“Thy mistress is away. I do not know when she will return,” he said, leaning over the suffering creature, and speaking in exquisitely soft and sympathetic tones; “but if she were here she would stroke thy mangled fur, and say kindly, ‘Courage, little cat, thy sufferings will soon be over;’ and for her sake I put my hand on thy head, and I will sit by thee till thou art no more. Perhaps, though, thou wouldst like some milk;” and he ran quickly to the kitchen, and brought back some cream in a saucer.
The dying cat refused to take it; so the boy smeared some on his lips, and then continued his compassionate sentences. Occasionally, in response to his remarks to the effect that death overtakes all, that there is but one lot for king, pauper, or dumb beast, the animal would return a plaintive mew. At last the unfortunate Squirrel’s sufferings were over. He gave one gasp, like a dying child, then lay quite still.
“I cannot cry, little cat,” said Eugene softly, wrapping the coat around him, and tiptoeing his way back to his room; “but I, nevertheless, grieve for thee. Now what is to be done? That dear woman evidently does not return to-night;” and he shivered, and glanced over his shoulder. “I am not afraid, and yet the house is desolate.”
For some time he stood with his head on his breast, then he raised it with a sudden air of decision. “I will go to see the king. He, too, will be sorrowing on account of the absence of his friend.”
He buttoned round him a warm overcoat, put out the light in his room, and shut in it the two old cats who had been mewing dismally about him ever since their suffering comrade had arrived. Then, carrying the body of the unlucky Squirrel in his arms, he wended his way to the park.
King Boozy was watching, and not sleeping. All through the evening he had been wandering to and fro under the trees, awaiting the arrival of the absent Squirrel before he could go to sleep. On account of the darkness and rain of the night not many persons passed through the park; and of those who took the walk under the poplars not one suspected the eager scrutiny of the pair of eyes belonging to the little animal crouching beneath the leaves—not one but Eugene. He knew that the cat was there, and whistled softly to him.
The king was at his side in an instant, and there was no need for Eugene to tell him what had happened. He knew at once, and in dumb sorrow trotted beside the boy to his home in the underbrush.
“There he is, Boozy,” said Eugene, laying the cat carefully on the ground, and spreading open the coat. “I thought it better for thee to know. Thou wilt not cry? No, that is a good, sensible cat.”
The king crept close to his dead friend, and examined him closely and affectionately, pausing every few minutes to look up at Eugene as if to say, “Will he not revive?”
The boy bent over him in the darkness. “No, Boozy,” he said, “thou canst not bring him back. Poor little cat, he has lived his day, and dogs or cruel boys have killed him. And now I must return to the house, for it is chilly here, but first I must tell thee something;” and he caught the creature to him in a tumult of affection. “Listen, till I tell thee that I have been away, and that I have come back a new boy. I do not know what has caused the change in me; but my heart feels no longer hard and cold, but soft, quite soft, like thy fur. I do not believe all that these grown people tell me; but I believe many things, and I think that having lived longer they may know a little more than I do. I must be patient and learn; and that woman, that woman—I love her, and she shall be my mother! Ah, Boozy,” and the boy sprang to his feet, and lifted his cap reverently from his head, “I shall be a son to her. I shall stay in this new, free country as long as she lives. She says that I must not hate England, and I will not hate it. She says that I must endure the republic in France, and I will do that. If she will guide me I will follow her, now that I know that women are good and do not deceive. My beloved grandfather did not understand. He did not know the sergeant’s wife. Au revoir, little cat: I must go back to the house lest she possibly arrive and find me absent. Wilt thou come with me?”