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Ebook has 842 lines and 36935 words, and 17 pages

Illustrator: Harrison Weir

Shireen and her Friends, by Gordon Stables.

PREFACE

DEDICATED TO THE REVIEWER.

Yes, this little preface is written for the Reviewer and nobody else. Indeed, the public seldom bother to read prefaces, and small blame to them. Reading the preface to a book is just like being button-holed by some loquacious fellow, as you are entering the theatre, who wants to tell you all about the play you are just going to see. So sure am I of this, that I had at first thought of writing my preface in ancient Greek. Of course every reviewer is as well-versed in that beautiful language as Professor Geddes, or John Stuart Blackie himself. I was only restrained by remembering that my own Greek might have got just a trifle mouldy.

Well, all I want to say in this page is, that there is a deal more truth in the pages that follow than might at first be imagined.

Both Shireen and Tom Brandy were real characters, and the incidents and adventures of their life on board ship were very much as I have told them. The starling, and Cockie, the cockatoo, were also pets of my own; and Chammy, the chameleon, is described from the life. She died this year .

The story Stamboul tells about his life as a show cat is a sad one, and alas! it tells but half the truth. Cat shows have done good to the breed of cats in this country, but it has raised up a swarm of dealers, that treat poor pussy in a shameful way, and look upon her as simply so much merchandise.

In conclusion, I am not going to deny, that while trying to write a pleasant book as a companion to my last year's "Sable and White," I have endeavoured now and then to get a little hint slipped in edgeways, which, if taken by the intelligent reader, may aid in gaining a more comfortable position in our homesteads for our mutual friend the cat. If I be successful in this, I shall consider myself quite as good as that other fellow, you know, who caused two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before.

Gordon Stables.

PREFACE

DEDICATED TO THE REVIEWER.

Yes, this little preface is written for the Reviewer and nobody else. Indeed, the public seldom bother to read prefaces, and small blame to them. Reading the preface to a book is just like being button-holed by some loquacious fellow, as you are entering the theatre, who wants to tell you all about the play you are just going to see. So sure am I of this, that I had at first thought of writing my preface in ancient Greek. Of course every reviewer is as well-versed in that beautiful language as Professor Geddes, or John Stuart Blackie himself. I was only restrained by remembering that my own Greek might have got just a trifle mouldy.

Well, all I want to say in this page is, that there is a deal more truth in the pages that follow than might at first be imagined.

Both Shireen and Tom Brandy were real characters, and the incidents and adventures of their life on board ship were very much as I have told them. The starling, and Cockie, the cockatoo, were also pets of my own; and Chammy, the chameleon, is described from the life. She died this year .

The story Stamboul tells about his life as a show cat is a sad one, and alas! it tells but half the truth. Cat shows have done good to the breed of cats in this country, but it has raised up a swarm of dealers, that treat poor pussy in a shameful way, and look upon her as simply so much merchandise.

In conclusion, I am not going to deny, that while trying to write a pleasant book as a companion to my last year's "Sable and White," I have endeavoured now and then to get a little hint slipped in edgeways, which, if taken by the intelligent reader, may aid in gaining a more comfortable position in our homesteads for our mutual friend the cat. If I be successful in this, I shall consider myself quite as good as that other fellow, you know, who caused two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before.

Gordon Stables.

DEDICATION.

SWINBURNE AND THE CAT.

The following beautiful verses by the poet Swinburne, to whom I have the honour of dedicating this work, appeared last year in the "Athenaeum."

To a Cat.

Stately, kindly, lordly friend, Condescend Here to sit by me, and turn Glorious eyes that smile and burn, Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed, On the golden page I read.

All your wondrous wealth of hair, Dark and fair, Silken-shaggy, soft and bright As the clouds and beams of night, Pays my reverent hand's caress Back with friendlier gentleness.

Dogs may fawn on all and some As they come; You, a friend of loftier mind, Answer friends alone in kind. Just your foot upon my hand Softly bids it understand.

Morning round this silent sweet Garden-seat Sheds its wealth of gathering light, Thrills the gradual clouds with might, Changes woodland, orchard, heath, Lawn and garden there beneath.

Fair and dim they gleamed below: Now they glow Peep as even your sunbright eyes, Fair as even the wakening skies. Can it not or can it be Now that you give thanks to see?

May not you rejoice as I, Seeing the sky Change to heaven revealed, and bid Earth reveal the heaven it hid All night long from stars and moon, Now the sun sets all in tune?

What within you wakes with day Who can say? All too little may we tell, Friends who like each other well, What might haply, if we might, Hid us read our lives aright.

A.C. Swinburne.

"YOU'RE THE NEW DOG, AREN'T YOU?"

It was an autumn evening, or rather afternoon, for the sun was still high over the blue hills of the West. The sky was clear too, and twilight would last long.

The trees, however, were already casting longer shadows on the grass, and the breeze that swayed their brandies, cast, playfully, ever and anon, handfuls of brown leaves towards the earth.

