He was very fond of that cat, I think, and it was, to say the least of it, as eccentric-looking as its master. One eye was yellow and the other was blue, which gave it a strange, uncanny expression, and its rust-coloured fur was not common either as to tint or markings.
How dear old Jem did belabour the boy we found torturing it! He was much older and bigger than we were, but we were two to one, which we reckoned fair enough, considering his size, and that the cat had to be saved somehow. The poor thing’s
forepaws were so much hurt that it could not walk, so we carried it to the farm, and I stood on the shallow doorsteps, and under the dial, on which was written—
“Tempora mutantur!”—
and the old miser came out, and we told him about the cat, and he took it and said we were good boys, and I hoped he would have asked us to go in, but he did not, though we lingered a little; he only put his hand into his pocket, and very slowly brought out sixpence.
“No, thank you,” said I, rather indignantly. “We don’t want anything for saving the poor cat.”
“I am very fond of it,” he said apologetically, and putting the sixpence carefully back; but I believe he alluded to the cat.
I felt more and more strongly that he ought to invite us into the parlour—if there was a parlour—and I took advantage of a backward movement on his part to move one shallow step nearer, and said, in an easy conversational tone, “Your cat has very curious eyes.”
He came out again, and his own eyes glared in the evening light as he touched me with one of his fingers in a way that made me shiver, and said, “If I had been an old woman, and that cat had lived with me in the days when this house was built, I should
have been hanged, or burned as a witch. Twelve men would have done it—twelve reasonable and respectable men!” He paused, looking over my head at the sky, and then added, “But in all good conscience—mind, in all good conscience!”