The Tree of Heaven. Sinclair May

a serious spanking.

      "Which of them took Roger out?"

      "I'm sure I don't know, sir," said Williams.

      But Anthony knew. He lay in wait for Nicky by the door that led from the stable yard into the kitchen garden.

      Nicky was in the strawberry bed.

      "Was it you who took Roger out this afternoon?"

      Nicky did not answer promptly. His mouth was still full of strawberries.

      "What if I did?" he said at last, after manifest reflection.

      "If you did? Why, you let him down on Golders Hill and cut his knees."

      "Holly Mount," said Nicky.

      "Holly Mount or Golders Hill, it's all the same to you, you young monkey."

      "It isn't, Daddy. Holly Mount's much the worst. It's an awful hill."

      "That," said Anthony, "is why you're forbidden to ride down it. You've got to be spanked for this, Nicky."

      "Have I? All right. Don't look so unhappy, Daddy."

      Anthony did much better this time. Nicky (though he shook with laughter) owned it very handsomely. And Anthony had handicapped himself again by doing it through the cloth. He drew the line at shaming Nicky. (Yet--could you have shamed his indomitable impudence?)

      But he had done it. He had done it ruthlessly, while the strawberries were still wet on Nicky's mouth.

      And when it was all over Michael, looking for his father, came into the school-room where these things happened. He said he was awfully sorry, but he'd taken Roger out, and Roger had gone down on his knees and cut himself.

      No, it wasn't on Holly Mount, it was at the turn of the road on the hill past the "Spaniards."

      Anthony paid no attention to Michael. He turned on Michael's brother.

      "Nicky, what did you do it for?"

      "For a rag, of course. I knew you'd feel such a jolly fool when you found it wasn't me."

      "You see, Daddy," he explained later, "you might have known I wouldn't have let Roger down. But wasn't it a ripping sell?"

      "What are you to do," said Anthony, "with a boy like that?"

      Frances had an inspiration. "Do nothing," she said. Her tranquillity refused to be troubled for long together.

      "Nicky's right. It's no good trying to punish him. After all, why punish Nicky? It isn't as if he was really naughty. He never does unkind things, or mean things. And he's truthful."

      "Horribly truthful. They all are," said Anthony.

      "Well, then, what does Nicky do?"

      "He does dangerous things."

      "He forgets."

      "Nothing more dangerous than forgetting. We must punish him to make him remember."

      "But it doesn't make him remember. It only makes him think us fools."

      "You know what it means?" said Anthony. "We shall have to send him to school."

      "Not yet," said Frances.

      School was the thing in the future that she dreaded. Nicky was only nine, and they were all getting on well with Mt. Parsons. Anthony knew that to send Nicky to school now would be punishing Frances, not Nicky. The little fiend would only grin in their faces if they told him he was going to school.

      It was no use trying to make impressions on Nicky. He was as hard as nails. He would never feel things.

      Perhaps, Frances thought, it was just as well.

V

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      "I do think it was nice of Jane," said Nicky, "to have Jerry."

      "And I do think it was nice of me," said Dorothy, "to give him to you."

      Jane was Dorothy's cat; therefore her kittens were Dorothy's.

      "I wouldn't have given him to just anybody."

      "I know," said Nicky.

      "I might have kept him. He's the nicest kitten Jane ever had."

      "I know," said Nicky. "It was nice of you."

      "I might want him back again."

      "I--know."

      Nicky was quiet and serious, almost humble, as if he went in the fear of losing Jerry. Nobody but Jerry and Dorothy saw Nicky in that mood.

      Not that he was really afraid. Nothing could take Jerry from him. If Dorothy could have taken him back again she wouldn't have, not even if she had really wanted him. Dorothy wasn't cruel, and she was only ragging.

      But certainly he was Jane's nicest kitten. Jane was half-Persian, white with untidy tabby patterns on her. Jerry was black all over. Whatever attitude he took, his tight, short fur kept the outlines of his figure firm and clear, whether he arched his back and jumped sideways, or rolled himself into a cushion, or squatted with haunches spread and paws doubled in under his breast, or sat bolt upright with his four legs straight like pillars, and his tail curled about his feet. Jerry's coat shone like black looking-glass, and the top of his head smelt sweet, like a dove's breast.

      And he had yellow eyes. Mary-Nanna said they would turn green some day. But Nicky didn't believe it. Mary-Nanna was only ragging. Jerry's eyes would always be yellow.

      Mr. Parsons declared that Nicky sat for whole hours meditating on Jerry, as if in this way he could make him last longer.

      Jerry's life was wonderful to Nicky. Once he was so small that his body covered hardly the palm of your hand; you could see his skin; it felt soft and weak through the thin fur, sleeked flat and wet where Jane had licked it. His eyes were buttoned up tight. Then they opened. He crawled feebly on the floor after Jane, or hung on to her little breasts, pressing out the milk with his clever paws. Then Jerry got older. Sometimes he went mad and became a bat or a bird, and flew up the drawing-room curtains as if his legs were wings.

      Nicky said that Jerry could turn himself into anything he pleased; a hawk, an owl, a dove, a Himalayan bear, a snake, a flying squirrel, a monkey, a rabbit, a panther, and a little black lamb of God.

      Jerry was a cat now; he was two years old.

      Jerry's fixed idea seemed to be that he was a very young cat, and that he must be nursed continually, and that nobody but Nicky must nurse him. Mr. Parsons found that Nicky made surprising progress in his Latin and Greek that year. What had baffled Mr. Parsons up till now had been Nicky's incapacity for sitting still. But he would sit still enough when Jerry was on his knee, pressed tight between the edge of the desk and Nicky's stomach, so that knowledge entered into Nicky through Jerry when there was no other way.

      Nicky would even sit still in the open air to watch Jerry as he stalked bees in the grass, or played by himself, over and over again, his own enchanted game. He always played it in the same way. He started from the same clump in the border, to run in one long careening curve across the grass; at the same spot in the lawn he bounded sideways and gave the same little barking grunt and dashed off into the bushes. When you tried to catch him midway he stood on his hind legs and bowed to you slantwise, waving his forepaws, or rushed like lightning up the tree of Heaven, and climbed into the highest branches and clung there, looking down at you. His yellow eyes shone through the green leaves; they quivered; they played; they mocked you with some challenge, some charm, secret and divine and savage.

      "The soul of Nicky is in that cat," Frances said.

      Jerry knew that he was Nicky's cat. When other people caught him he scrabbled over