CHAPTER VII.

This domestic animal, as Dr. Johnson puts it, “that catches mice,” can do many other things when it has a fair opportunity of distinguishing itself. It is difficult, but by no means impossible, to teach a Cat tricks. I myself had a favourite Cat, lately dead, which performed a variety of amusing feats, though I must own that it was extremely coquettish, and nine times out of ten refused to exhibit before a visitor, invited specially to witness the little comedy. Many Cats, without teaching, learn droll tricks.

Doctor Smellie tells of a Cat that had learned to lift the latch of a door; and other tales have been related of Cats that have been taught to ring a bell by hanging to the bell rope; and this anecdote is related by the illustrious Sam Slick, of Slickville. It occurred, several times, that his servant entered the library without having been summoned by his master, and in all cases the domestic was quite sure he had heard the bell. Great wonderment was caused by this, and the servant began to suspect that the house was haunted. It was, at length, noticed that on all these mysterious occasions the Cat entered with the servant. She was, therefore, watched, and it was soon perceived that whenever she found the library door closed against her, she jumped on to the window-sill, and thence sprang at the bell. This feat was exhibited to several of the clockmaker’s friends, for the Cat when shut out of the room, would at once resort to this mode of obtaining admission.

THE CUNNING CAT.
Page 113.

My third story is a time-honoured one that almost every person who has written about Cats has related. There was once upon a time, a monastery, a Cat, and a dinner-bell. Every day at a certain hour the bell was rung, and the monks and the Cat had their meal together. There however came a time when, during the bell ringing, the Cat happened to be locked in a room at the other end of the building. Some hours afterwards she was released, and ran straight to the refectory, to find, alas! nothing but bare tables to welcome her. Presently the monks were astonished by a loud summons from the dinner-bell. Had the cook, in his absence of mind, prepared another dinner? Some of them hurried to the spot, where they found the Cat swinging on the bell-rope. She had learnt from experience that there never was any dinner without a bell ringing; and by force of reasoning, no doubt, had come to the conclusion that the dinner would be sure to come if she only rang loud enough.

But that story is not half so wonderful as another, about an Angora Cat belonging to a Carthusian monastery at Paris. This ingenious animal discovered that, when a certain bell rang, the cook left the kitchen to answer it, leaving the monks’ dinners, portioned out in plates, unprotected. The plan the Cat adopted was to ring the bell, the handle of which hung outside the kitchen by the side of a window, to leap through the window, and back again when she had secured one of the portions. This little manoeuvre she carried on for some weeks before the perpetrator of the robbery was discovered; and there is no saying, during this lapse of time, how many innocent persons were unjustly suspected. Who shall say, indeed, but that the head of the establishment did not, as in the great Jackdaw case, call for his candle, his bell, and his book, and in holy anger, in pious grief, solemnly curse that rascally thief, as, you remember, the Cardinal cursed the Jackdaw:—

When, however, they found out that Pussy was the wrong-doer, and, unlike the Jackdaw, had grown fat upon her misdeeds, they did not hang her, as you might suppose, though I have no doubt that course was suggested; on the contrary, they allowed her to pursue her nefarious career, and charged visitors a small fee to be allowed to see her do it. Out of evil sometimes may come good; but one would hardly think that the best way of making a person’s fortune was to rob him.

Cats have been frequently known to do their best to protect the property of their masters, as well as dogs. A man who was imprisoned for a burglary, in America, stated after his conviction, that he and two others broke into the house of a gentleman, near Harlem. While they were in the act of plundering it, a large black Cat flew at one of the robbers, and fixed her claws on each side of his face. He added, that he never saw a man so frightened in his life; and that in his alarm, he made such an outcry, that they had to beat a precipitate retreat, to avoid detection.

