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Chapter Twenty One
“Have Heart and Hope, my Friend.”
Far away up the river Karoon, my children, lies the city of Akwaz, and it was for this place our three little gunboats, the Comet, the Planet, and the Assyria, now started.
But for the anxiety that I could not help noticing was depicted on my dear master’s face, this expedition would have been altogether as nice as a picnic.
We – my master, the priest, Jock and I – went in the Comet, with one hundred Highlanders.
Our whole force did not amount to much over three hundred men, and yet with this little mite of an army we were going to attack a town, the size and strength of which we were not even sure of.
I, however, felt no fear, because I heard master say that whatever men dare, they can do.
Well, in due time we reached the town, and we landed, attacked and captured it.
Persians are not cowards. They can fight well, and this army of about nine thousand men would, doubtless, soon have destroyed our bold little force, had it not been so arranged as to look like three invading armies.
Then, of course, we had the support of the gunboats, and, as master said, it was but right to give the Persian general his due. He must have thought that our troops were but the advance-guard of General Outram’s whole force. And so he and his army ran away.
“Did much fur fly, Shireen?” asked Cracker.
Not much, said Shireen. You see, Cracker, we didn’t get so near to the enemy as you did to the butcher’s dog that day you saved life, else brave Jock McNab and master would have made plenty of fur fly.
From the river, the town of Akwaz and the broad sheet of water, with its beautiful wooded islands, and the wild and rugged mountains far behind, formed a scene which was lovely in the extreme.
On the evening after the day on which our gallant force had routed the enemy, and captured the town with all their stores, the priest and my master sat long on deck, talking of the past. I sit on the priest’s knee. There was a calm or repose about this man that to me was very delightful, and as he smoothed me while he talked to master, I purred and sang with my eyes half closed.
I was not asleep, however, and I could hear every word they said.
I noticed, too, that this good priest spoke ne’er a word about himself, or his own affairs. He seemed to interest himself in master and in him only. This I thought was very unselfish and considerate of him. It was kind of him, too, to keep master and me company at all, for he was still very weak from his wounds, and a less brave-hearted man would have been confined to his hammock.
At last we got up steam and departed for the camp at Mohammerah, and not only our General Sir James Outram, but all our soldier and sailor companions-in-arms were rejoiced to see us, and hailed us as the heroes of Akwaz, which we undoubtedly were, despite the fact that we had suffered but little loss.
But that same day news came which delighted some of us, but grievously disappointed most.
Peace had been proclaimed, and we were to fight no more. This was looked upon by our brave soldiers as a downright shame. Just as the campaign was opening out so hopefully, and there was every prospect that we would, in course of time, conquer the whole of Persia.
But two of our number were very glad of the news, and these were that dear, big priest, and my own beloved master.
They went out together at sunset to talk matters over, as they wandered slowly up and down among the shady date trees. Jock McNab accompanied them at a little distance, and I trotted quietly between the two.
At last they sat down at a spot which afforded them a beautiful view of the river.
“War is a terrible thing, my friend,” began the priest. “Are you not glad that peace is concluded?”
“War is, as you say, a terrible thing,” replied my soldier-master; “yet I fear we redcoats like it. You see, we all look forward to honour and glory. Every private carries a marshal’s baton in his knapsack, figuratively speaking, and yet, for one reason, I am glad this war is over.”
“Ah! I knew,” said the priest smiling, “that I should soon reach down to that which is next your heart.”
“How true and good you are!” said Edgar.
“And do you know what I have done?” continued the priest. “What I have dared to do?”
My master turned quickly round to him.
“You have been to see the General!” he said quickly.
“Indeed I have.”
“And you have told him all the story?”
“I have told him almost all.”
“And he – ”
“He is going to help us.”
“Heaven bless you, dear friend, all your life.”
Edgar extended his hand, which the priest shook right cordially.
“Now, you know,” the priest said, “I had to tell the General that you were interested indirectly in this affair, and then he at once told me that you and I could go to Bagdad in the Comet, which was going there on state business. That he would gladly give an asylum and all assistance to the English lady, Miss Morgan, and to her maid, if she had one, no matter whether she were English or not. Then he shook hands with me and told me to go and talk the whole matter over with you.”
My master sat thoughtfully looking at the river for a time, then he turned once more to the priest.
“I can see exactly how the land lies,” he said smiling. “How good and thoughtful of the General.”
“Yes, he is our friend.”
“His horror,” added the priest, “at the villainy displayed by a father, who would sell his young and beautiful daughter to the Shah against her will, was plainly discoverable in the manner in which he stamped his foot, and cried, ‘Scandalous! Shameful!’”
