an old man, whose clothes hung in rags about him, and who looked half
frozen. He was about the same age as the old gentleman inside the
window, and the same height, and had grey, curly hair, like his, and
if they had been dressed alike any one would have taken them for two
brothers.
“Oh, really,” said the old gentleman irritably, “this is most annoying.
The parish ought to take up these sort of people, and prevent their
wandering about the streets and molesting honest folk,” for the poor
old man had taken off his hat, and began to beg.
“It is Christmas Day,” he said, and though he did not speak very loud,
the old gentleman could hear every word he said quite plainly through
the window. “It is Christmas Day, and you will have your dinner here in
your warm room. Of your charity give me a silver shilling that I may go
into an eating-shop, and have a dinner too.”
“A silver shilling!” cried the old gentleman, “I never heard of such a
thing! Monstrous! Go away, I never give to beggars, and you must have
done something very wicked to become so poor.”
But still the old man stood there, though the snow was falling on his
shoulders, and on his bare head. “Then give me a copper,” he said;
“just one penny, that to-day I may not starve.”
“Certainly not,” cried the old gentleman; “I tell you I never give to
beggars at all.” But the old man did not move.
“Then,” he said, “give me some of the broken victuals from your table,
that I may creep into a doorway and eat a Christmas dinner there.”
“I will give you nothing,” cried the old gentleman, stamping his foot.
“Go away. Go away at once, or I shall send for the policeman to take
you away.”
The old beggar-man put on his hat and turned quietly away, but what
the old gentleman thought was very odd was, that instead of seeming
distressed he was laughing merrily, and then he looked back at the
window, and called out some words, but they were in a foreign tongue,
and the old gentleman could not understand them. So he returned to his
comfortable arm-chair by the fire, still murmuring angrily that beggars
ought not to be allowed to be in the streets.
Next morning the snow fell more thickly than ever, and the streets were
almost impassable, but it did not trouble the old gentleman, for he
knew he need not go out and get wet or cold. But in the morning when he
came down to breakfast, to his great surprise there was a cat on the
hearthrug in front of the fire, looking into it, and blinking lazily.
Now the old gentleman had never had any animal in his house before,
and he at once went to it and said “Shoo-shoo!” and tried to turn it
out. But the cat did not move, and when the old gentleman looked at it
nearer, he could not help admiring it very much. It was a very large
cat, grey and black, and had extremely long soft hair, and a thick soft
ruff round its neck. Moreover, it looked very well fed and cared for,
and as if it had always lived in comfortable places. Somehow it seemed
to the old gentleman to suit the room and the rug and the fire, and to
make the whole place look more prosperous and cosy even than it had
done before.
“A fine creature! a very handsome cat!” he said to himself; “I should
really think that a reward would be offered for such an animal, as it
has evidently been well looked after and fed, so it would be a pity to
turn it away in a hurry.”
One thing struck him as very funny about the cat, and that was that
though the ground was deep in snow and slush outside, the cat was quite
dry, and its fur looked as if it had just been combed and brushed.
The old gentleman called to his cook and asked if she knew how the cat
had come in, but she declared she had not seen it before, and said
she believed it must have come down the chimney as all the doors and
windows had been shut and bolted. However, there it was, and when his
own breakfast was finished the old gentleman gave it a large saucer of
milk, which it lapped up not greedily or in a hurry, but as if it were
quite used to good food and had had plenty of it always.
“It really is a very handsome animal, and most uncommon,” said the
old gentleman, “I shall keep it awhile and look out for the reward;”
but though he looked at all the notices in the street and in the
newspapers, the old gentleman could see no notice about a reward being
offered for a grey and black cat, so it stayed on with him from day to
day.
Every day the cat seemed to his master to grow handsomer and handsomer.
The old gentleman never loved anything but himself, but he began to
take a sort of interest in the strange cat, and to wonder what sort
it was—if it was a Persian or a Siamese, or some curious new sort of
which he had never heard. He liked the sound of its lazy contented
purring after its food, which seemed to speak of nothing but comfort
and affluence. So the cat remained on till nearly a year had passed
away.
