Paw Prints in the Moonlight (16 page)

Read Paw Prints in the Moonlight Online

Authors: Denis O'Connor

BOOK: Paw Prints in the Moonlight
9.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
With all of this in mind, and because Toby Jug was so precious to me, I wanted to guard him from the world of hurtful happenings. Still, I had to learn all over again that a cat will go where a cat wants to go. Truly, the world is a cat's oyster. I had to rid myself of the tendency to think of him as being different and more vulnerable because of his poor start in life and because of his size. Toby Jug was, day by day, teaching me that he had his own agenda and he was
simply asserting his rights by sometimes straying away from our home environment. I recognized and respected this but continued to worry. There was an element of foreboding about my feelings for Toby Jug's safety which on two occasions proved to be correct. One such incident was to rankle sorely in my mind for a long time afterwards.
I
n autumn the salmon return to the upper reaches of the River Coquet to spawn. It is especially inspiring to witness this annual event which is part of the impressive and unbelievable range of intuitive behaviour laid down by nature in every fish, animal, bird and insect. It is impossible not to be impressed by the magnificent fish that have travelled hundreds of miles through the oceans to return to the river where they were born.
The weir on the Coquet is at a place where the river bends. It is sheltered by deep woodland on either side of the river bank and the river runs over gravel beds clearly visible in the sunlight. Sitting here is the best place to watch the salmon jumping. They hurl themselves over the weir in a seemingly impossible feat. Miraculously, most seem to make it and swim off up river until they meet the next obstacle.
Once I took Toby to see this wonderful event. It was a night when the moon was full – a wonderful night to be out enjoying the night air and the starry sky. Toby was in his element. We arrived at the weir and found a fisherman working the river. He seemed quite surprised to see us and
smiled as he told me that salmon do not leap at night. I felt somewhat humbled but I had learned something. So instead, Toby Jug and I sat on the riverbank, taking full advantage of the ambience and occasionally I shone my torch on the water to illuminate the outlines of the salmon gathering below the weir, waiting for dawn to take the next step on their journey of life. Some were very large; all looked silvery in the torchlight. They swam around in a leisurely fashion, swaying as they moved. They seemed to be saving their energy for the final effort that lay ahead.
 
