THE ADVENTURES OF BLINKS.
A Tale of a Kitten, in Ten "Mews."
_Dramatis Personæ._
1. BLINKS--the son of Muffie.
2. MUFFIE--the mother of Blinks and queen of cats.
3 PRETTY DICK--a starling who speaks oftener than he is spoken to.
4. THE OGRE--The Author.
5. THEODORE NERO--champion Newfoundland.
6. THE CRICKET OF THE HEARTH.
MEW I.
_The Birth of Blinks._
The entrance into the world, of the immortal hero of the following
adventures, is veiled in the darkest and most inky obscurity. Whence he
came, or where he had resided previous to his arrival, no one can tell.
All that is positively known about the matter is this: I, the writer,
retired to rest about ten by the clock on a cold and sleety night in
winter. Previous to jumping into bed, I, as usual, locked, barred, and
bolted the door of my room, then, candle in hand, I peeped in below the
bed, keeked into the cupboard and under the toilet-table, and even cast an
eye up the chimney, in order to be certain there were no robbers or
midnight assassins concealed in the premises. Being satisfied that the
only occupants of the room besides myself were Nero, Muffie, and Pretty
Dick, I extinguished the candle and crept quietly beneath the sheets. Now
at that time there was no Blinks. Well, in the morning, like a good old
boy, I awoke at seven; and after rubbing my eyes and untying my flannel
night-cap, I put my hand once more below the bed-clothes, for I could
distinctly feel something moving on my breast. I seized and hauled this
something forth to the blessed light of day, and lo! and
behold!--Blinks--blind little Blinks!
"Good heavens!" cried I in astonishment, for the windows were fastened,
the door still closed, and the key-hole not unreasonably large, "where in
the name of all creation did you come from?" And Blinks replied in a
whisper; but I could not catch what he said.
Now, from some concomitant circumstances--namely, the birth of five
kittens on the evening of the same eventful day--all of whom were
consigned to a watery grave next morning, as soon as they had taken
breakfast--I say from these circumstances, I think there can be little
doubt but that Blinks is the son of my beloved cat and faithful servant
Muffie; and that the name of his other parent is, and must ever remain, a
mystery. Blinks was a lovely kitten, and is a lovelier cat. Of the
brightest and most varied tortoise-shell, with stately limbs and bushy
curling tail, he stalks abroad, a very prince among the feline tribes. His
paws are white as mountain snow; and when he presents one to a human
friend, it feels as soft as the finest velvet. But woe be to the mouse, or
rat, or rabbit, on whom those paws descend, for sharp and deadly are the
daggers hidden between those silken toes. His ears are long, his brow is
broad, and his eyes beam with intelligence; love seems to float in their
liquid depths as he purrs to some fair young lady cat, but fires of hate
and scorn flash from them as he gazes on a feline foe. Such is Blinks.
MEW II.
_Blinks's Eyes._
When another week had glided slowly away, and the earth--this world into
which Blinks had been so unceremoniously thrust--had made seven
somersaults and was preparing for the eighth, Blinks, who was gently
reclining in his mother's arms, opened his little red mouth and
whispered--
"My ma!"
"Yes, my chee-ild," Muffie replied.
"When will I get eyes? Ever, my Ma?"
"Yes, my chee-ild."
"When, my Ma?"
"On the ninth day, my chee-ild," said Muffie. She spoke in a mournful tone
of voice, for she had not yet ceased to lament the untimely fate of her
other five children.
"Oh my eyes!" cried Blinks, not heeding his mother's grief, "won't it be a
jolly lark!" and straightway he sucked himself to sleep.
Strange, is it not, that any mortal creature should sleep without any eyes
to sleep with; but so it was, Blinks slept.
MEW III.
_Blinks opens his Eyes. His first thrilling Adventure._
The ninth day dawned, a day to be big with the fate of the young and
innocent Blinks, who was on that auspicious morning to open his eyes for
the first time, on a world that, heretofore, had been as dark to him as if
he had been living in an empty stone bottle with the cork in, or like a
frog in a buried teapot, or like a toad in a stone. This day the cork of
the bottle--so to speak--was to be drawn, the teapot dug up, the stone to
be broken. He had innocently asked his mamma, where the eyes were to come
from; and she, in the beautiful imagery, which only Muffie could make use
of, told him that a wee angel cattie, with snowy fur and wings all golden,
would fly gently down while he slept, and, hovering over him softly insert
a little bright eye on each side of his head, and by-and-by he would awake
and--see.