It was not very long before Christmas that an acquaintance of the old
gentleman’s came to his rooms on business. He knew a great deal about
all sorts of animals and loved them for their own sakes, but of course
he had never talked to the old gentleman about them, because he knew he
did not love anything. But when he saw the grey cat, he said at once—
“Do you know that this is a very valuable creature, and I should think
would be worth a great deal?”
At these words the old gentleman’s heart beat high. Here, he thought,
would be a piece of great luck if a stray cat could make him richer
than he was before.
“Why, who would want to buy it?” he said. “I don’t know anybody who
would be so foolish as to give any money for a cat which is of no
use in life except to catch mice, when you can so easily get one for
nothing.”
“Ah, but many people are very fond of cats, and would give much for
rare sorts like this. If you want to sell it, the right thing would
be to send it to the Cat Show, and there you would most likely take a
prize for it, and then some one would be sure to buy it, and, it may
be, would give a great deal. I don’t know what kind it is, or where it
comes from, for I have never seen one the least like it, but for that
reason it is very sure to be valuable.”
Upon this the old gentleman almost laughed with joy.
“Where is the Cat Show?” he asked; “and when is it to be held?”
“There will be a Cat Show in this city quite soon,” said his
acquaintance; “and it will be a particularly good one, for the new
Princess is quite crazy about cats, and she is coming to it, and it is
said that she doesn’t mind what she gives for a cat if she sees one she
likes.”
So then he told the old gentleman how he should send his name and the
cat’s name to the people who managed the show, and where it was to be
held, and went away, leaving the old gentleman well pleased, but to
himself he laughed and said, “I don’t think that old man thinks of
anything on earth but making money. How pleased he was at the idea of
selling that beautiful cat if he could get something for it!”
When he had gone, the grey puss came and rubbed itself about his
master’s legs, and looked up in his face as though it had understood
the conversation, and did not like the idea of being sent to the show.
But the old gentleman was delighted, and sat by the fire and mused on
what he was likely to get for the cat, and wondered if it would not
take a prize.
“I shall be sorry to have to send it away,” he said; “still, if I could
get a good round sum of money it would be a real sin not to take it, so
you will have to go, puss; and it really was extraordinary good luck
for me that you ever came here.”
The days passed, and Christmas Day came, and again the snow fell, and
the ground was white. The wind whistled and blew, and on Christmas
morning the old gentleman stood and looked out of the window at the
falling snow and rain, and the grey cat stood beside him, and rubbed
itself against his hand. He rather liked stroking it, it was so soft
and comfortable, and when he touched the long hair he always thought of
how much money he should get for it.
This morning he saw no old beggar-man outside the window, and he said
to himself: “I really think they manage better with the beggars than
they used to, and are clearing them from the town.”
But just as he was leaving the window he heard something scratching
outside, and there crawled on to the window-sill another cat. It was
a very different creature to the grey cat on the rug. It was a poor,
thin, wretched-looking animal, with ribs sticking through its fur, and
it mewed in the most pathetic manner, and beat itself against the pane.
When it saw it, the handsome grey puss was very much excited, and ran
to and fro, and purred loudly.
“Oh you disgraceful-looking beast!” said the old gentleman angrily;
“go away, this is not the place for an animal like you. There is
nothing here for stray cats. And you look as if you had not eaten
anything for months. How different to my puss here!” and he tapped
against the window to drive it away. But still it would not go, and
the old gentleman felt very indignant, for the sound of its mewing was
terrible. So he opened the window, and though he did not like to touch
the miserable animal, he took it up and hurled it away into the snow,
and it trotted away, and in the deep snow he could not see the way it
went.
But that evening, after he had had his Christmas dinner, as he sat by
the fire with the grey puss on the hearthrug beside him, he heard again
the noise outside the window, and then he heard the stray cat crying
and mewing to be let in, and again the grey and black cat became very
much excited, and dashed about the room, and jumped at the window as if
it wanted to open it.