It was with a mixture of fear and fury that I found Toby Jug in a state of abject terror on November the 5th, Guy Fawkes' Night. The day had started with a fine crisp autumnal morning and after feeding I let him out for his morning stroll. I was working at home that day to finish an article in time to meet an editor's deadline. Whenever I spotted him, Toby Jug was happily playing in the garden amid the gathering piles of fallen leaves which were being enticingly swept about by a rising wind.
Around 4.30 p.m. I could hear fireworks parties starting in the village and there seemed to be more bangs and rockets zooms than normal. Toby Jug had never heard fireworks before and I was sure that they would startle and probably frighten him. I went outside and called his name. Normally, he would shoot towards me, especially since it was time for
his evening feed. But there was no sign of Toby Jug in spite of my whistles and calls. I went back inside the cottage thinking he would soon return. Sometimes, he would suddenly appear on a window sill, looking in towards me and crying for me to open the door.
As time passed it grew dark and I began to get worried. I started to search for him in earnest. I looked in the outhouse with an opening in the wall where he was able to gain entry if I wasn't at home. Inside was a large linen basket with a thick woolly blanket for comfort but he wasn't there.
Just then a man from further along the road, whom I slightly recognized, was passing with his black Labrador. He stopped by my gate, looking red-faced and angry. ‘You know,' he said, ‘there's some young 'uns throwing fireworks into a garden. They've scared something up a tree, must be a squirrel or cat, and when I told them to stop they threw a banger at the dog. The young brats! I'd like to give them a jolly good hiding. Their parents must be morons.'
And with that he strode off without waiting for a reply, thumping his walking stick angrily into the ground to emphasize his feelings, with his dog following meekly at his heels.
My blood turned cold at the thought that it might be Toby Jug up that tree. I ran along the main street where I came upon a rowdy group of youths who were indeed throwing fireworks into the old vicarage garden. One of
them, encouraged by the shouts of the others, was balancing on the garden wall and throwing fireworks up into the higher branches of an ancient oak tree that grew in the corner of the garden.
‘Get ready to grab it if it falls,' one of them yelled just as I arrived panting and furious. I can't recall what I shouted at them, I only remember that I stormed into their midst, arms flailing and shoulders thrusting them aside, I charged at the big fellow on the wall knocking him into the garden and then I turned on them like an enraged bear. I was furious at what they were doing to some innocent animal, especially as it could be Toby Jug. Not surprisingly, they fled and left me drenched in sweat and hot with anger.
My heart was thumping so fast that I was shaking with emotion and needed to rest against the wall for a while until I calmed down. I wasn't accustomed to having aggressive confrontations and the whole business was upsetting. Turning to the tree I peered up into the branches. I could see nothing except dark patches among the twisted limbs which were still partly hidden from the streetlight by autumn leaves not yet fallen.
Just then a woman I recognized came out from her cottage across the road. She was at pains to tell me that she'd been terrified by the youths, who had thrown firecrackers into her passage way and burnt patches on her rug, and that she had telephoned the police. She went on to
say that they deserved being chased and that I had done the right thing and that she hoped the little cat up the tree was all right.
My worst fears were confirmed. It had to be Toby Jug. Desperate to see he was safe but not yet absolutely sure it really was him up the tree, I clambered on top of the wall and softly called for him. A man, who the woman hailed as Andy, appeared and asked if it was my cat up the tree and would I like to borrow his ladder to have a look. Since there was still no sight of Toby Jug I accepted his kind offer. While he went to get the ladder, the woman, who identified herself as Jenny Croger, volunteered some more details which convinced me it was Toby Jug up there.
She said that she had watched the gang throwing lighted fireworks into the doorways of some of the other cottages and then she and Andy, her husband, had seen a black cat with white paws running along the path. The youths had chased it up the tree. They were trying to frighten it down when I came along.
‘Is it yours?' she asked just as Andy arrived with the ladder.
‘I think so,' was all I could say.
I thought guiltily that Toby had probably been running towards the cottage in answer to my calls and whistles and been waylaid by that gang.
‘It'll not come down you know!' she said. ‘Not with all
this going on.' She indicated with a nod of her head the sky over the treetops which was being illuminated at intervals by the flare, whoosh and bang of rockets. ‘I've seen cats stay up trees for days on end,' she ended sourly as Andy and I manoeuvred the ladder over the wall and up against the tree trunk.
Andy steadied the ladder and Jenny watched from a safe distance with her arms folded and her head shaking doubtfully. I braced myself and began climbing up towards the crown of the massive oak that was shrouded in deep shadow. I have never been particularly good at heights – in plain terms they frighten me – and I have had to fight this fear on numerous occasions in my life. Now was such an occasion.
‘Careful you don't fall!' Jenny called, which only made me feel worse.
As I balanced precariously on the ladder it began settling into the soft earth of the garden and I felt in imminent danger of crashing down into the street below. Eventually, and with increasing trepidation, I reached the top of the ladder and took hold of a thick branch for security. Straining to see in the semi-darkness of the tree foliage I could make out nothing in the form of a cat or anything else. From below, Andy and Jenny kept up a constant stream of questions as to whether I could see anything. Then I heard Andy tell Jenny to go and get a torch. That's a splendid idea I
thought; why hadn't I thought of that? At that instant Toby Jug gave a loud-pitched piteous whine and appeared on a branch above my head, annoyingly just beyond my reach.
I called repeatedly to encourage him to come down further but he lay along the branch, apparently fearful of moving any lower. He simply stared at me and it looked as if he was not going to come down of his own accord. Levering myself yet higher by standing with one foot on the top rung of the ladder, I made a desperate lunge and at last managed to clutch Toby by the scruff of his neck. I hauled him towards me. He instantly fastened his claws deeply into my sweater and clung on for dear life. I would have fallen several times if it hadn't been for Andy steadying the ladder. Clinging desperately to each rung as I descended, feeling scared but triumphant, I at last reached the bottom. Almost at the same time Jenny arrived breathless with the torch. Thanking them both profusely for their kind help I scurried back to the cottage, holding a shocked and trembling Toby Jug.
Back in the safety of the cottage I began to relax with what I thought was a well-deserved glass of cognac, but Toby Jug was still scared. He wouldn't drink his milk, he wouldn't eat his meat – he simply wanted to huddle close into my side. He couldn't stop trembling. I stroked and soothed him as best I could but the sound of loud bangs from rockets and other fireworks even permeated the thick walls of the cottage and Toby would go into shock again. It
took two days for him to regain even a semblance of his old self and then he stayed by the immediate surroundings of the cottage, slipping out only for calls of nature and hurrying back to the safety of his home.
That night I sat there thinking how awful it is that irresponsible youngsters can sometimes terrorize neighbourhoods in the way I had just seen. Not only was I concerned about my cat, who'd been frightened out of his mind by a gang using fireworks, but I also felt both saddened and outraged by the events that night, including the vandalizing of Jenny and Andy's cottage. She told me later that the police failed to respond to her call.
Toby Jug never seemed to recover from his terror of fireworks after his experience that night. Even a motorcycle backfiring could send him into a spasm of fear. I have heard that some dogs and horses have been similarly affected.
 
