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

“Well, Zulina, it is very sad,” I said; “but I think you should try to reform even yet, and some kind lady might take pity on you.”

“No, no, no,” sighed Zulina, “I am but a homeless waif and stray, and my fate, I fear, will be to die in the street, or be torn to pieces by dogs.”

“I’m going to hope for better things for you, Zulina,” I insisted. “But good-bye. Yonder is the grey dawn stealing up into the sky, and I think I hear the milkman’s cry in a distant street. I must try to find my master’s hotel. Good-bye.”

It was a long distance round, but my instinct was unerring, and finally I found myself trotting up the correct street, and soon after sitting in the area doorway.

Down came the milkman with his rattling cans, and in a minute or two, Biddy, with her hair in papers, and looking very sleepy, opened the door.

While Biddy and the milkman were interchanging a few courtesies, I slipped quietly into the house and made my way as fast as I could upstairs to the second floor.

I soon spied my master’s boots, and mewed at the door.

It was opened in a moment, and in I popped, purring as loudly as I knew how to.

“Oh! pussy, pussy,” he cried, as he picked me up, “I thought I would never see you more, and I was quite disconsolate. You went out by the back and over the tiles, and now you’ve come in at the front; how did you find your way round?

“It is instinct, instinct, I suppose,” he added. “He who guides the great fur seals back through the stormy seas, through hundreds of miles of darkness and mist to their far northern islands in June, He guided you.

“‘Reason raise o’er instinct if we can,In this ’tis God directs, in that ’tis man.’”

Well, Warlock, we left Dublin, and at last found ourselves at Waterloo Station.

The train was in, and I was in also. I was in a basket, and I didn’t half like it.

I heard my master say to a railway porter, “Take charge of that basket for a few minutes, porter, till I go and buy some newspapers.”

Five minutes after this, when Edgar returned, he met that railway porter, and he was looking very disconsolate indeed.

His hands were bleeding, and he carried an empty basket.

“Oh! sir,” he cried, “your cat has gone. The basket was not securely fastened, and as soon as you left she wriggled out.”

“But why, man, didn’t you stick to her?” cried master.

“I tried to all I could, I do assure you, sir; but she bit me and tore my hands, then jumped down and disappeared in the crowd.”

“Well, come along and take my things out of the compartment where we put them, for I shan’t go by this train.”

“I’m so sorry, sir. But she’s only a cat, sir. You could get another.”

“Do as you’re told, porter, please,” said my master imperiously.

Without another word the porter followed him to the first-class compartment, and there they found me cosily snuggled up among the rugs!

(This incident occurred just as described, the dramatis personae being the author and his own far-travelled cat Muffie Two.)

Master was delighted, and gave the porter half-a-sovereign to heal his wounded dignity, and his still more wounded fingers.

My children, I travelled many and many a thousand miles with master after that both by sea and by land, but never again did he insult my amour propre by putting me in a creel.

At this moment Lizzie and Tom joined the group of old friends on the lawn. Tom threw himself down on the grass, and began to twine the garland of gowans he had been making around the neck of Vee-Vee, the Pomeranian dog.

Vee-Vee was Tom’s favourite, and never a night would the boy go to bed without him.

No, Vee-Vee did not sleep in the bed, but on a couch in the same cosy little room. He was exceedingly fond of the boy, a proof that love begets love, and of course the doggie would be always first awake in the morning, but he would not stir until Tommy did. As soon, however, as the little lad sighed, his first waking sigh, Vee-Vee jumped joyfully up on the bed, and his delight was simply wonderful.

How nice to be awakened thus by one who loves you, even if it be but a dog.

Vee-Vee was quite as rapturous in the welcome with which he used to greet Tommy’s home-coming, if he happened to be away all day.

During the lad’s absence the dog would refuse all food, and simply lie in the hall with eyes open and ears erect until he heard his little master’s voice or footstep; then he would spring up quite beside himself with joy, his bark having a kind of half hysterical ring in it, as if tears were hindering its clearer utterance.

Vee-Vee now seemed rejoiced to get the garland of gowans. It was a mark of favour on the part of Tommy that he acknowledged by licking his hands and cheek.

Meanwhile Lizzie had brought out a rug to place on the grass, that she might sit thereon, and so save herself from the damp.

As she was spreading it on the green sward something tumbled out.

