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

It was sometime past midnight, and the moon was shining, though sand was blowing and getting into our eyes, when shouting and yelling, and awful firing was heard in the rear of our army. In less than half-an-hour the moonlight battle was raging its very fiercest. Horsemen were galloping here and there, yelling forth words of command, big guns roared out on the night air, bugles rang, and musketry roared, and fire flashed in every direction.

Of course, Cracker, being only a cat, I was terribly afraid, and sometimes I could not see my dear master at all for the smoke, only his flashing sword; but I often heard his brave voice high above the din of the battle, and this gave me courage and hope.

But my greatest trial came when the wild horsemen of the enemy came dashing on towards the Highlanders, and attempted to break their ranks.

Even at this terrible moment poor Jock McNab put up his hand and smoothed me.

“Hold on, pussy,” he said. “Dinna be feared. The tulzie will soon be ower when the grim-faced foreigners get a taste o’ Highland steel.”

And a terrible tulzie that was, Cracker, and I saw much blood, and flashing of fire and steel, and cries and groans and shrieks. Oh, it was awful!

Then the heat of the fight seemed to surge away from us, and Jock found time to put up his hand once more and say, —

“Are ye still there, Shireen? Bravo! pussy.”

The firing of the foe was much farther away now, and kept on thus all night long, till day at length broke pink and blue over the lovely snow-clad mountains.

Since the fierce raging of the battle, all throughout the cold hours of night, we had lain where we had stood, without fire or without covering, and showing never a light. But away in the West the pale moon began to sink at last in a cloudy haze, and at daylight nothing could be seen for the grey mists that covered hills and plain.

Master came round and I rose to meet him. He asked Jock McNab as he smoked and patted my head, whether I had shown any fear during the fight.

“Never a morsel, sir,” said Jock; “any more than yourself, sir.”

Master went back to his place smiling at Jock’s way of paying a compliment.

The firing of the enemy had by this time slackened, and it was greatly feared by our fine soldier lads that they had drawn off, and not waited “to get their licks,” as Jock phrased it.

Breakfast was now hastily served out, I sharing with master, who had come round and sat down beside Jock and me.

Then by degrees the morning mists gathered up and up, till they lay only like a grey cloud on the snow-clad mountain peaks, and we beheld the Persian army drawn up in battle array ready and waiting for us.

It was a grand sight, Cracker, for the sun now shone gaily down on their soldiers, in serried ranks of horse and foot.

They had not long to wait for us, children. But there was a lot of marching and counter-marching of regiments and brigades, that I could not understand, unless it was that our fellows were just showing off their fine clothes.

But the tulzie soon commenced, and as I stuck to my seat on brave Jock’s back, my ears were deafened with the yelling and shouting and rattling of musketry, and with the awful roar of the enemy’s dread artillery.

On we marched, or rushed, and soon the fight was almost hand to hand, and so horrible!

But the enemy could not stand the onslaught of our forces. They began to give way and retire, and soon the battle became a rout. The Persians left nearly a thousand dead on the field, and many more bodies lay in every conceivable position along the route they had taken towards the hills.

After our cavalry had chased them afar they returned, and the march was commenced back towards Bushire.

It was a long, cold, wet, and weary one, but we saw the sea at last, and never did soldiers stretch their tired limbs in camp, or make their tea with greater pleasure, than did our poor fellows when they found themselves once more in their entrenched position.

Some of our officers were buried next day, but I was so glad to think that neither my dear master, nor Jock, nor I, were among the wounded.

Jock McNab was loud in his praises of what he was kind enough to call my pluck and coolness in the presence of the foe.

“I wadna gie pussy for onything,” he said, “and I’m sure enough she brought us luck, for never a man fell near me, either dead or wounded.”

This was my first battle then, Cracker, but it wasn’t my last by any means.

As master said, the enemy was beaten, but being beaten doesn’t by any means signify that they were conquered.

We remained quiet enough in camp now for many long monotonous days, during which the enemy did not think of disturbing us.

More troops began to arrive from India. The ships lay out yonder at anchor, but a high tumbling sea rolled in upon the beach, and it was difficult indeed to communicate with the vessels, so that the poor horses in camp began to suffer from hunger, and our own rations were sometimes scant enough.

