Shireen and her Friends: Pages from the Life of a Persian Cat
“She had commenced by keeping a few – three I think – for her own pleasure; but one by one they disappeared. They had been trapped, poisoned, or shot by the keepers, so she saw that if she were to do any good at all, she must protect her valuable cats, and at the same time keep their breed and species select and pure. So she had a look round the cottage one day, and was glad to find, to commence with, that it was not damp. Dampness in a cattery is likely to give rise, directly or indirectly, to many ailments incidental to cat-life.
“Then Mrs Rayne proceeded to furnish the cottage, after a fashion, plainly and well. This, I may tell you, Mr Cracker, was quite as much for her own sake as for the sake of the pussies. You see, she reasoned thus, and very rightly too, cats have become like clogs, domesticated, they have for countless ages given up their own wild life in the woods, and hills, and cairns, and elected to live with mankind, and share his joys and sorrows. In doing so, they give up, in a great measure, their freedom; they become the willing slaves of man, the playmates of his children, the gentle, soothing comforters to many a lonely human being, who has nothing before him in this world except the grave. Well, then, if pussy has done and does do all this, is it fair to keep her all her little life like a wild beast, shut up in a cage, or banished to barn or outhouse?
“No, and Mrs Rayne – although the cottage would be the home of the cats par excellence– would often visit it and spend many an hour therein, with her books or her knitting. She would even take her food there sometimes, for a cat never looks upon any place as an ideal home if a kettle never sings upon a hob by the fire, or a table is never spread for breakfast, or for tea.
“So, when completed, the cottage not only had a nice low fire, protected by a strong guard, to be put on when the fire was lit and no one in the room, but there were in it a table and stools, a couch, and a nice wicker easy-chair and footstool.
“There was a cupboard or two also, and there were brackets and flower-stands, and a mirror or two, and nick-nacks on the mantelpiece as well.
“In fact, this room – which was the winter end of the cottage – was so comfortable, that no one could have told it was a cattery. The other room was furnished as a summer-room, and needed no fireplace.
“There was in each a sanitary box of earth; but as the cats had at all times free access to the garden by means of a little swinging door at the bottom of the main door, this box was never used except for the convenience of young kittens.
“You will now observe, Tabby, that Mrs Rayne, in a manner, lived among her cats, so that she had their companionship and they had hers. Moreover, as a special treat, she used to take one of them into the house, frequently of a night, and whenever any cat was ailing she treated it as kindly and considerately as if it had been a baby.
“The cat’s garden itself deserves a word or two.
“You see, galvanised wire fencing is very cheap, as I dare say you, Cracker, being a farmer’s dog, know. Well, Mrs Rayne, first and foremost, laid out the pussies’ garden in front of and partly round the cottage. She laid down a bit of a lawn; she planned walks, and planted shrubs and flowers, for I can assure you, Cracker, we cats have an eye for colour and effect as well. Then she surrounded the whole with a high wire fence, covering in the top as well, so that birds might not come in to eat pussies’ food, and be eaten by the pussies in turn.
“The place was sheltered from the cast and north by a wooden fence, so on the whole, either in winter or in summer, a more comfortable cattery never existed to my knowledge, and I have seen a few.
“The garden was laid out then partly for effect, but partly, also, for utility and luxury. The lawn was a delightful place for the young cats to tumble and jump upon, when the spring and summer were in their prime, and the grass and weed-tops, that grew on this wildery of a lawn, helped to keep the cats in health.
“Then here and there, at different heights all round the wooden fence, and the wire fence also, were placed shelf-seats, about eighteen inches long, by one foot broad. On these the cats would lie and sun themselves, or they could take exercise all round, by leaping from one to the other.
“Among the flowers that grew around was Valerian, of which the cat is fond, and several other pretty flowers, that appealed to pussy’s sense of smell, and gratified her eye.
“There was a filter indoors, and large, clean dishes were placed on the floor for the drinking water, so that the furry inmates could help themselves whenever they pleased.”
“And a bit of brimstone in each dish, I suppose?” said Cracker. “A fine thing brimstone, you bet.”
“Fiddlesticks!” said Stamboul disdainfully. “Mr Cracker, I am afraid your notions are somewhat antiquated.”
“I don’t know what that be,” retorted Cracker. “I just speak as I’ve been taught.”
