The cats in the neighbourhood of course learned that there was an injured bird in our garden, and I have seen as many as six at a time sitting on the top of the wall looking down at him. The instant Jim saw one he would give a peculiar cry of alarm that he kept for the cats alone. Rover knew this cry, and springing up would rush toward the wall, barking angrily, and frightening the cats away, though he never could have seen them well enough to catch them.
Jim detested not cats alone, but every strange face, every strange noise, and every strange creature,—boys most of all. If one of them came into the garden he would run to his kennel in a great fright. Now this dislike of Jim's for strange noises saved some of my grandmother's property, and also two people who might otherwise have gone completely to the bad.
About midnight, one dark November night, my grandmother and I were sleeping quietly,—she in her big bed, and I in my little one beside her. The room was a very large one, and our beds were opposite a French window, which stood partly open, for my grandmother liked to have plenty of fresh air at night. Under this window was Jim's kennel.
I was having a very pleasant dream, when in the midst of it I heard a loud, "Caw! Caw!" I woke, and found that my grandmother was turning over sleepily in bed.
"That's the crow's cat call," she murmured; "but cats could never get into that kennel."
"Let me get up and see," I said.
"No, child," she replied. Then she reached out her hand, scratched a match, and lighted the big lamp that stood on the table by her bed.
I winked my eyes,—the room was almost as bright as day, and there, half-way through the window, was George, our old coachman. His head was in the room; his feet must have been resting on the kennel, his expression was confused, and he did not seem to know whether to retreat or advance.
"Come in, George," said my grandmother, gravely.