A lady in Liverpool had a favourite Cat. She never returned home, after a short absence, without being joyfully received by it. One Sunday, however, on returning from church, she was surprised to find that Pussy did not receive her as usual, and its continued absence made her a little uneasy. The servants were all appealed to, but none could account for the circumstance. The lady, therefore, made a strict search for her feline friend, and descending to the lower storey, was surprised to hear her cries of “Puss” answered by the mewing of a Cat, the sounds proceeding from the wine cellar, which had been properly locked and the key placed in safe custody. As the Cat was in the parlour when the lady left for church, it was unnecessary to consult a “wise man” to ascertain that the servants had clandestine means of getting into the wine cellar, and that they had forgotten, when they themselves returned, to request pussy, also, to withdraw. The contents of the cellar, from that time forward, did not disappear as quickly as they had been doing for some time previously.

A woman was murdered at Lyons, and when the body was found weltering in blood, a large white Cat was seen mounted on the cornice of a cupboard. He sat motionless, his eyes fixed on the corpse, and his attitude and looks expressing horror and affright. Next morning he was still found there; and when the room was filled by the officers of justice, neither the clattering of the soldiers’ arms nor the loud conversation frightened him away. As soon, however, as the suspected persons were brought in, his eyes glared with fury, and his hair bristled. He darted into the middle of the room, where he stopped for a moment to gaze on them, and then fled precipitately. The faces of the assassins showed, for the first time, signs of guilt: they were afterwards brought to trial, condemned, and, before execution, confessed.

In September, 1850, the mistress of a public house in the Commercial Road, London, going late at night into the tap-room, found her Cat in a state of great excitement. It would not suffer itself to be stroked, but ran wildly, to and fro, between its mistress and the chimney-piece, mewing loudly. The landlady alarmed, summoned assistance, and presently a robber was discovered up the chimney. Upon his trial it was proved that he had robbed several public-houses, by remaining last in the tap-room, and concealing himself in a similar manner.

An old maiden lady, rich and miserly, had, in the latter years of her life, placed all her affections upon a Cat she called “Minny,” for which she had made a fine bed-place in the wainscot, over a closet in the parlour, where she kept the animal’s provisions. The food in question was stowed away in a drawer, and under the drawer which served as Minny’s safe, was another, very artfully concealed, and closing with a spring. To the latter the Cat had often seen its mistress pay lengthened visits. When the old lady died, her heirs came to live in the house, and Minny being no longer fed with the same regularity, was often hungry, and would then go and scratch at the drawer where its food had been kept. The drawer being at length opened, some pieces of meat were found within in a mummified state. These having been given to the Cat, failed to console her, and she scratched harder than ever at the secret drawer underneath; and Minny’s new masters, in course of time understanding what she meant, broke it open, and found twenty small canvas bags of guineas snugly packed up within. My authority does not say how Minny fared after this little discovery. Let us hope she was allowed her old sleeping-place, and got her food with tolerable regularity. But there is no knowing.

Cats are very fond of creeping into out-of-the-way holes and corners, and, sometimes, pay dearly for so doing.

Once when repairing the organ in Westminster Abbey, a dried Cat was found in one of the large recumbent wooden pipes, which had been out of tune for some time. In one of the rooms at the Foreign Office, some years ago, there was, for a long time, a very disagreeable smell, which was supposed to arise from the drains. At length some heavy volumes being taken down from a shelf, the body of a dried Cat was found behind them. The unfortunate animal had been shut up by accident, and starved to death, a prisoner, like the heroine of the “Oak Chest.”

Mrs. Loudon, in her book of Domestic Pets, tells several amusing stories. Her mother, the writer says, had a servant who disliked Cats very much, and in particular a large black Cat, which she was in the habit of beating, whenever she could do so unobserved. The Cat disliked and feared the girl exceedingly; however, one day, when her enemy was carrying some dishes down-stairs into the kitchen, and had both her hands full, the Cat flew at her and scratched her hands and face severely.

A strange Cat had two kittens in a stable belonging to the house, and one day, pitying its wretched condition, Mrs. Loudon ordered her some milk. A large Tom Cat, attached to the establishment, watched the proceeding very attentively, and while the Cat was lapping, went to the stable, brought out one of the kittens in his mouth, and placed it beside the saucer, and then fetched the other, looking up into the lady’s face, and mewing when he had done so, as much as to say, “You have fed the mother, so you may as well feed the children,” which was done; and it should be added, for the credit of Tom’s character, that he never attempted to touch the milk himself.

