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

But little Tom Richards was better to-night, and sitting up in his chair by the fireside. He was delighted when Shireen came in, and made his mother place a saucer of milk down for her, and puss drank a little just to please the boy.

Then she permitted him to nurse her for quite a long time. Tom, child though he was, quite appreciated the value of this compliment; for although Shireen would permit a child to take her up, and even to pull her about and tease her, no grown-up person, with the exception of the Colonel and his wife, must dare to handle her.

But Shireen jumped down at last, and begged Tommy’s mother to open the door to her.

“Oh, don’t let pussy go yet!” pleaded the boy.

“I must, dear, I must,” said his mother, “else she may not come again.”

This was very true, for cats cannot bear restraint of any kind. If they are to be truly happy they must be allowed to go and come as they please.

Before going home Shireen had still another fireside to visit. And this was Emily’s.

A very humble hearth indeed; but poor Emily’s eyes sparkled with joy when Shireen came trotting in.

“Oh, Shireen dear, is it you?” she cried. “Oh, you beautiful good puss, and I haven’t seen you since Cracker nearly killed the butcher’s dog. Look, pussy, here is Cracker.”

Yes, there was Cracker, sure enough, and the dog and cat at once exchanged courtesies. Had you seen them lying together in front of the fire a few minutes after this, reader, you would never again have made use of that silly phrase – a cat and dog life. Cats and dogs, if brought up together, do agree. It is mankind that causes them to be enemies. A dog is far too noble an animal to touch a cat, unless he has been trained to look upon her as vermin.

“You see, I’m very busy to-night, Shireen,” said Emily. “Mending stockings for father. But baby is asleep, and so I have all the evening to myself, for I have already done my lessons.”

Poor Emily! her life was a somewhat hard one. Her mother had died but recently, and her father, who was only a labouring man, had been left all alone with Emily and her baby sister. All day long the child was taken care of by a neighbour, but as soon as school was dismissed Emily went for her, and then her work, indeed, began. Board Schools, as a rule, are a benefit to the nation, but there are cases when compulsory attendance falls heavy on children and parents too.

Emily’s father was sitting on the other side of the fire smoking his humble clay.

He bent down and stroked the cat.

“Ay, pussy,” he said, “Emily is very busy, and the Lord Himself knows what I should do without her. The Lord be thankit for a good kind daughter.”

So Shireen sat there nodding and singing by the fire, until she sang herself asleep. But when Emily arose at last, she asked to go, and her request was immediately granted.

“Good-night, pussy,” said Emily. “Mind to come again.”

And while pussy went trotting homewards through the darkness of a starless autumn night, Emily went in to prepare her father’s supper.

No, it is true, Emily was not a very good-looking girl, but she had a right kind heart of her own. And this is even better than beauty.

Chapter Ten

We Sailed Away to the South

Well, children, said Shireen, a few nights after, when she and her friends were once more all around the low and cheerful fire, the Colonel as usual in his place by the table, and Uncle Ben, cockatoo on shoulder, in an easy-chair. Well, children, here we are as cosy as cosy can be; and when I see you all beside me, and the fire blinking and burning so cheerily, I feel so happy all over that I can hardly express myself, even in song.

“But hear how the wind is howling to-night!” said Tabby, looking towards the window.

“Tse, tse, tse!” said Dick, as if much impressed.

Warlock simply sat on one end, looking thoughtfully into the fire. Wind or weather did not trouble Warlock much, he was as much at home among the heather on a wild winter’s day with the snow two feet deep, and clouds of ice-dust blowing, as he was among the wild flowers in dingle, dell, or forest, when summer was in its prime.

The truth is, Warlock was one of Scotland’s own dogs, and these you know, are as hardy as the hills.

It was concerning this same doggie, Warlock, that the author once wrote the following lines. They were in answer to a Highland friend, who enquired through the medium of a well-known journal, if he knew the Aberdeen terrier. The verses are truly descriptive of this brave breed of dog, whether they possess any other merit or not is very little matter.