“True, true, my good fellow, and doubtless with the best intentions; but then, living in the country as you do, one is bound to believe a great many popular and foolish fallacies.”
“I own to it, I own to it, Stamboul,” said Cracker. “Now up north, where I comes from, a cat ain’t looked upon as much of a stunner I ’ssure you, Stamboul. They are just kept as a kind o’ live mousetraps.”
“Yes, I know,” said Stamboul; “and they are starved under the mistaken notion that this makes them catch mice.”
“So they be. And doesn’t it? I know if I were main hungry, and spotted a fine fat rabbit dashing past, I’d soon have he, you bet, and my dinner next, afore he were cold.”
“True, Cracker, but it is also a fact that the better a cat is fed, so long as he is not foolishly pampered and spoiled, the better a hunter he will make. You see, Cracker, to catch mice and rats, a cat has to have a deal of patience, and a world of cunning, and spend long nights of determined watching. To do this he must be in form. If he is half-starved, he is nervous, and tired, and weary; if he be hungry, then instead of watching by the cat’s run, he’ll be thinking more of the cupboard and the last square meal he had, and wondering when he will have another. Or, it is possible enough, instead of watching at all for master rat – and a well-bred cat won’t eat a rat after all – he will prefer to do his hunting in the nearest pigeon-loft or hen-house.”
“There is a deal in what you say,” said Shireen.
“Yes, I can see that,” Warlock put in.
“Well,” said Cracker, “I gives in to superior judgment.”
“And now,” continued Cracker, “is it true, Stamboul, that cats will suck a child’s breath? Mind, I’m not so far left to myself as to believe this, although there, maybe, is some hayseed in my hair.”
“A sillier notion,” said Stamboul, “was never heard, and this fallacy dates back to the days of witchcraft. Pah! out on such a ridiculous notion, it is really too absurd to argue about.”
“Well, Lady Shireen there, while telling her story, has proved in her own experience that it isn’t places so much that cats love as persons,” said Tabby.
“That is true, Tabby, if the persons are good to them; and I really think that people are beginning to think now, that cats are reasoning, thinking beings, with minds differing from their own only in degree.”
“If not interrupting you too much, Stamboul,” said Warlock, “I have just one word to say, having been a student of cat-life, especially of Mother Shireen there, and my own companion and field-ranger, honest Tabby here. Well, there is a saying, which is all too common among human beings I think, and that is the expression, ‘As cross as a cat.’ I’ve seen a cat cross, and I’ve felt her claws, too, but that was when she was either done out of her rights and starved, or put upon in some way or another.”
“Glad to hear you stick up for cats, Warlock,” said Stamboul.
“Oh, I just speak of cats as I find them. Now, for instance, who is it among human beings I wonder, that hasn’t noticed how fond a well-trained, well-kept cat is of children?
“Here is a bit master read in a book the other day (‘The Domestic Cat,’ by same author), and he told me that the writer had studied cats ever since he was the height of the parlour tongs.
“‘But,’ says the author, ‘the domestic cat is par excellence the playmate and friend of childhood. What is it, indeed, that pussy will not bear from the hands of its child-mistress? She may pull and lug pussy about any way she pleases, or walk up and down the garden-walk with it slung over her shoulder by the tail. If such treatment does hurt the poor cat, she takes good care not to show it. It is amusing enough sometimes to watch a little girl making a baby of her favourite pussy. They are wearied with gambolling together on the flowery lawn, and playing at hide-and-seek among the shrubbery, and pussy “must be tired,” says little Alice. Pussy enters into the joke at once, and seems positively dead beat; so the basket is brought, the little nightcap is put on, the shawl is carefully pinned around its shoulders, and this embryo mamma puts her feline baby to bed and bids it sleep. There are always two words, however, with pussy as regards the sleeping part of the contract, for little Alice never can get her baby to close more than one eye at a time. Pussy must see what is going on. Anon the baby “must be sick,” and pussy forthwith appears as if she couldn’t possibly survive another hour. Bread pills are manufactured, and forced down the poor cat’s throat, she barely resisting. Then lullabies, low and sweet, are sung to her, which pussy enjoys immensely, and presently, joining in the song herself, goes off to sleep in earnest.
