I ran into the
hall for a hoe with a long handle, with which I intended to assail him,
and returning in a few seconds missed him: he was gone, and I feared
had escaped me. Still, however, the kitten sat watching immovably upon
the same spot. I concluded, therefore, that, sliding between the door
and the threshold, he had found his way out of the garden into the
yard. I went round immediately, and there found him in close
conversation with the old cat, whose curiosity being excited by so
novel an appearance, inclined her to pat his head repeatedly with her
fore foot; with her claws, however, sheathed, and not in anger, but in
the way of philosophical inquiry and examination. To prevent her
falling a victim to so laudable an exercise of her talents, I
interposed in a moment with the hoe, and performed an act of
decapitation, which though not immediately mortal proved so in the end.
Had he slid into the passages, where it is dark, or had he, when in the
yard, met with no interruption from the cat, and secreted himself in
any of the outhouses, it is hardly possible but that some of the family
must have been bitten; he might have been trodden upon without being
perceived, and have slipped away before the sufferer could have well
distinguished what foe had wounded him.
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