Arunah Hyde and the Dark Spell

WHEN he had been with Ebenezer Southmayd and John Gilroy, the weaver, in Castle Town, the kitten had heard at different times great commotions outside. Such commotions he learned came from coaches drawn by four and even six horses. The horses were always straining at their bits, for the whip was plied unceasingly along their flanks, as the drivers, with anxious calls and even oaths, urged them forward. Faster! Faster!

Never having moved at a fast rate himself, the blue kitten could not understand. Neither his mother’s teachings nor the song of the river had given him explanation for the need of haste. Cats moved quickly only to catch mice. And his mother had, he knew, neglected this part of his education.

Yet the blue kitten could understand that the hoofs of the speeding horses might well be dangerous to a kitten, even such an extraordinary kitten as he – for of course he must be extraordinary. It would be wiser, he decided, to walk at the very edge of the highway. So, not having made up his mind in the least as to where he should go to find a hearth, nor of whom he should ask admittance, he started quietly and calmly enough, along the ditch. To be sure the next name – as he remembered it – on the river’s list was that of Arunah Hyde, but he had already made up his mind not to go there, river-list or no river-list.

However, before he had taken half a dozen steps, there was the sound of great commotion behind him, the clatter of a coach, the thudding of horses’ hoofs, the snapping of a whip. The kitten crouched low in the ditch where a cloud of dust, a shower of pebbles, flooded over him as the first of the horses dashed by. In desperation the kitten leaped for the safety of a rock by the side of the road.

Afterward he never could tell whether he reached the rock or whether a long thin hand reaching down from the driver’s seat had snatched him in mid-air. At any rate, the kitten found himself going up and up in a half circle – never had he moved so fast – and landing with a thump, breathless but unhurt, on a cushioned seat. Who? What? But a boastful voice was already answering.

“No one, I tell you, but Arunah Hyde could move fast enough to do that! Now on – ” the man was roaring at the horses – “on to the Mansion House. We must cut at least three seconds from yesterday’s record. Faster, fast …” The thin and cruel whip once more began lashing the sides of the horses.

The blue kitten looked at the roadside moving like a flash on either hand. He would have leaped but he did not dare. So he cowered, low on the seat, the dark spell of Arunah Hyde flooding over him, frightening him, even as it had frightened the weaver.

Then his memory and his hope came to his aid. Surely the river had mentioned this man. And it might be, after all, the river knew there was a hearth in Arunah’s house suitable even for a blue kitten. Arunah Hyde was an important man, that was certain. Even the weaver had bowed low before him.

Just then deep, deep from the kitten’s memory came a very whisper of words, words which until that moment had been quite forgotten. He had been dozing a little, the cat admitted, when the river told him of Arunah. But he had dreamed as he slept. And from that dream – or was it a dream? – came the warning. It seemed as though his left ear, even now, was twitching a little.

Such a memory was silly. What had he come to Castle Town for, if not to sing his song?

“Sing your own song,” began the blue kitten. The purr wasn’t very loud, for the blue kitten was like to sneeze from the dust. Even his teeth felt gritty.

Flash, snap, went the whip, snarling as it bit into the sleek wet sides of the horses. Flash, snap, clack, clack.

“Faster! Faster! We’ve but a minute to go,” yelled Arunah. “There’s yesterday’s record – we must beat that. Beat that!” The whip slashed at the horses, and the man’s eyes were on the watch set deep in a block of wood lashed on the dashboard. He must go faster. He must!

“Sing your own song,” mewed the cat bravely.

“I am singing it,” cried the man through clenched teeth. “Hurry! Hurry!” Up came the whip, and the kitten shuddered with the horses, while Arunah yelled.

“Castle Town shall be the center of the Universe. And I shall be the center of Castle Town!”

And before the blue kitten could catch his breath to start the second line of the river’s song, the coach and six stopped before a most imposing building. The front of it shone white in the sun, for that front was fashioned of marble. Tall white columns were set along a front porch, columns which went up and up.

This was quite different from the humble quarters of Ebenezer Southmayd and John Gilroy. Even the blue kitten was impressed. He would, he decided, at least take a look at the hearth. He jumped down from the cushioned seat, and from habit hastened to test his front claws on the first white column.

Pshaw! He sneezed disdainfully, as white powder showered over him. He did not know that the column was only brick covered with plaster, and not hard like the slabs of the floor at all. He knew only there had been enough dust and sneezing for one morning.

But Arunah was swooping him up once more. “Nice kitty, nice kitty,” he was saying soothingly. “Come into my mansion. You shall drink thick cream from a silver bowl, until …” It was a good thing, perhaps, that the blue kitten could not see the glitter in the man’s eyes, the amused quirk of his mouth.