Well, the sun rose,--the bats and the owls all went to roost in haunted
castles and lonely groves, cocks clapped their wings and crew, hedgehogs
fell asleep among the dewy grass, and weary authors went to bed; but
Blinks like one of the ten foolish virgins, slumbered and slept. Why
slumbereth our hero? Blinks had determined to lie awake the whole of the
preceding and eventful night, in order to meet the first glimpse of the
early dawn with open eyes, and study the wonders of nature with his newly
acquired sense of sight. I say, this is what Blinks _had_ determined to
do; it isn't by any means what he _did_ do, for long before the shadows of
night had begun to battle with the light of coming morn, poor weary
Blinks's eyes--only half open--were sealed in sleep, and so he slept far
into the day. His fond mother had eaten her matutinal meal and lain down
again to watch him; Nero had had his breakfast and a long walk with his
master; the starling had been piping and chattering from an early hour;
carts and cars and carriages had been rolling and rattling past; trains
had shrieked, and puffed, and stopped, and backed, and puffed, and gone on
again; and still Blinks was slumbering.
A very prolonged scream from an express train awoke him at last, however;
and our young hero sprang to his feet, gave a jerk with his brows, a nod
of his head, and behold! his eyes, like the eyes of Adam and Eve, were
opened; and, like Tam o' Shanter,
"Vow! he saw an unco' sight!"
Strange, too, that at the same moment one of Her Majesty's ships, that lay
in the bay, began to fire a salute of twenty-one guns. [Blinks here bids
me say there was nothing strange about it.] No wonder then, that Blinks
thought himself lord of the universe and monarch of all he surveyed; no
wonder--a pair of real eyes and a salute of twenty-one guns. Ho! ho!
Funny-looking eyes they were too; light grey and glassy, and with scarcely
any visible pupils or centre-bits. Blinks stood for a moment, evidently in
a very undecided frame of mind, like one who has too much to do and can't
tell where to begin. He appeared to be looking very earnestly, and
inquiringly at nothing in particular, and was withal rather shaky about
the extremities. It was only for a minute however, for, on turning his
head on a pivot, his eyes fell on the well-pleased and admiring face of
his mamma, who had paused in the very act of washing her face with a
spittle or two, that she might gaze on her youthful prodigy. So intent,
indeed, was she, that she did not even lower the fist she had been
licking; but sat with it raised in an attitude of such grace and beauty,
that, had it been done in the theatre royal, would have brought down the
house. Now, although Blinks had had a long and intimate acquaintance, with
his mother's honest face, it must be remembered that he only knew her by
the touch or feel; and not having _seen_ her before, how should he,
Blinks, be expected to tell who or what she, he, or it was that now gazed
on his face?
"Might it not," thought Blinks, "be some dreadful foe? Good heavens! might
it not be a _wild mouse_?"
The thought was certainly alarming enough, and he determined to, at once,
act on the offensive; so, as a commencement of hostilities, he gave a
warlike leap backwards, "in order," as he afterwards remarked, "to make
the spring the more dreadful." This backward leap did to be sure cause him
to lose his balance. [Blinks here begs me to substitute the word
"equilibrium" for "balance," as the latter is not soldier-like, and
reminds him of shop-keepers and such.] Having found his balance
["Beastly!" says Blinks,--who, as I write, is sitting on and looking over
my shoulder,--"beastly English! Can't you say, 'regained his centre of
gravity,' you dolt."] Well, well, Blinks got on his pins again; then was
his back erected like unto a Gothic arch, on which the hair did bristle
like unto a fretful porcupine, or a cheap ham; his tail was transformed
into a miniature bottle-brush, and from his jaws came a sound, intended to
be at least awe-inspiring, but which an impudent author might liken to the
striking of a lucifer-match. All this was but the work of a second, and
only preparatory to a grand spring--a spring which, it is needless to say,
would have resulted in the total demolition of all good looks in the face
of his worthy parent. But, just then, struck with admiration at the pluck
of her son, Muffie burst into a song of praise.
Blinks listened.
He closed his eyes, and listened again.
"That voice!" he cried, "them music!--it is--it is my ma."