“And the allusion to the maid – ” began Edgar.
“That, you know,” said the priest, “is left for you and for me to interpret, as best we may. Miss Morgan must have a maid, must she not?”
“Certainly. Every English lady must have a maid,” said my master, smiling a happy smile.
“And it wouldn’t do, would it, for the English General to be implicated in the abduction of a Persian noble’s daughter?”
“No, certainly not.”
“And so you see that – ”
“Yes, yes, I see,” cried master, laughing right heartily now. “Beebee must, for the time being, become Miss Morgan’s lady’s-maid. Ha! ha! ha! It is droll.”
“Yes, it is droll.”
But then master’s face fell.
“Ah! my dearest friend,” he said, “we may, after all, be counting our chickens before they are hatched.”
“Nay, nay, nay,” cried the priest. “I have set my heart upon having this strange adventure end well, and end well it must and shall.”
“Unless – ”
“I know what you would say, captain. Unless Beebee has already been taken off. But I do not think this is at all likely. They do not do things very rapidly in Persia. They are a calm, contemplative kind of people. But, nevertheless, Beebee is doomed to a fate too horrible to think of if we do not rescue her.”
“Do you think,” said Edgar eagerly, “it will be very, very difficult?”
“I do think it will be somewhat difficult. But have heart and hope, my friend. Let me recall to you a motto that I have heard from your own lips.”
“And that is?”
“‘Whate’er a man dares he can do.’”
“And now,” said Shireen, “I am going to reserve the last part of my story till we meet again, for, Cracker, your folks must think you are lost, and I can see that the cockatoo yonder is standing on one foot and half asleep.”
“Cockie wants to go to bed,” cried Uncle Ben’s pet, arousing himself, and lifting his great white, yellow-lined wings as if he would fly.
“As for me,” said Cracker, “I’d sit and hear you talk all night, you bet.”
“And so would I,” said Warlock.
“The more I see and learn of cats,” continued Cracker, “the more I respects them like, and I don’t care a rat’s tail what the other dogs say about me. There’s that butcher’s rag of a bull-terrier, for instance, goin’ and tellin’ the whole village that I’m often seen in cats’ company, and that I’m half a cat myself. Well, I says, says I, I might be something worse. But, bless you, Shireen, next time I meets he, I’m going to let him out.”
“I wouldn’t kill him quite,” said Shireen.
“Oh, no. I’ll just shake him like. They kind o’ dogs can be killed over and over again, and don’t take much hurt. Besides, you know,” he added knowingly, “it will teach the varmint manners.”
“I say, you know,” said Warlock, “I think the quarrel with the butcher’s cur should be mine.”
“Nonsense, Warlock, he would swallow you up.”
“All! you don’t know how much fight there is in me when I’m fairly angered. Well, I keep company with Tabby here. We hunt together, don’t we, Tab?”
“That we do.”
“And fish together. So just let that butcher’s dog come across me.”
“Tse, tse, tse!” said the starling, admiringly. The chameleon simply warmed his other hand before the fire.
I’m not sure, that as far as that goes, Chammy wasn’t the wisest in that group of friends. Catch Chammy fighting! He would take a hundred years to make up his mind to do it, and then he wouldn’t.
“By-the-bye,” said Shireen, “though human folk will have it that dogs and cats don’t agree, there is plenty of true stories told by naturalists to prove that when a dog and a cat, indeed, I might say any dog and any cat are brought up together, they agree like lambs upon a lea. They will wander about together just as Warlock and Tabby do. Eat out of the same dish without quarrelling, and sleep together on the same mat at night.
“I see,” added Shireen, “that master and Uncle Ben haven’t quite finished their game yet, so while we wait I may as well tell you a little story about cat and dog life. It is mentioned and authenticated in a book called ‘Friends in Fur.’” (Same author.)
This story is told of a cat called the “Czar,” and a doggie whose name was “Whiskey.” And it is doubly à propos because, like Warlock yonder, Whiskey was a Scotch terrier, and he lived in a country village far away in the north of bonnie Scotland. In the same house dwelt the Czar, a splendid, large, rough-haired cat, who, it was said, had been imported from Russia – hence his name.
My friend, Harrison Weir, to whom I am indebted for the speaking illustrations contained in this book, once owned a cat of this breed, and a very handsome cat it must have been. He speaks of it thus in his book called “Our Cats,” page 30; “The mane, or frill, was very large, long and dense, and more of a woolly texture, with coarse short hairs among it, the colour was a dark tabby. The eyes were large and prominent, of a bright orange, slightly tinted with green; the ears large by comparison, with small tufts full of long woolly hair; the limbs stout and short, the tail being very dissimilar as if was short, very woolly and thickly tipped with hair, the same length from base to tip, and much resembled in form that of the British will eat. Its motion was not so agile as that of other cats, nor did it apparently care for warmth, as it liked being out of doors in the coldest weather. Another peculiarity being that it seemed to care little in the way of watching birds for food, neither were its habits like those of the short-haired cats that were its companions.