That something was Chammy.

“Oh, Chammy, Chammy!” cried Lizzie delighted, “we thought you were dead. Where will you hide next?”

But Chammy gathered himself slowly up and crawled away, one leg at a time, to look for a fly.

Chapter Fifteen

“When the Fur begins to Fly.”

Nobody had ever been heard to call Cracker a pretty dog or a bonnie dog. He was sturdy and strong, and nearly, if not quite, as large as a Collie. His legs were as straight as darts, and as strong as the sapling pine tree. Then his coat – ah! well, there is no way of describing that with pen and ink or in print either. It was rough though not shaggy, and every hair was as hard apparently as pin-wire.

In the matter of coats, in fact, Nature had, while dressing Cracker, adhered to the useful rather than the ornamental. He had apparently come in the afternoon for his coat, and nearly all the other dogs had been before him. Collie had been fitted with his flowing toga, the Poodle with his cords and tassels, the Yorkshire terrier with his doublet of silk, and many others with coats as soft and smooth as that of a carriage horse, and poor Cracker, the Airedale terrier, had almost been forgotten.

“Your coat, Cracker?” Nature had said. “Oh, certainly. I’m really afraid, however, that you have come rather late in the day to be dressed with anything like elegance.”

“Oh!” Cracker had put in, “I ain’t a bit particular. Anything’ll do for Cracker, so as it is thick enough to keep out a shower with a shake.”

So Nature had simply gathered up the sweepings of the shop, the cabbage and clippings, so to speak, and mixed them all up into a kind of shoddy, and dabbed Cracker all over with that, going in, however, for a few finishing touches of gold about the muzzle, the chest, and legs.

And good honest Cracker had given himself a shake, and said, “This’ll do famous,” then trotted off to do his duty and his work, which, to his credit be it said, every dog of this breed knows well how to get through.

Well, one sunshiny day, when the old friends, including even Chammy, who was lying in the limb of a dwarf holly, were assembled on Uncle Ben’s lawn, Ben himself and the Colonel blowing clouds in their straw chairs, and Lizzie lying with a book in Ben’s hammock, who should come through the gateway but towsy Cracker himself.

He was a brave dog this, and just as modest as brave, for the two good qualities always go hand-in-hand. So he advanced in a bashful, hesitating kind of way, as if he felt he ought to apologise for his presence on the lawn at all, but didn’t know exactly how to begin. He was smiling too, a very broad smile that seemed to extend halfway down both sides.

Vee-Vee and Warlock jumped up at once growling and barking, and ready to defend the family circle with their lives if there was any occasion, but seeing it was only Cracker, they ran to meet him, and give him a hearty welcome.

Then Cracker advanced, shaking his droll old stump of a tail, and Shireen herself arose and rubbed her back against his legs.

“No,” she said, “you certainly don’t intrude, Cracker, and we only wish you would come oftener than you do.”

“Well, seeing as that’s the case,” said Cracker, “I’ll make one this afternoon at your little garden party. But I’m not much used to refined society, I bet you. More at home in a stable than in a drawing-room; the riverside and moor or the forest is more in old Cracker’s way than fountain, lawn, and shrubbery. But, la! Shireen, whatever is that lying along that branch? It isn’t a big snail and it ain’t a large slug, sometimes grey and sometimes green. Well, of all the ugly – ”

“It’s a friend of ours,” said Shireen, interrupting Cracker, “and, I assure you, Chammy won’t hurt anything or anybody except the flies and mealworms.”

“Well, well,” said Cracker, “wonders ’ll never cease, but if I had met a beast like that in the woods, I’d have bolted quick, you bet, and never turned tail till safe in my kennel again.”

“And now, Mother Shireen, let us have some more of your story,” said Vee-Vee.

“Ah! yes,” said Tabby; “but what a pity Cracker didn’t hear the first part.”

Well, said Shireen, we arrived at Portsmouth, I and my master as safe as anything, and after dinner proceeded on board.

The Hydra was the name of the war ship on which we were to sail for India’s distant shore. She was a fine craft of the kind human beings call a corvette. I was not long in perceiving that she carried many long black guns, but was glad to learn soon after my arrival, that as we were going to make a very quick passage out to Bombay, these awful guns would hardly ever be fired.