"My chee-ild! my chee-ild!" cried the fond parent; and Blinks, in the
twinkling of--of--of a little star, was encircled by the hairy arms of his
dear dam with a tit[4] in each hand, and one in his mouth.
Then, and not till then, did pretty Dick say, "Bravo! bravo!"
MEW IV.
_Further Adventures of Blinks._
After the dreadful adventure related in chapter third, exhausted nature
coveted nutrition; that is, Blinks felt thirsty, and for the suck-seeding
[succeeding] sixty minutes, Blinks was busily engaged discussing a dinner
of _tit_-bits. He wandered from one tit to another, and from the other tit
to the next, and so on to the last, and then back again to the first.
Couldn't he stick to one tit? "No, sirree!" Blinks would have replied,
"the foremost tits contain butter, the next cream, the next sweet milk,
and the last whey. My brethren and sistren should have got the whey--they
should, but then my brethren were drowned in the sistren [cistern]--good
joke, that, for a nine-days' wonder. Eh?"
Having at length satisfied the cravings of nature, and filled his belly
[Blinks fainted when he heard this expression, and on reviving bade me,
try again], well, then having laid up a little store of the lacteal fluid,
against further claims for sustenance, Blinks carefully put aside the
skim-milk tit, as a thing all very good in its way, but which a hero 216
hours old, and with real eyes, ought to despise. He laid it past, and
wheeling carefully round on one end, stood up, staggered for an instant,
and finally reopened his new organs as wide as he could, and stared right
in front of him, apparently with no very decided intention of what to do
or how to do it. Just then there fell upon his listening ears--he had two,
one for each eye, and was very proud of them too--a sound which made him
start and turn red, so to speak, with indignation.
"Was it possible?" he mused. "DID his ears deceive him? DID he hear a
laugh? A laugh! nay, even a sneer, a low snigger."
He gazed steadily in the direction from which the noise seemed to proceed;
and "dang his eyes" if it wasn't repeated, wantonly repeated, daringly
done again; and evidently the insult was aimed at him, for there, not many
miles away, at most, were two great round goggle eyes a-glowering at him
over a book, and a horrid great fleshy face all round them, with tufts of
bristly hairs hanging from the cheeks, and a mouth with lips from which
again came the sneer--the low insulting snigger.
Now Blinks, in the days of his darkness, had often heard the same
despicable sound; and Blinks's mamma called the voice Master.
"What!" thought he, "Blinks have a master! Blinks, the nine days' wonder!
Blinks, with two real eyes! But, dash those same two eyes! the thought was
slavish. No, he wouldn't give a suck for himself if he would bear it; and
then that laugh, that snigger--come, he would at once go on the war-path,
find out this ogre which his mamma,--the old idgit [idiot]--called master;
and demolish for ever, and crush into the minutest smithereens, the mouth
that dared to sneer, the lips that dared to snigger. Dash his eyes if he
didn't, that was all."
"Walking _was_ difficult, though," so Blinks continued to muse and talk,
"over a confounded rug too. _Would_ his ma kindly take her stupid,
awkward-looking stump of a tail out of his way? So-ho-oh! Gently! Hang it
all!"
With this last exclamation Blinks tumbled off the rug, fell three long
inches through the air, and screamed lustily for his ma.
"My ma! my ma!" roared Blinks.
"My chee-ild! my chee-ild!" cried his ma, "I am with thee, my chee-ild;"
and he was forthwith carried by the nape of his warlike neck to his downy
bed, and--happy thought--he would have a drink, and then ask his ma to get
him a little golden carriage, with four white mice as horses, and a
boy-mouse in buttons behind. For why? _He_, Blinks, was never made to
walk, nor meant to walk, nor did he mean to walk; for it was mean to walk,
and he couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't. So from thinking Blinks came to
dreaming; then he once more slumbered and slept, while his mother, sitting
over him, nodded and sang.
MEW V.
_The Ogre. Blinks Goes Abroad into the World._
But it was fated that Blinks should not slumber long; he was soon awakened
by the rattling of plates; or, to speak more poetically,
The deafening din of dindling delf,
The clinking clang of knife and fork,
As some poor wretch regaled himself
On early greens and roasted pork.
