In 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’.
I also noticed with disgust the used shotgun cartridges scattered about on mounds and in newly dug shooting trenches. It was with a feeling of extreme disquiet that I realized why the ducks had fled at our approach and why I would never come back here again. I turned for home, with my hopes of a happy afternoon spent gathering fir cones and blackberries in communion with nature dashed. I was sick to my stomach at the way some people so abuse our natural treasures which I believe belong to everyone to admire and preserve. I muttered bitterly to myself all the way back with Toby Jug running alongside to keep up with my angry pace and giving me quizzical sidelong looks as he
tuned into my changed mood. I subsequently learned that the lake and adjoining wood had been acquired by a property developer who leased it out to shooting parties. Sometime later I heard with relish that the ducks had abandoned the lake and were nesting up river instead.
During the half-term college break, I turned my attention to various jobs that needed attention around the cottage. I decided it was time to dig up the potatoes I had grown in my vegetable garden. I could give some of these, along with other vegetables, to St Michael’s Church for their imminent harvest festival service. Happening upon a dry spell of weather during the week’s break, I started digging up my crop. It was a golden autumn day, full of sunshine and warm breezes, just as I imagined an Indian summer should be. Toby Jug was as usual dogging my footsteps, wanting to be involved in everything I did. He felt obliged to give an investigatory sniff at everything I unearthed but would at times wander off in boredom to chase late summer butterflies, only to return and stare fixedly at the spot where I was digging. I would then drop the potatoes into a large bucket of water to clean them.
As the day wore on it grew warmer and I began to sweat profusely. Leaning on my spade for a brief rest I decided to shed my T-shirt. When I turned round, to my astonishment, I saw that Toby Jug had climbed into the bucket and was sitting on the potatoes, up to his neck in water. I was
flabbergasted. Never had I witnessed anything like it before. I thought that cats and water did not mix but the heat had perhaps become too much for him and he had obviously decided to take a bath.
As I stared at him incredulously he leapt out of the bucket, shook himself rather like a wet dog and then settled near my feet. All genetics aside, as a Maine Coon Toby Jug really did have characteristics which were remarkably similar to the racoon, including being an decent swimmer when the need arose. Then I remembered how he had jumped into the stream at the Ingram Valley and nearly drowned in an attempt to join Fynn, but the force of the current had been more than he could manage. As the afternoon wore on I noticed him several times climbing into the bucket of water to cool off. He also started rooting in the bucket with his paws for potatoes which he then played with on the grass. I was still learning more about this cat every day.
Later that week I bought some fibreglass material to insulate the roof of the cottage. On a cold morning, when the sunny weather of the previous weekend was but a distant memory and nature was blowing up a wet storm, I opened up the attic and began the tedious and tricky job of laying the rolls of insulation material. I had been told that it would reduce my heating costs significantly by trapping more of the heat inside.
Toby Jug, as usual, was interested in what was going on and insisted on climbing the ladder into the attic area. I hadn’t thought cats could climb ladders. I left him to prowl around while I was laying the obnoxious material which kept prickling the skin of my hands and knees and which Toby Jug, after just one encounter, studiously avoided.
Suddenly, a crisis developed when Toby Jug disturbed a pipistrelle bat in hibernation somewhere amongst the eaves. Realizing that he was about to catch it I made a desperate lunge and grabbed his tail before he could move in for the kill, or more likely to play with it as Toby Jug was not the killer type. Sadly, the end result for the bat would have been the same so I pulled Toby away from the corner of the attic and as I did so he dug in his claws and dragged out a wrapped bundle tied in old fashioned farmer’s twine. It was covered in cobwebs and dust from the roof and I doubted whether it had seen the light of day for a long time. I pulled Toby Jug back to me by his tail and severely chastised him. Giving him an admonitory smack on the rump I sent him unceremoniously down the ladder. The bat had escaped unharmed due to my quick headlong tackle which meant, however, that now my whole body was covered in prickly fibreglass strands.
Feeling itchy all over and very uncomfortable I climbed down from the loft to change my clothes before attempting to finish the job. On my way to the bathroom I saw Toby Jug
sitting on the staircase windowsill with his back deliberately turned to me to show that he was in a huff. Later, having completed laying the insulation in double quick time to protect my skin from further ravages, I remembered the bundle which Toby Jug had inadvertently found. Finding it again I carried it downstairs and unwrapped it on the kitchen table. To my great surprise it contained a primitive percussion shotgun belonging, I imagined, to the era of black powder and lead shot. It was a handsomely made weapon, with a reddish walnut stock and a ramrod aligned under the barrel. Where the stock met the barrel there was a silver mounting built into the wood with the name ‘Braithwaite’ inscribed on it. I was interested in this gun as a relic of the ways in which the inhabitants of my cottage in the early nineteenth century had lived and I decided to try to find out more about my find, or more precisely, Toby Jug’s find.