“‘And Alice, pussy’s friend, although at times she may use the furry favourite rather roughly, is kind to her in the main. Doesn’t pussy get a share of Alice’s porridge every morning? Doesn’t she sup with Alice every night? And do you think, for one moment that Alice would go to bed without her of a night? Not she! And still this cat may be as savage as a tiger to strangers, and even to those in the house who do not treat her well. And let anyone else, except a child, attempt to lift this pussy by the tail, and see what he will see.’”
“And feel what he’ll feel,” said Cracker; “and serve him right, says I.”
“But I fear,” said Shireen, “this is somewhat of a digression. You were talking, Stamboul, of your pleasant and delightful cattery, the home of your kittenhood.”
“Yes. Well, I shall go on with my story.”
Chapter Nineteen
In a Cat-Dealer’s Den
“The cattery then,” continued Stamboul, “in which I was born, was really a very pleasant home, chiefly I think from the fact that dear old Mrs Rayne studied our ways and habits. She didn’t stint us in food either.”
“Gave you plenty of fish, I suppose?” said Cracker.
“Well,” said Stamboul, smiling, “I do not deny that cats do like a bit of fish; but, bless you, my dear Cracker, it is a mistake to think they don’t like flesh far better.”
“Mrs Rayne had no less than seven female or queen cats, and two beautiful Toms. One of these lived in the house constantly and was Mrs Rayne’s especial favourite. He was my dear father, but, alas! like many a beautiful cat, he got caught in a trap one day, and came home with a terribly lacerated leg. It got better for a time, but in his struggle no doubt, my father had hurt himself internally, for he became sickly after this, grew thin, and lost all appetite. Then his coat fell off in patches, and one day he was missing.
“Yes, he was found again, but dead. He had only gone down the garden, feeling, I suppose, that his end was near, and crept in under the dark shade of a bush to die.
“But the secret of Mrs Rayne’s success in rearing nice cats with wondrous coats, just like mine and yours, Shireen, was this – she fed her pussies with regularity and gave them plenty of variety of course. A little porridge and milk was our regular breakfast, but there was some variety as regards the dinner every day. Nor did she forget that cats like a little nicely-mashed greens now and then, and even a bit of tomato and any other raw fruit and vegetable, if it be but a potato paring.”
“Many cats many tastes, I suppose,” said Warlock.
“That’s it, Warlock, you speak like a book; but then you have enjoyed the not slight privilege of having had a cat as a companion, the cat being the superior animal.”
Cracker looked at Warlock and Warlock looked at Cracker, and I rather think their thoughts were very similar, only they said nothing. It wouldn’t have been polite.
“Well, my friends,” said Stamboul, “such was the home in which I was born and reared up to the age of two months. Then the show came round.
“Mrs Rayne said that we – the four kittens – were all very, very beautiful and fascinating, and that if her purse were only half as big as her heart she would not part with one of us. ‘However,’ she added, ‘those who buy you must pay your price, and having done so, they will value you all the more.’
“So mother and I were placed in a nice roomy box, not a wretched little reticule of a thing such as I have more than once travelled in to cat shows. The guard was warned to take precious care of us, and so he did.
“Mrs Rayne was at the station to meet us herself, and conveyed us in a cab all the way to the show.
“We were in good time, so that our dear mistress had an opportunity of arranging our pen for us before putting us in, and also to speak a bit of her mind to the manager and promoter.
“‘The pens are too small, Mr Silk,’ she said.
“‘Very sorry indeed, madam,’ said Mr Silk.
“‘Yes, but sorrow will hardly give the poor pussies anymore room.’
“‘Then there is no sanitary box of earth placed behind each pen, and you, Mr Silk, ought to know that a well-trained cat is the most cleanly animal on earth. Why don’t you take a lesson from Mr Cruft?’
“‘I’ll have that seen to another year.’
“‘Thank you, Mr Silk, and now will you have the goodness to send me a man to sweep out that abominable sawdust from my cat’s pen?’
“‘The sawdust, madam! Why surely – ’
“‘I said the sawdust. Nothing worse could be imagined. It gets in the cat’s fur. It gets in their milk, and if they have a morsel of meat, that also is rolled in it, and they are probably half poisoned.’”
(This, however, was properly arranged at Mr Cruft’s great Aquarium Cat Show of 1894.)
“Having had the sawdust removed, Mrs Rayne put down our pretty cushions, gave us a little warm milk sweetened with sugar, patted our mother, and left.
