"MOLE."
IT was at the end of October. A chill windy day had been followed by a chillier night. I was glad that my work could be done in a room where a good fire looked cheerful and made a comfortable warmth, while even the gas seemed to wear an air of friendship. Occasionally I heard the wind soughing, and I guessed that a drizzling rain accompanied it. I went on steadily with my work—a work which to many would appear dull in the extreme, but which I found interest- ing. A set of Roman history papers had been well done, though I learnt for the first time that the Roman Senate bad met in the temple of Bella Donna—" the gladsome current of our youth" inclines us to use the known for the unknown, and Bella Donna is more familiar than Bellona 1 I was by this time in the middle of a Divinity paper. Strange gods had been described to me—Moloch and Dragon and Chemosh, the last rendered yet more horrible under the name Cuibosh- when a loud and prolonged wail startled me. It was hardly shrill-edged enough for that of a mother whose child had been offered to one of these bloodthirsty deities, and hardly piteous enough for that of a child victim destined for the altar. I listened all attention. Again the same wail. Could it possibly be a child that had loot itself P While I debated what it could be it rose again. This time I had no doubt as to where it came from, so going into the hall and turning up the gas I unlocked and unchained the door. No sooner had I done so than the wail uprose again, and there crawled to my feet a huge black cat, lean with famine, with hunger in his eyes and exhaustion written large on his shrunken body. When he got inside he cried again. I bade him be patient whilst I went into the pantry : he seemed to know what I was after and lay down in the passage. When I oame with the milk and set it down he fell upon it with ravenous haste. A good deal of it flew along the matting like water from a syringe, and I was glad that I had not fed him in my study. When he had finished I took him with me into the warm room and he lay before the fire, making but a very slight effort to lick his face. He was too exhausted for prolonged washing, and at last fell asleep. When I had finished my work and rose to go to bed I left him still asleep in front of the fire. The next morning he had somewhat recovered. I fed him with milk at breakfast, but took the precaution of laying down two newspapers so that the carpet should not suffer from the 'fierce lapping which had wasted so much milk on the previous night. I gave him also a little meat. There- after he became one of the household, and as he gradually recovered from his privations, and his coat became lustrous, he had many admirers, for he was now a very fine cat. I called him "Moloch," a name reminiscent of those horrible wailinga with which he had first made himself known. But this heathenish title was soon softened into " Mole," though he was not of the size of "the little gentleman in black velvet" whom the Jacobites toasted for his good work in 1702, but compared with him a grave signior of huge proportions.
He was a remarkably well-behaved cat, but one day tempta- tion proved too strong for him. In preparation for a children's party or some similar festivity a dinner wagon in the dining- room had been loaded with plates of little cakes and tarts, and Mole, asleep on the hearthrug, had been left in the room —a strong testimonial to the good character which he had gained for himself. But even well-behaved cats fall some- times. When I came in from morning. school I found the cakes and tarts scattered about the floor and Mole looking very much ashamed of himself. He had upset them all, but eaten none—doubtless they were too sweet for his taste. I thought he must be reminded that crime earns punishment, so I bestowed upon him one or two cuts with a little switch, which happened to be lying handy, and then turned him out into the garden with words of rebuke. I expected him to make off at full speed. He did nothing of the sort. He rubbed himself against my leg after the manner of his race, and, I fancied, regarded me with something of reproach. I stroked him, and so we made it up.
He seemed to think that ho had a right to remain in the dining-room and always resented being turned out. When I looked for him for that purpose he always retired under the sofa, and, adopting Sir Toby's advice to Sir Andrew Agnecheek, began to " swear horrible." At first I had some doubts whether it was safe to stretch out a band to pull him out, but he never scratched me, being, I suppose, satisfied with the loud protest which he had made.
I did not often tease him ; the only indignity that befell him was to have a sock pulled over his head, when he would retreat into a corner of the room and wait for me to pull it off again. Only on one other occasion did I punish him. I found him rolling in some flowers close by the greenhouse, so I took him inside and dropped him into the water-tank. He scrambled out, and when I had attended to several plants that wanted water I went out of the greenhouse. This time Mole got the better of me. Ho was waiting outside and rubbed his wet body against my legs. And yet they say cats fool no gratitude I am surd the creature knew me as a benefactor, or he would— as I have seen other cats do when similarly treated—have rushed away at once on escaping from the water.
Mole committed no more offences—at least not on the home "policies." But later on during the "last phase" of his history he took to poaching. He used to be found outside the door into the garden on a summer morning wet and dirty and looking very much ashamed of himself. When you spoke to him he mewed piteously, as if protesting that he could not help it. But the passion for poaching grew upon him, and one morning he appeared with a fine young chicken (alive) in his mouth. This chicken was given to the man who came for the washing, and when it had grown to maturity being of a specially famous breed, was sold back to us at a fancy price l I was never able to find out where Mole's poaching ground was, and he never except on one occasion brought home spoil in his mouth. But poachers often suffer from the exposure which their " vocation," as Falstaff would say, entails upon them, and Mole was no exception. Whether he felt the pains of rheumatism, or not, I do not know, but asthma troubled him much. We never ceased to be good friends. But one morning he was missing and we saw him no more. I can only hope his death was speedy and painless In a long experience of cats, most of them astute, som " Cruel, but composed and bland," like the poet's Atossa, many of them at times affectionate, Mole was the only one of whose gratitude I had satisfactory
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