Subsequent research at the City Library in Newcastle identified the gun as having been manufactured between 1770 and 1815. Further investigation in Alnwick’s library revealed that, around the time of the 1830s, the area where my cottage is located was ruled over by a local squire who leased the land from the Duke of Northumberland. The land was in turn leased to tenant farmers who employed labourers to work their fields and care for the livestock. The farm labourers and their families would be housed in what were called ‘tied’ cottages as part of the employment contract.
Whilst I hate the idea of hunting and shooting for sport, I can understand how these poverty stricken farm labourers would need to kill wild game birds and animals in order to feed their families and there is no shame on them for that. If caught, the penalties imposed by the autocratic landowners, who were often also the local magistrates, could be extremely severe and in some cases the poachers paid severely for their misdemeanours. Whoever lived in what was now Owl Cottage had probably secreted away his shotgun to avoid prosecution and the subsequent loss of his livelihood and home.
In the last century the area in which I live must have been teeming with wildlife ripe for poaching, as even now the place abounds with living creatures. The River Coquet remains a prime fishing water which is strictly supervised by the Anglers’ Association with an appointed bailiff. From the ancient stone bridge in Felton, just 200 yards down from my cottage, it is possible to catch a glimpse of salmon, sea trout and more often brown trout as they leisurely wend their way upstream. While in the fields and woods adjacent to the river, there is an abundance of hares and rabbits, always prime targets for the local, as well as the itinerant, poacher.
Both at nightfall and in the early dawn I have often caught a glimpse of wild roe deer as they move along the wooded parts of the river banks. Once, during a walk in
the early summer with Toby Jug on a harnessed lead, I met a fisherman who pointed me towards a hollow among the fir trees where a hind had hidden her fawn. Toby was immensely interested in the fawn and it was lovely to see the two animals as they touched noses without any fear of each other. The creature couldn’t have been more than a couple of days old and it looked up at me with large amber eyes, for all the world just like Bambi in the Walt Disney film. I continued my walk and when I returned I looked for the fawn again but it had gone, although Toby kept sniffing around the ground where it had been as if he could find out through his nose exactly what had taken place.
After Toby had discovered the gun, I sought him out. He was sitting at the kitchen window watching the bird-table and chittering with rage at the blue caps and chaffinches who were noisily flying to and fro. He was clearly upset because I had smacked him when he was only playing and he obviously didn’t understand the reason why. I rarely had to discipline Toby in any way and, although I had really only tapped him lightly, I had upset his feelings and he wouldn’t look my way. I sought to redeem myself somewhat in his eyes by opening a small tin of red salmon for his tea as a gesture of friendship and as a reward for finding the gun, even if it was by accident. Toby Jug accepted my peace offering and friendly relations were restored.
As for the gun, I hung it from the oak beam embedded above the stone lintel of the fireplace and regarded it as a charmed survivor of the area’s past. And there it stayed. I wouldn’t have dared fire it even if I knew how since it would probably have blown my head off, but it was a fitting reminder of olden times. Whenever I looked at it I was reminded of the people who lived a very different kind of life from mine between these stone walls and who warmed themselves from the very same fireplace in front of which Toby Jug and I passed away many happy hours.
Some days after this incident, Toby Jug disappeared, although the two events were not related. He wasn’t there when I returned home from the college and he didn’t appear at all that evening. Unable to eat my tea or relax, I searched everywhere including the most unlikely places a cat would go. As the evening wore on without any sight of him my worry grew to a deep seated fear that tore at my mind. I imagined the worst that could have happened to him and my fantasies became even more fevered as the time ticked away.
Eventually I left the cottage to yet again make a search by torchlight of the fields and copses surrounding the cottage. I knocked on neighbour’s doors to ask them if they had seen him, prevailed upon them to open outhouses and garages in vain searches and at last arrived at the bar of the
Northumberland Arms in a state of physical and emotional exhaustion. None of the assembled drinkers had any news of a missing black-and-white cat but some had woeful stories of pet animals that had gone missing without trace and had never been seen again. A feeling of sickening dread overwhelmed me and the landlord, sensing my despair, offered a complimentary glass of whiskey. The bar talk returned to more mundane events, albeit more hushed, and I was left in a solitary state at one end of the bar to dwell on my fears.