But the best story is this:—Mrs. Loudon had a Cat which had unfortunately hurt its leg. During the whole time the leg was bad, that lady constantly gave it milk; but, at last, she found out that, though the Cat had become quite well, yet whenever it saw her, it used to walk lame and hold up its paw, as though it were painful to put it to the ground.

A favourite Cat, much petted by her mistress, was one day struck by a servant. She resented the injury so much that she refused to eat anything which he gave her. Day after day he handed her dinner to her, but she sat in sulky indignation, though she eagerly ate the food as soon as it was offered to her by any other person. Her resentment continued, undiminished, for upwards of six weeks.

The same Cat, having been offended by the housemaid, watched three days before she found a favourable opportunity for retaliation. The housemaid was on her knees, washing the passage, when the Cat went up to her and scratched her arm, to show her that no one should illuse her with impunity. It is, however, but fair to record her good qualities as well as her bad ones. If her resentment was strong, her attachment was equally so, and she took a singular mode of showing it. All the tit-bits she could steal from the pantry, and all the dainty mice she could catch, she invariably brought and laid at her mistress’s feet. She has been known to bring a mouse to her door in the middle of the night, and mew till it was opened, when she would present it to her mistress. After doing this she was quiet and contented.

Just before the earthquake at Messina, a merchant of that town noticed that his Cats were scratching at the door of his room, in a state of great excitement. He opened the door for them, and they flew down-stairs and began to scratch more violently still at the street-door. Filled with wonder, the master let them out and followed them through the town out of the gates, and into the fields beyond, but, even then, they seemed half mad with fright, and scratched and tore at the grass. Very shortly the first shock of the earthquake was felt, and many houses (the merchant’s among them) came thundering in ruins to the ground.

A family in Callander had in their possession a favourite Tom Cat, which had, upon several occasions, exhibited more than ordinary sagacity. One day, Tom made off with a piece of beef, and the servant followed him cautiously, with the intention of catching, and administering to him a little wholesome correction. To her amazement, she saw the Cat go to a corner of the yard where she knew a rat-hole existed, and lay the beef down by the side of it. Leaving the beef there, he hid himself a short distance off, and watched until a rat made its appearance. Tom’s tail then began to wag, and just as the rat was moving away with the bait, he sprang upon, and killed it.

It one day occurred to M. de la Croix that he ought to try an experiment upon a Cat with an air pump. The necessity for her torture was not, however, so apparent to the intended victim of science as to the scientific experimenter. Therefore, when she found the air growing scarce, and discovered how it was being exhausted, she stopped up the valve with her paw. Then M. de la Croix let the air run back, and Pussy took away her paw, but as soon as he began to pump, she again stopped up the hole. This baffled the man of science, and there is no knowing what valuable discovery might have been made, had not his feline friend been so very unaccommodating.

Dr. Careri, in his Voyage round the World in 1695, says, that a person, in order to punish a mischievous monkey, placed upon the fire a cocoa nut, and then hid himself, to see how the monkey would take it from the fire without burning his paws. The cunning creature looked about, and seeing a Cat by the fireside, held her head in his mouth, and with her paws took off the nut, which he then threw into water to cool, and ate it.

Cats have always been famous for the wonderful manner in which they have found their way back to their old home, when they have been taken from it, and for this reason alone, have often been accused of loving only the house and not its inmates. It is more probable though, I should think, that the animal returns to the place because its associations there have been happy, and, in the confusion and strangeness of the new house, it cannot comprehend that its old friends have come with it. For instance, I have known a Cat when taken away from a house, return to it, and going from room to room, mew pitifully, in search of the former inmates. When taken away a second time, the new place having in the meantime been set straight, it found nothing to frighten it there, and returned no more to its old house.

