Four Ducks on a Pond (12 page)

Dinner came at last. Scotch broth, followed by the turkey, perfectly cooked and nicely browned, and dished up with all manner of trimmings. But since these are not of prime importance to me, I
did not particularly observe what they were. Finally there was the plum-pudding, with a gay piece of holly sticking out of it, and flames all around it. This caused me momentary alarm, but I soon
realised that the flames were intentional, as Puddy said she thought it a waste to set fire to brandy.

There were buttons and three-penny bits, and all sorts of things in the pudding, besides fruits, but these were for keeping and not for eating, and the finding of them was evidently of some
significance. Anyway, it caused much amusement, especially when Margie accidentally swallowed a button.

I said the pudding was final, but of course it wasn’t, because there were sweets, and nuts and fruit yet to be eaten, and crackers to be pulled (to poor Lottie’s distress), and so
the table that had looked so gay looked very messy, with torn pieces of paper and tangerine peel and broken nutshells.

While Puddy and Margie did the washing up, Kitten gave Lottie and Carla and me our share of the dinner. How very tasty is turkey! I savoured every morsel before I ate it, and so I was eating
long after the others had finished their share. I wonder why dogs (and poodles) eat so fast? Will they never realise that anticipation is better than realisation? However, although two pairs of
eyes were fixed on me, and, I’m afraid, grudging me every mouthful, I ate my dinner with quiet dignity, cleaned myself nicely when I had done, and then I joined the family in the
drawing-room, and I settled down on Grandpop’s knee for a nice after-dinner nap.

Fortunately, as soon as Christmas is over, people here have the New Year to look forward to. And particularly is this true of our family, for to Highland Kitten, Hogmanay (as New Year’s
Eve is called) is the most important night of the year. Indeed, Boxing Day had seen the last of the ducks, for Johnnie-the-Postman had acted executioner for the last time that year, and the victims
had now been dispatched in parcels to those of Kitten’s relations who lived in cities, so couldn’t keep Hogmanay ducks for themselves.

On New Year’s Day we, too, would eat duck, and somehow the idea didn’t much appeal to me. Not that I had managed to become friendly with the ducks, who, to their bitter end, had
always been afraid of everyone. All the same, I’d felt a certain affection for them, unlike my attitude to hens, and I didn’t feel that I’d enjoy eating them any more than I
enjoyed Katteo. As a matter of fact, time proved me wrong in this, for as soon as I got my teeth into that tasty bit of wing I forgot all about it being duck.

Humans ‘bring in’ the New Year. That is, they sit up, no matter how sleepy they are, and at twelve o’clock sharp they wish one another a Happy New Year, and they drink a toast
to absent friends and to the future. My family do, anyhow.

So on New Year’s Eve we all sat in the drawing-room and listened to the radio, and on a table was a decanter and glasses and shortbread, because the family eat the New Year in as well. And
there wasn’t a lot of conversation, because Lottie and Carla were asleep, and I knew that all the others were thinking about the year that was past, which had sometimes been happy and
sometimes sad, like most years are for most people, and I knew, too, that Puddy in particular would think back to other years and wish that she could forget about Fionna’s father, instead of
thinking about him every day of every year, and especially now. And of course they were all also thinking of John, who had sent them the Happy New Year telegram which was now propped up on the
mantelpiece.

I am glad to say that the trouble in that outpost of the Empire hadn’t turned into anything serious after all, and I’m quite sure that it was the arrival of that splendid Highland
regiment, with its tough-looking men wearing kilts and dirks, and a determined expression, which had made the troublemakers change their minds. There aren’t many folks would care to take on
the Highlanders in a fight, and unless I am much mistaken, the Communists are better at stirring up trouble than they are at fighting a battle. So John was safe, and enjoying life abroad, just as
he always enjoyed life at home. Inside myself I wished him a happy New Year, and a speedy return, and if I had the gift of tears, I’d shed a few because he wasn’t with us now.

Big Ben struck the hour, and Kitten and Grandpop had a squabble about whether the New Year began on the first or last strokes of the hour. So they either saw the Old Year out with a quarrel, or
they saw the New Year in with one, according to which one was right. But it didn’t matter because their quarrels don’t mean much anyhow, and soon they were all laughing and raising
their glasses, and Puddy and Fionna rushed around the house, switching on all the lights so that everyone, even in Iona, would know they were bringing the New Year in!

And presently the telephone rang. It was Charlie Bogilee, who had seen the lights, and wanted to give everyone a New Year greeting. Now Charlie lost both his legs in the First World War, and as
he hasn’t a telephone in his house, he had to go out to a call-box. This must have caused him a lot of trouble, and the family were all the more pleased with his greeting, because it
wasn’t easy for him to do it.

So instead of a first footer there had been a first telephoner, and everyone was very happy and ate some more shortbread and drank some more ginger wine before going to bed.

And the next morning, as Puddy let me into the house, I thought to myself, ‘I am their first-footer, and I’m male. So it’s lucky.’ And though I didn’t carry a coal,
or any of the things that are customary when one is first-footing, I do hope I brought luck with me, just the same.

Margie and Lottie returned to London. Fionna returned to school. And the rain began. It rained and it rained, and the goats wouldn’t leave their house because of the
pools outside, so that Puddy, wearing gum boots and a mackintosh, had to go to them several times a day to feed them with hay and crushed oats, and to take them water.

She put a new mineral-lick in the container, because perhaps it was boredom, or the kids they were expecting, that made the goats very eager to lick and lick at that red brick thing, which I had
once tried and found horribly salty.