Suddenly my ears pricked up at a mention from the far end of the bar that the Percy Hunt had been active in the area during the morning. It appeared that several foxes had been caught by the hounds which had coursed through the local farmlands. Faces tautened and eyes lowered at my avid questions as to whether foxhounds ever savaged cats.
‘I’ve seen hounds on the scent in a full run take anything in their path. Once they savaged a sheep dog that got in their way and it had to be put down,’ said Les an ex-gamekeeper and local savant.
Feeling really sick at heart I hastily left to return home and nurse my grief. There was no sign of Toby at the cottage and, too tired to search any more, I lay down on the settee and fell into a fitful sleep.
Nothing had changed by the morning and feeling desperate without Toby Jug I set off for work with a heavy heart. On
my way home that evening I left printed notices in the Post Office and local shop offering a reward for any news of my cat. The cottage was a bleak and lonely place without him and, although I made every effort to keep busy, I couldn’t stop thinking about Toby Jug and wanting at the very least to know what had happened to him. I tried without success to stop imagining him being torn to pieces by foxhounds but the images prevailed. I couldn’t bring myself to remove his dishes and his basket but every time I saw them I experienced denial, a surge of unreasonable hope that because they were still there he was bound to somehow return alive. I also remonstrated with myself for the odd times that I had reprimanded him for doing something wrong, as I had done just a few days earlier. I looked for him again before I went to bed and again in the morning after a poor night’s sleep. There was still no sign of him. I missed him terribly.
On my way to work I called into the Running Fox for my morning paper. Just as I was leaving, Helen, the shopkeeper, called me back.
‘Betty Green was trying to get in touch with you yesterday but she didn’t say why, only I was to tell you to telephone her urgently when you could.’
My heart leapt at the news. Betty was a local farmer’s wife who lived nearby at Oak Grove Farm. I couldn’t help but hope that she might have news of Toby Jug. Hurrying to
college to make my 9 a.m. lecture I was not free to telephone until much later. It was almost lunchtime before I could break free from the tedium of student tutorials to telephone the number Helen had kindly written on the front page of my copy of The Times. There was no answer although I rang several times. There was also a staff meeting that afternoon which I had to attend and I was on edge until it ended at 5.30 p.m. Then I was at last free to ring Betty’s number again.
The phone was answered immediately. It was Betty.
‘Oh I’m so glad you rang,’ she said in her soft Scottish accent. ‘It’s just that I saw your notice in the Post Office window and it started me thinking about a wee stray cat we found in one of our byres.’
‘What colour is it?’ I asked with a lump in my throat, willing it to be Toby Jug. I waited, fearful of her reply.
‘Well it’s hard to tell ’cause it’s all covered in mud but it seems to have a black-and-white face from what we could see. It’s hard to get near it ’cause the wee thing’s awful nervous. I think you’d better come over and see for yourself,’ she concluded.
I told her I’d be there as soon as I could. Filled with new heart-thudding hope I set off at once for the farm.
Betty and Joe Green met me as I drove into the farmyard. At the sound and sight of my car their two sheepdogs were roused to a fit of barking, but at a soft word from Joe they
subsided to frenetic tail-wagging. It was getting dark but I saw that Betty held a huge torch the size of a lantern by her side.
‘It’s over in the cowshed,’ Joe said, and bade the dogs to lie and stay.
It was dark and there were pungent animal smells in the shed which had a stone-tiled floor. As Betty shone her torch all I could see were lumps of mud and cow dung spattered with straw.
‘It’s there in the corner,’ she pointed as Joe stood back lighting his pipe.
Stooping low under a wooden crossbeam I peered into the corner. Suddenly I saw him. It was Toby Jug as I’d never before seen him. Dirty and bedraggled with the pathetic look of the waif, he lay blinking his green eyes in the fierce torchlight. Relief flooded through me like a blood transfusion.
‘Is it yours?’ Betty’s voice intruded.
‘Yes!’ I gasped as I picked him up and hugged him to my chest, concern for the plight he was in smarting my eyes with tears. ‘Most certainly yes, he’s mine all right; thank you, thank you both,’ I managed to blurt out, overwhelmed as I was with relief and joy.
Betty insisted, in that kind way that farming people have, that I should come back to the farmhouse for a warm drink and some supper. I was about to put Toby Jug in the car to wait for me but Betty wouldn’t hear of it.