He gazed in the direction of the sound, which seemed to him like the noise
of fifty bulls and a corresponding number of steam-hammers turned loose in
a china-shop. The goggle-eyed ogre was feeding himself. His huge form was
perched aloft on a wooden erection supported by four massive pillars. In
one hand he held a large knife, bigger than Blinks's body; in the other he
grasped a mighty trident, and our hero gazed in mute and mewless
astonishment, at the immense shovelfuls of mash, and the tremendous lumps
of sodden flesh the gigantic monster made disappear down his maw, and the
oceans of coloured water that went gurgling down his gullet. Then began
Blinks to reason with himself and commune with his own thoughts, after the
following fashion: "The world must be rid of such a monster, the Herculean
labour must fall on him--Blinks. Would he flinch? No! Perish the thought!
And then, had he better slay the ogre at once, and mingle his blood with
his Irish stew, or wait until he had gorged himself." The latter plan,
after much deliberation, our young and hairy hero determined to adopt; for
and because, no doubt, and to wit, in all probability after the ogre had
eaten his fill, he would give a grunt like a satisfied mother-sow, give a
grunt, tumble down in a corner, and sleep for a fortnight; and Blinks
swore by every hair in his (Blinks's) whiskers, he never again should wake
in this world.
His mind being now fully made up, Blinks carefully washed his face, using
up two spittles for that purpose. He had thought of having a bath; but
then that would have taken time and ten spittles, and he was in a hurry,
and deliberating had dried his mouth. He then lowered himself gently over
the edge of the rug, and, for the first time in his life, stood alone in
the world. Many and varied were the sensations that stole over his
innocent mind, as he stood for a moment to gaze wonderingly, admiringly
around him. The words of Byron came to his lips,
And now I'm in the world alone
And eating kitchen-fee,[5]
Why should I not the butter bone?
For the d----l a mouse I see.
"Now," said Blinks, "I will go abroad upon the surface of the earth, and
walk about to and fro like a roaring lion seeking whom I may devour."
"My chee-ild! my chee-ild!" cried his fond and doating dam from the rug.
"Your grandmother!" answered the irreverent son.
"Stay, oh! stay," exclaimed his sorrowing parent, catching a fly and
swallowing it in her anguish. "Stay, my too sensitive chee-ild, and
recline your little head on this here hairy bosom."
"Which is much too hot to be happy," said Blinks.
"Oh! stay with me," continued Muffie. "Will you not be the prop of my
declining years?"
"Never a prop," quo' Blinks.
"Then," said the parent, "I myself abroad shall go."
But Blinks was off, crying, "Not for Joe."
MEW VI.
_A Terrible Sight._
Carefully advancing one foot a time, our young hero slowly made his way
across what appeared to him an interminable desert. The ground was soft
and mossy, and here and there clusters of mighty pillars (which he
afterwards found were called chair-legs) towered skywards. He passed a
great many strange things, and heard a great many strange sounds that he
could not tell the meaning of; at last he arrived at the foot of a tall
iron wall (the fender?), round which he waddled for many a feline mile;
but finding no gate at which to knock, he resolved to scale the barrier
and solve the mystery. So he raised himself on his hind-legs, thinking at
the same time how handy hind-legs were, and how happy he was to possess
such appendages; then he gazed over the wall. The sight that was presented
to him, would have turned a hero less brave into whinstone. But Blinks was
Blinks.
It appeared to be a great blazing volcano, surrounded, or rather ribbed
in, by gigantic bars of steel; in fact it looked like a small bad-place,
in which he had no doubt the souls of dogs, and the gizzards of birds were
getting purified of their sins. On the top thereof was a mighty cauldron,
and the steam therefrom rose in dense clouds, and disappeared in the
blackness of darkness; and there was much smoke and flame, and a loud
spluttering noise, accompanied by hissing and crackling. And lo! even as
he gazed, a mighty ball of fire was thrown out by a small and ugly fiend,
that dwelt below the cauldron in the midst of the ardent element; and the
ball of fire fell within a whisker-length of our gallant Blinks, who just
then remembered that he was getting thirsty, and could spare time to gaze
no longer. So, after casting one defiant glance at the ugly little fiend
that crouched beneath the cauldron, he left the little Hades and journeyed
on in quest of adventures.
MEW VII.