Warlock.I ken the Terrier o’ the North,I ken the towsy tyke;Ye’ll search frae Tweed to Sussex shore,But never find his like.For pluck and pith, and jaws and teeth,And hair like heather cowes (stems);Wi’ body lang and low, and strang,At hame on cairns (heaps of stone and rubbish) and knowes.He’ll face a foumart (polecat), draw a brock (badger),Kill rats and whitterits (weasels) by the score;He’ll bang tod-lowrie (the fox) frae his hole,Or fight him at his door.He’ll range for days and ne’er be tired,O’er mountain, moor, or fell;Fair-play, I think, the dear wee chapWould fecht the deil himsel’.And yet beneath his rugged coat,A heart beats warm and true;He’ll help to herd the sheep and kye,And mind the lammies (young lambs) too.Then see him at the ingle side,Wi’ bairnies round him laughin’;Was ever dog sae pleased as he,Sae fond o’ fun and daffin? (Joking)But gie’s your han’, my Hielan man,In troth! we manna sever;Then here’s to Scotia’s best o’ dogs,Our towsy (rough and unkempt in coat) tyke for ever.

On this particular evening Warlock’s boots were somewhat muddy. Tabby’s had also been the same, though she had taken pains to clean them before coming to the fireside. The muddiness of their boots, however, only pointed to the fact that the two friends had enjoyed a rare day’s sport in the woods, or by the water’s side.

Well, said Shireen, as to the wind, I do not dislike hearing it, when I am indoors, nor hearing the rain rattling against the window panes either. I always think the fire burns brighter on a night like this. Besides, the howling and howthering of the storm carries my thoughts back to the golden days of my youth, and to the events of my life at sea.

Shireen paused for a moment with one snow-white paw raised thoughtfully in the air.

“Warlock,” she said, next minute, “what do you see in the fire?”

“Me?” said Warlock, rousing himself out of his reverie.

“Me, Shireen? Oh, I see a water-rat’s hole down under the banks of a dark brown stream, and I can see the water rats pop in and out. There, look, I see one now standing on end at the other side of the bank, rubbing the water out of his eyes with the back of his knuckles, the better to look over at me and Tabby.”

“What do you see, Mother Shireen?” said Vee-Vee.

I see a ship, my son, tossing hither and thither on the far-off Indian Ocean. I see the waves breaking in snowy spray, high, high against her jet-black sides. I see the racing waves curling their angry crests as they roll on towards the rugged horizon. I see dark storm clouds sweeping swift across the sky, with rifts of blue between, through which pours now and then a glint of sunshine.

“Mother Shireen, you were on that ship?” said Tabby, “tell us.”

Yes, Tabby, I was on that ship. And dear master too. Last evening I told you how my sweet little mistress Beebee, had given me away to the wounded officer before she bade him adieu.

I was vexed to lose her. I would, I thought, never, never see my old home again; never more lie on summer evenings on the turret balcony, watching with Beebee the sunlight and shade chasing each other across the dreamy woods, and the birds wheeling far beneath us in giddy flight. When Beebee had really gone, I scarce could believe that we were parted. I could not realise my loss at first. I went to the door and mewed, I jumped up into the window-sill, and examined the fastening of the jalousies.

“Shireen, come to me. Come, puss, come.”

I looked quickly around, and my eyes fell on the face of the soldier Edgar.

He looked wan and worn and old. Though but little more than six-and-twenty, and that is young for a man, he appeared to me in his grief and loneliness to be about sixty.

My heart went out to him at once. Oh, Tabby, I do believe that if human beings would only bear in mind, how sickness or helplessness in one of their race appeals to us poor cats, and how we love the feeble, the ill, and the old, as well as dear children, they would often be kinder to us. But this is a digression.

I jumped down from the window, and with a fond cry leapt up on the couch where soldier Edgar lay.

I was singing now.

I have often observed that the song of a cat seems to soothe a human being’s soul and calm his nerves, continued Shireen. Well, I had a duty to perform to this poor sick soldier, and I was determined to do it.

What is duty, did you ask, Warlock? Well, it is a word I have borrowed from the human race. It means the doing of that which you have been told off to do, and that it is your business to do. Strangely enough human beings usually want to be preached at before they can tackle their duty – if I may be excused for talking sailor fashion – while we cats and dogs, yes, and birds, Dick, feel impelled to duty by our own instincts only. But I had already become fond of soldier Edgar, because I knew my mistress liked him.

“Shireen,” he said, smoothing me but smiling, “you must not mourn too much for your mistress. She is not gone quite away, because she dwells here in my heart, Shireen. So we will often think of her together. I will love you for her sake, and you will love me for her sake. That is mutuality, pussy, so there! Now sit by me and sing, and I will sleep and awake calm and refreshed. I want to get better soon now, Shireen, because I intend coming back here again if possible, and take Beebee your mistress away. I want to save her from a fearful doom.”

I hardly know how the time passed after this for a month, during which time new master and I lived in the house of the priest.

But by this time master was strong and well again. Then came the day of parting.

The priest rode with us a very long way through the forest, and told us which way was the nearest to the city. Then we said – Farewell.

But the priest’s last words as he held Edgar’s hand were these: “If it be in my power to prevent it, my friend, depend upon it Beebee shall never enter the palace of the Shah!”

“May Heaven bless you,” said the soldier. He said no more. I do not think he could have done so had he tried, for tears seemed to rise and choke him.

Well, the next thing I distinctly remember, is being taken on board a man-o’-war ship from a boat that left the Apollo Bunder at Bombay.

I had one regret just then, for my thoughts reverted to Beebee in her turret chamber. I imagined her sitting there all alone with Miss Morgan, and gazing dreamily over the sea, the sea she so longed to float upon.

But once on board the ship I had little time to think very much, at first at all events. Everything was very new and very strange to me; and it would take me some time to get up to the ropes, you know, Warlock.

“Oh!” said Warlock, “we dogs don’t bother about ropes. When we come to a new home or house we just settle down there. All we want to know is where the door is.”

Ah! Warlock, yes, that I know is true. But think how different a dog’s life is from that of a poor cat. We cats have got to be wise, Warlock, and we’ve got to be wily, for though we have not got the brand of Cain upon our brows, still almost everybody who meets us wants to kill us.

It was on this very subject that only last Sunday I was conversing with the parson’s big tom-cat.

“I’m so much used to travelling now, Tom,” I said, “having had a spell of over twenty years of it, that I don’t mind where I go; but if I were not a travelling cat I should feel very much from home in a new house, not knowing the outs and ins of it, the upstairs and the down, and where to get food, where to watch for mice, and the drains to run into when the school children come past; or the trees to run up when the butcher’s dog comes round the corner.”

“Well, for many reasons,” said Tom in answer, “I like dogs well enough. But I wouldn’t like to be a dog, mind you, Shireen. Now look at me for example. I am the parson’s cat to be sure, and being a parson’s cat people might think I was under some restrictions. Not a bit of it, Shireen. I’m my own master.

“Now, look for example, at the Saint Bernard dog Dumpling – an honest contented great fellow he is – but bless you, Shireen, he isn’t free. But I am. Dumpling can’t do what he pleases – I can. I can go to bed when I like, rise when I like, and eat and drink when, where, and what I choose. Dumpling can’t. Really, Shireen, my old friend, I can forgive Dumpling for chasing me into the apple tree last Sunday, when I think of the dull life a dog leads, and how few are his joys compared to mine. Poor Dumpling needs the servants to wait upon him. He can’t walk a couple of miles by himself and be sure of finding his way back, or sure of not getting into a row, getting stolen, or some other accident equally ridiculous.

“The other day, Shireen, if you’ll take my word for it, Dumpling actually sat on the doorstep for two hours in the pouring, pitiless rain till his great shaggy coat was soaked to the skin, because, forsooth, he didn’t know how to get the door opened. Would a cat have done that? No, a cat would have walked politely up to the first kind-faced passenger that came along and asked him to be good enough to ring the bell, and the thing would have been done. Could Dumpling unlatch a door or catch a mouse? Not to save his life. Could he climb a tree and examine a sparrow’s nest? Not he. Could he find his way home over the tiles on a dark night? A pretty figure he would cut if he were only going to try. No, Shireen, dogs have their uses, but they’re not in the same standard with cats.”

Well, Warlock, mind these are Tom’s views and not mine: but as I was telling you all, I found myself safe on board the Venom at last, and that same afternoon we sailed away to the south.

Master being still somewhat of an invalid, the doctor had given him and me the use of his cabin, he himself sleeping at night inside a canvas screen on the main deck.

The Venom, I must tell you, wasn’t a very large ship, and she was engaged in what fighting human-sailors called the suppression of the slave trade. Not that I meant to trouble my head very much about any such nonsense, only in one way it appealed to us; it would make our passage down to the far-off Cape of Good Hope and so home to England a very much longer one.

