Whenever one of the farm hands came up to fetch hay or straw for the cows and caught her unawares, she would hiss at him. Nevertheless, the foreman, who was fond of cats, always put a little milk in the loft for her; it remained invariably untouched during the day, but at night it was drunk up.
“Hanged if I know what is the matter with Grey Puss!” he often muttered to himself. “I wonder if Box has been chasing her ... she’s so scared; she’s more like a wild cat, the little fool!”
Yes, wild she had been for a long time! From the cow-stall she retreated to the loft, where she learned to hide among the beams and rafters. She got into the habit of climbing trees, walking up and down thatched roofs, and sleeping behind chimney-stacks.
And as time went on she became more and more peculiar....
She was not like the other farm cats, who let their children be drowned litter after litter, without doing anything more heroic than miauw over their corpses. No, she allowed that to happen once, after which she understood that she had hidden her kittens badly! Of course they could not be expected to escape by themselves!
The next time she had young she hid them deep down under a heap of straw; but the foreman’s small boys, who always played in the loft, heard their squealing and fished them out—and then they were murdered. One only was left, overlooked in the straw.
Most other she-cats would have been grateful for the survivor and forgotten the rest. But she did not forget; she went about seeking and seeking, miauwing and complaining incessantly. Finally she took the one kitten in her mouth and carried it away to an empty dovecote in a deserted labourer’s cottage. Here it grew up without seeing a single “human.” Until one fine morning it was killed by Box....
Now, this spring, when she is once more to have kittens, she hides inside the old hollow willow out here in the fields.
No living soul shall find her young this time!