Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/139

 pany, exclaimed, "Where is Michel, the apprentice?" Michel was not to be found, and no one remembered his leaving the doomed ship. Michel had, indeed, been left behind. He had run to fetch from below the two ship's cats, which he was in the habit of feeding, and on returning on deck he had found his comrades gone. At first he wept, but soon he dried his eyes, lighted a lantern and hung it up, and then ran to the pump. All the night long, pumping and ringing the ship's bell, he fought against destruction. Day came, and wore on. One, two ships he sighted, but he could not attract their attention. He shared his food with the cats, and pumped to keep himself and them afloat. Thus three days passed, and Michel was at the last extremity of fatigue and despair, when a brig sighted him, and bore down to his relief. Even when a boat came, however, to take him off, he refused to leave the wreck without the cats for which he had endured so much. And soon he was landed in his native port, carrying his two cats in his arms in triumph, amid the cheers of a crowd who had heard the story. Cats, moreover, protect property frequently as well as dogs. There are authentic stories told of cats flying at burglars, and aiding in the detection of murderers; and I myself had a cat that used to run to the door upon the appearance of a beggar, a tramp, or other disreputable-seeming person, muttering and growling like a dog. But of all the false accusations brought against the cat none is more flagrantly false than that its only attachment is to a place or to the bare walls of its home. So little is that true, that many stories might be told of the weary and wonderful pilgrimages cats have gone to find their owners. A family in Scotland, for instance, removed across a frith, or long arm of the sea. The cat was somehow forgotten, but in a few days she appeared at the new house, foot-sore and thin. How had she found her way there? The family had crossed in a boat, and the way by land was sixty miles round, over rocks and mountains! Many have shown by abundant instances that the cat is attached to persons, but I think it has never before been pointed out that even those cats who are taken little notice of by their owners, and who therefore show little affection for them, are attached not really to the mere house in which they have been used to dwell, but to the familiar furniture of the house. Cats have a strong and cossetting sense of smell, and it is well known in every house that they have their favourite chairs or sofa corners; not only so, but, if they have had the run of the house, they can tell over by scent every article of furniture which the house contains. A furniture-remover has told me that with some household goods which he has kept in warehouse for some years he brought away a white Persian. She has never forsaken her familiar furniture; she has always slept among it; and has brought up several families about it. I have proved that to my own satisfaction oftener than once in removing from one house to another, and I believe all furniture-removers are convinced of its truth. When a removal is arranged for, let pussy be secured in a box or basket early, because being such a nervous creature she may flee and hide out of reach, in terror of