"And just like our Tiny!" said Ailie again, as she repeated the kiss.
Charlie was seated on a chair, a favourite location of his, because he
was out of reach of the old cat's claws. Tom the cat never agreed with
Charlie, and there was no love lost between the pair of them. The truth
is Tom was jealous, and took every opportunity that presented itself to
make poor Charlie's life as miserable as it could well be. Tom used to
invite Charlie to have a drop of milk out of his saucer sometimes.
"Real new milk!" Tom would say; "have a drop, Charlie, it will do you
good."
"Do you really mean it?" Charlie would ask, talking with those great
eyes of his.
"Of course I do," puss would reply.
About a minute after this, Charlie would be coming flying up the back
stairs as if the house were on fire, with Tom behind him, whacking him
all the way, and crying:
"I'll teach you to touch my milk."
Sometimes Charlie would have a bone, and when done with it, would hide
it in a corner. Well, pussy would settle down behind it, and presently
when Charlie came back:
"Come away, Charlie," pussy would say, or seem to say. "Come away,
dear; I've been watching your bone. Those thieving rats, you know."
"O, thank you, Tom," Charlie would say.
But half a minute later Charlie would be once more rushing madly up the
back stairs, and pussy after him, clawing him all the way.
Pussy's favourite seat was the footstool, and in a winter's evening,
when tea was on the table, a bright fire in the grate, the kettle
singing on the hob, and Tom half asleep, but singing all the same, on
the hassock, our parlour looked _so_ cheerful. But sometimes Tom would
say to Charlie:
"I'm going away to the woods to-day, Charlie, for a long, long hunt
after the rats and weasels, so you can curl up on my footstool all day."
"O, thank you!" Charlie would say.
Then away Tom would trot, and Charlie would be up on top of the hassock,
and asleep in five minutes, for on the whole Charlie was a shivering
little fellow when the weather was cold--just like your Tiny.
Well, pussy would not go farther away than the paddock gate; she would
sit there for perhaps ten minutes, making little funny faces at the
sparrows, and at cock-robin. Then back she would come.
"He'll be asleep by this time," Tom would say to himself, as he came
stealing to the parlour.
Next moment there would be another race up the back stairs, and Charlie
would be howling most dismally.
This was very naughty of pussy, and it was not at all pleasant for
Charlie; no wonder he preferred sitting in the chair.
I'll never forgot the day Charlie caught and killed his first rat. It
was a very big one, and he was as proud as any deer-stalker. He must
needs bring it into the parlour and lay it on the rug before us all.
Tom smacked him, and took the rat away to a corner, and gloated and
growled over it, and told Charlie that _all_ the rats and mice about the
place belonged to him.
Charlie could swim as fast as a Newfoundland, he could follow the
carriage for miles, and whenever it stopped he used to jump up and sit
on the horse's back, and perhaps go to sleep there, for he was a sleepy
little fellow at times--just like your Tiny.
Charlie used to fetch and carry. Does your Tiny do so? He would carry
things much, _much_ bigger than himself. A carriage rug, for example.
And this was funny, if the rug were very heavy Charlie would stop
pulling it and give it a good shaking, growling all the time as if the
rug were alive. Then he would stop and look at it for a minute or two,
with his head first on one side and then on the other, as much as to
say:
"Will you come now, then? I'll give you more if you don't."
Bright, loving, brave, and gentle was Charlie. You see I say "_was_
Charlie," so you will know that Charlie is not alive now; I will tell
you how it happened.
It was a winter evening. Our house, The Grange, is a good mile from the
station, across a wild bleak common. It would be quite three miles
round by the road, so we seldom go that way. Some of our friends were
coming to spend a week with us. They ought to come by the 4:30 fast
train, and I was there to meet them. It was eight before they arrived,
however, and O! such a dreadful night. The snow had come down and was
already fully a foot deep, and lay on the road in great wreaths that no
horse could pass. Then the wind blew a perfect hurricane, and the
drifting snow almost took our breath away. We must go by the common or
remain at the station all night. Our friends were only two, a young
lady and her father, but both were very brave.
Alas! we never could have crossed the common that night, had it not been
for Charlie. Many a life was lost in that terrible storm, which will
long be remembered in our shire. I had not taken Charlie with me, but
when in the very middle of the moor, with poor Miss B--all but dead and
my friend and I sinking, and not knowing which way to turn--we had
probably been going round and round in a circle--I spied something black
feathering about among the snow. It was Charlie! I leave you to
imagine with what joy we received him.
"Go home, Charlie!" we cried.
And away went our little guide, sometimes quite invisible, but always
coming back to encourage us. Half an hour afterwards we were all at
home in our bright and cheerful parlour.
But poor Charlie never recovered it. He must have been out in the snow
for hours. Next day he was ill, and got rapidly worse. Strange to say
that Tom the pussy was now actually kind to him.
"I fear," I said one evening, "Charlie is worse than ever."
Charlie _was_ worse--one pleading look at us, one slight shiver, and our
pet was no more.
There is a little grassy grave down in the orchard, that the children
always cover with flowers in spring-time and summer.
That is Charlie's.