The north-west wind too, blew loud and fierce, and brought with it clouds of dust, and a fine sort of sand that nothing on earth could keep out of camp. The cold at night was still bitter, but we had tents now, and I was cosy enough in master’s arms.

They tell me that British soldiers and sailors are born grumblers. Well, I suppose there is some truth in this; but I must say, Cracker, our men never grumbled at the scantiness of their own rations, though they pitied the horses, but they did grumble a little because the time was passing on so monotonously, and there seemed no early chance of having another fight with the Persian foe.

In fact, Cracker, the foe was getting insolent. By night we now began to see his fires on the hills around, and, although he had not the courage to attack us, he fired upon our outposts.

My master, I knew, was getting impatient as well as his men.

“I want to get farther on up country, pussy,” he whispered to me one evening; “up nearer the bonnie woods and bills where your heart and mine dwell, Shireen, with your dear mistress Beebee.”

I purred and sang, and that seemed to give him heart.

But soon after this Britain’s great hero Havelock arrived, and we all hoped then for a speedy change, and we weren’t disappointed either, Cracker.

“More fur was going to fly, Shireen?”

Yes, dear Cracker, more fur was going to fly, for in a week or two we were embarked in a transport, and sailing up the Euphrates river to attack the Shah’s great army at Mohammerah.

This stronghold was said to be occupied by the very pink and pith of the Persian forces, in number about fifteen thousand in all.

Among the chief regiments behind the formidable earthworks were seven of the Shah’s best and bravest including his guards, and the very flower of his army. Some of these were commanded by a Prince of the blood royal, and somehow or other my master found out that Beebee’s father was there also.

When my dear master told me this his eyes were sparkling with joy.

“It is just possible, Shireen,” he said, “that Beebee herself may be there, if so – ”

He did not finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant.

And now, said Shireen, here come the children, so my little story must end for a time. But you’ll come again, won’t you, Cracker?

“Oh, like a shot, Shireen,” said Cracker, “you bet.”

“Oh!” cried Tom, running up. “Come quick, Lizzie. Here is Cracker, the dog that saved Shireen’s life, and gave the butcher’s bull-terrier such a shaking. Poor doggie Cracker. Poor dear doggie, you won’t bite, will you?”

The towsy tyke looked up into the boy’s face and wagged his thick, short stump of a tail at a terrible rate, and there was so much kindness and affection in those brown eyes of his, that Tom at once bent down and threw his arms about his rough and grizzled neck.

Then Lizzie, who had been to fetch some milk, came and placed it down before Cracker.

Cracker really didn’t want it, but he drank it rather than anybody should think him ungrateful.

“Mind,” said Tom, “you must come to the Castle to-morrow afternoon. It is Shireen’s birthday, and we are going to give a party.”

Once more Cracker wagged his tail, then he went trotting away to the gate, gave one kindly look behind, and so disappeared.

Chapter Seventeen

And Chammy never came again

As the weather grew colder, Chammy hugged the fire more, so to speak, and was less and less inclined to run away.

Perhaps to talk of Chammy’s pedal progression as “running” is slightly to exaggerate. But, nevertheless, when Chammy made up his mind to go anywhere, whether it were on an expedition to the top of a curtain, or the extreme point of a poplar tree, he got there all the same. He would probably take a considerable time to make up his mind about it, however, and he would focus the spot he meant to reach with one eye for an hour or two to begin with. Probably, during this survey, his other eye would be wandering all round the room at Shireen, at Warlock, or at Lizzie and Tom. With one eye he was calculating the height of his ambition, as it were, with the other he was counting the chances there were against his ever reaching it at all. These chances had to be reckoned with, for first and foremost he had to descend from his perch or the branch in the ingle-nook. Having reached the floor, he would have to make for the wall of the room and creep along by the foot of the dado, perhaps changing colour once or twice so as to match the hue of the carpet, and thus do his best to escape observation. For Tabby might be there, and might sing out to Warlock:

“Oh, Warlock, here is Chammy just racing off as fast as lightning. Let us have some fun with him, and turn him over and over a few times.”

And they would do it too. And, although the cat and dog meant no harm, their attentions were somewhat disconcerting, to say the very least of it.