_The Cricket of the Hearth. Pretty Dick._
Blinks had not travelled many legs (leagues?) till he was met by a very
funny little ill-shaped gentleman. He was like a very wee mahogany table,
but not much bigger than Blinks's mamma's red nose (if _it_ had been a
mahogany table); and he had two big nippers hanging down in front of him;
and Blinks observed that he also had too small black eyes like the points
of as many needles, and very shiny they were, and altogether very knowing
and wicked-looking. Blinks stopped, and the little mahogany gentleman
laid a dead fly on the ground, and did the same.
"Ho! ho! Mr. Fluff," said the latter, looking up at Blinks with one eye
and shutting the other, as if he had no immediate use for it, and thought
that one was enough for the occasion. "Ho! ho, Mr. Fluff; so you're
learning to crawl, are you? Eh? Does your mother know you're out? Eh?"
Blinks was highly indignant at this style of address, and also at being
called Fluff, so he replied with considerable dignity,--
"I am not Fluff, sir; I am Blinks, _Blinks_, sir; and I may inform you,
sir, that my maternal relative is entirely cognisant of my being abroad,
sir."
"Blinks, are you?" said the little fellow, not at all abashed. "Blinks!
He! he! he! a pretty Blinks _you_ are. Let me see you." And the small
brown gentleman commenced running round him so quickly, that Blinks, in
trying to wheel on a pivot, fairly rolled over on his back; and the man of
mahogany was forced to hold his sides with laughing.
"He! he! he--e!" he laughed, and "Ha! ha! haa--a!" and "Ho! ho! hoo--o!"
and then "He! he! hee--e!" again; and then "Oh dear!" he cried "I shall
split;" and the tears ran out of his needle points and down over his nose
and nippers.
To say that Blinks was angry, would but poorly describe the torrent of
wrath that raged within his youthful breast. After carefully gathering
himself up again, he confronted the wee brown gent, and----
"Sir," cried Blinks, "imp or devil, tell me who you are and where you
dwell; and should it even be in yonder evil-place, beneath yon horrid
cauldron, a friend of mine shall wait upon you in the morning."
"I," said the mahogany one, drawing himself up to his full height, which
was not much after all--"I, sir--I am, sir, the cricket of the hearth,
sir! the cricket--of--the--hearth, sir; and I have a good mind to pull
your nose, sir;" here he shook one pair of his immense nippers; "and the
nose, sir--" here he shook his other pair of nippers--"of the ignorant old
lady, your mother, who allows her fluffy fools of children, to trespass
upon, and insult grown gentlemen on their own policies." The little gent
would have added much more; but just then he was interrupted by a loud
voice, apparently in the air, making the remark--
"Bravo! br-r-ravo! bravo!" And looking up, Blinks espied a very large bird
perched on a high wooden erection; the cricket of the hearth was observed
to turn very pale at the same time. I say, he turned pale; and he also
turned tail, and muttering, "Fire and fury!" made off as fast as six legs
could carry him.
"I'll fluff you," cried Blinks; and was about to give chase, when the bird
alighted on the ground in front of him, and almost at the same time the
cricket disappeared, as suddenly as if he had vanished from the face of
the earth; and indeed that is precisely what he had done.
"Why," said Blinks, "what has become of our little mahogany friend?"
This question he put to the bird, who was now standing in a very ludicrous
attitude, with his head and neck all awry, and a big swelling or lump in
his throat, as if he had been improperly hanged.
"Did you hear me?" said Blinks, as the bird made no immediate answer and
appeared slightly convulsed.
"Ca-can't--you--see," said Pretty Dick; for it was no other, and he spoke
with great difficulty--"can't you see--I'm--chic-chu-choking?" at last
getting out the word and straightening his neck at the same time. "I ate
him--bravo! Pretty Dick, whew, whew, whew;" and he burst into the "Sprig
of Shillelah" and finished off with two bars of "Duncan Gray."
"Good heavens!" cried Blinks, standing aghast, "did you real--you don't
mean to say that you positively swallowed him, you know?"
"Positively, damme," said the bird. "Tse, tse, tse, whew, whew, whew;
hurra, hurra, hurra! Bravo, Dick! He is now engaged turning over the
stones in my gizzard and counting them; I fear I am two or three short.
After that job is finished, I shall bring him up again, break him in
pieces, and eat him properly. Whew, whew, whew! Bravo, Dick! Sugar,
snails, and brandy! Tse, tse, tse!"
"Monstrous!" said Blinks.
"Is the darling starling pretty, snails?"
"Sir?" said Blinks.
