It must not be supposed, however, that she was anybody’s cat, for a cupful of milk, as the saying is. For there were people that Shireen liked better than others, and some she did not like at all; while there were men and women that she would fly from, and houses in the village that she gave a wide berth to.
Sometimes she would take it into her head to pay a visit to the girls’ school during working hours. The young lady teachers did not object, because she did not interfere with the duties; but here again she evinced likes and dislikes. Pretty Matty Loraine, for example, she quietly ignored, and never responded to her caresses, but to everybody’s astonishment she seemed greatly attached to Emily Stoddart, although Emily was considered somewhat plain in appearance, and not very clever. Besides, she had red hair; but she had soft blue eyes, and perhaps Shireen had found out down in their hidden depths a gentle nature dwelt.
Everybody said that when Matty grew up she would be very beautiful indeed, and might possibly marry the squire’s son, but a wealthy marriage was never prophesied for poor Emily. There were stonemasons and hedgers or ditchers for girls like her. However, prophecies did not seem to trouble Emily, though the evident preference that Shireen showed for her pleased her not a little. Perhaps cats are students of human character, and in very truth they need to be if they are to enjoy life at all, and give themselves a chance of securing the allotted span of eighteen or twenty years which Providence has decreed as the extent of poor persecuted pussy’s existence—in this world at all events.
Singularly enough, Shireen evinced not the slightest fear of dogs. As a rule, I mean, though every rule has its exceptions. But puss could have told you the idiosyncrasies of all the dogs in the village downwards, from the doctor’s great good-natured Newfoundland, on whose broad back all the children in the place had ridden when very young. He wouldn’t touch a cat. He was too noble by far. Nor would the saddler’s bull-dog, ferocious-looking and ugly to a degree though he was; nor Squire Blythe’s mastiff; nor Miss Ponsonby’s collie, with his long shaggy coat, his beautiful face and gentle eyes.
Whenever a new dog came to the village Shireen set out to meet him and make friends with him. She would come trotting up to the fresh arrival with her tail in the air, and purring nearly as loud as a turtle dove, and some such conversation as the following might be supposed to take place between the two.
Shireen (loquitur): “Oh, you’re the new dog, aren’t you? What’s your name, and what’s your breed? I’m simply delighted to see a new face!”
Fresh Arrival (looking astonished): “My name is Cracker. My breed is the Airedale terrier. I come from Yorkshire. I have fought and slain an otter single-handed. I’m a terrible fellow when I’m put out. My duty is to kill rats, and—listen—sometimes even cats!”
Shireen (purring louder than ever): “Oh, I daresay and, indeed, Cracker, some cats deserve to be killed. But I’m Shireen. Nobody ever kills me. What a nice good-natured face you have! Just let me rub my back against your chest. So—and—so! I’m sure we shall be tremendous friends, and you might do me a favour if you care to.”
Fresh Arrival: “Is it rats?”
Shireen: “No, it isn’t rats. It is Danger, the butcher’s bull-terrier. He wants killing ever so much. He thinks he can fight any dog, and he always chases me. But be sure you shake him well up whenever you meet him. He has one ear slit in two. I managed that for him one day. I’ll sit in a tree and see you open him up, and nobody will be a bit sorry. Good-bye, you beautiful handsome Cracker. So pleased to have met you. Just over the way there, in that low-thatched cottage, there is a sick child, and I am going in to sit and sing to her till she drops off asleep and forgets her pains and sorrows. Good-bye.”