‘You must bring him into the kitchen so I can clean the wee thing up for you. I’ll not be having him going back with you in that state,’ she said firmly.
Joe and I sat in the farmhouse kitchen, drinking steaming mugs of hot chocolate and eating home-cooked, cinnamon-flavoured apple pie. Meanwhile, Betty washed Toby Jug in a large bathtub that she ordinarily used for the dogs. Huge but gentle hands that had delivered many a lamb and calf now cleaned and soothed my stricken Toby Jug as if he were a baby lamb. He lay still, totally compliant, with only the occasional glance in my direction, as she worked her healing charm and we ate and we talked.
It appeared that Toby Jug had been found on the day after the hunt. Joe had noticed him first. They had an enormous black cat aptly called Black Bob whom Joe saw was paying rapt attention to something in the corner of the cow byre. At first Joe thought it must be a rat then he saw that Black Bob was actually licking and attempting to groom a small cat which was caked in mud and looked half-dead. The amazing thing about it, Joe told me, was that normally Black Bob would attack and chase away any cat that invaded his territory.
‘Except for that grey she-cat last Autumn,’ Betty cut in. ‘They ran together for days on end,’ she said.
‘Aye but that were different,’ Joe said. ‘They were mating. Black Bob’s a heck of a tom cat.’ He chuckled, proud of his
cat’s prowess. ‘Come nights I could hear her wailing with the mating like, then she disappeared.’
As I listened my mind clicked with the realization that here could possibly be the final piece of the puzzle regarding the mystery of Toby Jug’s parentage. It all dropped into place. I started to feel sure as I glanced at the magnificently sleek body of Black Bob lying in a rapture of warmth in front of the Aga cooker. Could it possibly be that he was Toby’s father? That was why he hadn’t attacked Toby Jug for invading his territory. Somehow, by means only known to cats, he had recognized his own offspring. Either that or he’d taken pity on Toby Jug, small and frightened as he would have been.
Whilst I was lost in my own thoughts, Joe had continued his account of how Toby Jug had been found. In answer to my questioning it appeared that Joe and Betty had at various times tried to catch Toby Jug and find out what was wrong with him. But since they were both quite stout in build and Toby was scared stiff, they hadn’t succeeded. Joe reckoned that somehow Toby Jug had got in the way of the hunt and had fled to the farmyard. On the way he would have had to run through the mud pool at the end of the field leading to the farm. That must have been how he ended up caked in mud.
‘Clarts,’ Joe said, referring to the mud. ‘He was covered in clarts when I first set eyes on him but what I can’t understand
is how Black Bob has taken to him. It’s beyond me,’ he finished, puffing away at his pipe.
Just as I had done with Mrs Erskins I explained what I knew to Betty and Joe.
‘I knew there were something special about that silver she-cat,’ Joe said. ’I could have sworn she wasn’t from hereabouts. ’
By this time we were all tired and Toby Jug was dry and snug, lying fast asleep next to Black Bob. It was long past midnight when Toby Jug and I left Joe and Betty at Oak Grove Farm. It had been an historic occasion in more ways than one. Toby Jug now looked little the worse for his ordeal but I knew the emotional scars would remain with him for some time. Never again would he run with the fox and hounds. I could bank on that.
In the days that followed Toby Jug gradually regained his strength and lively personality. How many lives have you left? I asked him. But he was away up the apple tree foraging for insects and the like and seemed oblivious to the threat of dangers which had now passed into his subconscious. It was great to have him back and I slept only moderately that first night of his return, waking periodically to check and reassure myself that he was asleep at the foot of my bed and that I wasn’t dreaming. He had returned and was alive and well. I slept with the hope that his adventures were over for the present, at least. And I felt satisfied in my own mind that I
had finally found the cat which had fathered him. So much for the meaning of that thing called coincidence.
Soon preparations for Christmas were in full swing. There were concerts to celebrate the end of term at the college, and in Alnwick town the various churches were rehearsing for their carol services and Christmas concerts. The shops everywhere were putting up their decorations and lights. Atop the Bondgate Tower, the Duke had given permission for the town council to erect, for the first time, a neon-lit Santa Claus with sledge and reindeer. All together, the town was looking very jolly, in stark contrast to the weather which was fiercely cold and damp.