“You see,” the captain said to my soldier Edgar on the quarter-deck the first day, “we are awfully glad to have you with us, but we can’t hurry even on your account.”

“I wouldn’t wish you to do so, Captain Beecroft. The long voyage will do me a wonderful deal of good; besides I don’t really long to be home. I’d rather be back in Persia again.”

The captain looked at him somewhat searchingly and smiled.

I was walking up and down with the pair of them, with my tail in the air and looking very contented and pleased, because the sun was shining so brightly, and the ocean, which I could catch peeps at through the port-holes, was as blue as lapis lazuli.

“I say,” said the captain, “did you lose your heart out there?”

“I did,” was the reply. “Oh, I am ten years older than Beebee, and perhaps more, and nothing may ever come of it. Put, sir, she saved my life.”

“Do you see this cat?” he continued, taking me up in his arms. “Well, this is Shireen. The girl who so bravely saved my life gave Shireen to me.”

“Wait a minute,” said Captain Beecroft. “Come into my cabin here. Now sit down and just tell me all the story.”

Edgar did so, and I think that from that moment these two men were fast friends.

My master also showed the captain the beautiful little ruby that was set in my tooth.

“A strange notion!” said the latter.

“It is not an uncommon one among eastern ladies,” said the soldier. “Anyhow,” he added, “I should always know Shireen again if I happened to lose her, and she returned even ten years after.”

Somehow, my children, those words, simple though they were, had an ominous ring in them, and I thought of them long, long after, in far less happy times.

Well, Warlock, after I had been a few days at sea, I determined to get up to the ropes. I must see everything there was to be seen, for as far as I had yet noticed, there was nothing to be very greatly afraid of.

But I resolved to make my first excursion round the ship by night.

So soon after sunset I went quietly upstairs, and immediately found myself under the stars on deck.

Chapter Eleven

Ship’s Cat on Board the “Venom.”

As soon as I got on deck I began to glance eagerly about me.

The moon was shining very brightly, and the waves all the way to the horizon were stippled with light, while the bright stars were reflected and multiplied in the water like a myriad of diamonds.

There was a breeze blowing just then, so there was no need for the present to keep steam up, as a sailor calls it.

Steam is not nice on board ship, Warlock. There is a terrible noise, and everywhere the ship is shaken. You cannot help fancying you are inside a mill all the time, with such a multitude of wheels rattling round and round, that it quite bewilders one.

But to-night there was hardly a hush on deck, except now and then the trampling of the sailors’ feet, or a song borne aft from the forecastle.

I was not a ship’s cat yet, you know, Warlock, and so didn’t know the names of things. But I soon found a guide, or rather the guide found me. I was standing on the quarter-deck, as it is called, looking about me in a very uncertain kind of way, when I heard soft footsteps stealing up behind me, and, looking round, was rather startled to see standing there in the moonlight, which made him look double the size, an immense black Thomas cat, with yellow fiery eyes.

I was going to bolt down the stairs again at once, and ask my master to come and shoot him, but there was a sort of music in his voice which appealed to me the moment he spoke.

“Oh, you lovely, angelic pussy princess,” he said; “be not afraid, I pray you. Hurry not away, for if you leave the deck the moon will cease to shine, and the stars will lose their radiance.”

He advanced stealthily towards me as he spoke, singing aloud. But I sprang upon the skylight at once, raised my back and growled, as much probably in terror as in anger.

“Come but one step nearer,” I cried, “and I will leap into the foaming sea.”

“Dear princess,” he said, “I would rather lose my life. I would rather throw my body to the sharks than any ill should happen to a hair of your head.”

“See,” he continued, jumping on the top of a kind of wooden fence, which sailors call the bulwarks, that ran round, what I then called the lid (deck) of the ship. “See! speak the word, and I shall rid you for ever of my hateful presence!”

I was very much afraid then.

I did not want to see this Thomas cat drowned before my eyes, for although he was very black, I could not help noticing that he was comely.

“Oh,” I cried, “come down from off that fearful fence and I will forgive you, perhaps even take you into favour.”

Well, Warlock, strange though it may appear, in three minutes’ time this Thomas cat and I were as good friends as if we had known each other for years.

