A long-drawn sigh was her husband's only answer; his eye fell upon the bed. "How the devil came that here?" quoth Joseph, with a sudden recoil: "who put that thing on my pillow?"
"Why, I did, Joseph. Th' ould night-cap is in the wash, and thee didst toss and tumble so, and kick the clothes off, I thought thee mightest catch cowld, so I clapt t' wig atop o' thee head."
And there it lay,—the little sinister-looking tail impudently perked up, like an infernal gnomon on a Satanic dial-plate—Larceny and Ovicide shone in every hair of it!
"The dawn was overcast, the morning lower'd, And heavily in clouds brought on the day,"
when Joseph Washford once more repaired to the scene of his daily labours; a sort of unpleasant consciousness flushed his countenance, and gave him an uneasy feeling as he opened the garden gate; for Joe, generally speaking, was honest as the skin between his eye-brows;—his hand faltered as it pressed the latch. "Pooh, pooh! 'twas but an apple, after all!" said Joseph. He pushed open the wicket, and found himself beneath the tempting tree.
But vain now were all its fascinations; like fairy gold seen by the morning light, its charms had faded into very nothingness. Worlds, to say nothing of apples, which in shape resemble them, would not have bought him to stretch forth an unhallowed hand again. He went steadily to his work.
The day continued cloudy, huge drops of rain fell at intervals, stamping his bald pate with spots as big as halfpence; but Joseph worked on. As the day advanced, showers fell thick and frequent; the fresh-turned earth was itself fragrant as a bouquet.—Joseph worked on—and when at last Jupiter Pluvius descended in all his majesty, soaking the ground into the consistency of a dingy pudding, he put on his party-coloured jacket, and strode towards his humble home, rejoicing in his renewed integrity. "'Twas but an apple, after all! Had it been an apple-pie, indeed!"—
"An apple-pie!"—the thought was a dangerous one—too dangerous to dwell on. But Joseph's better Genius was at this time lord of the ascendant;—he dismissed it, and passed on.
On arriving at his cottage, an air of bustle and confusion prevailed within, much at variance with the peaceful serenity usually observable in its economy. Mrs. Washford was in high dudgeon; her heels clattered on the red-tiled floor, and she whisked about the house like a parched pea upon a drum-head; her voice, generally small and low,—"an excellent thing in woman,"—was pitched at least an octave above its ordinary level; she was talking fast and furious. Something had evidently gone wrong. The mystery was soon explained. The "cussed ould twoad of a cat" had got into the dairy, and licked off the cream from the only pan their single cow had filled that morning! And there she now lay,—purring as in scorn,—Tib, heretofore the meekest of mousers, the honestest, the least "scaddle" of the feline race,—a cat that one would have sworn might have been trusted with untold fish,—yes,—there was no denying it,—proofs were too strong against her,—yet there she lay, hardened in her iniquity, coolly licking her whiskers, and reposing quietly upon—what?—Jerry Jarvis's old wig!!
The patience of a Stoic must have yielded;—it had been too much for the temperament of the Man of Uz—Joseph Washford lifted his hand—that hand which had never yet been raised on Tibby, save to fondle and caress—it now descended on her devoted head in one tremendous "dowse." Never was cat so astonished,—so enraged—all the tiger portion of her nature rose in her soul. Instead of galloping off, hissing and sputtering, with arched back and tail erected, as any ordinary Grimalkin would unquestionably have done under similar circumstances, she paused a moment,—drew back on her haunches,—all her energies seemed concentrated for one prodigious spring; a demoniac fire gleamed in her green and yellow eyeballs, as, bounding upwards, she fixed her talons firmly in each of her assailant's cheeks!—many and many a day after were sadly visible the marks of those envenomed claws,—then, dashing over his shoulder with an unearthly mew, she leaped through the open casement, and—was seen no more.