There is a special feeling about Christmas time which, for me at least, neither age nor blatant commercialism can demean. It evokes in most of us feelings of nostalgia which are vintage childhood and images of the story of the birth of Jesus, the exciting tales of Santa Claus and the opening of longed-for presents are carried with us for a lifetime. Parties and seasonal food, such as roast turkey and Christmas pudding, tend to make us as adults regress to the happy times of childhood as we waited in eager anticipation for Christmas Eve. I tried to capture this innocent spirit of Christmas in the cottage.
It would have to be an extra special celebration this year because it was Toby Jug’s first Christmas and soon he would
be one year old. The intense feelings that people have about Christmas can be infectious and so it proved in the cottage with Toby Jug. He joined in wholeheartedly with my own excitement when one dreary wet Sunday afternoon I began to dress the Christmas tree. The colourful baubles and strings of tinsel were a delight to him and I had to frequently restrain him from trying to leap up among the tree decorations. I have to admit that Toby’s enthusiasm for life in general made the preparations for Christmas that year less of a chore and more of a shared joy. He was a great companion. With him around there was never a dull moment.
I have a tradition at Christmas which derives from my childhood days when my family lived near Axwell Park, close to Blaydon-on-Tyne. On Christmas mornings, after church and when the presents had been opened, my sisters and I would go for a walk down to the lake in the park and feed the swans. If it was a cold winter’s day then we would have to break the ice at the lakeside to feed them. When the birds saw us with our pieces of bread they would leave the open water near the island where they nested and come gracefully flapping and sliding across the ice to us. It was a rare experience to be so close to these wild birds who would sometimes leave the water to be hand-fed. Images recalled from those times always come into my mind as Christmas approaches – standing in the frosted grass, under a grey sky,
with the gaunt shapes of the mist-shrouded trees in the background and the coldness piercing our muffled forms, freezing our hands and ears. And then returning home to look again at our presents and feast on roast turkey with all the trimmings. These for me are among the best residues of my childhood past.
Now, at Christmas time, whenever I can I go for an early morning walk by a lake and take bread to feed the ducks and swans as a gesture to fond memories and to make a contribution to nature in the spirit of charity to all creatures. Since coming to live at the cottage I had been able to indulge this ritual by going down to the local lake just beyond St Michael’s Church. This year I had a lot to be thankful for, especially because of the cat in my life, and I wanted it to be a particularly good day, one to remember.
On Christmas morning I was up and out of bed very early. Toby Jug was up before me although he often slept late on the dark mornings of winter. On this occasion he was rooting around the cottage to find one of his red balls for a solo play session. Usually, once it was daylight, I would find him staring through the bedroom window at the feathered activity on the garden bird-table. I had no central heating in the cottage then, so in winter the window panes often frosted over during the night with characteristic white starry shapes. Toby Jug, cute little beast that he was, had got into the habit of licking the window pane, probably for the sharp
cold taste on his tongue but possibly so that he could see outside.
On this morning it was still dark outside and although the windowpanes were heavily frosted over he hadn’t bothered with them. As I was putting on my dressing gown he joined me and we went downstairs together. I laboured to clear and light the fire as he kept nudging my legs with his head to remind me that he wanted his breakfast. Normally, I fed him first before I did anything else. Today was different, but he had no way of knowing that. I didn’t want to feed him just at that moment because we would be having roast turkey for lunch so he had to suffice with a saucer of milk and a small portion of dried cat food. This did not go down at all well with him and he kept following me about and darting between my legs. Several times I almost tripped over him.
Having started the fire and sipped a few mouthfuls of hot tea, I got the car out at once, whilst it was still dark, because there was much to do. Since we could not go to the nearby lake in the woods as there were no longer any ducks there, Toby Jug and I set off for Bolam Lake which was several miles away.
Driving beneath a black and sullen sky we drove towards the lake deep in the Rothbury Hills. I like driving on country roads when there is nobody else about and on this morning our car was the first to make tracks on the white,
frost-covered road. Toby Jug sat on the back of the front passenger seat staring fixedly ahead, excited at where we were going at this unusual time in the morning. As we rounded a particularly sharp bend a barn owl flapped away in front of us, carrying something in its talons, probably a rat. Toby Jug almost fell off his perch trying to see more of this ghostly white marauder. It was sights like this, of nature in the raw, that made me happy to be living in these parts.