"Yes!" said Dick.
"I thought you spoke," said Blinks.
"Oh no," said the bird, "I often talk to myself. What is that between your
toes?" So saying, the bird hopped up to Blinks, and separating his toes
with his beak in a very rude manner, he gazed between them.
"Don't do that again, if you please," said Blinks.
"Certainly not, if you desire it. Cock-a-doodle-doo, sugar and brandy,
pretty darling; but what is that in your nostril? Sugar, snails." And
before our hero was aware, the starling's bill was inserted, opened like
the toes of a compass, and the nose of poor Blinks nearly torn open. This
was too much of a good thing; and Blinks aimed a cuff and fired a
lucifer-match at the bird, causing that gentleman to spring quickly
backwards and ejaculate.
"Hurrah! hurrah! you rascal! Love is the soul of a nate Irish snail, you
rogue." After which he brought up the poor cricket again; and he, glad to
see day-light again, said, "Thank you, sir," and was moving off.
"No, you don't now!" said the bird, seizing him by the hindermost leg.
"How many stones in my gizzard, you unhappy little wretch?"
"Mercy, mercy!" cried the cricket, "I entirely forget."
"Then down you go again," said the starling; and down the cricket went.
Blinks stood gazing, horror-stricken, when the bird, piping a few bars of
a tune, wheeled suddenly round, and made a determined effort to compass
out Blinks's eye.
"Is that an eye?" said he, as if he didn't know.
"Rather," said Blinks, a little proudly.
"Then give us a bit," cried Dick. "Chickey, chick, chick; whew-w-w, whew,
whew. Snails and brandy! Pretty starling! bravo!"
"Do you know," said Blinks, "it strikes me you're a fool."
"No I ain't," said the bird, "only a foolosopher--always gay, you know.
Love is the soul of a darling pretty starling; but I say, you know, you
and I will be excellent friends, and you shall play in my cage, and I will
give you sugar, snails, and brandy. Quack, quack, quack. Don't be
frightened, it's only my fun; and now I must be off, master will want me
to sing to him after dinner. He has just finished his sucking pig; he
plays the fiddle and I sing. Just fly up with me on the table; but, oh! I
forgot, you awkward creature,"--digging Blinks in the ribs,--"you haven't
the vestige of a wing; well, my master----"
"The ogre?" said Blinks.
"Bravo!" cried the bird, "just you call him an ogre, and he will soon have
a new string to his fiddle."
"What do you mean?" inquired Blinks.
"Why," said the starling, "he has a pretty little box called a violin,
filled with the souls of defunct cats, your brothers and sisters are all
there,--and their insides are made into strings, and stretched all over;
and when he tickles the strings with a hair, they all cauterwaul. Master
sings, and pretty Dickie sings--Chick, chick, chick; chirl, chirl, chirl.
But, snails and brandy! I'm off." And away flew the beautiful bird, who
was all shiny with black and blue and silver; and Blinks sat for quite a
long time gazing up after him with his lack-lustre eyes; and then, getting
to his feet, he commenced walking homewards, musing on all the strange
things he had seen and heard.
MEW VIII.
_Terrible Adventure with a hairy Snake._
Blinks's ma lived away in a corner, on a rug of large dimensions; and he
had a very long way to walk over the trackless plain, over the pathless
desert, over the bounding prairie; and night too was beginning to creep
down, and Blinks thought he could perceive enemies lurking in every
corner, and monsters hiding in every shade; so that, had he been anything
less than Blinks, he would certainly have thought it worth while being
afraid; but being Blinks, he marched bravely on, only just by way of
caution he gave an occasional glance over his right shoulder, then one
over his left, then one behind, all the while keeping a sharp look-out
ahead. Happening to look round, to his astonishment he beheld something
like a snake, with its head reared high in the air, apparently following
his every footstep. This caused Blinks to quicken his pace. He soon looked
round again. The creature, whatever it was, was still there, waving its
head from side to side, and evidently looking at Blinks with all its
might; although never an eye it had at all that he could see.
"Then," thinks Blinks, "I'll spring smartly round and seize it."