The man’s voice did sound strange, but the words were words of welcome, so the kitten began stating his terms hopefully.

“And live, I hope, by a warm hearth,” he mewed. Still, even as he asked for this, deep from inside his brain again came the warning – words of caution which he could not recall ever hearing. And this time there was no doubt about it, his left ear was twitching.

Arunah Hyde was putting a silver bowl – he said it was silver, but it was only Ebenezer Southmayd’s cheap tinny metal – in front of the blue kitten. The bowl was filled with yellow cream. The cream was thick and good. The blue kitten weighed eight ounces more after drinking it. He felt changed and comfortable – and a little dull, as he sat down by the edge of a great hearth, where he was in danger of being trod on, to watch what happened next.

It was, the blue kitten soon learned, most exciting to live in the Mansion House. Rush! Rush! Rush! Through the opening door he caught glimpses of this coach and that stopping, exhausted horses with steaming nostrils, their sides wet and dripping and marked always with the whip.

The people the coaches brought streamed in through the doors. The moment they were inside, these travelers were rushed to the tables for mulled cider and brandy.

“Quick! Quick!” Arunah kept calling to the women who prepared and brought great tankards of the steaming drinks.

“Quick! Quick!” he would call to the travelers who were drinking. A horn would sound urgently after Arunah’s words, and the travelers were hurried out. The whips were plied. All day long one stagecoach after another was either appearing or disappearing in clouds of dust, and travelers were streaming in and out of the Mansion House.

Arunah was here. He was there. He was ordering a horse saddled to rush the mail north, for the coach to the north was five minutes overdue. And the mail would be late.

“Late! Late!” cried Arunah, wringing his hands, almost weeping with dismay. “Late! Late!”

Arunah tumbled the blue kitten out of the rocker, for the travelers had crowded him from the hearth. Arunah brushed the kitten off a stool. He crunched his tail underfoot. Or he pushed him with one boot out of his way.

But he fed him often. Thick, yellow cream from the silver bowl that was not silver at all, though Arunah always said that it was. Tinny plates filled with delightful lake salmon, or piled high with chicken. And the blue kitten grew and grew. He gained six ounces more or less every day. His eyes glazed now and then from the abundance of food in his stomach. He was growing fat and lazy.

Arunah paused occasionally to heft him. Then one day he burst out. “My, you are almost grown, blue kitten. When you are a cat you will be fat indeed. Then you will be useful to me. Very useful.”

The blue kitten did not like the sound of the words. It was almost as though they held a threat. Om – om. What was the word he had heard someone say. Ominous! That was it. Ominous! It was about time, decided the kitten, that he teach Arunah the song. He had kept putting it off because the man was so busy. And he had been busy too, drinking cream, eating salmon and chicken. But now that Arunah had paused for a little to admire him, he would see what he could do.

“Purr,” began the blue kitten. He managed to get as far as to purr loudly about the song coming out of yesterday and going into tomorrow. Then using his most persuasive notes the blue kitten begged, “Sing your own song,” when Arunah, the restless, interrupted him.

“I have sung a song. And it is my own,” he boasted. “No one in Castle Town, I tell you, has sung such a song, nor sung so fast, nor so loudly. For who else has done what I have done? And who will be remembered as I, Arunah Hyde, shall be remembered?

“For I came to this town a poor boy, dependent on my relations. I swept people’s floors, anyone’s floors. I clerked in a store. I was at everyone’s bidding. But I worked. How I worked, and I went without. I saved every penny till I bought that store. I, Arunah, was the business man, the merchant. People began to bow to me then. I bought more and more. And I prospered. I had gold. I had power. I had a mill. I had a quarry. I hired carpenters and they built a school for me. People bowed still lower. I was the projector. I was the architect – or at least I furnished the money .

“I, I, I,” yowled the blue kitten. “Listen to me! I am the blue kitten, and most unusual. I …”

“I,” answered Arunah. “I am Arunah Hyde. You are only a queer-looking kitten, growing into a queer-looking cat. You, listen to me. I shall sign the contract for the Lightning Express. There will be twice as many stages coming and going. Then I shall put Castle Town on the map. I shall make it the center of Vermont, of the Universe.”

“I have heard that before,” interrupted the kitten.

But Arunah would not listen.

“I opened streets. I built houses and stores. I built this, the Mansion House. And listen, you kitten, to the horses’ hoofs – faster, faster, faster.

“Mer-oww! Oww!” yowled the blue kitten who was almost a blue cat by this time. “For pity’s sake, man, stop. I heard, or I dreamed I heard, long ago that a dark spell was being woven about Castle Town. And now I know that you are the one who is weaving that spell. And the spell has mastered you. So, do stop, Arunah Hyde, for pity’s sake! For your sake! For everybody’s sake!”

