"Well," said Anthea, rather sharply, for she was tired and anxious, "who told you milk wasn't Persian for milk? Lots of English words are just the same in French—at least, I know 'miaw' is, and croquet, and fiancé. Oh, pussies, do be quiet! Let's stroke them as hard as we can with both hands, and perhaps they'll stop."
So everyone stroked grey fur till their hands were tired, and as soon as a cat had been stroked enough to make it stop mewing it was pushed gently away, and another mewing mouser was approached by the hands of the strokers. And the noise was really more than half purr when the carpet suddenly appeared in its proper place, and on it, instead of rows of milk-cans or even of milk-jugs, there was a cow. Not a Persian cow, either; nor, most fortunately, a musk-cow, if there is such a thing, but a smooth, sleek, dun-coloured Jersey cow, who blinked large, soft eyes at the gaslight and mooed in an amiable, if rather inquiring, manner.
Anthea had always been afraid of cows. But now she tried to be brave.
"Anyway, it can't run after me," she said to herself. "There isn't room for it even to begin to run."
The cow was perfectly placid. She behaved like a strayed duchess till someone brought a saucer for the milk and someone else tried to milk the cow into it. Milking is very difficult. You may think it is easy, but it is not. All the children were by this time strung up to a pitch of heroism that would have been impossible to them in their ordinary condition. Robert and Cyril held the cow by the horns, and when she was quite sure that their end of the cow was secure Jane consented to stand by, ready to hold the cow by the tail, should occasion arise. Anthea, holding the saucer, now advanced towards the cow. She remembered to have heard that cows, when milked by strangers, are susceptible to the soothing influence of the human voice. So, clutching her saucer very tight, she sought for words to whose soothing influence the cow might be susceptible. And her memory, troubled by the events of the night, which seemed to go on and on for ever and ever, refused to help her with any form of words suitable to address a Jersey cow in.
"Poor pussy, then. Lie down, then, good dog, lie down," was all she could think of to say, and she said it. And nobody laughed—the situation, full of grey, mewing cats, was too serious for that.
Then Anthea, with a beating heart, tried to milk the cow. Next moment the cow had knocked the saucer out of her hand and trampled on it with one foot, while with the other three she had walked on a foot each of Robert, Cyril, and Jane.
Jane burst into tears.
"Oh, how much too horrid everything is!" she cried. "Come away. Let's go to bed and leave the horrid cats with the hateful cow. Perhaps somebody will eat somebody else. And serve them right."
They did not go to bed, but had a shivering council in the drawing-room, which smelt of soot—and, indeed, a heap of this lay in the fender. There had been no fire in the room since mother went away, and all the chairs and tables were in the wrong places, and the chrysanthemums were dead, and the water in their pots nearly dried up.