I knew a person who was in the habit of moving about a great deal, and hiring furnished houses, who had a Cat called Sandy, on account of his colour, which he found in the first instance, in a sort of half-wild state, on Hampstead Heath, mostly living up a tree. It had been left behind by the people who had last occupied the house, and locked out by the landlady. It was about nine or ten years old, and goodness knows how many dwelling places it may have had; with its new friends, I know of five or six changes, and am told that it always made itself perfectly at home in half an hour after entering a new house. It was taken from place to place in a hamper, and the lid being raised would put out its head and sniff the air in the drollest manner. Getting out very cautiously, it would then make a tour of the premises, and inspect the furniture; at the end of about half an hour it washed its face and seemed settled.

A lady residing in Glasgow had a handsome Cat sent to her from Edinburgh: it was conveyed to her in a close basket in a carriage. The animal was carefully watched for two months; but having produced a pair of young ones at the end of that time, she was left to her own discretion, which she very soon employed in disappearing with both her kittens. The lady at Glasgow wrote to her friend at Edinburgh, deploring her loss, and the Cat was supposed to have formed some new attachment. About a fortnight, however, after her disappearance from Glasgow, her well-known mew was heard at the street-door of her Edinburgh mistress; and there she was with both her kittens, they in the best state, but she, herself, very thin. It is clear that she could carry only one kitten at a time. The distance from Glasgow to Edinburgh is forty-four miles, so that if she brought one kitten part of the way, and then went back for the other, and thus conveyed them alternately, she must have travelled 120 miles at least. She, also, must have journeyed only during the night, and must have resorted to many other precautions for the safety of her young.

Mr. Lord relates a story of a Cat living with some friends of his in a house on an island. The family changed residence, and the Cat was sewn up in a hamper and taken round to the other side of the island in a boat. The island was sparsely inhabited, timbered, and there were but few paths cut to traverse it by, and yet the Cat found its way during the night back again to its old residence. There could have been no scent of foot-prints, neither was there any road or path to guide it.Another Cat was conveyed from its home in Jamaica to a place five miles distant, and during the time of its transport was sown up closely in a bag. Between the two places were two rivers, one of them about eighty feet broad, deep, and running strong; the other wider and more rapid. The Cat must have swum these rivers, as there were no bridges; but in spite of all obstacles, she made her way back to the house from which she had been taken.

In 1819 a favourite Tabby belonging to a shipmaster was left on shore, by accident, while his vessel sailed from the harbour of Aberdour, Fifeshire, which is about half a mile from the village. The vessel was a month absent, and on her return, to the astonishment of the shipmaster, Puss came on board with a fine stout kitten in her mouth, apparently about three weeks old, and went directly down into the cabin. Two others of her young ones were afterwards caught, quite wild, in a neighbouring wood, where she must have remained with them until the return of the ship. The shipmaster did not allow her, again, to go on shore, otherwise it is probable she would have brought all her family on board. It was very remarkable, because vessels were daily going in and out of the harbour, none of which she ever thought of visiting till the one she had left returned.

In a parish in Norfolk, not six miles from the town of Bungay, lived a clergyman, who, having a Cat, sentenced it to transportation for life because it had committed certain depredations on his larder. But the worthy gentleman found it far easier to pronounce the sentence than to carry it into execution. Poor Puss was first taken to Bungay, but had hardly got there when she escaped, and was soon at home again. Her morals, however, had in no way improved, and a felonious abstraction of butcher’s meat immediately occurred. This time the master determined to send the hardened culprit away to a distance, which, as he expressed it, “she would not walk in a hurry.” He accordingly gave her (generous man) to a person living at Fakenham, distant at least forty miles. The man called for her in the morning, and carried her off in a bag, that she might not know by what road he went. Vain hope! She knew well enough the way home, as he found to his cost, for directly the house-door was opened the next morning, she rushed out and he saw no more of her. The night after a faint mewing was heard outside the minister’s dwelling, but not being so rare an occurrence no attention was paid to it. However, on opening the door next morning, there lay the very Cat which he thought was forty miles away, her feet all cut and blistered, from the hardness of the road, and her silky fur all clotted and matted together with dust and dirt. She had her reward; however her thievish propensities might annoy him, the worthy vicar resolved never again to send her away from the house she loved so well, and exerted herself so nobly to regain.