As the autumnal days set in and the trees began to display their foliage of lemon, golden brown and orange hues, Toby Jug began to recover his cheeky, cheerful personality although he didn't wander as freely as he once did. Not for a while anyway. One particularly fine morning I sat out in the garden with my morning mug of tea, taking in the air and reflecting that autumn is my favourite season because it is a time for contemplation. All the rush and push of spring and the hurly-burly of summer give way to a calm
harvesting of nature's bounty. There is an excitement about autumn as previous efforts to grow reach completion and there is a pause before the change over to winter. I watched the early morning sun slanting through the trees turning the dew drenched grass to a silvered carpet of light. The house martins were getting ready for the long journey south. Above my patio area, wing-strengthening exercises of takeoffs and landing were being performed in earnest whilst swarms of multicoloured butterflies were driving Toby Jug to distraction.
Later that morning I set off along some local woodland paths, thickly carpeted in cinnamon-coloured leaves, towards a small lake where I knew there'd be lots of large fir cones at this time of year. When burned in an open fire the cones give off a delicate aroma of pine which is extremely pleasing and fills the cottage for days with their natural scents. I also expected to gather some blackberries and had brought along a small bucket for that purpose.
After a somewhat nervous start to the walk because of his recent experience, Toby Jug soon began to respond to all the woodland smells and sounds by running here and there, sniffing and mock-pouncing on piles of fallen leaves. On nearing the lake, which is set in a hollow surrounded by trees, I was surprised by a sudden heavy ‘clap clap' beating of wings as the wild ducks who lived there took off in abrupt alarm. The clatter made by the ducks did nothing to help
Toby Jug's nerves and he froze in momentary panic. The ducks didn't usually do that and I wondered why they were so afraid now. I had often visited the lake to feed the ducks scraps and even when they were nesting eggs they were never disturbed by my presence. What had changed?
That morning the lake was resplendent in a myriad of autumn tints and hues at once both familiar and refreshingly new to me. The area had always been a place of peaceful beauty which had an aesthetic of calm all of its own. Looking around, I saw it had become the focus of a meaner spirit. Notices everywhere were nailed to some of the magnificent old trees, They said: ‘KEEP OUT'; ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY'; ‘TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED'; ‘PRIVATE SHOOTING'.

Other books

The Escape by Lynda La Plante
The Crown Affair by Lucy King
A Family Name by Liz Botts
West of Here by Jonathan Evison
Happy Endings by Amelia Moore
Property Of by CP Smith
In Medias Res by Yolanda Wallace
Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck