George Bowring - A Tale of Cader Idris | Page 3

maiden lady of Portuguese
birth and of advanced maturity. Each of these nine cats possessed his
own stool--a mahogany stool, with a velvet cushion, and his name
embroidered upon it in beautiful letters of gold. And every day they sat
round the fire to digest their dinners, all nine of them, each on his
proper stool, some purring, some washing their faces, and some
blinking or nodding drowsily. But I need not have spoken of this,
except that one of them was called "Saladin." He was the very cat I
wanted. I made his acquaintance in the area, and followed it up on the
knife-boy's board. And then I had the most happy privilege of saving
him from a tail-pipe. Thus my entrance was secured into this feline
Eden; and the lady was so well pleased that she gave me an order for
nine full-length cat portraits, at the handsome price of ten guineas

apiece. And not only this, but at her demise--which followed, alas! too
speedily--she left me £150, as a proof of her esteem and affection.
This sum I divided into three equal parts--fifty pounds for a present for
George, another fifty for a duty to myself, and the residue to be put by
for any future purposes. I knew that my friend had no gold watch;
neither, of course, did I possess one. In those days a gold watch was
thought a good deal of, and made an impression in society, as a
three-hundred-guinea ring does now. Barwise was then considered the
best watchmaker in London, and perhaps in the world. So I went to his
shop, and chose two gold watches of good size and substance--none of
your trumpery catchpenny things, the size of a gilt pill trodden upon--at
the price of fifty guineas each. As I took the pair, the foreman let me
have them for a hundred pounds, including also in that figure a
handsome gold key for each, of exactly the same pattern, and a guard
for the fob of watered black-silk ribbon.
My reason for choosing these two watches, out of a trayful of similar
quality, was perhaps a little whimsical--viz., that the numbers they bore
happened to be sequents. Each had its number engraved on its white
enamel dial, in small but very clear figures, placed a little above the
central spindle; also upon the extreme verge, at the nadir below the
seconds hand, the name of the maker, "Barwise, London." They were
not what are called "hunting watches," but had strong and very clear
lunette glasses fixed in rims of substantial gold. And their respective
numbers were 7777 and 7778.
Carrying these in wash-leather bags, I gave George Bowring his choice
of the two; and he chose the one with four figures of seven, making
some little joke about it, not good enough to repeat, nor even bad
enough to laugh at.
CHAPTER II.
For six years after this all went smoothly with George Bowring and
myself. We met almost daily, although we did not lodge together (as
once we had done) nor spend the evening hours together, because, of

course, he had now his home and family rising around him. By the
summer of 1832 he had three children, and was expecting a fourth at no
very distant time. His eldest son was named after me, "Robert Bistre,"
for such is my name, which I have often thought of changing. Not that
the name is at all a bad one, as among friends and relations, but that,
when I am addressed by strangers, "Mr. Bistre" has a jingling sound,
suggestive of childish levity. "Sir Robert Bistre," however, would
sound uncommonly well; and (as some people say) less eminent
artists--but perhaps, after all, I am not so very old as to be in a hurry.
In the summer of 1832--as elderly people will call to mind, and the
younger sort will have heard or read--the cholera broke over London
like a bursting meteor. Such panic had not been known, I believe, since
the time of the plague, in the reign of Charles II., as painted (beyond
any skill of the brush) by the simple and wonderful pen of Defoe. There
had been in the interval many seasons--or at least I am informed so--of
sickness more widely spread, and of death more frequent, if not so
sudden. But now this new plague, attacking so harshly a man's most
perceptive and valued part, drove rich people out of London faster than
horses (not being attacked) could fly. Well, used as I was to a good deal
of poison in dealing with my colours, I felt no alarm on my own
account, but was anxious about my landlady. This was an excellently
honest woman of fifty-five summers at the utmost, but weakly
confessing to as