CHAP. XIX. A military dissertation on a Cat and nine-tails. Tom projects a scheme against Mouse-traps; and burns a great number of those machines.

A Cat and nine-tails is so well known to the common soldiers and sailors that we need not describe it to them, we shall only say, that it is generally appointed for the punishment of delinquents: It is called a Cat and nine-tails, because a Cat is a vindictive creature, and is supposed to have as many lives as the number of the Muses, but why the number nine should be affixed either to this mastix, or those ladies of antiquity, we shall by no means take up the reader’s time in enquiring, but shall reserve that, among many other invaluable arcana, to ourselves.

We shall however take notice, that this vindictive mastix, this flaggellum, called a Cat and nine-tails is applied to the back, which shews its original intention, however since unworthily perverted to meaner punishments, was to chastise cowardice, or disobedience of orders, because tergiversation or turning the back is an act of cowardice and disobedience.

Had a common soldier been guilty of a manifest neglect or break of duty, we are not sure if one like the above-mentioned general would not have ordered the Cat and nine-tails to be applied to the offending party, but so it is that,

I remember to have been once in G——r, and perhaps some of my readers might have been there at the same time (in the year 1746) where I saw a common centinel receive five hundred strokes of the Cat and nine-tails for killing his own pig; worthy reader be not surprized, for in the same year captain P——n was broke by the same governor, for having bought a fish. The governor was afterwards broke himself, but he snapt his fingers at the disgrace, having by all manner of oppression (for he was sole merchant, baker, brewer, chandler, shoe-maker, &c. himself) amassed a fortune of sixty thousand pounds during his short government; but the poor centinel never received a sixpence for the five hundred injuries he received from the Cat and nine-tails.

Our hero having finished his campaign with success and glory, was one day watching under a farmer’s stack of corn, to take as many mice, as he could detect in their rapine; which was not unobserved by the house-dog, who being accustomed himself to such slaughter, on the pulling down the stacks, judged this to be an invasion of his rights and privileges. Tom had killed above a dozen, of which he had breakfasted upon seven, when Roger the house-dog came on him unawares, and invested his sides in such a manner, and began to worry him so terribly, that our hero, strong as he was, found himself almost at the mercy of his huge assailant.—Tom’s cries brought to his assistance three of the stoutest cats in the village, who attacking the nose of Roger, did so lacerate that, and the adjacent mouth and nose, that his yelling reached the ears of his master, who came time enough to disengage him from their talons. Roger, finding himself at liberty, would have run at our hero a second time, but our hero stood his ground spiting at him, and raising his back (on which the hairs stood erect, like a grove of spears) to an uncommon elevation. The farmer, seeing the resolution of this gigantic stranger, admired his intrepidity, and beating in the dog, attempted to wheedle our hero, who, on receiving such civil treatment from one he had never seen, and who had interposed between him and danger, advanced up to him in a gait truly courteous and graceful. The farmer went before, and Tom followed with all the humility of an invited guest. The farmer’s wife seeing a great huge cat all bloody, and its hairs almost torn from off its back, asked her husband in a very uncouth tone of voice, what galligaskin of a bear was that he had brought home with him; ’tis a fine cat, replied the husband, and such a galligaskin, as had like to have killed your Roger; here Ruth, says he, calling the dairy-maid, get him some new milk, for the poor devil has had a dev’lish bout on’t. He or Roger would have died on the spot, e’re either of e’m would have given it up; two such are not in the whole world besides, except my birchen cock, and switch the greyhound; I’ll match the four against the four winds: I suppose, said the gentle dame, you’ll bring your plough-horses in the house next; you’re become the jest of the parish already with your birchen-poles, your greyhounds, your horses, and your matches. Is the Cat to run a race next? See what the ’squire will say to you, when your rent comes to be paid; cocking and horse-racing will pay three hundred a year to be sure, and poaching will make a gentleman of you. Hold your busy tongue, says he, what was we before the last hard year? Were we worth a brass farthing, till corn grew dear? shew me e’re a farmer of e’m all has made a better hand on’t. The ’squire! Don’t tell me of the ’squire—what has he left out of fifteen hundred a year—have not I lent him from time to time seven hundred pounds on the west fields; and now he wants five hundred more on the great marsh to go to Newmarket—Rent! Why dy’e talk to me of rent? Or what is three hundred a year to me,—come, come, I dont forget, if you do—when you was glad to millk the cows, and do the drudgery of the steward’s house, and when I was no more, than Joe the ploughman—now, d’ye see, I’m another man, and you’re another woman—Hea’en send us another hard year—and then we’re made for ever. Come, come, whatever pets I have, I lose nothing by e’m dy’e see, and so take care of the stranger—Ruth—wash him from the blood, and I dare say he has a fine coat. Ruth did as she was ordered,—she gave our hero a large bowl of new milk, which he stood in great need of, having lived on rapine and plunder like other soldiers, ever since he quitted Dolly Tinder. But this rule of obedience was not the only reason why Ruth loved Cats above all things; there were other motives for the extraordinary pains she took in trimming, and feeding our distressed hero. She loved Cats, because her mistress hated them; she loved sports, because her master was fond of them; but above all, she loved ev’ry thing that her mistress hated, because she hated her mistress: The farmer and she had got between them several sons and daughters, and old Jane his wife was an old maid, twelve years since—Ruth was fruitful; a quality much admired by the tillers of ground, especially to those, who deal in corn; honest Joe loved young Ruth, much better than he did old Jane, because young Ruth’s children, which were numerous, were also very serviceable to his farm, and were likely to promote his intrests by the income of their labour; Ruth had been the refuge of the ’squire, from whom she descended to the ploughman Joe; when a young girl, she was old Jane’s superior, and during the time of her being the ’squire’s mistress, received many a low curt’sy from her new mistress. These were the springs of action, and the motives of particulars, which swayed in this family; so that old Jane had little more power in the house, than the power of her tongue, which she was determined not to part with, as she thought it was the last prerogative a wife should part with.