No sooner said than done; and brave Blinks jumped suddenly about and
attempted to catch the snake--which was twice as tall as himself and
covered with hair--by the throat. But the creature was too wide-awake,
and when Blinks turned round, so did it. So round and round spun Blinks,
and round and round went the hairy serpent, and always kept directly in
our hero's rear,--when he stopped it stopped, and when he went round again
it went round again. At long last poor Blinks began to feel dizzy; but he
was much too brave to think of giving in, till, finally, he tumbled on his
back, and then the snake peeped up between his hind legs,--that is,
Blinks's hind-legs; for serpents never have hind-legs, by any chance.
"Ho! ho!" says Blinks, "Mr. Sea-snake, I'll have ye now, without any more
going about the bush." So saying, he caught the creature by the end, just
where his eyes would have been had he had any,--he caught it, and bit it;
and as he did so, Blinks himself uttered a sharp cry of pain, and bit the
snake again, and then cried again, and licked the part of the snake he had
bitten tenderly with his tongue; this went on with great vigour for a
length of time. At last Blinks desisted, and--
"Well, I'm jiggered," says he, "if it isn't a part of myself I've been
a-running from, and a-fighting with, and a-chewing at, all the time. How
provoking! and I don't know any bad words, else wouldn't I swear! Memo: to
make my ma teach me to say bad words."
"Bravo! Brr--r--ravo!" cried pretty Dick, who, perched on a stool, had
been watching all the performance with singular interest.
"Bravo yourself," cried Blinks, indignantly; but he felt very foolish
nevertheless.
And that was how Blinks came to the knowledge that he possessed, that very
useful and ornamental appendage called a tail; and that extremity was ever
afterwards viewed by him with great interest, and treated with the utmost
respect,--Blinks conducting himself with conscious pride and dignity, as
behoves an animal of the feline persuasion who is possessed of two eyes,
and is followed about, wherever he goes, by a living, moving,
gracefully-waving tail.
MEW IX.
_Daring ascent of a Volcanic Mountain._
After another half-hour's walk Blinks arrived at the foot of a great black
mountain, all covered with rank black grass. The mountain had much the
resemblance of a huge lion couchant.
"Seems a long way to walk round," said our hero; "I'll even go over, and
I'll get a fine view of the surrounding country from the top." So saying,
Blinks mentally girded up his loins, and began to climb. It was very
steep, and very high, and he had to pause many times to take breath; but
he cast no longing lingering look behind,--that wasn't _his_ nature. So he
muttered, "Excelsior," putting a great emphasis on the "r," which is the
pet letter of the feline race. After much toil and trouble, he stood on
the highest peak of Mount Black;--and, St. Mary! what a scene burst upon
his astonished eyes. The sun had gone down behind the distant
window-frame; but the ogre had just lighted two moons, and placed them
conveniently on the end of brass pipes, for which kind action Blinks
postponed his execution _sine die_. Everything was thus rendered nearly as
bright as day. As far as his eye could reach, nothing was visible but the
flowery prairie, the ogre's legs, and the great beams supporting the
universe. The view was bounded by flowery walls, which, he doubted not,
was the end of the world, while far away in a corner, the well-pleased and
foolishly-affectionate-looking face of his mamma looked up from her rug.
She spied her son, even at that distance, and turned up the white of her
breast to lure him down.
"The old idiot," said Blinks to himself, "how _can_ she be so ridiculous
and unromantic? Would Livingstone's mamma do that to her son, if she
espied him far away on the Peak of Teneriffe? No!"
Blinks was gazing skywards, and thinking that if he were spared to return
to his native rug, he would write a book that would astonish the weak
nerves of the tea-guzzling universe, and beat all creation, when he began
to fancy he could hear a low rumbling noise beneath his feet, and
perceive a slight heaving motion in the body of the mountain. He bent down
and listened. Yes! there it was;--there could not be a doubt of either
fact; and, terrible thought! he stood on the summit of a living volcano.
But he did not fear; nay he even caught himself singing for joy; but in a
moment his joy was turned to very particular grief, and his wonder to
something as nearly akin to fear as the heart of a Blinks could beat time
to.
"For," says Blinks, "isn't it rising I am? Isn't it bigger and bigger the
mountain is getting?"