The Rev. Mr. Wood furnishes some curious particulars of two commercial Cats of his acquaintance, which he very comically describes:—

“I will tell you,” says he, “something about our Mincing Lane Cats. Their home was in the cellar, and their habits and surroundings, as you may imagine, from the locality, were decidedly commercial. We had one cunning old black fellow, whose wisdom was acquired by sad experience. In early youth, he must have been very careless; he then was always getting in the way of the men and the wine cases, and frequent were the disasters he suffered through coming into collision with moving bodies. His ribs had often been fractured, and when nature repaired them, she must have handed them over to the care of her ‘prentice hand,’ for the work was done in rather a rough and knotty manner. This battered and suffering Pussy was at last assisted by a younger hero, which, profiting by the teachings of his senior, managed to avoid the scrapes which had tortured the one who was self-educated. These two Cats, Junior and Senior, appeared to swear (Cats will swear) eternal friendship at first sight. An interchange of good offices was at once established. Senior taught Junior to avoid men’s feet and wine cases in motion, and pointed out the favourite hunting grounds, while Junior offered to his Mentor the aid of his activity and physical prowess.

Senior had a cultivated and epicurean taste for mice, though he was too old to catch them; he therefore entered into a solemn league and covenant with the junior to this effect:—It was agreed between the two contracting powers, that Junior should devote his energies to catching mice for the benefit of Senior, who, in consideration of such service, was to relinquish his claim to a certain daily allowance of Cat’s meat in favour of Junior. This courteous compact was actually and seriously carried out. It was an amusing and touching spectacle, to behold young Pussy gravely laying at the feet of his elder the contents of his game bag; on the other hand, Senior, true to his bargain, licking his jaws and watching Junior steadily consuming a double allowance of Cat’s meat.

Senior had the rare talent of being able to carry a bottle of champagne from one end of the cellar to the other, perhaps a distance of a hundred and fifty feet. The performance was managed in this wise. You gently and lovingly approached the Cat as if you did not mean to perpetrate anything wicked; having gained his confidence by fondly stroking his back, you suddenly seized his tail, and by that member raised the animal bodily from the ground—his fore feet sprawling in the air ready to catch hold of any object within reach. You then quickly brought the bottle of wine to the seizing point; Pussy clutched the object with a kind of despairing grip. By means of the aforesaid tail, you carefully carried pussy, bottle and all, from one part of the cellar to the other. Pussy, however, soon became disgusted with this manoeuvre, and whenever he saw a friend with a bottle of champagne looming, he used to beat a precipitate retreat.

The reverend gentleman before quoted, had at one time in his possession a marvellously clever little Cat, which he called “Pret,” and concerning which he relates a host of anecdotes; from them are culled the following:—

Pret knew but one fear, and had but few hates. The booming sound of thunder smote her with terror, and she most cordially hated grinding organs and singular costumes. At the sound of a thunderclap poor Pret would fly to her mistress for succour, trembling in every limb. If the dreaded sound occurred in the night or early morning, Pret would leap on the bed and crawl under the clothes as far as the very foot. If the thunder came on by day, Pret would climb on her mistress’s knees, put her paws round her neck and hide her face between them with deliberation.

She disliked music of all kinds, but bore a special antipathy to barrel organs; probably because the costume of the organ-grinder was as unpleasing to her eyes, as his doleful sounds were to her ears. But her indignation reached the highest bounds at the sight of a Greenwich pensioner accoutred in those grotesque habiliments with which the crippled defenders of their country are forced to invest their battered frames. It was the first time that so uncouth an apparition had presented itself to her eyes, and her anger seemed only equalled by her astonishment. She got on the window sill, and there chafed and growled with a sound resembling the miniature roar of a lion. When thus excited she used to present a strange appearance, owing to a crest or ridge of hair which then erected itself on her back, and extended from the top of her head to the root of her tail, which latter member was marvellously expanded. Gentle as she was in her ordinary demeanour, Pret was a terrible Cat when she saw cause, and was undaunted by size or numbers.