The Hydra was much larger than the old Venom, had fine open decks, and tall, raking masts, with a low, wide funnel of jet, up which went the crimson copper steampipe. Her decks were as white as ivory, and I could see my face in the polished woodwork, to say nothing of the brass that shone like gold.

I trotted along by my master’s side towards the quarter-deck.

Captain Beecroft in uniform, and looking young and happy, came forward with a smile to bid us welcome.

“So you haven’t parted with your beautiful cat?” said the captain, as we walked to the companion.

“No, Beecroft, nothing, I hope, will ever part me from her.”

“I wonder,” said Beecroft, “if she’ll remember her old pal, the hero, Tom Brandy.”

“What? Have you still got Tom?”

“Yes. It isn’t likely I’d sail without black Tom. That would be to throw away my luck, you know, and I’d never become an Admiral.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed master; “but how superstitious sailors are!”

“And some soldiers too, ain’t they? ha, ha!”

Then both laughed, and Beecroft led the way to his quarters, a sentry at the door saluting as we passed by.

I declare to you, children, when I saw honest Tom Brandy lying there on a skin rug in front of the stove – for it was almost winter now, and very cold – you could have knocked me down with a sledge hammer.

I felt all over in a whirl with joy, and for a moment I didn’t know whether my top or my toes were uppermost.

Tom jumped up with a fond cry, and ran to meet me, and the two of us ran round and round the table in order to allay our feelings, like a pair of three-month-old kittens.

But we both settled down on the skin in a few minutes, and commenced singing a duet together, to the accompaniment of a coffee-urn that simmered above the stove.

“Just like old times, isn’t it, soldier?” said Beecroft, looking down at me and Tom.

“Just like old times, sailor,” said master.

Then the two shook hands once more.

And down they sat to talk and smoke.

The ship sailed in a day or two, heading away down channel on a beam wind. Tom told me it was a beam wind, else I wouldn’t have known, for it was just the same colour as any other wind. Tom also told me we were under close-reefed topsails and storm jib, and that if it came on to blow a bit more, we should be scudding under bare poles.

I said, “Oh, indeed!” But I didn’t know in the least what Tom meant.

You will observe, children, that Tom was dreadfully learned and nautical.

He was looking far more respectable and beautiful than when I saw him last. He had a new coat of jetty black, and there wasn’t a single burnt hole in it. He was rounder in the face, too, and more brilliant in eye.

When I remarked upon these improvements.

“Oh,” he said, “it is like this, Shireen, I have been living in the bosom of the Captain’s own family on shore, and on the fat of the land, as you might say.

“I’ve turned over a new leaf too,” he added, looking pensively at the blazing, caking coal, and swaying to and fro with the motion of the ship. “When I came on board the old Venom I wasn’t what you might have called strictly honest. I would have laid hands on a herring at any time; and I once tried to eat the cook’s canary, and was beautifully basted in consequence. But I’ve seen the error of my ways, and now that I am the Captain’s cat, I consider it is more honourable to beg than to steal. But my eyes, Shireen, how beautiful you’re looking! And to think I’ve got you back again. Won’t we have some jolly larks, and won’t we catch some flying fish. A few, eh? But mind you, Shireen, no going to sleep on the bulwarks and tumbling into the sea, this cruise.”

“Oh, it makes me shudder to think of that wild adventure, Tom,” I said.

“Yes, those sharks pretty nearly had us, hadn’t they, Shireen? If they hadn’t set to quarrelling among themselves as to which would have the white cat and which the black, they’d have eaten us both.”

“Heigho!” I sighed, and looked at Tom.

“Heigho!” sighed Tom, and looked at me.

Then we went on with the duet.

The weather soon grew so warm and balmy, and beautiful, that there was no longer any need for a fire in the stove, and the captain’s steward took away the skin, and put down a clean straw mat, and covered the sofa with coolest white and blue chintz, and the ports were carried open all day long, so that we could feel the breeze, and see the dark rippling ocean rushing past us, all bespangled with splashes of sunshine.

I was of course quite an old sailor, though I couldn’t speak nautical like Tom, and I enjoyed this cruise even more than the last.

So I ought to. Was not every day taking me nearer and nearer to my dear little mistress Beebee? And the shorter the time, the more I seemed to love her.