Nicholas

Grandpop was worrying in case the tons of lime he had ordered would arrive before Johnnie-the-Ploughman had been to plough the big field. Kitten blamed the rain for the fall in egg production,
but she also blamed the hens, for she said it was time some of them were in the pot. Puddy made a few attempts at clearing up the garden, which was looking very battered and miserable, and which
would look worse when the weeds began to grow. The rabbits had eaten the bark from the new apple bushes, which annoyed Puddy all the more because ever since the arrival of the polecat she had never
managed to see a rabbit around at all.

The doctor’s car often passed along the road, because there was a lot of influenza about, and sometimes the doctor came in to see the family, not because anyone was ill, but because he
could have a hot cup of tea and a chat. And I often thought that he looked tired and could perhaps do with a doctor himself more than some of the people he visited.

Sometimes, in the evenings, the schoolteacher, who was a great friend of the family, came in bringing her knitting or her embroidery, both of which she did very well, and there would be a lot of
chatter because the schoolteacher had travelled a great deal and had much to say of wonderful places. Places that I had read about in some of the books in the cottage, but never even hoped to see.
It seemed to me a terrible shame that a clever person like that should have only six pupils in her school. But this was all part of what I said at the beginning, about the declining population, so
I hope that those few children will grow up to appreciate the lovely place they live in and will find work to do here and rear huge families so that the tumble-down cottages will be built up and
prosperity will be here once more. I am sure Arnish, who is so political, would know just how to bring this about.

At last, one day the rain stopped and the sun shone, and the puddles and the loch were covered in ice.

When I walked along the road to the village, I saw that Ben More, which is the highest mountain on Mull, was capped with snow. It is a strange thing, but we have a small hill near us, in the
east, and because of this hill we can’t see any of the mountains from the house. Curious, that what is so small can obliterate what is large. I suppose it is true of everything in life.

After a few days it was not only Ben More that was covered in snow. It was everything. And through the snow peeped the first shoots of the daffodils, and the robin redbreast who had hopped about
outside the garage all winter now came right to the back door for his food. But the snow didn’t lie long on the low ground, for it never does here, and one day Johnnie-the-Ploughman arrived
with his tractor, so that Grandpop needn’t have worried about the lime arriving too soon after all.

Puddy planted some willow cuttings inside the big field near the new gate which John had made. She thought these would help to soak up moisture from this wet corner of the field, and also that
they would provide a windbreak. But Flora and Arnish soon slipped through that gate, which had been left open because of the ploughing, and they ate those lovely willows far faster than Puddy had
planted them. And this, I thought, was unkind and unfeeling of them, but then, they are goats, whereas I am an affectionate cat that likes to please.

Of course, it must be remembered that soon their kids would be arriving, so perhaps the goats were not quite themselves. Puddy was still unsure if there were to be any kids, for it is extremely
hard to tell with goats, but I knew because the goats knew. Only unfortunately I couldn’t tell Puddy so.

Puddy, however, tells Carla everything, and so it was that I learnt that Corrie’s foal was due next month, and that during the summer both Corrie and her foal were to be shown at the Royal
Highland Show. And this time I was certain they would win first prize. Meanwhile Puddy busied herself repairing the boundaries of the paddock and making ready for Corrie’s return home, and
excitement tingled down my back, right to the very tips of my whiskers, as I thought how I would soon be seeing my best friend again!

All this time Kitten and Grandpop weren’t idle. Kitten had made many, many pots of delicious marmalade, the smell of which had permeated the house for days. And Grandpop, humming his
little hum (which wasn’t about blessings any more), laid rattraps in the barn, sorted Florrie once more and won thirty shillings in the pools.

And Carla, who at the age of four years, had not shown any interest in finding a mate, suddenly decided that she, too, would like a family, and she chose the coal-house, of all places, to make a
nest. But I didn’t take her very seriously. Time has taught me that where Carla is concerned, it’s just a lot of bark.

One evening, when Johnnie-the-Postman came, Puddy gave him a letter to post, addressed to the poultry breeder in Stirling, from where she had bought last year’s chicks. She was later in
ordering them this year because of the wet weather. So soon another twittering box would be left at our gate by Neilachan, and I would probably be sitting on the wall when they arrived. Just like
at the beginning of my book, which shows how, in the country, the wheel most surely goes full circle.

But before the chickens arrived, news came of the death of dear, cosy little Miss Sarah, who lived with her dear, cosy little sisters in a house by the sea, a few miles away. All the family
loved Miss Sarah and her sisters, and as the weather was too cold for Grandpop to attend the funeral, Puddy went instead.

When Puddy returned, she said it was the loveliest funeral she had ever been to. And she described it so that I can write about it just as if I had been there myself, and I do understand, just
as I hope you will, why she called it a lovely funeral, which seems such a peculiar thing to say.

When she arrived at the house where Miss Sarah had lived, one of Miss Sarah’s sisters greeted her and took her into the parlour, where there was tea to drink and plenty of sandwiches and
cakes. And while Puddy sipped her tea, Miss Sarah’s sister looked through the window at the blue sky and at the sun shining on the daffodils and sparkling on the blue sea at the bottom of the
garden, and she said, in her lovely soft Highland voice, ‘It’s a wonderful thing, but Sarah said only the other day that she always gets lovely weather whenever she does a
journey.’

And presently Puddy, and all the other people who had gathered, were asked to go out into the garden, and there they found Sarah’s coffin, placed on two chairs outside the front door she
had so often used all her life. The coffin was piled high with daffodils, and Puddy kept her eyes on these, as the Minister said the burial service and led the singing of the twenty-third psalm to
the tune of Crimond. And all the time the sea lapped and foamed at the bottom of the garden, and Miss Sarah’s cosy sisters kept their chins up high, fortified in their knowledge that Sarah
loved this sunny travelling day.