“The judging was over by the time she returned, and she was very pleased to note, that she had won first prize for the cat and first for the kittens.
“Mother was half asleep, but we – the kittens – were lively enough and full of tricks and fun. There was quite a crowd of well-dressed people around our pen watching our gambols, and so Mrs Rayne was not surprised to be told soon afterwards by the secretary, that two of her kittens were claimed at catalogue prices.
“Mrs Rayne sighed. She would just as soon have taken us all home again, she said.
“Well, my friends, I sigh when I think of my pleasant home with Mrs Rayne, and I think I see the dear old lady now, with her snow-white hair and sunny smile. I never saw my country home again, and I never saw my mistress more. But a cat that I met at a show the other day, and got conversing with in the evening when all the people had gone, told me that she had come from Mrs Rayne’s cattery, which was now no more, they having carried the old lady to her grave a year ago. Heigho! there is a deal of sorrow in this world to cats as well as men.
“Well, at the first show we were all sold to different owners. I never knew where my brothers and sisters went, but I live in hopes of some day meeting them at a show.
“That first show was not a well-conducted one, and though it was held at the Crystal Palace, the cages were placed in a draughty place, and the pens they told me at another show, to which I was sent afterwards, had been used for other animals. I don’t know how this may be; but I do know that something was wrong, for nearly a score of cats at that show caught infectious ailments, which speedily carried them off after they got home.
“Alas! my friends, I was now to have a new experience and one of a very painful nature. I had been bought, not by anyone to keep as a pet, but by a woman – I cannot say lady – who kept cats for profit and profit alone. She had no love for them, all she expected was to pocket gain by them.
“My heart sunk when I was taken into this filthy den, for it was nothing else. It was a room in a small suburban cottage, and contained no less than twenty cats and kittens of all breeds and ages. Many of these were confined in cages of the most crampy and filthy kind.
“The poor inmates indeed seemed in a woeful plight.
“I got talking to one of them in an adjoining berth to my own after it was dark.
“‘I suppose,’ I said innocently, ‘I shall soon be taken to a real home?’
“‘A real home!’ said the silver tabby I had addressed. ‘Well, you may, but I very much doubt it. Why, some of us have been in this dismal prison for three long years, and may be for years and years again, unless we have the luck to die or to get sold, for escape seems impossible. We are kept for breeding.’
“‘You are well fed, I suppose?’
“‘Well fed? Ah! you’ll soon know how we are fed. Why, we never get a change of any kind; it is milk and bread, milk and bread and half-putrid lumps of horse-flesh from one month’s end to another, and never a blade of grass to cool our blood and to refresh us. And we only have one little run in the backyard yonder once a day, when mistress happens not to be busy elsewhere.’
“‘Yet, nevertheless,’ continued my informant, ‘mistress is supposed to be a celebrated breeder, and sometimes a lady arrives at the door of her cottage and is shown into a nicely-furnished room. She has come most likely to buy a cat or kitten. We are all kept groomed and ready always, and not having any exercise, we are moderately plump and fat. Well, soon after the carriage stops, mistress herself, better dressed than usual, hurries in and picks up one of us, and takes a brush and comb and goes rapidly over the coat. Then she enters the best room, petting and hugging the poor pussy. Ah! well does the cat know that it is all false affection; but she sings and looks pleasant, the prospect of leaving this vile den making her happy and hopeful for a time.’
“‘And then,’ I said, ‘when a pussy is sold she is taken away in the carriage to some pretty and refined home, where she will be well cared for, and have good food and toys, and maybe beautiful children to play with, and – ’
“‘Like a dream her life will pass away!’”
“‘Ah!’ sighed the silver tabby, ‘would it were so. But it is far often the reverse.’
“‘Indeed!’
“‘Yes, and I am going to tell you why. You see cats like us, that have been dragged up in a den like this, and without human companionship, never learn manners. They are never cleanly in their habits, and just as often thieves as not. So the new purchaser soon finds out her mistake, and pussy, instead of becoming a parlour pet, is thrust out of doors, ill-used by the servants, and in time becomes a nomad and helps to swell the great army of vagrant cats, that commit depredations of every conceivable sort and render night hideous by their howlings.’ The sentences I place in italics should be remembered by all who think of buying a beautiful cat for a companion.
