Shireen and her Friends: Pages from the Life of a Persian Cat
Yes, this little preface is written for the Reviewer and nobody else. Indeed, the public seldom bother to read prefaces, and small blame to them. Reading the preface to a book is just like being button-holed by some loquacious fellow, as you are entering the theatre, who wants to tell you all about the play you are just going to see. So sure am I of this, that I had at first thought of writing my preface in ancient Greek. Of course every reviewer is as well-versed in that beautiful language as Professor Geddes, or John Stuart Blackie himself. I was only restrained by remembering that my own Greek might have got just a trifle mouldy.
Well, all I want to say in this page is, that there is a deal more truth in the pages that follow than might at first be imagined.
Both Shireen and Tom Brandy were real characters, and the incidents and adventures of their life on board ship were very much as I have told them. The starling, and Cockie, the cockatoo, were also pets of my own; and Chammy, the chameleon, is described from the life. She died this year (1894).
The story Stamboul tells about his life as a show cat is a sad one, and alas! it tells but half the truth. Cat shows have done good to the breed of cats in this country, but it has raised up a swarm of dealers, that treat poor pussy in a shameful way, and look upon her as simply so much merchandise.
In conclusion, I am not going to deny, that while trying to write a pleasant book as a companion to my last year’s “Sable and White,” I have endeavoured now and then to get a little hint slipped in edgeways, which, if taken by the intelligent reader, may aid in gaining a more comfortable position in our homesteads for our mutual friend the cat. If I be successful in this, I shall consider myself quite as good as that other fellow, you know, who caused two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before.
Gordon Stables.
The Jungle, Twyford, Berks.
The following beautiful verses by the poet Swinburne, to whom I have the honour of dedicating this work, appeared last year in the “Athenaeum.”
To a Cat.
Stately, kindly, lordly friend,
Condescend
Here to sit by me, and turn
Glorious eyes that smile and burn,
Golden eyes, love’s lustrous meed,
On the golden page I read.
All your wondrous wealth of hair,
Dark and fair,
Silken-shaggy, soft and bright
As the clouds and beams of night,
Pays my reverent hand’s caress
Back with friendlier gentleness.
Dogs may fawn on all and some
As they come;
You, a friend of loftier mind,
Answer friends alone in kind.
Just your foot upon my hand
Softly bids it understand.
Morning round this silent sweet
Garden-seat
Sheds its wealth of gathering light,
Thrills the gradual clouds with might,
Changes woodland, orchard, heath,
Lawn and garden there beneath.
Fair and dim they gleamed below:
Now they glow
Peep as even your sunbright eyes,
Fair as even the wakening skies.
Can it not or can it be
Now that you give thanks to see?
May not you rejoice as I,
Seeing the sky
Change to heaven revealed, and bid
Earth reveal the heaven it hid
All night long from stars and moon,
Now the sun sets all in tune?
What within you wakes with day
Who can say?
All too little may we tell,
Friends who like each other well,
What might haply, if we might,
Hid us read our lives aright.
Chapter One
“You’re the New Dog, aren’t you?”
It was an autumn evening, or rather afternoon, for the sun was still high over the blue hills of the West. The sky was clear too, and twilight would last long.
The trees, however, were already casting longer shadows on the grass, and the breeze that swayed their brandies, cast, playfully, ever and anon, handfuls of brown leaves towards the earth.
Shireen was coming slowly across the road towards Uncle Ben’s bungalow.
Uncle Ben was an old sea captain, and had been in India for some years of his life. This was the reason why he called his home a bungalow. It really was a sturdy stone-built cottage, a verandah in front to which in June and July the roses clung, with two gables embowered in the greenery of ivy, one of which had a large casement window in it, with steps leading down to the lawn, where, under the trees in the sweet summer-time Ben was often to be found smoking a pipe in his grass hammock.
The whole place was a sort of arboretum, however, and the very most the sun could ever do was to shine down upon the grass in patches. Once inside the railing that surrounded it. Shireen knew she would be safe, so there was no need to hurry. Besides, it had been raining, and the road was not only wet, but the water lay here and there in little pools.
These pools Shireen took care to avoid, for she was a very dainty cat indeed. Every time she took a step she lifted her paw as high as she could and shook it. She tried also to elevate that tail of hers so as to keep it unsoiled, but it was so big and bushy that in this she was only partially successful.
The bungalow lay or stood in the outskirts or suburbs of the village, and not a long way from the sea either, for old Ben would have slept but poorly could he not have gone to sleep every night – that is every still night – with the whisper of the waves singing a kind of lullaby to him as they broke lazily on the yellow sands. But if a breeze blew off the shore or down from the hills to the nor’ard and cast, then Ben went to sleep with the half-formed idea in his mind that he was at sea; an idea that ere long commingled with his dreams. The wind would seem to be roaring through rigging and shrouds, and not through the oaks and elms and rustling pine trees; but sail was shortened, the ship was snug, and it was the mate’s watch on deck. What more could any sailor desire?
Ben had no wife; only a little old woman came and charred for him, and a tall ungainly Portuguese lad, who had been cook’s mate with him on board the Alibi, and could make an excellent curry, officiated as Ben’s factotum and valet. Then there was the cockatoo. Perhaps it may be said that cockatoos don’t count as members of a household, but Cockie was no ordinary cockatoo, I can assure you. She came originally from the bush or jungle of Western Australia. Ben used to nod his head at Cockie in a semi-solemn kind of way when anyone put a question to him concerning the bird.
She came into my possession in a queer kind of way. Some of these days I may tell you the story. Haven’t told it to anybody yet except to Pussy Shireen. Some day? – Yes, some day – perhaps.
The little old woman who charred for Ben only came once a week, and that was on a Friday. Then Ben would clear out, get away to the hills, or off in a boat, with bread and cheese in his coat-tail pocket, and not come home till evening.
Fridays