There was no longer any question of it at all; and Blinks hurried down the
side of the mountain as fast as four legs could carry him; but judge, if
you can, of his astonishment to find that the hill itself had four legs,
as well as he himself had; so that unless he could manage to creep down
one of these, he would have to leap through the sky, down--down--down to
the vast plain below. For a moment only he stopped to think, to bring all
the wonderful powers of his great mind to bear upon the terrible
situation; but just then his deliberation was brought to a speedy
conclusion; for, wonderful to relate, the whole head of the hill turned
about, and looked him directly in the face with a pair of eyes as big, so
thought he, as fish-ponds; while at the same time a great cold nose was
thrust right beneath him, and he was hurled headlong to the plain below,
and the volcanic mountain--which cats, jealous of the immortality of
Blinks, have since averred was nothing else but the ogre's large dog
Nero--shook itself and walked away to the other end of the boundless
prairie. And Blinks confessed, many days afterwards, that at that moment,
though by no means afraid, he would not have undertaken to say whether his
head or heels were uppermost. After all, no wonder; for at that precise
moment Blinks lay on his back, and the world consequently had an
up-side-down look about it.
MEW X.
_The Ogre. The Baptism of Blinks._
It might have been thought that the trials and adventures of Blinks were
now at an end for one day; but, no,--he had still another to add to the
list. He had come through fire and earth and air; he was now to come
through water. One other weary mile he had yet to wander, ere he could lay
his war-worn head on his mother's breast; and this mile he was engaged
placing behind him, when, suddenly, and ere he was aware, a gigantic hand
was laid upon him, and he was carried swiftly through space, wheeled
quickly round, and immediately found himself face to face with--horror of
horrors!--the ogre.
"Ho! ho! my little gentleman," so spoke the ogre; "you've been and gone
and got a couple of peepers" (that is what the ogre termed Blinks's eyes,
such desecration of terms can scarcely be credited, but it is indeed
true),--"a couple of peepers, queer blue-grey blinkers they are too; so,
so, you must be baptized, then."
It may be observed here, that although our hero had got a name, the
ceremony of baptism had not yet taken place. The ogre then pronounced
these remarkable words, swinging our little hero through the immensity of
space at every word, and finally plunging him feline fathoms below water,
in a dark wooden-bound lake of murky water (bucket?).
"In the name--of your father--and your mother--and your sister--and your
brother--who all--made a living--in the--software line--I baptize you
Blinks."
Down, down, down, did the ogre plunge Blinks, and the dark waves, cold and
cruel, closed remorselessly over his head. Then did Blinks gasp,--he
gasped, he spluttered and spluttering spat, kicked violently, and kicking,
sunk into insensibility. When he revived, he found himself in the hairy
arms of his loving ma, who was licking his wet and shivering body with
loving tongue. Blinks soon dried; then tired out, war-worn, and weary, he
sunk to rest with a tit in his mouth, while his mother crooned over the
following song, taught her by _her_ mother,--Blink's grandma,--in the
happy days of her playful kittenhood.
THE THREE THREADS.
(_Tune_, PURR--WURR-R-R,--PURR--WURR-R-R.)
Hirple, dirple, dirrum dum,
Three threads and a thrum,[6 (1)]
The wee bit mousie
Made a housie,--
Made a housie in a drum;
Scraped a hole,
And made a housie,--
Made its housie in a drum.
The three threadies and a thrum,
If ye canna sing, ye just maun hum;[6 (2)]
When the mousie sleepit,
Pousie creepit,--
Creepit slily to the drum;
Popped a paw in,
Clook't a claw in,--
Clook't a claw in the mousie's wum.
Och, hey, how, hum,
Three threadies and a thrum:
If ye canna sing, ye maun be mum.
The mousie grat,[6 (3)]
The cattie spat,
And hauld the thingie frae the drum:
It winked its eenies,[6 (4)]
Like heads o' preenies,[6 (5)]
Gave ae wee cheep and syne[6 (6)] was dumb.
Fee, fa, fi, fum,
Cheer up my dear, and look na glum:[6 (7)]
I bit off its heed,[6 (8)]
I lickit its bleed,[6 (9)]
And gnawed the beanies[6 (10)] beside the drum:
Just three sips,
And I lickit my lips,--
Lickit my lips, and then said "Num!"[6 (11)]
"Tinkle, tankle, tingle, tum,
Weel, weel, and isn't it rum?
There is nae musie in the drum,"
The manie cried,
When he spied
The mousie's holie in the drum.
"But deil gang wi' it,
That I should greet,[6 (12)]
It'll mak a very decent lum[6 (13)]
Wi' three threads and a thrum."
Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrum,
Three threads and a thrum.