As we drew near to the lake the sky, although clouded, began to brighten ever so slightly. I parked the car between two thick oak trees close to the water. The first orange glow of dawn silhouetted the dark shapes of willows against the frosted lakeside. The lake itself remained hidden beneath long wisps of smoky mist lying just above the surface. I collected a bag of scraps from the car boot and strolled towards the water’s edge, my boots crunching in the frozen carpet of leaves. Toby Jug was scampering along eagerly at my heels and glancing up at me now and again, his green eyes reflecting the early dawn light. He loved having new experiences as much as I did and he wasn’t the least bit afraid as long as we were together. He trotted with his nose held high to sniff the air and to fully relish the scents and sights of this new place.
As I had hoped, the swans and the ducks were there, emerging eerily through the mist to consume the scraps of food I tossed them. Some of the ducks waded ashore,
jostling each other for the morsels I’d dropped. Toby Jug and the ducks eyed each other suspiciously and he retreated to my side in the face of their advance. As for the ducks, hunger won the day over any apprehensions they might have had about cats. Toby wasn’t the sort of cat to attack a full-grown duck but I expect the ducks couldn’t be sure about that. The swans didn’t even leave the water, stretching their elegant necks instead to take the best morsels for themselves. At the sight of them, floating serenely nearer to us, Toby Jug leapt on to my shoulder and gazed at them with awe. He’d never seen birds as big as this before and they were making quite a strong impression on him.
Shaking the last crumbs from the bag I suddenly felt a shiver run through me and when I looked I could see that Toby’s fur was fully fluffed out in reaction to the cold. The quiet stillness of the dawn we had briefly witnessed was being swept away by a chill wind making wavelets on the lake and ruffling the feathers of the ducks. As the mist dispersed I could see the swans swimming away to the sheltered side of the lake in the lee of some pine trees. It was time to wish them and the ducks a ‘Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’, and to go home. We hurried back to the comfort of the car, our good deed done and family tradition intact.
By the time we arrived back home it was full daylight but dull and cold so that we needed all the lights on in the house. The fire, which I’d banked with coal before leaving,
was a welcome red mass of heat and Toby Jug and I huddled round it to warm ourselves, me with my back to it and he staring straight into the burning coals. It was time for a festive drink. For Toby Jug it was a saucer of warm evaporated milk; for me it was a glass of hot mulled wine. I toasted his health and wished him a Happy Christmas and he reciprocated by jumping on my shoulder and licking my ear. Now it was time to open the presents that I’d placed under the Christmas tree.
Mine were an assortment of ties, socks and a shirt from my mother and sisters. Diane Forester, the colleague at work whose horse I had looked after during the summer months, had bought me a litre bottle of cognac from the French resort where she and the family had spent the summer holidays. It was especially welcome.
Toby Jug, full of curiosity as usual, playfully pounced and dived among the present wrappings and ribbons as if their sole purpose had been for his amusement. There were two presents for him. One was a deluxe cat basket which was built along the lines of an igloo. It had a fluffy, washable mat inside and outside, on the red-coloured fabric, in bold black letters it bore the name ‘Toby Jug’. After thoroughly inspecting it with his nose he climbed inside and lay down as if he’d decided that this was what was expected of him.
When I came to open his second present he was still inside, so I had to lift him out to present him with a brand
new red leather fur-lined cat collar complete with three bells and a new address disc. I’d added the bells to his collar because recently I’d seen him suspiciously eyeballing some of the songbirds, especially a robin redbreast, in the cottage garden. It would also keep me aware of his movements and stop me worrying when we went walking together and he wandered off to the side and flanked me through the woods.
The presents were a great success but the highlight of the day for Toby Jug was the Christmas lunch. He disgraced himself by demanding so many helpings of turkey, followed by a sizeable dish of fresh cream, that afterwards he could only just make it as far as the sitting room. He was quite incapable, as well as unwilling, to move from his place by the fire for the rest of the day. He surreptitiously opened only one eye as I left the cottage for an evening visit to church, but remained lying there stretched out in absolute contentment, the epitome of a relaxed cat. As I left the room, teasing him about his overfed state (to which he literally didn’t even blink an eye), an age-old saying came to mind, ‘A greedy man’s wagon is never full’.
Toby Jug’s first Christmas and New Year were truly memorable for all sorts of reasons but especially for the friendliness and joy he brought into my life. I had never known a cat like him. On the one hand he was as extroverted and
friendly as a little dog but on the other hand he professed the independence and introverted self-containment of the proverbial cat. The unique way in which he had been reared by me had a lot to do with his personality, I’m sure, but there was also his Maine Coon inheritance. This was also an influential factor. Every living thing has singular qualities which make it different from others, even creatures of the same species and breed. Toby Jug, because of the conditions of his early environment, was most definitely a one-off.
