I know I left you all with a big cliffhanger last week. Whatever would become of the grey and black striped kitty who was trapped in his castle home, surrounded on all sides by fiendish mice? Worry not, true believers, for the illuminator of Harley 6563 provides an answer on the very next page! ((I apologize for the image quality. The British Library is kitty-biased–for good reason, I’m sure–and doesn’t have a high-quality scan available.))
I’m sad to report that the mice ((Who now seem even more ratlike, in light of their evil deeds.)) seem to have won the day, evicting the kitty from his castle home. And worse, the outlined figure at the base of the castle seems to be the original kitty, who I’m going to assume is merely resting or pining for the fjords, because the alternative interpretation is just too much.
But it’s not all darkness. See that arrow near the mouse on the top battlement? Its source is on the facing page:
Stripey kitties have to stick together, yo. You steal a stripey kitty castle, expect his stripey kitty friend to show up with a stripey kitty crossbow that’s bigger than you are. That’s how they roll.
It’s too bad the manuscript’s fragmentary. I really want to know how this 14th-century episode of Tom and Jerry ends.