THE DARK AGES 29 



unfitted her for the stern rude life of the Middle 

 Ages. She was no loyal servant, no follower of 

 camps, no votaress of martial joys. Only in the 

 cities, where some semblance of order was usually 

 preserved, and some snug comforts guaranteed, 

 could she have found a home. It is a significant 

 circumstance that the commercial legend of Dick 

 Whittington is the only pleasant story in which the 

 English cat figures with prominence during several 

 centuries ; and surely no tale could better illustrate 

 the exact nature of her position. 



In the first place, she was of trifling value. A 

 poor boy, who owned nothing else in the world, 

 owned a cat. Like the miller s son in &quot; Puss-in- 

 Boots,&quot; Dick possessed something which nobody 

 thought it worth while to take from him. That he 

 had little love for this cat is proven by the alacrity 

 with which he parted from her, sending her away 

 upon a long and perilous voyage, on the bare chance 

 of her yielding him a profit. She was in no wise 

 his friend and companion ; she was merely his 

 property, to be disposed of as any other piece of 

 merchandise. Dick was a tradesman to his finger 

 tips, and worthy of all the civic honours heaped 

 upon him. That his first speculation proved suc 

 cessful was due wholly to the accident which car 

 ried poor Pussy to a catless land, overrun by rats 

 and mice. Utilitarianism, commercialism, a flavour 