As well the domestic life he had with me in the cottage and which he appeared to enjoy to the full, Toby Jug responded to the primitive call of the wild. Increasingly, he displayed the innermost urge to wander at will in the fields and woods near our home for longer periods of time. He was assuredly my pet cat but he was also his own cat. I had worried at times that because I had been so instrumental in his upbringing he might become something of a neurotic house cat, afraid of his own natural instincts and terrified to leave the safety of the cottage. I was very relieved to observe that, while his close attachment to me was indisputable, Toby Jug had enough of a wild streak to give him his natural rights and dignity as an animal.
In this respect I didn’t scold him when just after New Year he brought me a present of a mouse which he’d killed and, some days later, a weasel; I praised him for the clever cat he was. To my knowledge he never did kill a bird. I believe that
he knew that somehow I wouldn’t be happy with him if he did that. I had told him so and perhaps he understood me and respected my wishes but I sensed he didn’t like birds at all, especially big birds. His hunt adventure and near death in the jaws of the foxhounds had taught him to be cannier in his wanderings. For all that, though, Toby Jug had a life and a mind of his own.
Sometimes when I was returning home whilst it was still daylight, I would stop the car on a hill, in a parking bay by the roadside, overlooking the countryside adjacent to the cottage. Then I would take out the binoculars I carried with me in the car and scan the fields and hedgerows for Toby Jug. He was quite distinctive with his white vest and white paws and I could literally see him a mile away.
On one particular occasion I spotted him investigating every ditch and tree stump along his way, happily unaware of the fact that I was watching his every move. I was proud to see him doing his own thing. Another time, in late October, I caught sight of him stalking rabbits in the stubble of a hayfield. All at once he stopped sniffing the grass in front of him and looked directly at me, his face so intent in my eyeglasses that it startled me. It was as if he could see me. But then I rationalized it by telling myself that it was probably something in the foreground which had caught his eye.
However, there are stories about cats that suggest they may have psychic powers and maybe, just maybe, Toby Jug
sensed that I was there. Uncanny as it might seem, on the day when I thought he’d become aware of me watching him through binoculars, he was there to greet me at the gate when I drove in. What this meant was that even if he’d taken his own shortcuts, he must have covered about a mile on foot whilst I drove in a round about way four miles along the twisting road. Cats are incredible creatures and there were many times that Toby Jug impressed me with just how incredible a cat he was.
Of course, I continued to worry about him. One incident which startled me happened when I was taking my habitual evening stroll through the garden, waiting to see the bats. Toby Jug was somewhere close about when a car braked hard and screeched to a stop in the roadway fronting the cottage and then hastily roared off. Almost at once a long-haired tortoiseshell cat streaked up my drive and suddenly dropped in her tracks. I hurried over to find a lovely cat in her death throes. Obviously, she had been hit by the car I had just heard. There wasn’t anything I could do for her as she was bleeding badly from the mouth and had most certainly been ruptured inside. I knelt by her and tried to comfort her by gently stroking her head and within a short time she convulsed and died.
Just after this happened there came a sound from nearby which was so eerie it made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and sent a cold shudder right through me. It was
Toby Jug, a short distance away, staring at the dead cat and emitting a deep hollow sound which I’d never heard before nor since and which I can best describe as a cat howl. It was unearthly to hear and so blood-chilling that it filled me with fear. I went to him and gathered him up in my arms. His body was trembling. Pacifying him at length, I shut him in the cottage. I then gathered up the dead cat and laid it in a prominent place by the roadside, hoping its owner would find the body and at least know what had happened to it. The dead cat wore a collar but no address tag so I just had to leave it there.
In the morning I looked out for it but the body and the plastic bag on which I’d placed it had gone. Toby Jug was most upset that night and insisted on sleeping near me on the bed even though he’d become accustomed to sleeping in his new igloo in the bedroom. I concluded from these strange happenings that, although I know a lot about cats, there are still a lot of things that cats know that I do not.
Literature about the Maine Coon emphasises that this breed is remarkably intelligent. From my own experience with cats I can support this statement. I found Toby Jug to be extraordinarily clever, which was all the more surprising in view of his traumatic start in life. He proved to be the brightest of all the cats I have known. Not wishing to demean those other clever animals in any way, Toby Jug was superior. A great deal of what made Toby Jug so exceptional
was that, although I knew him well in so many ways, there were things about him that remained a mystery to me. This is what made our relationship fascinating. I had, in him, a piece of pure and profound cat nature.
