Once for three days she stayed at home; but on the third evening she looked down the field, and saw Grimalkin waiting. A little cry rose in her throat; she dropped out of the window and ran to him.
They hunted together until the long sunbeams were cut off by the hill, and the dew began to fall. A score of blackbirds piped in Knockdane, and a corncrake rasped in the meadow. The darkness fell, and the night peoples—the badgers, bats, and owls—came out. When the night was half gone, Zoe's instinct to return to her human friends awoke, but she was tired, and Grimalkin's presence was very dear to her. She felt drawn two ways. Instinct bade her remain in the woods; custom, parent of instinct, commanded her to return home. The shadows under the oak trees were full of the mysterious sights and sounds of the night. A skylark on the hill believed that he saw the false dawn, and rose singing to meet it; and a cuckoo in the valley awoke and fluted drowsily. Out in the woods the ways of men seem very small and far away. Grimalkin looked round. 'Prr-r-eaow!' he cried, which being interpreted is: 'O my love, the desirable one'; and the cuckoo's voice mingled with the murmur of the river. Zoe's doubts fled. She forgot her former life, and all the kindness which she had always received from man. Grimalkin was calling and her heart went out to him—Knockdane was calling and she obeyed it. She followed her mate to his lair.
At the beginning of July Zoe left Grimalkin altogether. Now and then he caught a glimpse of her, but she always fled from him as though he had been some dangerous thing, and for many nights he hunted alone.
Years before, a south-westerly gale had driven in from the Atlantic, and ploughed a deep furrow through the fir grove at the top of Knockdane, piling the snapped trunks on one another. Nobody moved them, and they lay there in rotting heaps; but their fall let in the sunshine and rain to the earth, and the next summer a multitude of plants grew up where previously had been nothing but gloomy firs. Briars ran riot over the decaying branches, grass grew rank and long, and alders pushed a way to the air and light. These were woven into a jungle so dense that only the rabbits thoroughly knew their way about in it; but the foxes and cats followed their runways and often hunted them on their own ground.
Early one morning Grimalkin went to the 'Jungle.' No dew had fallen for many days, and the sun rose up a cloudless sky. Grimalkin glided down a rabbit track, and so into a little clearing surrounded by walls of thorn and wild rose. Here lay a tree trunk which had been uprooted by the storm. Under its roots was a little cavern half hidden by ivy and broken branches. Grimalkin jumped upon the trunk, and squatted down to watch for rabbits and enjoy the morning sunshine. Presently a bough snapped behind him, and he turned his head very slightly. His muscles were tense to spring, when a soft voice of infinite motherliness thrilled him. 'Purr-r-utchuck!' it said, which in cat language means: 'Thy mother loves thee, little love!' Trotting towards the tree came Zoe. She was thin and her coat looked rough, but her eyes had a tender glow. Grimalkin watched her glide into the lair under the ivy, and then he leaped after her. Carefully concealed from curious eyes was a little chamber lined with grass bents. On the ground squeaked and squirmed a heap of grey and white fur, and encircling it proudly with her body lay Zoe. She purred softly to her brood, and licked the tiny round heads thrust forward so eagerly for a meal. She never noticed Grimalkin until his shadow darkened the doorway, and then she sprang up—a very fierce mother—with back arched. In the woods motherhood for a time swamps all other feelings; and Zoe now looked upon her former lover as she would have done upon any other creature who threatened her kittens.
However, Grimalkin had no evil intentions. He thrust his head into the nursery and touched Zoe's whiskers; and, although her claws were drawn back to strike, she suffered the caress. One of the kittens, mewing plaintively, crawled to Grimalkin, and thrust its minute pink nose into his side. Grimalkin stood frozen with horror for a moment, glaring at his son, then with a hiss of indignation he leaped into the bushes and fled. Henceforth he avoided the old fir tree, although he often met Zoe elsewhere.
That summer was long remembered in the countryside as 'The year of the great drought.' No dew or rain fell, and the whole land leaped and quivered in the heat all day long. The pools and brooks dwindled, leaving cracked patches of mud to show where they had been. Brooding birds upon the nest gaped with thirst, but dared not leave their eggs to seek the distant river. For the Fur Folk in Knockdane there was only one little trickle of tepid water left; and all day long it was crowded with thirsty birds who struggled with one another for room to drink and bathe. It was hard work for Zoe in these days, for she had to hunt for five besides herself. She grew very thin; but as the kittens throve she did not spare herself, for that is the way of mothers, human and furred.
One blazing noon she left her family for a little while, and was sitting with Grimalkin in a hawthorn some little way from the 'Jungle.' Their attention was attracted by the thud of footsteps, and they saw Paddy Magragh the earthstopper. He had paused to draw his pipe from his pocket and light it. The cats watched intently lest he should discover them, but he threw away the match and passed on.
By and by Grimalkin looked down the path and saw what looked like a row of orange crocus flowers, which grew up in a moment and died down, leaving the ground black behind them. The cats came down from the tree, and at the first whiff of the burnt grass Zoe's back rose. She knew that smell better than did Grimalkin, for she was more accustomed to the ways of men, and had sat by the fireside; but there the flames had been caged behind iron bars—here in the free woods they had it all their own way. Grimalkin growled, and then, stealthily, as though he had sighted a rabbit snare, he slipped into the bushes and glided away. Zoe stood there longer, for although she hated and feared the fire, yet it was less strange to her than to her mate.