“You are very lovely,” he said. “Strange how extremes meet, for I have been told that I am quite ugly. Your coat is snow-white, mine is like the raven’s wing. Your fur is long and soft and silky, my hair is short and rough, and there are brown holes burned in it here and there, where sailors have dropped the ashes from their pipes. You are doubtless as spotless in character as you are in coat; but – well, Shireen, the cook has sometimes hinted to me that as far as my ethics are concerned I – I am not strictly honest. Sometimes the cook has hinted that to me by word of mouth, at other times, Shireen, with a wooden ladle.”

“But come,” he added, “let me show you round the ship.”

“May I ask your name,” I said; “you already know mine?”

“My name is Tom.”

“A very uncommon name, I daresay.”

“Well – yaas. But there are a few English cats of that name, as you may yet find out. My last name is Brandy. Tom Brandy, (Tom Brandy is a sketch from the life) there you have it all complete. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

“It does, indeed. Has it any meaning attached to it?”

“Well, then, it has. Brandy is a kind of fluid that some sailors swallow when they go on shore. They have often tried to make me take some, but I never would with my free will. It turns men into fiends, Shireen. For in a short time after they swallow it they appear to be excellent fellows, and they sing songs and shake hands, and vow to each other vows of undying love and affection. But soon after that they quarrel and fight most fiercely, and often take each other’s lives, as I have known them to do in the camps among the miners out in Australia, where I was born.”

“Oh, have you been in a real mine, Tom?”

“Yes, I first opened my eyes at the diggings.”

“Oh, how lovely! Was it at Golconda. I have heard Beebee, my mistress, read about Golconda in a book. And were there rubies and diamonds and amethysts all lying about, and gold and silver?”

“Not much of that, Shireen. My bed was a grimy old coat, belonging to one of the miners. My home was a wet and dark slimy hole, and the miners were not very romantic. They were as rough as rough could be. Any sailor you see here would look like a prince beside a miner. But though as rough as any of them, my master, a tall red man, with a long red beard, was kind-hearted, and for his sake I stayed in camp longer than I would otherwise have done.

“When I was old enough to catch my first rat the miners crowded round me, and said they would baptise me in aguardiente; that was the fiery stuff they were drinking, and so they did. Some of it got into my eyes and hurt them very much. That is how I was called Tom Brandy.

“Another day, when I was grown up, they forced some spoonfuls of brandy and water down my throat, and by-and-bye I seemed to get out of my mind. I walked round the camp and challenged every other he cat in the place, and fought almost as bad as a miner.

“I was always death on dogs, Shireen, but that night there wasn’t a dog anywhere about that I did not try to swallow alive, for I believed myself to be as big as an elephant. My master found me at last, and kindly took me home and laid me on his old coat in the corner, and I soon fell sound asleep, but, oh, Shireen, when I awoke next day my head and eyes were fit to burst with pain.

“Then, by-and-bye, there came a parson to our camp, and my master would walk miles to hear the preaching, and I always went with him. When there were many dogs about master used to lead me with a string, but he never chained me up in his house, as some miners did with their big cats. It is cruel to chain a dog even, but much more cruel to chain a cat.

“Well, master was what they call a rolling stone; one of the sort that don’t gather moss, you know. So he often changed camp. It took us two days and nights sometimes to get to the new camp, and I travelled all the way in an old gin case.

“Poor master!”

“Did he die?” said I.

“Well, it was like this. Often and often on lovely moonlit nights, Shireen, master and I would sit in the door of the hut where he lived out among the bush and scrub, and he would speak to me of his far-off home in England, and of his young wife and children that he was trying to dig gold for.

“‘It is that,’ he told me once, ‘which makes me so restless, Tom. I want to get money. I want to get home to them, pussy, and I’ll take you with me and we’ll be so happy.’

“And he would smooth my head and sing to me of the happy time that was coming when we should get home with wealth and riches.

“‘When the wild wintry wind    Idly raves round our dwelling,And the roar of the linn    On the night breeze is swelling;So merrily we’ll sing,    As the storm rattles o’er us,Till the dear shieling (a cottage) ring    With the light lilting chorus.’”

“But, ah! Shireen, that happy time never came, for one sad night, at the stores, a quarrel arose about something, and next moment the noise of pistol-shooting rang out high above the din of voices.