Your most affectionate friend and brother.

WILLIAM COWPER

1731-1800

TO THE REV.  JOHN NEWTON

Escapade of Puss

21 Aug. 1780.

The following occurrence ought not to be passed over in silence, in a place where so few notable ones are to be met with.  Last Wednesday night, while we were at supper, between the hours of eight and nine, I heard an unusual noise in the back parlour, as if one of the hares was entangled, and endeavouring to disengage herself.  I was just going to rise from table, when it ceased.  In about five minutes, a voice on the outside of the parlour door inquired if one of my hares had got away.  I immediately rushed into the next room, and found that my poor favourite Puss had made her escape.  She had gnawed in sunder the strings of a lattice work, with which I thought I had sufficiently secured the window, and which I preferred to any other sort of blind, because it admitted plenty of air.  From thence I hastened to the kitchen, where I saw the redoubtable Thomas Freeman, who told me, that having seen her, just after she had dropped into the street, he attempted to cover her with his hat, but she screamed out, and leaped directly over his head.  I then desired him to pursue as fast as possible, and added Richard Coleman to the chase, as being nimbler, and carrying less weight than Thomas; not expecting to see her again, but desirous to learn, if possible, what became of her.  In something less than an hour, Richard returned, almost breathless, with the following account.  That soon after he began to run, he left Tom behind him, and came in sight of a most numerous hunt of men, women, children, and dogs; that he did his best to keep back the dogs, and presently outstripped the crowd, so that the race was at last disputed between himself and Puss;—­she ran right through the town, and down the lane that leads to Dropshort; a little before she came to the house, he got the start and turned her; she pushed for the town again, and soon after she entered it, sought shelter in Mr. Wagstaff’s tanyard, adjoining to old Mr. Drake’s.  Sturges’s harvest men were at supper, and saw her from the opposite side of the way.  There she encountered the tanpits full of water; and while she was struggling out of one pit, and plunging into another, and almost drowned, one of the men drew her out by the ears, and secured her.  She was then well washed in a bucket to get the lime out of her coat, and brought home in a sack at ten o’clock.

This frolic cost us four shillings, but you may believe we did not grudge a farthing of it.  The poor creature received only a little hurt in one of her claws, and in one of her ears, and is now almost as well as ever.

I do not call this an answer to your letter, but such as it is I send it, presuming upon that interest which I know you take in my minutest concerns, which I cannot express better than in the words of Terence a little varied—­Nihil mei a te alienum putas.