“I shall really be quite glad when I have sold you at the Cat Show,”
said the old gentleman, “if I am going to have all sorts of stray cats
worrying here,” and for the second time he opened the window, and
seized the trembling, half-starved creature, and this time he threw
it with all his might as hard as he could throw. “And now there is an
end of you, I hope,” he said as he heard it fall with a dull thud, and
settled himself again in his arm-chair, and the grey puss returned to
the hearthrug, but it did not purr or rub itself against its master.
Next morning when he came down to breakfast, the old gentleman poured
out a saucer of milk for his cat as usual. “You must be well fed if you
are going to be shown at the show,” he said, “and I must not mind a
little extra expense to make you look well. It will all be paid back,
so this morning you shall have some fish as well as your milk.” Then he
put the saucer of milk down by the cat, but it never touched it, but
sat and looked at the fire with its tail curled round it.
“Oh, well, if you have had so much already that you don’t want it, you
can take it when you do,” so he went away to his work and left the
saucer of milk by the fire. But when he came back in the evening there
was the saucer of milk and the piece of fish, and the grey cat had not
touched them. “This is rather odd,” said the old gentleman; “however, I
suppose cook has been feeding you.”
Next morning it was just the same. When he poured out the milk the cat
wouldn’t lap it, but sat and looked at the fire. The old gentleman felt
a little anxious, for he fancied that the animal’s fur did not look
so bright as usual, and when in the evening and the next day and the
next, it would not lap its milk, or even smell the nice pieces of fish
he gave it, he was really uncomfortable. “The creature is getting ill,”
he said, “and this is most provoking. What will be the use of my having
kept it for a year, if now I cannot show it?” He scolded his cook
for having given it unwholesome food, but the cook swore it had had
nothing. Anyhow it was growing terribly thin, and all day long it sat
in front of the fire with its tail hanging down, not curled up neatly
round it, and its coat looked dull and began to come out in big tufts
of hair.
“Now really I shall have to do something,” said the old gentleman,
“it is enough to make any one angry! No one would believe that this
could be a prize cat. It looks almost as wretched as that stray beast
that came to the window on Christmas Day.” So he went to a cat and
dog doctor, who lived near, and asked him to come in and see a very
beautiful cat which had nothing the matter with it, but which refused
to eat its food. The cat’s doctor came and looked at the cat, and then
looked very grave, and shook his head, and looked at it again.
“I don’t know what sort of cat it is,” he said, “for I never saw any
other like it, but it is a very handsome beast, and must be very
valuable. Well, I will leave you some physic for it, and I hope you may
be able to pull it round, but with these foreign cats you never know
what ails them, and they are hard to cure.”
Now the day was close at hand when the cat should have been sent to the
show, and the old gentleman was getting more and more uneasy, for the
grey cat lay upon the rug all day and never moved, and its ribs could
almost be seen through its side, so thin had it grown. And oddly enough
the old gentleman, who had never cared for any one or anything in his
life except himself, began to feel very unhappy, not only because of
not getting the money, but because he did not like to think of losing
the cat itself. He sent for his friend who had first told him about the
Cat Show, and asked his advice, but his friend could not tell him what
to do with it.
“Well, well,” he said, “this is a bad business, for I have told every
one that you are going to exhibit a most extraordinarily beautiful
cat, and now this poor creature is really fit for nothing but the
knacker’s yard. I think, maybe, some naturalist would give you a good
price for its skin, as it is so very uncommon, and if I were you I
should kill it at once, for if it dies a natural death its skin won’t
be worth a brass farthing.” At these words the grey cat lifted its
head, and looked straight into the old gentleman’s face, as if it
could understand, and for the first time for many a long year, the old
gentleman felt a feeling of pity in his heart, and was angry with his
friend for his suggestion.
“I won’t have it killed,” he cried; “why, I declare, though it does
seem absurd, I have lived with this creature for a year, and I feel as
if it were my friend, and if it would only get well and sit up on the
hearthrug, I shouldn’t mind about the money one bit!”
At this his friend was greatly astonished, and went away wondering,
while the old gentleman sat by the fire and watched the cat lying
panting on the rug.