Or Lizzie and Tom might be on the floor and spy him, and Lizzie call to Tom, saying, —

“Oh, Tom, here is poor Chammy. I’m sure he is cold. Let us take him and nurse him by the fire a little.”

And Lizzie might roll him in a Shetland-wool shawl, and sit down before the blaze to warm him, shawl and all, being very much astonished, perhaps, when she opened the shawl to have a peep, to find no Chammy there at all.

“Oh, Tom! Tom!” she would say, looking half afraid, “I’m sure I had Chammy in my hands, and I’m sure I rolled him up; and now, why, he is clean gone!”

Or the cockatoo might see him, if Uncle Ben were there, and raise a terrible alarm, shrieking and crying, “Scray! Scray! Scray!” till all the prismatic crystals in the old-fashioned chandelier jingled to the sound.

Or the Colonel himself might find him.

“Oh, you’re on the hop, are you?” the Colonel would say. “Now you just come back to your perch by the ingle-nook.”

And he would lift him by the crest that was over his head and carry him back to the branch.

Chammy was a good-tempered kind of a chameleon at most times, though he could bite a little, and give a good pinch too if he saw any occasion; but there was nothing in the world made him more indignant than being lifted up by the crest.

It was a handy way of lifting him certainly, but Chammy used to get pea-green with anger when you did so, and his little nimble eyes would look directly back at you; or, I should rather say, one of them would, for very seldom indeed did he send them both to duty at the same time.

“Put me down at once, sir,” he would say, or seem to say, “this is an indignity I do not feel called upon tamely to submit to. You would not dare to lift a crocodile of the Nile thus. Yet I, too, belong to the ancient family of the Saurians, and I bid you beware.”

I have said that Chammy could bite. This is true; but if the weather were extra cold, he would stand any amount of teasing rather than be bothered turning his head or opening his mouth to pinch you. One of Chammy’s mottoes was “Perceverantia vincit” (Perseverance overcomes), and if his master put him back on his perch a hundred and fifty times after he, Chammy, had made up his mind to reach the top of that curtain, or get out at the window to climb a tree, he would watch his chance, bide his time, and begin all over again.

That is the sort of chameleon Chammy was.

The deliberation manifested in all the droll animal’s movements was something to watch and wonder at, and afforded no end of amusement to Lizzie and Tom. He never lifted more than one leg at a time. Not he. Four legs in four seconds. That was the speed of his pedal progression, and you didn’t need a stop-watch either to determine it. But he studied periodically on the march. He might be slow, but he was also wondrous sure, and when it came to the turn of say a left hind leg, to move it had to come to time, else Chammy would slightly turn his head and focus one goggle backwards, as much as to say:

“What’s the hitch along down there? Why on earth don’t you move instead of delaying the procession?”

When Chammy saw a fly that he had taken a fancy to, he would stalk cautiously along towards it, one leg at a time of course, and if the fly was fool enough to wait there long enough, why, it got caught and swallowed, that was all. If it didn’t, why Chammy evinced no great degree of disappointment, another fly would be sure to come. Everything comes to the chameleon who waits. So he would wait.

There was a deal to be done, mind you, before a fly could be caught, he must first judge the distance, being well acquainted with the length of his own tongue. Then the jaws began to open, which they did as slowly as the minute hand of a watch. After the jaws were opened and both goggles focussed, the tongue, which looked like a garden snail, went slowly straight out. Pop! Where is the fly? And where is the tongue? Well, the tongue went back like a bit of india-rubber, and evidently the fly was there too, for Chammy immediately began to move his jaws like a cow chewing the cud, only infinitely slower.

When flies were scarce, Lizzie or Tom fed Chammy with mealworms. They would take up one at a time with a pair of forceps and put it on Chammy’s plate.

Chammy’s plate, by the way, was the lid of a pill-box, and sometimes he would eat a dozen good big fat mealworms at one sitting, and perhaps refuse food for ten days or more after it. If presented with a mealworm when not hungry, Chammy would focus it with one eye for about a dozen seconds, then slowly turn his head away in the drollest manner possible.

“Excuse me,” he would seem to say, “but I couldn’t touch it. No good eating if you’re not hungry, is there? Take it away. Take it away.”

