be Dark Jlqes 



CHAPTER II 



O gin my sons were seven rats 

 Runnin' o'er the castle wa', 

 And gin that I were a great gray cat, 

 Fu' sune wad I worry them a'." 



POPULAR tradition was 

 wont to maintain that the 

 cat was brought from the 

 East, and introduced into northern 

 Europe by the first Crusaders. It 

 is one of those delightful misstate- 

 ments which lend colour and charm 

 to history. Who would not love to feel that we owe 

 this pleasant debt — as we owe so many others — to 

 those splendid soldiers who fought under Godfrey 

 de Bouillon, and carried the Cross to Palestine ? 

 The Crusaders brought back to their rude and war- 

 like homes many of the refinements of life, many 

 dim appreciations of an older civilization, of beauty, 

 of learning, of subtleties that had no place within 

 the stern barriers of Feudalism. But they did not 