“Poor pussy, poor old pussy!” he said, “it is a pity that you can’t
speak and tell me what you want. I am sure I would give it to you.”
Just as he spoke there came a noise outside, and he heard a mewing, and
looking through the window he saw the same thin ugly brown cat that
had come there last Christmas, and it looked as thin and wretched as
ever. When she heard the sound the grey cat stood up on her tottering
feet and tried to walk to the window. This time the old gentleman did
not drive it away, but looked at it, and almost felt sorry for it; it
looked almost as thin and ill as his own grey puss.
“You are an ugly brute,” he said, “and I don’t want you always hanging
about; still, maybe you would be none the worse for a little milk now,
and it might make you look better.” So he opened the window a little,
and then he shut it and then he opened it again, and this time the
brown cat crawled into the room, and went straight to the hearthrug to
the grey puss. There was a big saucer of milk on the hearthrug, and the
brown cat began to lap it at once, and the old gentleman never stopped
it.
He thought as he watched it, that it grew fatter under his eyes as it
drank, and when the saucer was empty he took a jug and gave it some
more. “I really am an old fool,” he said; “that is a whole pennorth
of milk.” No sooner had he poured out the fresh milk than the grey
cat raised itself, and sitting down by the saucer began to lap it as
well, as if it were quite well. The old gentleman stared with surprise.
“Well, this is the queerest thing,” he said. So he took some fish and
gave it to the strange cat, and then, when he offered some to his own
puss, it ate it as if there was nothing the matter. “This is most
remarkable,” said the old gentleman; “perhaps it was the company of a
creature of its own sort that my cat needed, after all.” And the grey
cat purred and began to rub itself against his legs.
[Illustration]
So for the next few days the two cats lay together on the hearthrug,
and though it was too late to send the grey cat to the show, the old
gentleman never thought about it, so pleased was he that it had got
well again.
[Illustration]
But seven nights after the stray cat had come in from outside, as the
old gentleman lay asleep in bed at night, he felt something rub itself
against his face, and heard his cat purring softly, as though it wanted
to say “good-bye.” “Be quiet, puss, and lie still till the morning,” he
said. But when he came down to have his breakfast in the morning, there
sat the brown tabby, looking fat and comfortable by the fire, but the
grey cat was not there, and though they looked for it everywhere, no
one could find it, though all the windows and doors had been shut, so
they could not think how it could have got away. The old gentleman was
very unhappy about it, but he looked at the strange cat on his hearth
and said, “it would be unkind now to send this poor thing away, so it
may as well stay here.”
When she heard him speaking of its being unkind, his old cook burst out
laughing. “Perhaps,” she said, “’twas a fairy cat, as it could get away
through bolts and locks, and nothing but a fairy could have taught my
master to think of a thing being unkind or not. I only hope that now
he’ll think of some one in this world besides himself and his money.”
And sure enough from that time the old gentleman began to forget about
his money, and to care for the people about him, and it was all the
doing of the strange cat who had come from no one knew where, and gone
away to no one knew where.
[Illustration: DUMB OTHMAR]
ONCE upon a time there was a village on the top of a mountain, where
during the winter months the villagers saw no one but each other, for
the mountain was so steep and the path so narrow that, when it was
blocked with ice, it was dangerous to ascend: so during the winter
months the people lived by themselves, and cheered themselves as
they might in the long dreary evenings, with games and dancing and
singing and playing on pipes, for they were cheerful folk, joyous and
light-hearted. The sweetest singer in the village was a lad named
Othmar; his voice was as sweet as a nightingale’s before the dawn,
and also he was the handsomest young fellow in all the country round.
Strangers turned to look after him as he went by; he was tall and
straight, and had curly brown hair, and big brown eyes, and lips that
always smiled. He lived with his old mother, who was a widow, and he
worked for them both in the fields and on the farms. When he was a
boy he learned the notes of all the birds, and could imitate them so
exactly that they would fly down to him and settle on his shoulders.
When the farmers had sown their fields, and the birds would have come
to pick up the grain, they sent for Othmar, and he sang and whistled
till they all left the field and flew after him. So often he was called
the bird-boy.
One evening before the winter had set in, or the roads were blocked
with ice, there came along the high road into the village, a dwarf in
a yellow cap leading a donkey, on whose back were fastened numberless
musical instruments. Fiddles of all sorts, and viols, horns, trumpets,
and pipes, and a big drum, and a small one with triangles and cymbals.
In the middle of the village the little man stopped and looked about
him. “Who would like to hear my music?” he cried, and then as the
villagers came crowding around him, he bade them all sit down while he
unpacked his mule, but he forbade any of them to help him, or to touch
one of the instruments. “For mine is no common music,” he quoth; “all
these I have made myself, and in each is a machine which makes it go on
playing by itself, if once I start it. See here!” and he took up a long
pipe and began to blow, and there came forth the sweetest notes that
had ever been heard from any pipe. The little man paused for a minute,
with the pipe in his hand, and then laid it down on the ground, when,
wonderful to relate, it went on playing of itself.
All the villagers stared with surprise, and some called out that it
was magic, and crossed themselves, but the little man took up another
pipe, and set that going too, and then the horns and the trumpets, and
the drums and the cymbals, and then he took a fiddle and drew the bow
across it, and how it played! It made the people weep and laugh. Othmar
lay on the ground listening, and it seemed to him as if the sound were
made of silver, and when the musician had started them, and all the
other fiddles were playing together, he felt as if he should go mad for
joy to hear anything so lovely.
Just behind where Othmar lay sat a young girl, named Hulda. She was
an orphan, and dwelt alone with an old woman, who gave her food and
lodging for sweeping out her room, and cleaning and cooking. Also Hulda
made money for her by going out to work for the other women in the
village. She was neither pretty nor clever, but she was a good girl,
and if any of the villagers were ill or in trouble, it was for Hulda
they would send at once, because they knew she would spare no pains to
help them, and would think nothing too much trouble. She had played
with Othmar ever since they were babies, and loved him dearly. She was
the only one who listened to the music who did not think it beautiful.
She shuddered as she heard it, and she sat and watched Othmar and saw
that there were tears in his eyes, and she grieved that she did not
love it as he did.
When at last the instruments stopped and the listeners began to feel
for money for the musician, he laughed and said, “You need not give me
money, for I am very rich, and don’t need it. In return for my playing,
I only ask for one recompense. Let any of your young folks who sing,
sing me a song, for I too love hearing music that is not my own.” On
this the villagers began to look round for all who could sing, and they
chose out some three or four, and begged them to sing their very best
to the wonderful musician. Among them was Othmar, but they all bid him
wait to the last, as his would be the best. Whilst the others were
singing, the little man did not seem to heed them much, though they
tried hard to sing well, and chose their prettiest songs, but their
voices sounded very rough and poor after the playing.
But when Othmar began he stopped twanging the fiddle-strings and
watched him. Othmar’s voice rang out clear and sweet, and all the
village folk felt proud of his singing, even after hearing the
wonderful instruments. When he ceased the little man rose, and said—
“You have a sweet voice, my boy, be sure that you always use it well;
and now I must be going my way, but as I am a stranger here, perhaps
you would not mind setting me on my road, and showing me the best way
over the hill.”
Othmar sprang up, delighted to go with him, but Hulda, who watched from
behind, came up to him and whispered—
“Oh, Othmar, don’t let him take you far—come back soon.”
“How silly you are, Hulda!” said Othmar, almost angrily. “Of course I
shall come back, but I shall go with him as far as he wants, and then,
perhaps, he will let me hear him play again.”
Othmar and the little dwarf started with the mule laden with
instruments, and Othmar led the way down the best road. The dwarf did
not speak at all, and so they went on in silence till they had got on
to the top of a high hill where they could see the country all round
for miles, and the moon was beginning to rise. Here the musician
stopped his mule, and stood for a while looking all round. Then he
turned, and said to Othmar—“I know now where I am, and here will I
stay for to-night, but first before you leave me, would you not like to
hear my fiddles and horns again?”
“That I would,” cried Othmar, and he sat himself down on the ground
delighted, while the little man unloaded the mule.