Shortly after the turn of the year the weather changed for the worst in the Coquet Valley, as so often happens in these parts of Northumberland. A significant date was looming in my mind which at one time I hadn’t dared even think about, let alone hope for. It was the date of the anniversary of finding Toby Jug. On 21 January, it would be one complete year from the time when I had set out in the snow to rescue his mother and found her kittens. I determined to make it a special occasion.
As I was driving back from work, it started to snow and by the time I reached the cottage it was falling heavily enough to lay a thick white carpet on the road. The weather closed in exactly as it had done the previous year. It snowed as if it would never stop. Roads were becoming blocked, while bushes, trees, fells and hills all around became lost in the snowscape.
Toby Jug was waiting for me under the protective umbrella of the giant fir tree and came bounding to greet me as I alighted from the car. He leapt on to my shoulder and began the welcome home routine that I now knew so well and looked forward to so much (even though the left
shoulder of all my jackets were beginning to have a somewhat worn look).
That evening, as a celebration, I cooked us both a tasty meal of fresh cod in a white creamy sauce. I had a glass of claret and Toby had a saucer of evaporated milk just for old time’s sake. Afterwards, I built up the huge fire grate with some of the logs I’d cut in summer until there was enough heat from their blaze to chase away any of the cold memories left in my mind of that tragic night the previous year. For a while Toby Jug lay on my knees, all warm and fluffy, as he snuggled into my old sweater, which he had made a tattered remnant of its former glory. I looked him over as I stroked him. He had grown into a really fine-looking cat. He had a sturdy body and a healthy coat of silken fur. Moreover, he had a strong character and a loveable personality. Above all, Toby Jug was a real companion and I thought of him only in the dearest terms.
Casting my mind back to the beginning I considered it remarkable that one year ago tonight he had lain in an open barn, dying of starvation and hypothermia. Had it merely been chance or was it some other agent of serendipity that had lured me away from a cosy fireside to encounter a tragic drama that was to change my life for the better? When I thought deeply about it I couldn’t decide who had been really rescued, Toby Jug or me. From a philosophical viewpoint I reckon it was mutual.
Later that evening I went to the back door from where I’d heard Toby Jug’s mother screaming in pain on that night which seemed such a long time ago. There was no screaming this night, only deep powdery snowdrifts all around. For the moment the air was clear and the stars were out with a bright half-moon dominating the sky. The countryside was like an enchanting new country. Although I knew it well, that night it seemed wonderfully unfamiliar. The stars were brilliant against the black blanket of the sky, their light appearing to reflect on the snow and ice.
Toby Jug came to the door to see what I was doing. He looked out and decided to go for a prowl. At first he wasn’t sure about this deep white stuff but I saw that he was analysing this experience of snow as yet another of nature’s challenges. Possibly it was something that could be turned into a plaything like leaves blowing in the wind or the wavering tall grasses that were fun to charge. It was as if he couldn’t quite work out why he kept slipping through the powdery surfaces. I chuckled at the sight of the puzzled expression on his face as he tried to work out how a seemingly solid surface could suddenly give way. He didn’t like to see me laughing at him and he whined with the frustration of it all. As he became accustomed to the snow he romped through it with abandon. I watched him overcome his caution at this new experience and he
scooted exuberantly here and there. Even though I was growing cold and starting to shiver I stayed to watch his antics, unable to tear myself away from the sight of him enjoying himself.
Then I vividly recalled his mother and the paw tracks of her desperate flight in the moonlight to rejoin her kittens – paw tracks in the snow which I had followed and which led me to the sick kitten that was now a healthy, full-grown cat. Moving to my warm refuge in the sitting room, I watched him through the window making his own paw tracks in the moonlight. No parent could have been prouder. It was a singularly happy ending to the year for both of us.
Soon, Toby was once again lying by the fire.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if it stays fair tomorrow we’ll have some more fun in the snow.’
Toby looked doubtful, wondering how I could think of something as silly as that. Then we both settled down to an evening of reflection, gently toasting ourselves by the blazing log fire. I sipped a glass of brandy. Toby curled himself into a ball and purred loudly. I wondered if he remembered what happened a year ago. I certainly did.
When morning came, the sky was blue and it didn’t look as if it would snow again. The freezing air made the snow crisp underfoot and, as Toby and I scrunched our way across the garden, on impulse and for the boyish pleasure of it, I decided to build a snowman. Later, I was joined by an inquisitive
Toby Jug who watched me at work from what he considered a safe distance. To please him further, I made a snowcat for him.