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Updated: May 6, 2025
"Oh, he's quite happy bold as a lion and graceful as a panther, and Scamp talks more than enough for the two of them." "And what a fine big cat you have, Johnnie!" said Miss Penny, and stretched a friendly hand towards Marielihou. "What do you call it?" "Marrlyou," growled Johnnie; and Marielihou bristled and spat at the advancing white hand, which retired rapidly.
All outward things all save Johnny Vautrin, and Marielihou, and old Tom Hamon, and several others sang abundantly of the peace and fulness and joy of life, but his heart was still so sore from its bruising that at times these outward beauties seemed only to mock him with their brightness. In the first shock of his downcasting, wounded pride said, "I will show no sign. I will forget her.
His name was Johnnie Vautrin, and, as far as Graeme could make out, he was about eight years old in actual years, but aged beyond belief in black arts which made him a terror to his kind. And his familiar, in the person of an enormous black cat, which came and went, was named Marielihou.
"Ee cann't put evil eye on a ghost," with infinite scorn. "Oh, she's a ghost, is she? And what did you talk about?" "You coul'n't understan'," grunted Johnnie, to whom his meeting with the White Lady was a treasured memory if a somewhat tender subject. And Marielihou? Ah, Marielihou was a black mystery.
Six full-grown rabbits had Marielihou been known to bring home in a single day, to say nothing of all the others that had gone to the satisfaction of her own inappeasable lust for rabbit-flesh and slaughter. As to the strange tales the neighbours whispered about her, Graeme could make neither head nor tail of them.
"They flew over to church there and settled in black trees." "Vicar, maybe, since they went that way." "Mebbe!" hopefully. "Well, well! Perhaps if we gave him a hint he might take some precautions." "Couldn' tek nauthen 'd be any use 'gainst crows. Go'zamin, they knows!" "You're just a confirmed old croaker, Johnnie." "A'n't!" said Johnnie. "Where's our old friend Marielihou?"
But magpie or no magpie they were bent on enjoyment, and they left Johnnie and Marielihou muttering black spells into the hawthorn hedge, and went off with the dogs down the scented lanes, through the valley where the blue-bells draped the hillsides in such masses that they walked as it were between a blue heaven and a blue earth, and so by the meadow-paths to the Coupée.
For Marielihou was a mighty hunter, and her long black body could be seen about the cliffs at any time of night or day, creeping and worming along, then, of a sudden, pointing and stiffening, and flashing on to her prey like the black death she was.
Is it going to keep fine?" and Marielihou stopped licking herself to look at Graeme, and then went on again with an air of, "I could tell you things if I would, but it's not worth while," in her ugly green eyes. "I don' think," said Johnnie, jumping at the chance of ill news. "You don't, you little rascal? Here, give me back my hard-earned pence! You're a little humbug."
And as they turned down the road with Punch, the hedge opened and Scamp came wriggling through, with white-eyed glances for Johnnie Vautrin and Marielihou sitting in the bushes farther up. Miss Penny and Graeme did most of the talking.
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