Will you not trust my word, gentlemen? Very well, but prithee hark to what I shall lay before you, without you draw conclusions upon me. I shall give you to comprehend no more than I know, sans speculation.
My tale is of animals, but it is no fable. I seek not to have my creatures stand for the follies of Humankind, nor to serve as parable for sage advice. Such tales dress creatures in hose and gown, and lend them Tongues they cannot possess, yet would I rather shew my creatures as they are, in their Humours and their mental conceptions, for, yes, they have such. Whether they possess eternal Souls I know not, nor whether we may be re-born within the furred body of a beast in some after life, as they do say is a notion much professed in the Orient. Yet is it tolerably clear that each furred Creature has its manner of Being in its own World, proper to its station, as may be vouchsafed by any who seek to enquire.
You may mark, for an instance, many a Master of Hounds who will swear to you of the sentience of his charges, and who will enumerate the several qualities of each, be they forty to the pack. Many a Lady of noble bearing will vouch for that her lapdog, ever under her hand, understands her closest sentiment. Likewise may you meet many a toiling farmer, passing long days at the plough with his horse, who is unshakeably assured of his Communion with that beast. Such claims are not idle, but they are commonplace, for they are confined to what it is the human partner seeks in the animal rather than in consideration of that Creature’s experience or sentiment; so confined, because sought, in the one case, as a toy, and in the other as a tool. More is possible for the studious enquirer, as I shall demonstrate.
Beyond such instances as I have enumerated, few will you encounter who maketh such claim for other Creatures, such as a cat, enquire as you might, yet it is of the perceptions of such an animal that my extraordinary story takes its principal source. You may ask, how might it come about that I regale you with a tale from a cat?, for this that I offer comes for its principal part from the thin understanding of such an animal. What is it that enableth me to speak of it?
Know, then, that through the course of my life I have made a study of the behaviours of our common companions, the Creatures with whom we choose to share our lives, and who enter into them in such measure. As the very young son of a moorland Parson I had few playmates of mine own specie, but those childhood years were ever populated by cats, and similarly by numerous dogs, horses and hens. The habits of a country Parson’s home, and the library it afforded me, doubtless spurred on that nature in me of curiosity for natural philosophy, and all things of Creation.
In consequence of my studies I can attest that the faculty of mind associated with dogs is much overblown, by those who mistake tractability and obedience for a capacity of understanding, for a dog might learn to repeat the consequence of a command, yet it has no ability to posit propositions nor draw conclusions. As for hens, none, I think, would ascribe to them any extended capacity to form impressions, or develop attitudes. Of my studies, I can attest that conversation with hens is a most humdrum and tedious business. No philosopher Chanticleer is to be met in the farmyard. Of birds outside of the hen I confess to know little, for the opportunity to study has but infrequently presented itself; yet judgement may be made upon observation of their conduct, the which suggests that your rook, and its brother crows, may have such capacities as would not shame a dog.
All those animals which we have domesticated are in some wise capable of understanding and of expressing their needs. Cats, dogs, horses and even pigs all respond. Cattle somewhat less, for their habits of life do not require it, and sheep, I believe, only in very small measure.
Gentlemen, I do not require that you put store by my words alone, for experiment might be made upon the method, in this manner: that your cat will call you, and express a need. What that need should be may be discovered by offering alternatives until one meets with approval. So too may you meet and treat of the common Humours of fear and of affection, in the which are to be discovered fellows to our own sentiments. With practice, it will become clear that the nature of the matter expressed by your animal varies subtly, the more clearly so as you demonstrate your ability to meet it, and thus will begin that process of learning by which my own studies have progressed.
Here, then, is the resultant of much study, in the nature of a skill upon which I believe I might justly pride myself as discoverer. I believe my studies offer the firm foundation stone upon which might be erected an edifice of knowledge of considerable utility. Developing comprehension of what a cat, dog or horse understands demands the expenditure of considerable time and not a little patience, but what we gain thereby must expand our understanding of the world.
The curious circumstance which I shall relate derives firstly from Ovid, my cat, as I might term her in daily discourse, though in truth such is the nature of the bond between human and cat that she may be no more mine than I hers, for I cannot consider her my property in the like manner that this hat or this book be mine. We had shared a dwelling for ten years or more at the time of which I speak, and had formed a good practical understanding.
With my Ovid, I may pose to her questions, and betimes secure answers; not as you might with a child, for there are no words to give form to such communion. Rather is it akin to ensuring that a matter be within our immediate purview, in order that my Ovid’s reaction (or that of any other animal with whom such trust may be established) may provide a response, of animadversion or attraction. In this manner our communion is built, and it is the most careful application of this method over many years, I believe I make no boast, wherein lies much of my particular skill.
