No matter. It won’t take very long now. Urruah will sort that letter out … and then we can frame the Mouse and go home.
But something kept suggesting to Rhiow that it would not be that simple…
The morning of the ninth of July came up, hot and still, with crickets creaking in the crevices of stone walls and under the foundations of houses. It was hot everywhere, from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
Nearer the John O’Groats end of things, just after the time when the milk arrives after dawn, the postman came up the walk of a small neat semidetached home in Edinburgh city. Before he could knock, the latch was lifted, and a small dapper man came out. The postman handed him several letters, which the man went through swiftly. One of these he opened: then, as the postman was on the way down the walk to the street, the small man called him and stepped back inside the door of the house for a moment. When he emerged, he handed the postman another letter. The postie took it and went his way.
In the Palace of Westminster, unseen, a gray-striped tabby cat walked calmly down the Commons’ Corridor, looking at the paintings that adorned the walls there: the last sleep of the Duke of Argyll, the acquittal of the Seven Bishops in the reign of James II, Jane Lane helping Charles II to escape.
Marvelous stuff,Urruah thought to himself,but is it art?Most of it, he thought, was the kind of painting which a partisan of a subject does to try to convince other people that it’s of as much historical or cultural value ashethinks it is. Figures of old-timeehhifgestured heroically or stood in stoic silence, and all of them, to Urruah’s educated eye, had ‘Establishment’ written all over them. Urruah walked among them with amusement, heading for the House of Commons, and restraining his urge to sharpen his claws on the more bombastic of the murals.
He was sidled, naturally, and therefore had to sidestep to miss the occasionalehhifparliamentarian making for the House. They seemed to hold their meetings very late. It was nearly midnight: even bouts ofhauissh,the feline pastime which most nearly includes politics, did not usually take place quite this late. Whatever, Urruah wasn’t terribly concerned about what hours they kept, except as it involved one man: McClaren.
He paused by the doors to the House, a little off to one side, and listened before going in.
“ … because the expense would be so great,” anehhifwas saying in a great deep rolling voice;“whilst perhaps in the next parish there might be a clergyman who turns to the east when he celebrated the Holy Communion. If a parishioner called upon the bishop to prosecute in that case, then there would be no difficulty, it would be easy to prosecute for the posture … but by no means easy to prosecute for the doctrine. Is it not a monstrous proposition that when unsound doctrine is preached, one must proceed by the old, slow, cumbersome ecclesiastical law, and yet there should be a rapid prosecution for gestures …”
Urruah stood there trying to make head or tail of this for some minutes. It seemed that theehhifwas talking about communicating with the One, which was certainly a courtesy and a good idea generally: but these ideas ofehhif as to how the One liked to be communicated with seemed amazingly confused, and also seemed to be very hung up on obscure symbology which had to be exactly observed and duplicated, or else there wouldbeno communication.If they really think this,Urruah thought,maybe it’s no wonder they’re so asocial. The Universe must seem to them like a place run by ants. Rude,illiterateants…
“ …among the leading churchmen I have found extreme distaste and dissatisfaction with the bill. It is said that the bishop, in the ninth clause, must appear‘in a fatherly character’, but before the canons come in, he must practically have pronounced that some offense had been committed which ought to be proceeded against. Thus the power of the bishop as arbitrator can never commence until he has pronounced and sanctioned the prosecution—”
Urruah reared up and peered through the glass of the doors. His view was largely blocked by frock-coated men standing between him and the floor of the House, and talking nonstop.
Well,vhai’difI’mgoing to standhereall night,he thought. Very carefully Urruah slipped through the wood paneling of the lower half of the door, slowly, so as not to upset the grain of the wood, and being careful not to become strictly solid again until he knew exactly where the legs of theehhifon the other side were. Fortunately none of them were too close.
Once in, Urruah stood there at the back of the House and listened for a few more minutes … finally wondering why in Iau’s name anyone would come here late at night to hear this kind of thing … unless indeed they were all insomniacs in search of treatment. Up in the stranger’s gallery, various visitingehhifwere either asleep or on their way to being so: on the other side, journalists were scribbling frantically in notebooks, trying to keep up with what theehhifwho spoke was saying. Urruah wondered why anyone would bother. The man had the most soporific style imaginable, and in this hot, still room, made hotter yet by the primitive electrical lights, the effect produced put the best sleep-spells Urruah knew to shame.
Urruah peered about him again, looking for any sign of McClaren. Theehhifwas tall and had a big beard, but unfortunately that described about half theehhifin here: this was a very hairy period forehhifmales in this part of the world. McClaren also had a long hawkish nose and very blue eyes, but again Urruah’s view was somewhat blocked.
He’s probably not here,Urruah thought.Still … I’ll take a look around.And the impish impulse struck him.
He unsidled.
At first no one noticed him. It was late, and he was walking softly down the carpeted floor of the gangway on the Opposition side. He knew where he was headed: toward the center of the room, the“aisle”, where he could get a good view of both front benches. McClaren was a government minister, and would normally have been sitting there on the left-hand side of the Speaker as Urruah was facing the Speaker’s Chair.
He looked around him at the weary, complacent faces as he came down the gangway … and they began to look at him. Urruah put his whiskers forward as the laughter started.That’ll wake them up,he thought:this’ll probably make the papers tomorrow …He came down to the aisle, took a long leisurely look across at the Government benches … and saw McClaren there.
Urruah stopped short, with the laughter scaling up all around him.
What’shedoing here?!
For he was not supposed to be here. He should have been up in his office—writing a letter—
Sa’Rrdhh in a five-gallon bucket,Urruah thought, no—
He bolted toward the Government benches, ignoring the surprised or shocked faces turned toward him, and jumped up on the back of the first front bench, almost getting into the beard of the surprised minister sitting nearest. Urruah jumped with great speed from there to the first of the back benches, and to the next and the next, going up them like steps in a staircase and not particularly caring whose leg, shoulder or head he stepped on in the process. The laughter became deafening. There was a door at the back of the last of the benches, at the very top. Urruah jumped down and went straight through it, this time without the slightest concern for the grain of the wood.
He raced out through the West Division lobby, through it into the little hallway at the corner of the Lobby and up the staircase two floors. He knew well enough where McClaren’s office was. Through that wooden door, too, he went, sidled again this time.
There was no one in the office.
Urruah stood very still for a moment and licked his nose three times in rapid succession. Then he glanced around him, and looked up into the box on the bookcase.