But Arunah paid no attention. “I have mills, I say. And a quarry. I cut marble for my housefronts. I make roofs from my own slate.

“With your hands fashion beauty,” put in the blue kitten loudly. He was determined to be heard. After all, it was his song, his spell that was important.

“With my hands, I count gold,” Arunah spoke louder.

“Riches will pass and power. Beauty remains!” yowled the big, fat blue kitten.

“That is nonsense. Utter nonsense,” yelled Arunah.

“All that is worth doing, do well,” said the kitten.

“Do fast,” corrected Arunah.

“Lines are nothing. Put on a good front,” cried Arunah. “Set something new in the window, a fat blue cat, for instance. Then the travelers will pour faster into the Mansion House. Mansion is a good name, blue cat. For you are a cat now. Tavern would sound altogether too unpretentious.

Never had the cat – the blue cat purred so loudly. For with cathood his voice had unexpectedly deepened. It was really magnificent. At the end of the song, he threw back his head and yowled triumphantly.

“Besides, I won’t stay in the window of your old Mansion House, Arunah Hyde! Never!”

“You will if you are stuffed with sawdust!” gloated Arunah. “You are fat enough right now!” And he grabbed for the blue cat.

The cat struggled. He scratched and bit and clawed. He clawed and bit and scratched. But because he was so fat his breath was short and he was losing the fight.

When – a stagecoach came crashing to a stop. And Arunah must needs drop the blue cat to rush forward to the door. But even as he rushed he held onto the blue cat’s tail.

The cat, with one final surge of strength, tore his tail loose from Arunah’s grasp. And as the door opened the blue cat dashed through. Only a few hairs from his tail remained in Arunah’s hands. And what were a few hairs compared to the life of a grown-up blue cat?

Away from the Mansion House dashed the blue cat. Up the road and up the road, back the way he had come. Not even Arunah’s horses ever ran as hard and fast as the blue cat was running. At least he had learned speed from Arunah. He was headed back for the meadow where he was born. Past the cobbler’s shop he ran, by the old tavern the weaver had sketched for his weaving, past John Gilroy’s shop, to the village green and the shop where Ebenezer Southmayd, the pewterer, had worked. On and on, back and back, raced the blue cat, losing weight with every step.

When he was quite exhausted he hid under a mulberry bush and considered. Somehow, in spite of what Arunah Hyde had almost done to him – stuffing him with cream in order to stuff him with sawdust – the blue cat felt sorry for the man.

Speed and gain and power. That was Arunah’s spell, and it drove Arunah Hyde harder than he drove his horses. It was a dark spell, spreading far and wide over Castle Town.

“‘And in the end that spell will overpower him.’ I am sure that was what the river said, or something very like. I was asleep, or ‘most asleep – but still I heard. I must have heard. Poor Arunah!” mourned the blue cat. “Poor, poor man!”

Two great crystal tears gathered and dropped slowly from his amber eyes. One was for Arunah. One was for the thick yellow cream, the beautiful lake salmon and the plates piled high with chicken, which the blue cat had left forever behind him.

A long, mournful, unearthly sound went through the valley, wailing up and down, louder, more frightening than any loon. Wailing, wailing, from Bird Mountain to Lake Bombazine.

The blue cat was startled, for he had never heard such a sound. He felt tired and sick, very sick. His thoughts began to swirl in his head, like the yellow cream swirled when poured into Arunah’s tinny bowl. The sound was, he decided, a whistle of some sort from the future. Blue cats, who were born under a blue moon, his mother had said, often heard things no ordinary cat could hear.

No ordinary cat – he grew sicker and sicker. Could Arunah have poisoned him before he left? How terrible to die of poison before he had found a hearth to fit his song!

No ordinary cat – no hearth. Oh, dear. He wished that he was an ordinary cat. The tip of his tail pained him a little and he remembered that he had left some of the hairs from the very end of it in Arunah’s hand. He grew sicker and sicker as he lay underneath the mulberry bush. And he wished, oh, how he wished, that he was an ordinary cat, and not having such a difficult time to find a hearth.

An ordinary cat! It was his last thought. But the blue cat, lying with his eyes closed under the mulberry bush, did not know that with the losing of three black hairs from the end of his tail, he had lost his only chance to be an ordinary cat. Come what might he was the blue cat. And he would remain the blue cat to the end of his days. He was really most unusual. A truly extraordinary cat. He was the Blue Cat of Castle Town!

It is the job of a barn cat to catch mice.
– Universal Catology.
Cat – a carnivorous quadruped which
has long been kept by man in a domestic state as a pet and for catching
rats and mice.
– Webster’s Dictionary.