Now, you should know that cats have no use for names. Indeed, where dogs, horses and even pigs may respond to the titles which we bestow upon them, and cognize the address which we intend thereby, cats, whilst enjoying no less capacity, have not the motive. Certainly, however, they distinguish individals among their own kind, and amongst humans, and it is by a species of imaging, whereby characteristics which have salience to the animal become associated with that individual. In like manner might we amongst our fellows make a designation of a person of less intimate acquaintance as ‘that milliner with the missing thumb’, or as ‘the carter’s wife with more whiskers than he’. In this society, just as do we amongst neighbours, cats may share such a type of nomenclature when they live in proximity with others.
Nor do cats have any use for the small talk or gossip which for us is as water is to our crops, and flows freely in every market, each tavern and coffee house, by the which abstinence amongst cats ought we to accord such greater weight upon the things these creatures can impart. We err, gentlemen, when we consider them dumb, quite as surely as we should were we to assume the opposing view, in all the country fables of animals who reason, calculate and complain.
Cats may not be without stratagems for the trapping of their unsuspecting prey, a thing which in small measure might be considered a species of misdirection, as that of the conjuror. Nonetheless, they do not tell stories, nor do they engage in deception in matters such as these that I relate. They cannot form superstitions, nor seek explanation for any such thing as might lie beyond the narrow shores of their most immediate need. Does that ensure that what they hold to be the case must surely be so, and that we must place credence upon it? I make no such assertion. Consider if you will how strange the word of untutored landsfolk from a far distant clime must appear to us, and then contemplate further how the word of four witnesses to a wondrous event might differ each from the other in its material terms. Imagine then how much more foreign must be the perception of cats. Nay, what I enjoin is that we must needs accord, such difficulties notwithstanding, the credit that what they may impart is akin to true belief on their part, and that the circumstance of its being shared, in this particular, by at least three cats supposes some commonality of experience, for cats express to each other but little of their several private experiences. When they concur in their understanding of a circumstance we should not forthwith absolve all critical faculty of enquiry, but we must recognize that what it is a cat sees of the conditions in which it lives is wont to be of far closer colour that ever we humans might.
In fine, we raise a mystery, one of a great many we might cognize if we but paid account to what the animals around us might impart; for this world contains much that we do not perceive. Our view of the substance of this world cannot but be partial. By this same token, the animals that share our world must of necessity view it from other vantages. I aim to show that by the scrupulous application of studied method we shall be able to do much to explicate these mysteries. I shall give you an example.
Attend, gentlemen, forbear, I prithee patience. We shall enter upon the matter of interest now.
I speak of the small quarter in which I lodge; it is an old part of the town, where the Dwellings pile upon each other in a close familiarity, where the intervening streets are but narrow, and in certain instances the projecting upper floors reach out towards their facing neighbours, as if loath to be parted by even so much as a cart’s width. Picture if you will, gentlemen, the Houses of this neighbourhood, closely gathered around their yards and squares, and hard upon a merchant street, and consider how the illicit pickings of such a district provide much livelihood to rats.
The presence of these rogues is a common circumstances in all our towns, as you will all appreciate, and I fear it is in vain that we might ever aspire to extirpate such a pest. We must needs consider that wheresoever we construct our dwelling places we create the same for the rat tribe, and that they shall shadow us and be a nemesis to us always, and a call against our hubris, for (I verily believe) it is only through our agency with that opposed tribe, forever sworn enemy to the rat, that we may anticipate relief against its scourge. I speak of course of the cat, the which I vouchsafe has lived amongst our habitations since the Biblical days of the Hittites and the Moabites for this very cause and service which it rendereth. In this endeavour, as in all which we depend upon the assistance of our furred companions, it is my belief that we should derive the greater benefit if we acknowledge our debt and ensure it is the better honoured. God may have granted us dominion over all Creatures, but the spirit of Charity cannot upon that premise be withheld from them.
In the time of which I speak the pestilence of rats had become a considerable trouble in our quarter, and they were brazen in their forays, none more so than a certain large Creature, which all of us knew, seeming to be the chieftain of the band thereabouts, doubtless much in the manner as any gang of scoundrels and footpads will make one of its number into a leader to be followed. Now for my part I allow that a rat might have all of the specificity of character we readily accord to a dog, but, as I have engaged in no study of their manner of life, I regret that I cannot but consider them somewhat of a blight upon our well being. Despite his considerable size, then – body and tail, gentlemen, extended rather beyond the length of my extended arm, thus – I could not bring my self to do more than admire him as one might a valiant General of an enemy army. Consequently I was willing to give my support to the many attempts made to rid our neighbourhood of that foul pest, who had made him self notorious through his evident fearlessness, showing him self quite openly, nor hastening to quit when missiles were hurled. Many were the traps set, and though some were sprung, it was never with our principal target. Poison put down had much the same result. I had in that time a neighbour, a Bristol man by name Richard Williams, who sat up one or two nights in the week with a loaded pistol, yet never did manage to catch his prey, succeeding in no more than scaring a number of sleeping children and ladies with the report of the weapon in the early hours.
