“Who but?”
“Anti-God. The system is wretchedly run. I could conduct it better myself.” MacDhui reached up to a shelf and took down a small bottle of medicine. The pug dog emitted a gigantic belch, struggled to its feet and sat up begging. The two men looked at one another and burst into roars of laughter.
I was checking a mousehole when Mary Ruadh came to take me away to go down to the quay in the town in company with Hughie Stirling to see the steamer arrive from Glasgow.
The interruption did not leave me in the best of humour for I had put in a lot of time and work on that hole and felt that I was just about to achieve results.
It was the one by the larder, the important one. I had been treating it for days and it was a nuisance being dragged off. Mousehole watching to me was duty, and I always did it thoroughly and well. All of the other things I had to do for Mary Ruadh to keep her happy and contented including submitting to being carried about by her everywhere she went were her idea and not mine.
People are inclined to forget or overlook our primary purpose in a house – and out of purely selfish reasons such as when they try to turn us into babies – and when made to live unnatural lives, we become spoiled and lazy. Even when every so often we bring them a mouse as a reminder and lay it at their feet, people are so conceited and stupid as to accept it as a personal gift, instead of realising that we are calling attention to our reason for being there and paying up for board and lodging.
I suppose you think that checking a mousehole is easy and no work at all. Well, all I can say is YOU try it sometime. Get down on your hands and knees and remain in that position, concentrating and staring at one little hole in the wainscoting for hours at a time, while simultaneously pretending that you are not. Checking a mousehole isn’t just giving it a sniff and going away as a dog would do. On the contrary. If you are as conscientious and dutiful as I am, it is a full-time job, particularly if there are two or three or you suspect one of them of having two entrances.
It isn’t catching mice, mind you, that is the most necessary. Anyone can catch a mouse; it is no trick at all; it is putting them off and keeping them down that is important. You will hear sayings like – “The only good mouse is a dead mouse,” but that is only half of it. The only good mouse is the mouse that isn’t there at all. What you must do if you are at all principled about your work, is to conduct a war of nerves on the creatures. This calls for both time, energy and a good deal of cleverness, which I wouldn’t begrudge if I wasn’t expected to do so many other things besides.
Just to give you an idea of what mousehole watching entails, after you have located and charted them and decided which ones are active and which extinct, you select one and go there, but, of course, never twice at the same time exactly. A mouse is no fool and soon learns to time you if you are regular. I find that hunch and instinct, or just plain feline know-how are the best things to guide you. You just KNOW at a certain moment; it comes over you as in a dream that THAT is the time to go there.
Well, first you take two or three sniffs and then settle down in front of it and stare for a while. If the mouse is in, he or she can’t get out, and if they are out they can’t get home. Either way it is worrying. And so for the first hour you just remain there staring. At the same time, when you get used to it you find that you can think about all sorts of other things, make plans, or wish, or remember who you were, or what happened to an ancestor thousands and thousands of generations ago, or perhaps think about what there is going to be for supper.
THEN, suddenly you close both eyes and pretend that you are asleep. Now, this is the most important and delicate part of the entire operation, for now you may rely only upon your ears and the receiving antennae at the ends of your whiskers. For this is when the mouse, if it is out, will try to get in, or try to get out if it is in, and just at the psychological moment when it thinks it has you, you open one eye.
I can promise you that the effect upon the mouse of finding itself suddenly stared at by that single eye of yours is absolutely tremendous. I am not sure what it is exactly, unless it is to be confronted with the evidence that you actually need only one eye to watch while the other one sleeps that is so upsetting to the mouse, but there it is. A few doses of that and it is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Its nervousness soon communicates itself to its family, they hold a consultation and decide to move away.
This is the manner in which any responsible member of our species handles the mouse problem in the household, but as you can see it calls for technique, practice and time; above all, time. I managed to keep the house reasonably clear in spite of all the other things I had to do, room and parcel inspection, washing, exchanging news with the neighbours and looking after Mary Ruadh, for which, of course, I got no thanks or appreciation at all from Mr MacDhui, and little more from Mrs McKenzie, from whom I had to listen to such complaints as – “Och, ye lazy Thomasina. The mice have been at the larder again. Do ye then no ken a moosie when ye see yin?” – which was supposed to be very cutting and sarcastic, but, of course, rolled right off my back.
So there I was, just settled down to put the cap on three solid days of nerve war, when Hughie Stirling came whistling outside the house, and the next thing I knew, Mary Ruadh, in a blue pinafore with blue socks and blue shoes, was picking me up and carrying me off through the town down to the quay. I had never been there before at steamboat time.
Hughie Stirling was the Laird’s son. He was almost ten, but already tall for his age. He lived in the Manor, whose grounds reached almost to the back of our house, and he was a great friend to Mary Ruadh.
You can have boys, for my part. I find them nasty, dirty, cruel, in the main, and unkind and heartless to boot, selfish little beasts, but I must admit that Hughie Stirling was different. He managed to keep himself clean and had a kind of noble look about him with a lean face, dark, wavy hair and light blue eyes, the far-seeing kind.
Mary Ruadh tagged after him whenever she could, or he would let her, which was quite often, for he seemed to like to look after her. Most boys of that age will have no part of little girls at any price, but a few, like Hughie, seem to like having them about, particularly if they have no sisters. They watch over them, picking them up, brushing them off and wiping away their tears when they fall or hurt themselves, and see to it that their noses are blown when it is necessary. Like Mary Ruadh, Hughie was an only child and so he liked to borrow her occasionally and, of course, I went along over Mary Ruadh’s arm, for she would not go without me. Hughie never seemed to mind this and appeared to understand it and not think it curious. Perhaps he appreciated my worth. I am not surprised to find this attitude in one of the aristocracy.
If I could live my own life, that is to say, if I were not ‘house’, I should move to the waterfront and spend the days sitting on the jetties in the sun, sniffing the tar in the ropes with which the boats are made fast, and when the fishermen’s skiffs came in I would strut along the granite flagstones of the quay with my tail a-quivering in the air and go down to greet them and see what they had brought in from the sea.
Next to lavender, I think the smells I like best are those of the sea, boats and piles of old oilskins, sweaters, gear and tackle and rubber boots in the boathouses, and the beautiful smell of fish; fish and seaweed, crab and lobster and the green sea-scum that fastens to the grey stone landing steps. And there is a wonderful odour by the sea in the very early morning too, when the sun has not yet pierced through the mists and everything is soggy with damp and dew and salt.
And so once I was there with the children in the square by the quay where the statue to Rob Roy stands, I was not too ill-pleased for there were many interesting and exciting things going on, except that when the steamer came in and blew its whistle it frightened me so that I fell off Mary Ruadh’s shoulder and hurt myself.
That wants a bit of explaining, I know, for we always fall on our feet, particularly when we have time to turn over, but this all