She had a curious habit of catching mice by the very tips of their tails, and of carrying the poor little animals about the house, dangling miserably from her jaws. Apparently her object in so doing was to present her prey uninjured to her mistress, who she evidently supposed would enjoy a game with a mouse as well as herself, for like human beings she judged the characters of others by her own. This strange custom of tail-bearing was carried into the privacy of her own family, and caused rather ludicrous results. When Pret became a mother, and desired to transport her kittens from one place to another, she followed her acquired habit of porterage, and tried to carry her kittens about by the tips of their tails. As might be supposed, they objected to this mode of conveyance, and sticking their claws in the carpet, held firmly to the ground, mewing piteously, while their mother was tugging at their tails. It was absolutely necessary to release the kittens from their painful position, and to teach Pret how a kitten ought to be carried. After a while, she seemed to comprehend the state of things, and ever afterwards carried her offspring by the nape of the neck. At one time, when she was yet in her kittenhood, another kitten lived in the same house, and very much annoyed Pret, by coming into the room and eating the meat that had been laid out for herself. However, Pret soon got over the difficulty, by going to the plate as soon as it was placed at her accustomed spot, picking out all the large pieces of meat and hiding them under the table. She then sat down quietly, placing herself sentry over her hidden treasure, while the intruding Cat entered the room, walked up to the plate, and finished the little scraps of meat that Pret had thought fit to leave. After the obnoxious individual had left the room, Pret brought her concealed treasures from their hiding-place and consumed them with deliberation.

Clever as Pret was, she sometimes displayed a most unexpected simplicity of character. After the fashion of the Cat tribe, she delighted in covering up the remainder of her food with any substance that seemed most convenient. She was accustomed, after taking her meals, to fetch a piece of paper and lay it over the saucer, or to put her paw in her mistress’s pocket and extract her handkerchief for the same purpose. This little performance showed some depth of reasoning in the creature, but she would sometimes act in a manner totally opposed to rational actions. Paper or handkerchief failing, she has been often seen, after partly finishing her meal, to fetch one of her kittens and to lay it over the plate for the purpose of covering up the remaining food. When kitten, paper, and handkerchief were all wanting, she did her best to scratch up the carpet and lay the fragments over the plate. She has been known, in her anxiety to find a covering for the superabundant food, to drag a tablecloth from its proper locality, and to cause a sad demolition of the superincumbent fragile ware. Please to remember that I have the above upon Mr. Wood’s authority, not my own.

Regarding the attachment of Cats to places, the following remarks of the late Rev. CÆsar Otway, in his lecture on the Intellectuality of Domestic Animals before the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland, some years ago, deserve attention. “Of Cats,” he says, “time does not allow me to say much, but this I must affirm, that they are misrepresented, and often the victims of prejudice. It is strictly maintained that they have little or no affection for persons, and that their partialities are confined to places. I have known many instances of the reverse. When leaving, about fifteen years ago, a glebe-house to remove into Dublin, the Cat that was a favourite with me, and with my children, was left behind, in our hurry. On seeing strange faces come into the house, she instantly left it, and took up her abode in the top of a large cabbage stalk, whose head had been cut off, but which retained a sufficient number of leaves to protect poor Puss from the weather. In this position she remained, and nothing could induce her to leave it, until I sent a special messenger to bring her to my house in town. At present I have a Cat that follows my housekeeper up and down like a Dog; every morning she comes up at daybreak in winter to the door of the room in which the maid servants sleep, and there she mews until they get up.”

I think I ought to conclude my chapter of Clever Cats with this story, which, though old, is funny:—There was a lady of Potsdam, living with her little children, one of whom, while at play, ran a splinter into her foot, causing her to scream violently. The elder sister was asleep at the time, but awakened by the child’s cries, and while just in the act of getting up to quiet it, observed a favourite Cat, with whom the children were wont to play, and which was of a remarkably gentle disposition, leave its seat by the fire, go to the crying baby, and give her a smart blow on the cheek with one of her paws; after which, Puss walked back with the greatest composure and gravity to her place, as if satisfied with her own conduct, and with the hope of being able to go on with her nap undisturbed.