofty pine-trees, it had by no means the appearance of a place, which a ghost of average intellect and any claim to respectability would select, as the scene of its midnight peregrinations. Besides, there was no story attached to the house. No one had ever been murdered there, so far as was known. No old miser had ever resided within its walls; and though several members of the family had died in the old box-bed, they had all passed away in the most legitimate manner. Old granny was the only one at all likely to come back; but what could she have forgotten? The old lady was sensible to the last, and behaved like a brick. She told them candidly she was “wearin’ awa’;” sat up in bed and in a sadly quavering voice sang the Old Hundred; then handed over the key of the tea-caddy, where she kept her “trifle siller,” with the remark that they would find among the rest two old pennies, which she had kept especially to be placed in her eyes when her “candle went out.”
In spite of this, however, the honest farmer and his family were all awakened one night by hearing the parlour bell rung, and rung too with great force. They couldn’t all have been dreaming. Besides, while they were yet doubting and deliberating, lo! the bell rung a second time. John and his wife shook in their shoes. That is merely a figure of speech; for, properly speaking, they hadn’t even their stockings on. The marriageable daughters would have fainted, but they had only read of fainting in books, and had no idea how it was done. It must be allowed matters were alarming enough. Who or what dreadful thing was thus urgently demanding an interview at that untimely hour of night, in that lone house among the pine-trees. The bell rang a third time; and, urged by the entreaties of his wife to be brave for once and go—she did not say come—and see, John at last reached down his old brown Bess—it had been loaded for five years—and with a candle in his other hand, his wife holding on by the skirts of his night-dress, and the marriageable daughters bringing up the rear, prepared to march upon the parlour.
In Indian file, and all in white, they might have been mistaken for a party of priests going to celebrate midnight mass. No ghost could have withstood the sight of that procession. It must have burst out laughing, unless, indeed, a very grave ghost. When at last they reached the parlour, neither sight nor sound rewarded them for their heroism. Everything was in its usual place, and nothing was disturbed. A search all over the house proved too that the doors were all locked, the windows fastened, and no one either up the chimney or under the beds. So the mystery was put down to super-human agency, or, as the good wife termed it, “something no canny;” and they all went trembling back to bed, and lay awake in great fear till the cock crew.
For nearly a fortnight after this, almost every night, and sometimes even by day, the same strange disturbances occurred, and all efforts to solve the mystery were fruitless. So it got rumoured abroad that the house was haunted. All the usual remedies were had recourse to for the purpose of exorcism, but in vain. The parson came twice to pray in the room. He might as well have stopped at home. Equally unsuccessful were the services of an old lady, whom her enemies called a witch, her friends “the wisest woman in the parish.” Things began to look serious. The goodwife was getting thin, her daughters hysterical, and John himself began to lose caste among the neighbours. It was openly hinted, that some deed of blood must have been committed by him, in that same house and room. Nor could his thirty years of married life and unblemished reputation save him. He had been too quiet, people said, and too regular in his attendance at church; besides, he had a down look about him, and, on the whole, hanging was too good for him. Some averred that strange sights and sounds were seen and heard by people who had occasion to pass that house at night, among other things a light gliding about in the copse-wood. No, they would not believe it was only John locking up the stable; and the devil himself, in the shape of a fox, was seen at early morning coming directly from the house. Of course the devil had a fine fat hen over his shoulders, but that had nothing to do with the matter. Poor John! it had come to this, that he had serious thoughts of giving up his farm and going to America, when a rollicking young student in the neighbourhood, who did not believe in spirits—except ardent—proposed to the farmer that they should “wake the ghost.”
“Wake the ghost!” said the farmer, “ye little ken, lad. He’s wide enough awake already.”
“Wake him,” repeated the student; “sit up at night, you know, and wait till he comes.”
John turned pale.