So it was with particular interest that I gradually formed the awareness that my Ovid had made an identity for the beast, an identity compounded of two elements, those for mouse or rat (there being no meaningful distinction between the two among our cats), and for a man, making a kind of principal distinction as we might append the title ‘Mister’. Hence I took to thinking of that troublesome creature as ‘Mr Mouse’. My curiosity thus pricked, I made the effort to converse, such as I might, with other cats near about, as those of my immediate neighbours, and found general concurrence.
Why did they designate it ‘Mr Mouse’? It became apparent that they were each certain that the Pest which troubled us was in identity equally a man and a rat, not less the one than the other. Doubtless it was as much for this reason, whatever that might signify, as for his great size, that these cats of ours could not or would not assay to trap him. For – have I not told you? – my Ovid was a most excellent mouser. She would bring her victims and lay them as gifts for me, betimes in the most inconvenient of places, as upon the pillow of my bed.
Will you yet not trust? Cats have no discernment, think you, and are liable to be the butt of any frippery? This is why you cannot believe? Then must you accept that this account I relate is imparted by them. Nay, nay, that is the burden of your speech, gentlemen. But harken now, for there is more that I have yet to tell, the which dependeth not upon observations gained of any animal: there is yet a conclusion to my strange tale.
It happened some two years since, at Whitsuntide, that there was a commotion around our neighbourhood one early morn, for a discovery made in the lane that leadeth to the river, not three minutes distant from my home. Now, I own this not to be the first occasion upon which a body should be discovered by the light of day in that lane. By night it is the haunt of every thief and ne’er-do-well of the district, and witness to dark deeds a-plenty, for the lane descends behind high walls, and little light can enter, even at the clearest of full moons, except it be carried by lantern. That thoroughfare conducts to wharf sidings upon the river, and thence toward the dock. The river, black and sluggish, is by night the silent recipient of much that ought not to be, and provides a quiet highway for those who desire that their business not be seen.
Not the first corpse which the morning had discovered, then, but a singular event nevertheless. I saw this body for my self and can vouchsafe for its condition. A man it was, somewhat short and lean, I would say in the region of 40 years of age. The body was taken up by the Beadles, and lay for a time at the Assize, which serves as our Mortuary, that he might be identified and claimed, but he was not: no one within our neighbourhood recognized that face, and the corpse was subsequently disposed of without funeral. I believe it was taken for dissection by the Students. Now, if he were of our Community, that face must have been recognized, for it too was particular. A small, narrow appearance it had, with a sharp nose, and a chin that receded below it, giving it the appearance of having been pinched into a snout, as a child might do with clay. When those bodily remains were brought in, the eyes remained open, and they were very dark, as though all their colour were black. The cheeks bore long whiskers, much in mode among the young blades some few years since. And it bore long nails upon fingers and feet, as if they were untrimmed in many a month. By no means did that body present a prepossessing aspect.
Nor was this all. The body was bare when found, not a shred of clothing upon it. Footpads may slay a gentleman, and may relieve him of his jacket and hose, or a fine pair of boots, but when did you hear of them carrying away every stitch? And the body was much damaged. Much blood had been lost as the consequence of the wounds upon the body, which displayed long raking cuts, rather deep in places, and not such as might result from a sword or knife, for these were in parallel forms, as they might have been caused by some agricultural implement, such as a harrow. One leg, also, was badly crushed and torn. A surgeon called upon to pronounce upon the cause of death, a man well known to me and much respected in the town, was heard to remark that he could not rightly trust his judgement.
Gentlemen, I feel by now you will know how this tale of mine will end. As I have said, I would that you should make your own conclusions. I shall add no more than this, that you are at liberty to inquire widely of my neighbourhood, and canvas amongst those who dwell there. Though they know not of what the cats believed, I vouchsafe all will concur in the circumstances of the body discovered that day, and, further, will be of one mind in this, that from that very day forward the deprivations of rats upon us have been much reduced, for that great pest, the leader of the rat pack, Ovid’s Mr Mouse, was never seen again.
Now, Gentlemen, who amongst you shall be first to engage my professional services? My terms, I assure you, are most reasonable.
Mick Chatwin
Feb 2019