When she had washed, combed, and fed Tom, she introduced him; at first sight Jane could not believe her eyes, and when he came to pay his court to her, she condescended to stroke him, saying, now you may keep your pets to yourselves,—this shall be my pet for the future,—take you no trouble about him; for of all the creatures I ever set my eyes on, dogs, or Cats, horses, or hounds, game-cocks, or what not, this Cat exceeds every thing, and I hope you’ll not be running to my lady, to make her fall in love with it, and then give it away, for I’m determined never to part with it,—Ruth, see is it a he, or a she,—but no matter, I’ll keep it as long as it will stay with me; and what shall we call it Joe? Well, well, says Joe, if you like him take him, and call him what you please, you know the dog’s called Roger, so as this is of the better sort, give him a name yourself,—suppose you call him Prince, for I love Prince Ferdinand, tho’ he be a Hanoverian: Then Prince let him be, said old Jane, for sure he is the prince of Cats. Tom, tho’ he knew his own name better, was no way ashamed pf this new title of loyalty bestowed on him; but indeed he was too much tired to pay any great attention to the encomiums which were paid him, he therefore laid himself down by the fire-side and stretched his uncommon length, beneath the feet of his new mistress, entirely resigned to his present condition.

When he awoke, he, without paying any ceremony, either to the great house-dog, who only growl’d at him, or to a little sheep cur-dog, who run away from him, took a circuit of the house; he first reconnoitred the kitchen, smelt to every thing, and among the rest retired into the cole-hole, for reasons we do not think decent to mention. However, as he knew, when he was clean, he took care not to dirty his coat, or even his paws, because he found there a large quantity of saw-dust, where he performed his lucubrations. He then went up stairs, searched ev’ry room, and next proceeded to the garret, where an object, which he had never before seen, presented itself to his view. He walked round it, and round it, eyeing it with uncommon curiosity.—He smelt to it, and found something in the scent, with which he though himself very well acquainted, yet could he not conceive, for his life, what connection this machine had with the well-known smell.—At length he sat him down squat, as it were to ponder upon this new phœnomenon; after many ejaculations he could make nothing of it, and so retired into a dark closet to reconnoitre its contents. While he was smelling about there, he heard a sudden noise, and going to see what it was, observed a mouse hanging by the neck in the machine: He then began to smell a rat, and is said to have made the following meditation, in imitation of Swift’s, on a broom-stick.

A Cat’s meditation on a mouse-trap.

By what name to call thee I know not, but the use, to which thou art destined, is evident as a mouse-hole; and who will after trust man? Are Cats so scarce, that their proferr’d service stinks.—Suppose the whole race extinct, would this admirable engine destroy the race of mice.—Can this machine smell them out, follow them to their dark recesses, sit over them, till they pop out their heads, and then put them to the slaughter? The structure is indeed a proof of human ingenuity, but is it not also that of their ingratitude, and is thus the feline services repaid? If men lay snares and gins for the vermin, which infest them, to what use are Cats created?

Suppose a creature to exist who lived upon fleas and lice, would it not be cruel to interpose between him and his prey, by the invention of wiles to take them:—Every one to his occupation.—That man should boast himself on the notable discovery of a piece of wood fabricated for such mean and ungenerous purposes! It is a monopoly, contrary to the nature and reason of things, to substitute an inanimate piece of wood instead of a living creature, made and intended for the purpose. I will never mouse more, let ungenerous man kill his own vermin, and invent ways and means to bring them to his baits. I have done with it and him, who thus plays Cat and pan with one of the most useful domestics he entertains.

Thus saying he struck the mouse-trap about the room with indignation, and went down stairs in the sullens.—However he was beloved by every body that knew him, this affair struck him to the heart, and he loathed the very victuals that were brought to him.

One day as he happened to be traversing the purlieus of the village, he saw a great number of mouse-traps lying in a window for sale. He recollected the form of the machine, and no doubt, judged rightly, that they were made there; upon this discovery, he went in the dusk of the evening, and by a most vociferous exertion of his voice, he summoned three-score Cats about him, who were curious to know the cause of this citation.

Tom was not long relating the occasion, and after having held a short conference with the gravest and most sagacious, he appointed the hour and place of assignation, which was at the mouse-trap-maker’s house between the hours of twelve and one at night.—They met according to appointment, when all the house was asleep, and he shewed the machines, at the same time interpreting the use of them to his brethren, and the next thing that came upon the tapis, was what to do with them, how to dispose of them, and in fine how to destroy them; and the result of this short conference was to burn them on the spot; they accordingly gathered the chips and shavings that lay about the shop, and dragging about two hundred of them, which were finished, they in an hour’s time set fire to them all; as their was a fire in the shop it was easily done by sixty Cats, who were as busy as their indignation could make them, nor did they much care whether they set the house on fire as they detested every thing in it, both the house and the master.—But as the business was very hot so did it over heat several Cats, who died of fevers, contracted by that nights ferment; and among the rest our hero fell sick that night, and tho’ all proper care was taken to recover him, he died the third day of his sickness, being in the year 1759, and on the 18th of September, near two months after the glorious victory obtained by him in his troops, and in the second year of his age, untimely cut off in the bloom of life. He was decently interred in the garden, and tho’ no monument was erected to his memory, we hope this our respectable history will transmit his name to the latest posterity.

FINIS.