“Instead of going away from home,” said dear master to me one day in the cabin, “I seem to be going to my home, and going to happiness. Oh, I do hope, Shireen, that something will turn up for our good. The fortunes of war are so changeable, you know, Shireen, and we may see Beebee, may be able even to save her from her fate; but alas! we may not.”

We rounded the Cape in wild weather. The waves were mountains high, children; thunder roared and shook the ship, and lightning flash, quickly following flash, played around us, till all the ocean looked like a vast sea of fire. I was almost as much afraid of the thunder as I had been of the great guns on board the saucy Venom.

But soon we got out of this region of storms, and went north and away, the weather getting warmer day after day.

We were soon in the delightful regions of the flying fish; but I took great care not to fall asleep again on the bulwarks.

Everything looked the same in this great turquoisine sea; the bonitoes, the flying fish, the dancing, cooing dolphins, and even those terrible sly-eyed tigers of the sea – the sharks.

On and on and north and north we went. Sometimes we passed a green island, that seemed to hang in the air, rather than float on the ocean; and sometimes the surface of the water was patched here and there with glass-green or pearl-grey, and I knew, or rather Tom told me, that we were sailing over shoals, and at night extra look-outs had to be set, lest we should strike the coral rocks, and the ship break up, when we should all be drowned, and I should never see my mistress more.

It was what they call the cool season when we reached Bombay at last. But such a bustling, busy scene, never did I see before in all my life!

It was baggage and stores here, there, and everywhere, and soldiers all about, and boats skimming the water in every direction; and drums beating, bugles blowing, and great Highland bagpipes screaming, till I declare to you, children, it made me quite dizzy. The worst of it was, that for some days now I didn’t see so much of my master, though you may be sure I took good care to be at his side whenever I could.

I was sorry when the time came to part with Tom again, but we plighted our troth, and promised never to forget the happy cruise in the Hydra.

When it was all over and we were once more at sea, en route for the Persian Gulf, I gave a great sigh of relief. But I did feel a little lonely without Tom Brandy, and kept all the more closely to my master in consequence.

I was now to become a soldier’s cat in downright earnest, and know something about the horrors of war. Shireen paused for a moment. “Cracker,” she said, “do you like the story?”

“It’s a beauty,” said Cracker, “and I’ll like it still better when the fighting commences and the fur begins to fly.”

Chapter Sixteen

The Fight was Hand to Hand and Horrible!

Well, Cracker, my dear friend, the fighting did begin in earnest, and soon too after we landed, though I’m sure I was very much puzzled indeed, and tried in vain to make out what it all meant.

How I wished that Tom had been there to help me, for I think Tom knew nearly everything worth knowing.

For the first time now I saw my master in full fighting array. He called his fine clothes his war-paint, and he drew a huge long knife out of a holder, and showed me how sharp it was, and said he was going to do and die in his country’s cause.

I wasn’t quite sure what doing and dying in a country’s cause was. But from the very commencement I knew that those soldier-men made a terrible din.

My master, in his gallant uniform and long sharp knife, belonged to the gay Highlanders, and they were the first sent on shore, and marched about in line and wheeled and tacked to the sound of the skirling bagpipes, with no other idea, I thought, than just to show off their fine clothes.

War, I began to think, must be very nice indeed.

Ah! but Cracker, the fur hadn’t begun to fly yet.

Well, master’s servant was a very tall fighting-man of the Highlanders, whom his comrades called Jock McNab.

“McNab,” said my master one day.

The red-faced, big pleasant man saluted.

“What’s your wull?” said Jock McNab.

“Shireen knows you well by this time.”

“Ah! ’deed she does,” said Jock, “and lo’es me too.”

“Well, Mac, we’ve both got to look after her. Do you think when we get into grips with the enemy, that Shireen would sit on top of your knapsack?”

“Weel,” said Jock, “if you’ll gie me leave, sir, I’ll soon drill her to that.”

So Jock took me in hand that very evening after we reached camp, and began to teach me what he called “knapsack drill.”

It was very simple. I was put on top of the knapsack and Jock fixed the bayonet on his gun and commenced plunging about up and down, and high and low, as if in front of the enemy. But I set my nails firmly into the knapsack and nothing could shake me off.

“That’ll do fine for a beginning,” said Jock.

There were British soldiers in the entrenched camp before Bushire, when we landed there, and marched to it, and right hearty welcome they made us.