“My young heart sunk when I heard this intelligence, and, alas! I soon found it was all too true. Yes, my dear Shireen, and more than true, for not only were all the cats in this great prison-house treated as if they had been wild beasts, but sometimes even with systematic cruelty. I myself was soon the subject of this. You see, that having been used to good food in variety, with plenty of fresh air and exercise, I fell ill. I could not drink the thin skimmed-milk, and I loathed the high half-putrid horse-flesh. Then my skin became irritable. So one day my mistress hauled me out of my cage and slapped me across the head till my eyes grew almost blind, and I was dizzy.
“‘I shall lose by you, confound you,’ she cried.
“Then I was taken to a dirty back kitchen and scrubbed, yes, literally scrubbed with hot water and soap, then roughly dried and put in a cage near the fire. When half dry I was smeared all over with some vilely-smelling ointment till I loathed the very smell of myself. After this I was put in the hospital cage in another room. Here there was a cat in a worse plight than myself by far.
“She didn’t care to talk at all.
“‘I’m too sick and ill to speak,’ she said. ‘Besides, I’m going to be drowned to-night. I do so wish the night was come.’
“I shuddered with horror and fear.
“The night did come, and with it the executioner. He seized my poor companion and thrust her roughly into a sack, in which I could see there were some old bricks. Then he tied her up and left the room.
“I got worse instead of better, and there came a day when, from something in my mistress’s eye, I knew that I too was doomed.
“I received no food or drink of any kind that day; my inhuman mistress no doubt considering it would be mere waste to give meat to a cat she was going to drown.
“I determined, however, that I would make a struggle for life.
“The day passed wearily by, and how very, very long it did seem to be sure.
“At last – ah! how my heart did beat – the door of the room opened and the same horrid ragged man came in. He carried a lantern and a sack with bricks, just as before.
“I pretended to be asleep.
“He cautiously opened the door.
“In a moment I sprang up, and he speedily withdrew a badly-bitten hand. Before he could shut me up again I had dashed out and darted from the room.
“I knew not where to run; but here was a window. I was a powerful kitten for my age.
“So the window flew into flinders and I was free.
“Yes, I was free. A homeless, wretched nomad. Now some cats are possessed of the homing instinct, as it is called, in great perfection. But, alas! I felt none of it, else you may be sure, my friends, I should have found my way back again speedily enough to Mrs Rayne’s.
“But I was free. Oh, how glad even that thought made me.
“The fresh air blew in my face, and I felt better and stronger already. I glanced up and down the street. Far up one end of it were many lights, the other was all dark and so I chose that.
“I ran on and on and on, and soon found myself in the country, and tired at last, I crept into a shed and went to sleep among some clean hay, the fragrant smell of which seemed to curl round my heart and revive me.
“I was hungry when daylight came, and was lucky enough to find a mouse, on which I breakfasted, and then went to sleep again.
“It was dark when I awoke, and so I resumed my journey, still going in the same direction, guided by some instinct to place as great a distance as possible ’twixt myself and the cat-dealer’s den I had escaped from.
“Before daylight I came to a great forest, and being tired, I crept in under a bush of furze, and, on a warm dry bed, slept long and sweetly.
“I idled about the forest all night – and a lovely moonlit night it was – finding plenty of food, but seeing no men and no dogs.
“I determined, therefore, to make this forest my home for a time, at all events; but I must not sleep on the ground, for dogs would be sure to find me out and worry me. Luckily I found a comfortable shelter half way up the trunk of a grand old oak, and so I concluded to live here. And a most perfect shelter I found it to be.
“For many, many months, I could not tell you, my friends, how many, I lived in this tree, becoming entirely nocturnal in my habits, for when I ventured out during the day I sometimes saw rough-looking men with dogs, and was glad to escape into the branches of some oak or beech, where I sat trembling with fear until they had gone.
“I found plenty of food in the forest, and my drink was the pure soft water from the purling brooklets. The only thing I ever did long for was a drop of milk.
“The summer and autumn passed away, and winter came wild and dreary. The birds no longer sang in the forests, and many had flown south and away to summer lands beyond the seas. I missed many of my forest friends too; they had gone away, or had hidden themselves in cosy corners and gone to sleep for the winter. This kind of long sleep was denied to me however, and now I often felt cold and wretched, and would wander for hours through the snow and under the stars or moon, that used to glimmer down through the leafless branches, and fall in patches of light on the ground beneath.