Chammy’s attitudes were droll in the extreme while on his tree-branch. Sometimes he would be quite perpendicular against a topmost twig, which he held for all the world as an old, old man holds his long staff, his chin resting on his two clasped hands. When he had warmed both his hands at the fire on a wintry day, he used to slowly turn round his back to the blaze to entice a little heat into his chilly old spine.

But Chammy got many a tumble, and sometimes he would stupidly catch his own tail to prevent himself from falling. So that if he had lived for hundreds of years, and he certainly gave one that impression, he had not gained a very great amount of wisdom in that time.

But he was wise enough to know that the flies were to be found mostly on the window panes, though for the life of him he never could discover why he couldn’t catch one when it was on the other side of the glass, he would have a shot at such a fly again and again, then turn pea-green with anger and disappointment, and crawl slowly away.

The Colonel was a very humane man, and when the frost became very hard, he placed a small but elegant oil-stove in a corner for the comfort of the chameleon. It had crimson glass in front, and as this glass got warm, Chammy used to stand up against it, the whole forming a very pretty picture.

Then Lizzie got a box and lined it with red flannel, and Chammy was put to bed in it every night. But the oil-stove had to be lit before he could be prevailed upon to stir of a morning. When Chammy felt certain, from his feelings, that the room was well-aired, then he gathered himself slowly up and took up a position on the edge of the box and in the front of the stove, and there he stood for hours, warming first one hand and then another.

Well, I have been writing about this queer pet all the time as if it had been a male. But the truth is, it turned out to be as Tommie said, a “her chameleon,” for lo! and behold it was discovered one morning that Chammy had laid some eggs. She put them all together in a heap in the corner and appeared to be employed all the time lifting and counting them and feeling them over. There were five altogether, about the size and shape of small beans, and pink in colour.

Chammy ate no food after this. She didn’t even seem to care to come any more to warm her toes at the stove. And, on going to take off the lid of her box one morning, Lizzie found poor Chammy immovable and colder than ever she had been before.

Then Lizzie sat down on the floor beside the red-lined box and burst into tears.

They made Chammy a grave near the sweet-scented syringa-tree, and when spring-time came, they planted it with forget-me-nots, and Chammy never came again.

Chapter Eighteen

Shireen’s Birthday. – Stamboul’s Life and Career

Shireen’s birthday party at the Castle was going to be a very grand affair, so Tommy and Lizzie would have told you, for they had made great preparations for celebrating the event.

Shireen had reached the advanced age of one-and-twenty, and yet there was but little sign that her strength was actually failing her. She did not care to move about quite so much as she had done many years before, and preferred, as we have seen, to take her little rambles about the village, and visit her many friends there.

She preferred, too, the lawn to the forest on a sunny summer’s afternoon, or a seat by the low fire among her old friends, when the wintry winds were roaring around the chimneys, and shaking doors and windows.

But to look at Shireen, with her lovely coat, her sweet face, her wee, short ears, and blue eyes, you would not have said she was more than seven.

“I wonder,” said Lizzie, on the morning of Shireen’s birthday, “if Mrs Cooper will come, and bring her lovely prize cat Stamboul?”

“Oh, yes, she is sure to come,” was the reply. “I’ve just had a letter.”

So away ran Lizzie and Tom to complete the arrangements for the afternoon and evening entertainment, for the great coup de théâtre was to consist of lighting up the grounds after dark with coloured lamps, and the flowerbeds and borders with fairy lights, and this duty devolved upon Lizzie and her little brother.

How anxiously they scanned the sky as they hung up their lamps and their Chinese lanterns, and how suspiciously they eyed the clouds, I need not tell you. But twenty times, at least, Tom ran to ask his uncle if he was quite sure it wouldn’t rain. So at last Uncle Clarkson told him that he was only a soldier, and not supposed to be able to read the signs or the sky, and that if they wanted true information, they must go to old Ben; they might as well bring him to luncheon. So, as soon as everything had been completed to the entire satisfaction of the children, off they set, and in a little more than an hour’s time, they re-appeared again, dragging Uncle Ben by his two hands on to the lawn.

Luncheon was laid in a tent erected specially for the purpose, and some time before they all sat down, a carriage rattled up the avenue, and Mrs Cooper herself alighted with her maid, who was carrying a mysterious-looking parcel, which was half basket, half bird’s cage, and really was the travelling-home of Stamboul, the prize cat.