“It attached itself to no person, as was the case with some of the others, but curiously took a particular fancy to one of my short-haired silver tabbies; the two appeared always together. In front of the fire they sat side by side. If one left the room the other followed. A down the garden paths they were still companions; and at night they slept in the same: box; they drank milk from the same saucer, and fed from the same plate, and, in fact, only seemed to exist for each other. In all my experience I never saw a more devoted couple.”
No two animals in the world could have loved each other more dearly and devotedly than did the Czar and his little wise companion, Whiskey.
Whiskey, I need hardly tell you, Cracker, was like Warlock there, the gamest of the game, but of course he never showed his teeth to the Czar. They took their meals from the same dish, only Whiskey seemed to have compacted to have all the bones. They were also constantly together, all day long, except when Whiskey’s duty to his master called him afield, and at night they shared the selfsame bed; the Czar often taking Whiskey in his arms because he appeared to be the biggest. I’m not sure, indeed, that the Czar did not awaken Whiskey when that little gentleman took the nightmare. Be this as it may, they were, altogether, as loving as loving could be.
And once or twice a week this kindly couple used to go out hunting together.
“Just like Warlock and me,” said Tabby.
Yes, said Shireen, and they cared nothing for game laws, and took no heed of the keepers, except to hide or run from them; for this cat and dog were a law unto themselves apparently.
On their hunting expeditions they used to go out together in the morning, and after spending all the long day in the woods and wilds, they invariably came home before dark.
This coming home before nightfall was no doubt a suggestion of Whiskey’s, for a dog can neither see so well in the dark as a cat, nor can his constitution so easily withstand the clews of night. But the very fact of the Czar’s consenting to keep early hours to please his Scottish friend, is another proof of how dearly he must have loved him.
And almost every night these sons of Nimrod brought home with them some trophy from the hunting-ground. Sometimes it was a rabbit, more often a bird – if the latter, Whiskey generally had the honour of carrying it, and very proud was he of the distinction; if a small rabbit, the Czar bore the burden.
And so things went on till one mournful night, when Whiskey returned later than usual and all alone. He came into the house, but lay down on the mat near the door, and from that he would not budge an inch. He refused his porridge and all consolation, and lay there in a nervous and acutely listening attitude, starting up whenever he heard the slightest sound outside.
His mistress at last went to bed and left him.
It must have been long past midnight when Whiskey came dashing into his mistress’s bedroom, knocking over a chair in his excitement, and barking wildly as he rushed hither and thither.
When his mistress got up at last poor little Whiskey preceded her to the door, barking again and looking anxious and excited.
Outside a pitiful mew was heard, and as soon as the lady opened the door in rushed the Czar on three legs. He had left one foot in a horrid trap.
And now nothing could exceed the kindness of the dog towards his wounded companion and playmate. He threw himself down on the rug beside her, whining and crying with very grief, and gently licked the bleeding stump where the cat himself had gnawed it off to save his life.
And every day for weeks did Whiskey apply hot fomentations with his soft wee tongue to pussy’s leg, until at last it was completely healed.
But they had no more romping together in fields and woods, for the Czar’s hunting-days were over – in this world at all events.
“Cornered at last,” cried Uncle Ben, laughing, as he looked at the chess-board. “No, you haven’t a move. Ho! ho! Well, I’ve had my revenge.”
“And I,” said the Colonel, “shall have mine another evening.”
“Right you are. Now, good-bye, Lizzie and Tom. Come, Cracker, old dog, you go my way, don’t you?”
So good-nights were said, and hands were shaken, and off went Uncle Ben and his cockatoo adown the road towards his bungalow, where his man Pedro was waiting to place before him his frugal supper.
Chapter Twenty Two
“Go Home, my Friends, it is All Over.”
The school stood quite in the suburbs of the little village – the girls’ school I mean – and there was nothing very unusual about it. Year in and year out, with certainly no more holidays than they deserved, the teachers – orphan girls both – laboured all day long at their duties, and had the satisfaction of knowing that they were well beloved by their sometimes noisy pupils, to whom their wish, however, was always law; and the children generally made a good show when examination time came round.
It was in here, one hard frosty day, that Shireen dropped on her way down town, to pay her usual round of visits.
