Shireen and her Friends: Pages from the Life of a Persian Cat

I now attached myself more and more to my young mistress Beebee, and I became her favourite and her pet. I was almost constantly by her side during the day, except when on the warpath slaying huge rats, and I always occupied her lovely sleeping apartment at night.

But young though she was, Beebee was never idle. And her story which she told me one day, weeping bitterly, was, I thought, a very sad one.

“My own Shireen,” she said, “you see how hard at work they keep me. For to me, Shireen, study is indeed the hardest of work. But my teachers seldom leave me. I have a European lady to teach me English. This is the best of it, and oh, how I wish I were English, and free; as it is, I am but a slave. But this dear lady is good to me, and gives me lovely fairy-tale books to read in her own language; but yet these I must hide from the fierce-eyed eunuchs who guard me night and day. I am also taught music, the piano, and the zither, and I am taught to sing. Then a scion of the prophet – that old, old man with the long dyed beard, and the cloak of camel’s hair – teaches me Sanscrit and the higher branches of the Persian, so that my poor little head is turned, and my night is often passed in weeping and dreaming.

“I have no mother, my sweet Shireen. Look at these pearls and rubies and amethysts; I would give them all, all to have a mother, if only for a month.”

I purred and sung to Beebee, but she would not be comforted.

“I tell my story to you, Shireen, though you are only a cat. But I must speak to some one who loves me, else I soon would die.”

Here her tears fell faster and faster.

“And oh, Shireen, I have not told you the worst.

“It is this, Shireen. Those beautiful English books tell me that in England a man has someone to love and care for him, someone whose lot in life is the same as his; that someone is his life. But here in Persia – oh! Shireen, Shireen – if one is as I am, the daughter of a noble, and if she is beautiful and clever, her lot is indeed a hard one. She is sold – yes, sold is the right name, to the Shah.

“My father is cold-hearted and cruel. I seldom see him. He is ever, ever at Court, and when in the hunting season he brings a party to this lovely castle I am hidden away. And why, think you, Shireen? It is because when I grow older and cleverer in a few years’ time I shall go in state to the Shah. My prince will never come, as he always does, in beautiful English books; he will never come to bear me away. I shall be but one of a thousand, and spend a life like a bulbul in a golden cage.

“I have no one that loves me but you, Shireen. And now, lest they take you from me, I am going to mark you. Oh, my beautiful cat, it will not hurt. The magician himself will insert a tiny ruby in one of your teeth, Shireen; then if they take you away because I love you so, and bring me another cat like you, I can say, ‘No, no, this is not Shireen; give me back Shireen.’ And no peace will they have until you are restored.”

Well, children, the magician took me from Beebee, and he put me into a deep trance, and in one of my teeth he drilled a hole and inserted a tiny ruby.

That ruby is there now, and ever will remain.

“Just look at that happy group, Mrs Clarkson,” said Uncle Ben, “and that wonderful cat in the midst of them. Wouldn’t you think she had been, or is talking to them?”

“Well,” said Mrs Clarkson, “I shouldn’t really wonder if animals that are so much together day after day as these are, have a sort of language of their own.”

“A kind of animal Volapuk,” said the Colonel laughing. “Well, it may be, you know, but I am of opinion, and have long been so, that animals have souls. Oh, surely God never meant affection and love such as theirs, and truth and faithfulness to rot in the ground.”

“Well, I can’t say, you know,” said Uncle Ben.

“There is my cockatoo here.”

“Oh, pardon me for interrupting you, my sailor friend, but a cockatoo hasn’t half the sense and sagacity a cat has.”

“Poor Cockie wants to go to bed!” – This from the bird on Ben’s shoulder.

“Hear that?” cried Ben laughing.

“When you can make your cat give utterances to such a sensible remark as that, I’ll – but, my dear soldier, it is eleven o’clock, and Tom and Lizzie, poor little dears, have both dropped off to sleep. Good night!”

“Good-night! Good-night!” shrieked the cockatoo in a voice that waked the children at once. “Good-night. Cockie’s off. Cockie’s off.”

And away went the sailor.

But next morning Shireen had an adventure that very nearly put a stop to her story-telling for ever.

She had gone off after breakfast for a ramble in the green fields and through the village. It happened to be Saturday, so there was no school to-day, and just as she was coming out of the cottage where the sick child was, and promising herself a nap in Uncle Ben’s hammock, who should she see coming up the street with her little brother in a tall perambulator, but her favourite schoolgirl, Emily Stoddart.

Up marched Shireen with her tail in the air.

“Oh, you dear lovely pussy!” cried Emily, lifting her up and placing her in the perambulator, when she at once commenced to sing, greatly to the delight of the child.

And away went Emily wheeling them both.

“Oh, dear, what shall we do, Shireen?” cried Emily next moment, trying to hide pussy with a shawl. “Here comes the butcher’s awful dog.”

The bull-terrier made straight for the perambulator.

“Come down out o’ there at once,” he seemed to cry. “I’ve got you now. You’ll be a dead ’un in half-a-minute more.”

“You won’t? Then here goes.”

The bull-terrier – and he was no small weight either – made a spring for the perambulator. Emily made a spring to save the child. Danger had no intention, however, of harming a hair in that child’s head. It was the cat Shireen he was after; the cat, the cat, and no one else.

The child swayed to one side to save himself, and next moment down went his carriage. Down went cat and carriage, the child and Emily, and the bull-terrier, all mixed up in one confused heap.

Shireen was the first to extricate herself and to bolt for her life, but Danger was the next, and it did not seem that poor pussy’s span of existence was at that moment worth an hour’s purchase.

For a cat to permit herself to be caught by a dog while running away is the worst possible policy for the cat, because the pursuer gets her by the brick and the spine is broken. Shireen knew this, and she also knew there was no way of escape handy, no railing to run through, no doorway to enter, no tree to climb, so she determined to sell her life dearly.

Round she turned, and the blow she caught that dog staggered him for a little, and the blood ran over his face.

All in vain though. He came on now with redoubled ferocity, and down went poor Shireen.

Emily screamed and flew to her assistance.

But in two seconds more a true hero came to the rescue. This was none other save Cracker himself, the large Airedale terrier.

“Here, lad!” cried Cracker, or seemed to cry in good broad honest Yorkshire English. “What’s tha’ doin’ wi’ t’ould cat?”

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