a Rainy Tuesday with Cassie

Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather,
I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.”

― Oscar Wilde

I made Cassie’s acquaintance one cold and rainy Tuesday morning at the riding stables.

 

Tut, Tut, looks like rain”
― A.A. Milne

 

Although still playful, she is no longer a kitten.  Cassie is 14 years old.

 

October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Cassie is a sweet, gentle girl.

 

After three days men grow weary, of a wench, a guest, and weather rainy.”
― Benjamin Franklin

 

Such is the nature of fox-terriers; and, therefore, I do not blame Montmorency for his tendency to row with cats; but he wished he had not given way to it that morning.

Montmorency went for that poor cat at the rate of twenty miles an hour; but the cat did not hurry up — It trotted quietly on until its would-be assassin was within a yard of it, and then it turned round and sat down in the middle of the road, and looked at Montmorency with a gentle, inquiring expression, that said:

“Yes! You want me?”

Montmorency does not lack pluck; but there was something about the look of that cat that might have chilled the heart of the boldest dog. He stopped abruptly, and looked back.

 

 

Neither spoke; but the conversation that one could imagine was clearly as follows:-

THE CAT: “Can I do anything for you?”

MONTMORENCY: “No — no, thanks.”

THE CAT: “Don’t you mind speaking, if you really want anything, you know.”

MONTMORENCY (Backing down the high street): “Oh, no — not at all — certainly — don’t you trouble. I — I am afraid I’ve made a mistake. I thought I knew you. Sorry I disturbed you.”

 

 

THE CAT: “Not at all — quite a pleasure. Sure you don’t want anything, now?”

MONTMORENCY (Still backing): “Not at all, thanks — not at all — very kind of you. Good morning.”

THE CAT: “Good-morning.”

Then the cat rose, and continued his trot; and Montmorency, fitting what he calls his tail carefully into its groove, came back to us, and took up an unimportant position in the rear.

― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

 

 

It was a sombre morning well spent in the shadowy company of this beautiful soul.

 

Yours ’til the cat’s meow,