Shireen was coming slowly across the road towards Uncle Ben's bungalow.

Uncle Ben was an old sea captain, and had been in India for some years of his life. This was the reason why he called his home a bungalow. It really was a sturdy stone-built cottage, a verandah in front to which in June and July the roses clung, with two gables embowered in the greenery of ivy, one of which had a large casement window in it, with steps leading down to the lawn, where, under the trees in the sweet summer-time Ben was often to be found smoking a pipe in his grass hammock.

The whole place was a sort of arboretum, however, and the very most the sun could ever do was to shine down upon the grass in patches. Once inside the railing that surrounded it. Shireen knew she would be safe, so there was no need to hurry. Besides, it had been raining, and the road was not only wet, but the water lay here and there in little pools.

These pools Shireen took care to avoid, for she was a very dainty cat indeed. Every time she took a step she lifted her paw as high as she could and shook it. She tried also to elevate that tail of hers so as to keep it unsoiled, but it was so big and bushy that in this she was only partially successful.

The bungalow lay or stood in the outskirts or suburbs of the village, and not a long way from the sea either, for old Ben would have slept but poorly could he not have gone to sleep every night--that is every still night--with the whisper of the waves singing a kind of lullaby to him as they broke lazily on the yellow sands. But if a breeze blew off the shore or down from the hills to the nor'ard and cast, then Ben went to sleep with the half-formed idea in his mind that he was at sea; an idea that ere long commingled with his dreams. The wind would seem to be roaring through rigging and shrouds, and not through the oaks and elms and rustling pine trees; but sail was shortened, the ship was snug, and it was the mate's watch on deck. What more could any sailor desire?

She came into my possession in a queer kind of way. Some of these days I may tell you the story. Haven't told it to anybody yet except to Pussy Shireen. Some day?--Yes, some day--perhaps.

The little old woman who charred for Ben only came once a week, and that was on a Friday. Then Ben would clear out, get away to the hills, or off in a boat, with bread and cheese in his coat-tail pocket, and not come home till evening.

Fridays were called by this sailor "wash-and-scrub-deck-days," and there wasn't a deal of comfort in them. Besides, Ben dreaded a woman's tongue.

"And old Sally's tongue," he would tell his friends, "is about the waggingest thing out. Just set the old creature agoing, and she'll go on without a hitch for a two hours' spell as steady's the trade wind."

So he was always glad when Sally finished her tea in the kitchen, received her well-earned two shillings, and took her departure. Then, and not until then, would Ben sink into his rocking-chair with a sigh of relief and satisfaction, and light his very largest meerschaum pipe.

Ben never boasted about Sally, but he was willing enough to talk about Pedro, or the cockatoo.

"He is a faithful creature, a faithful creature, and I don't care who knows it. And the curry he makes! Ah!" It will be noted that Ben would be alluding thus to Pedro, not to Cockie the cockatoo. "Yes, that curry, why, the very flavour of it takes ten years off my life at least. Calls me as regular of a morning as a bo's'n's pipe. Eight bells, and there I am; clothes all brushed and folded; bath waiting for me; clean white shirt laid out, and never a button missing off my waistcoat. Breakfast served nice and comfortable soon's I go down; letters alongside my plate, and Cockie's cage as sweet as nuts. A faithful creature indeed, although he isn't much to look at!"

No. Ben spoke the truth, for certainly Pedro was not much to look at; not much to admire. He wore the same dress apparently winter and summer; a very short blue-cloth sailor's jacket, under this a checked shirt, no necktie, no collar, no waistcoat. The continuations of his dress downwards did not reach to his low-heeled shoes by inches, so he always showed a goodly amount of blue-ribbed stocking, but his shoes were always nicely polished, and his long lean hands were clean. In complexion Pedro was sallow, almost saffron-hued, and his eyes were like this jet; while his hair, which was black, of course, was scarcely half-an-inch long all over, and stood on end like the bristles of a blacking brush. People used to say that at some period of his life Pedro must have seen a ghost, and that his hair had never fallen flat again.

"But he is good to the birds," Ben would have told you.

"God's birds, I mean," he would have added. "The birds that cheer us and charm us in the sweet spring-time, you know, and all the summer through.

"`All thro' the sultry hours of June, From morning blithe to golden noon, And till the star of evening climbs The grey-blue zest, a world too soon, There sings a thrush among the limes.'

"Ay, and that bird, and our blackbirds with their mellow music, and bold lilting chaffie and tender-songed cock-robin know Pedro, and when the winter snows are on the lawn they will almost feed out of his hand. They know me, too, and they know Cockie, and they know Colonel Clarkson's cat Shireen."

And that, reader, is the very cat that is now slowly and wearily crossing the road towards the good old sailor's bungalow. Shireen, it will therefore be observed, did not belong to Ben. She was simply an occasional visitor, for cats very soon find out who loves them and who does not.

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