She had just left Uncle Ben’s bungalow, after a long talk and song with the sailor, and a few words to Cockie, the cockatoo, who, if he did not say very much, was a wonderful mimic, and made many droll motions. He never saw a boy, for example, without going through the movements of using a whip. Perhaps Cockie believed with Solomon, that it was a pity to “spare the rod and spoil the child.”
There was a kind of general welcome to Shireen when she entered the school-house; but, strangely enough, she went straight up to the desk, and paid her compliments to the two teachers before doing anything else.
Then Shireen looked about her from the seat she had taken, namely, a high three-legged stool. She could, from this elevation, see a large number of her little friends, with whom she would hold a little conversation presently. But there was one homely, good-natured face that she missed, and one of the teachers, as if reading her thoughts, stroked her back and head, as she remarked with a smile.
“Emily isn’t here to-day, Pussy.”
“No,” said the other girl. “Emily has been a good girl, and worked hard; and she has finished her education, and gone home to keep house for her father.”
So Shireen did not stop so long to-day in the school as was her wont, for the chief attraction was gone. But she dispensed her favours among her friends freely enough before she went. And they were not all girls, either, whom Shireen regarded affectionately. For though it was a girls’ school, there were tiny, wee pests of fair-haired boys there, not an inch bigger, presumably, than the school tongs, and of one or two of these Shireen seemed very fond.
Down the room she trotted at last, however. She was not long in meeting with an adventure, for round the distant corner came Danger, the butcher’s bull-terrier. There wasn’t a good tree within fifty yards, so Shireen had a race for it. She got up into the sycamore safely, nevertheless. Danger coming in a good second, and stopping to bark savagely up at her.
Shireen raised her back and growled defiance down at him.
Then she taunted him.
“Why don’t you come up?” she cried derisively. “Why don’t you climb the tree? Because you can’t, clever though you think yourself. Fuss! Futt! Wouldn’t I make the fur fly out of you if you did come up. And wouldn’t I carve my name on your nose, just. Go home! Go home, you ugly brute. Mind, you’ll catch it when Cracker meets you. Oh, he’ll give it to you properly next time.”
The dog trotted off at last, and then Shireen came slowly down.
She meant to-day to pay all her other visits before going to Emily’s, because then she would have longer time to stay with her. So she went first to see Jeannie Lynch, at her mother’s tiny earthen-floored cottage. Jeannie’s mother was an invalid, and would never be better. But she could just sit by the fire in her high-backed chair, and do knitting, while Jeannie attended to the housewifery. Shireen found the girl busy washing up the dinner things, and singing low to herself. But there was a subdued, chastened kind of a look on her pretty face, which was habitual to it, for Jeannie was lame, and, I’m sorry to say, the village children teased her and called “Box-foot” after her. So even when she went out to do shopping for her mother, she limped along the street, looking fifty years of age, instead of the eleven summers that made up the sum total of her existence hitherto. She looked, indeed, as if she owed people an apology for her somewhat ungainly appearance.
Shireen loved her, nevertheless, and she loved Shireen, and it wasn’t for sake of the drop of milk Jeannie always put down for her, nor in the hope of catching the mouse that nibbled paper in the cupboard, that pussy always stopped at least an hour at this humble dwelling.
But she had to go at last, because she must see Mr Burn-the-wind, and also little Alec Dewsbury. Alec was one of the afflicted. At school one day, when quite a tiny lad, he had somehow injured his spine, and on a small, stretcher-bed he had lain helpless for years. Often in summer he lay out in the garden under the tree’s green shade, where he could hear the birds sing, and look up at the sailing clouds, with the rifts of blue between; and higher still in imagination, far, far away beyond the blue, where they told him God and angels dwell, though God was everywhere. In winter his stretcher stood in a cosy corner of his cottage home; and kind people brought him books and papers to read. But Alec’s pale face always lit up with joy when Shireen came in, for he had no pet of his own.
“I wonder,” he said to his mother one day, “if cats go to heaven? Oh, surely they do,” he added, before she could answer. “I’m certain all good and beautiful creatures go there. Besides, mother, we know there are cows and bees there.”
“What put that in your head, lammie?”
“Because it’s a land flowing with milk and honey, you know; so there must be cows and bees there.”
Alec was a very, very old boy for his years.
The blacksmith, on this particular day, was in very fine form, and making the sparks fly in golden horizontal showers just as Shireen trotted in to say “good-day.” He had four ragamuffins of rosy-faced children, perched high on a bench, with their legs dangling in the air, to whom he was relating an old-fashioned fairy-tale, which made them laugh at one moment, and stare with wonder and astonishment the next. Shireen knew all four children, so she jumped up, and seated herself beside the smallest, a mite of a girl, who at once declared to the others that pussy loved her “bestest of all.”
