Part 42 (2/2)

A delicate ribbon of pale blue satin was fastened in a bow round her neck, and she blinked at the pa.s.sers-by in friendly consciousness of her superior beauty.

”Oh, you darling!” Hansie exclaimed. ”I wish you belonged to me!”

”She does,” Mrs. van Warmelo answered, and stooping, she picked up the unresisting kitten and placed it in her daughter's arms.

It was done in a moment and was meant for a joke, but Hansie took the matter seriously and walked on, rapturously caressing her small ”trophy of the war.”

”Hansie, put that cat down,” Mrs. van Warmelo said, looking anxiously up and down the street.

”No indeed, mother; you gave her to me.”

”You know very well I did not mean you to keep her. I decline to have anything more to do with the matter.”

She walked rapidly on and Hansie followed in some uncertainty, but holding on to her new-found treasure as if her life depended upon it.

Soon she caught up with her indignant parent and said in a conciliatory tone of voice:

”Surely, mother, you don't suppose I would steal a cat from any one else! But Lord ---- is trying to take my country, why should I not take his cat?”

”Two wrongs never made one right,” her mother answered, ”but do as you please. You always do.”

Hansie kept that kitten and, after Carlo, loved it better than any other pet, and even Mrs. van Warmelo relented as she watched the playful creature hiding in the shadows and springing out at every pa.s.ser-by.

”What are you going to call her?” she asked her daughter.

”Oh, I don't know. Perhaps I'll go and ask Lord ---- what _he_ called her.”

She stopped, observing her mother's frown, and then went on:

”We must think of a name, a nice, appropriate war name.”

A few moments later the kitten crept into a corner, with a small mouse held firmly between her jaws.

”Oh, mother, look, she has caught a mouse already. She is going to be a splendid mouser. And oh, now I have a name for her. We'll call her '_Mauser_,' mother dear!”

So be it. ”Mauser” is her name, and hereafter she may be seen invariably in Hansie's company, a welcome addition to the small, harmonious family.

Perched on Hansie's shoulder as she sat reading under the verandah, or purring round her as she lay under the trees, with Carlo watching by her side, Mauser was ever to be found where her young mistress was; and when the latter went to town she and Carlo were invariably escorted to the gate by the faithful Mauser, who again welcomed them on their return.

This kidnapping episode had taken place a few months after the British entry into Pretoria.

A full year had gone by; and Mauser, the kitten, had developed into a beautiful full-grown cat and was the mother of five mischievous little ones, grey-striped and very wild, for whom she had made a home in a deep hollow in the trunk of one of the big weeping-willows, the very tree under which ”Gentleman Jim” had built his small kitchen of corrugated iron.

It is a stormy night in November 1901, a month remembered by all for the violence and frequency of its storms.

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