The camp was in the middle of a vast plain, on which grew here and there some clumps of palm trees, and here and there a ruin stood. To our left was the blue sea, with the far-off shipping. Some distance in front of us was the walled town itself, built upon a long spit of land, and washed nearly all round by the sea. Far away behind the town were the lofty mountains, their snowy heads rising-high into the azure sky.

“Poetry again!” said Warlock.

“A spice of poesy,” said Shireen grandly, “sometimes adds attraction to a scene. Don’t you think so, Cracker?”

“Well, Shireen, to tell you the truth I can’t say I understand it like. My mother used to say to me ‘Cracker,’ she said, ‘in your journey through this vale of tears, always make a better use of your teeth than your tongue.’”

“Very good,” said Warlock. “Your mother must have been a brick, Cracker.”

“A brick, Warlock. What a funny idea! No, no, my mother was a Bingley terrier. But go on, Shireen, when did the fur begin to fly?”

Not yet a bit, Cracker. Well, at night, I found my way to master’s tent, and was glad to snuggle up in his arms, for though the days were warm the nights were bitterly cold.

Just before I fell asleep, Jock McNab came to the tent.

“I’m sayin’, sir,” he said.

“Yes, Mac, what is it?”

“Is Shireen wi’ you?”

“That she is. Thank you, McNab, for being so mindful.”

“That’s a’ richt then,” said Jock. “Good-nicht.”

And away the faithful fellow went.

Now although we were lying in camp here before Bushire, we weren’t going to attack this town. Indeed, the people seemed very glad to see us, and sold us all kinds of nice things. So our brave General Outram soon got ready to make a terrible attack upon an entrenched camp of the Persians, fifty miles distant, and we had to walk all the way.

What a beautiful sight it was, I thought, to see all those brave soldiers in lines and lines, outside the camp; horses, Highlanders, and even fighting sailors and artillerymen. Of course you won’t understand all I am saying, Cracker, but I am a soldier’s cat, you know, and cannot help feeling a little martial ardour when I think of that splendid campaign.

Well, off we marched at last, my master at the head of his company, and I, perched on Jock McNab’s knapsack, but keeping master in my eye all the time.

What a long weary, dreary march that was to Char Kota!

“Eh? Eh? What is it?” said the starling. “What d’ye say?”

“I said Char Kota, Dick, but I’m not going to use any hard names if I can help it, you may be sure.”

Well, continued Shireen, the village I mentioned is twenty-six miles from the shore, but after a long halt we fell in again, and it was ten o’clock at night before we got to the place where we were to rest till morning.

Oh, how tired and weary the poor fellows were, for all the afternoon a cruel high cold wind had been raising dust-clouds around us, and buffeting us till we could hardly get on!

During a great part of the march I trotted by my master’s side.

The night turned out bitterly cold, and as we lay on the ground the rain fell in torrents. The thunder roared and lightning flashed, till I thought surely we would be all drowned. As it was we were drenched to the skin.

Firing took place next morning, and I was a bit frightened; but Jock told me the men were only tiring off their pieces to make sure they were all right, after the heavy night of drenching rain.

The fight was to begin to-day, this very forenoon, for the enemy with all his guns was but five miles away, in his fortified camp at Brásjòon.

“The fur would soon fly,” said Cracker, beginning to get much interested.

“Ah! but, Cracker, the fur didn’t fly, for the enemy did.”

“They weren’t real terriers,” Cracker said, “you bet.”

No, and so they ran, and we took their camp, and their guns, and a lot of other things, and settled down for a bit, after destroying all the stores we didn’t want.

It was a cold, clear night, with the moon shining very brightly on the plain and camp, and on the great mountains rising in rocky terraces high into the starry sky, and not very far from us. We expected the great battle would be fought next day, at least the men said so, and I listened eagerly to all their conversation.

But the fur didn’t fly next day after all, and now we set out to walk back to Bushire, after doing the enemy’s camp all the damage we could. We started on the march towards the shore at eight o’clock, and marched on and on, singing and talking till midnight came.

Then, Cracker, the fun commenced, and the fur did begin to fly at last.

“Tell us! Tell us!” cried Cracker.

Oh, it is evident, Cracker, you are not a soldier’s dog, else you would know that no single person can see more than a very little bit of a battle, although he may be right in the midst of it. But if I didn’t see much I heard plenty.