Everyone waited anxiously to see Stamboul, and when presently he stalked forth, with his lovely red and white coat shining like satin and floating all over him, there was a general hum of admiration.

Stamboul did not take very much notice of anyone, he gave one glance at Shireen, then looked at the dogs. Satisfying himself, apparently, that they were harmless, he next turned his attention to the grass, walking gingerly over it, and shaking a fore-foot at every step, in case it might be damp.

Then he entered the tent and disposed of himself in a straw chair, that had a cushion to it.

Now, although the party congregated together to celebrate Shireen’s birthday was everything that could be desired, and though the feast was fit for a queen, and the lawn and grounds after dark looked like a scene from the “Arabian Nights,” still it is more with the cats and dogs we have to do than with Lizzie’s and Tom’s little human friends, or the older human beings who sat in the tent, talking and laughing very pleasantly indeed.

Shireen and her old friends occupied a beautifully lit up summer-house. Even Cracker and the chameleon, who at this time was alive, were here to-night; but Stamboul occupied the place of honour, which was a straw chair, and he accepted the dignity with the easy grace of a prince of the blood royal, and as if he quite merited the honour and dignity.

For some time he sat thoughtfully washing his beautiful face, and all kept silence around him, till he should be pleased to break the silence.

“Yes, Shireen,” he said at last, “I have been a prize cat now for many years, and, indeed, I believe I am entitled to dub myself a champion. Oh, no, Mr Warlock,” he continued, smiling, “I wasn’t always a prize cat; nor have I been all my life as beautiful and fully pelaged as I am now; indeed, I was once as plain and humble-looking as your friend Tabby there.”

Tabby winced and felt a little hurt. Certainly she did not lay claim to any great degree of beauty; still it seemed hard she should be thus singled out.

Even Chammy turned one eye down at her, and Dick cocked a black bead of an optic towards her. Only Warlock gave her face a kind of consolatory lick, as much as to say, —

“If you ain’t very pretty, Tabby, you are very good, and virtue is better, any day, than beauty.”

“Well, my friends,” continued Stamboul, “you may think it is very nice to be a first-prize cat, and to be made a great fuss with, and a great show of at exhibitions, and to be boasted about by your mistress, and crowed over by her friends; but I can tell you a show cat’s life has its dark side as well as its light, and this, I think, you will be ready enough to admit, when you have heard some of my adventures and experiences.”

Stamboul’s Life and Career

“Ever see a cattery, Shireen? No, I dare say you never did; and of course, Tabby, you never did? Well, I will tell you of the cattery in which I was born, and there are many far less pleasant than that, I can assure you.

“I remember it well, though it is many years ago. I don’t say that I can actually recollect the day of my birth, but I mind the days of my kittenhood right well. And I can remember as if it were but yesterday, the morning I and my brothers and sisters were all bundled off to a show.”

“To be sold, I suppose?” said Shireen.

“Yes, my dear,” said Stamboul, “to be sold. But mind you, I don’t blame my old mistress in the least for this. She was at heart a lover of animals; and if she kept us in a cattery, and restricted us of our liberty to some extent, it was not altogether her fault.

“Mrs Rayne was a widow lady, and lived almost by herself in a pretty house in the country. She had neither kith nor kin belonging to her, as far as ever I could see. She had one faithful old man-servant and his wife, who lived in the house and attended on her in every way. But Mrs Rayne looked after the cattery herself. She fed us, and she gave us milk and water.”

“Thought cats never drank water?” said Cracker.

“A very great mistake, I assure you, sir,” said Stamboul. “A cat won’t thrive unless she has water, and that water must be soft, and clean, and sweet.”

“Well, Stamboul,” Cracker said, “a dog is never too old to learn.”

“But,” continued Stamboul, “I must tell you about the cattery. You see, there was a little cottage down in the grounds, nicely shaded with trees and all that, and with oceans of honeysuckle swelling all over the porch, and clustering round the windows. It was only a two-roomed cottage; but, nevertheless, Mrs Rayne conceived the notion of turning it into a cattery, for this amiable lady had an idea that if she did her best to improve the breed of cats in this country, she would be able to get for them a somewhat higher place or standing as members of society.