Then the blacksmith smoothed Shireen with the back of his hand, because it was the only unsoiled portion of that horny fist of his, and then he went on with his story.
While they were all listening, Lizzie and Tom ran in. Tom had his skates slung over his shoulder; and his sister carried a basket, which contained many a dainty, and many a little luxury for the aged and the indigent sick.
Like pussy herself, Lizzie and Tom were always welcome, whether they had a basket or not; because, even when they did not bring little gifts of jelly, or beef-tea, or books, or snuff and tobacco, they brought smiles, and the sunshine of their innocent and winsome ways.
But to-day, neither Lizzie nor Tom stayed long with Burn-the-wind, because the former had her basket to lighten and hearts to lighten thereby, and because Tom noticed there was no horse to be shod at present, and he knew that the ice on the mill-pond was inches thick.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” cried Lizzie, as they got nearer to the top of the street. “Something surely has happened. Look, Tom, at the lot of the people, and they are carrying somebody. Oh, Tom, it is Emily, I know and feel sure.”
Yes, it was Emily.
Poor girl! Only the day before, she had returned from school for good. She was going to settle down now, she told everyone of her intimate friends, laughing gleefully. She was going to do her father’s little house-keeping; and poor old dad, as she called him, would in future have many a comfort he had missed since mother died.
And baby, too, would not be so much neglected, and could be taken out every forenoon, after father had gone back to work.
There was a bit of garden, too, behind the humble cottage, with a nice grass plot in the centre; there, in spring and summer, the daisies grew, and the yellow celandines.
Bobby, her infant brother, could roll on the grass when it was dry and fine, while she did the gardening all around. And this would be so delightful, because then she would never want a flower to place on mother’s grave.
So you will observe, dear reader, that it was all beautifully arranged.
Alas! and alas! If I were writing an altogether imaginary story, the somewhat sad and sombre ending to this chapter would be altered. But there is far more of truth in my story than anyone will ever know.
That day then, when Emily took her little brother out in his far from elegant perambulator, she heard the sound of a band. A wild-beast show was stationed on the village green it seemed, and there was a triumphal procession through the streets of the little town. Poor Emily stood aside to see it pass, for, despite the fact that children would be admitted to the great marquee for half-price, this procession was the only part of the show she would see. But she marvelled much at the lordly ungainliness of the elephants; at the queer, old-fashioned visages of the camels, and at the wisdom of the piebald pony, and the wit of the immortal clown who rode him, who had appeared – didn’t the bills tell her so? – before every respectable crowned head in Europe. But she stood agape with astonishment when she saw the beautiful and airily dressed “Lion Queen,” perched high on top of her gilded carriage.
Then the procession passed on, and Emily resumed her journey with the perambulator. Not far up the street she remembered that she wanted some tobacco for her father, and that she had passed the shop. She left the perambulator where it was for a few minutes, till she should run back and make the little purchase.
As she stood at the counter she heard the quick rattle of wheels, and a noise of galloping hoofs, and then the shout of “Horse ran off!” fell upon her car.
“Oh, the baby!” cried Emily, and dashed out of the shop.
The perambulator, with the child in it, laughing and blinking in the sunshine, stood right in the track of danger.
But Emily, heedless of everything except the desire to save her brother, rushed on towards it. Nearer and nearer came the horse. People shrieked as they saw the girl at the perambulator.
One push sent it clear away from under the very hoofs of the fear-maddened horse. Next moment, Emily herself was down.
Then the sorrowful procession.
Two hours after Lizzie and Tom had seen Emily borne by kind and loving hands into the humble cottage that had been her home, the doctor came out.
He shook his head sadly.
“Go home, my friends,” he said, “it is all over.”
He jumped into his carriage and was driven away. But tears trickled down the cheeks of men in that little crowd; faces were buried in aprons, and women wept aloud.
The grief of poor Emily’s father was something to see and remember for ever and a day. I am not going to attempt to describe it. He was a good man, and a Christian; yet, not that night, nor for many nights and days, was he able to see the light, and to say from his heart: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be His name.”
As to Shireen – I must tell you about her. She never left the cottage while Emily’s poor little body lay there; and had you entered the house the night before the funeral, you would have seen the poor father sitting by his half out fire, absorbed in grief, and Shireen upon the coffin-lid.
In the cat’s face sorrow, intense sorrow, predominated; but there was also a touch of anger also. Why was her favourite here in this dark box? What had they done to her? Who had done it?
Ah! there was a mystery somewhere, which this little feline playmate and friend of the deceased girl failed to fathom. Can we, in our wisdom? Alas, no!
