38 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



sit at night upon the bed of one Cicely Balyer with 

 whom she had grievously quarrelled. 



This kind of visitation was not infrequent, — nor 

 altogether surprising when one considers the noc- 

 turnal habits of cats, and the accessibility of cottage 

 chimneys, — but the horror of it brought many an 

 old wife to the scaffold. Janet Wishart and Alice 

 Kyteler were both convicted of sending a "wan- 

 toune cat " to work evil upon such as had offended 

 them ; and a nameless English witch, hanged in 

 King Jamie's reign, confessed that she wrought all 

 her charms with the help of a dun-coloured cat, 

 that came one night to her cottage when she was 

 cowering over her fire, nursing angry thoughts 

 against a farmer's wife. This beast dwelt with her 

 for months, stealing forth night after night to obey 

 her foul behests, until there was scarce a woman in 

 the village who had not suffered from its malignity. 



Apparently there was no piece of mischief too 

 great or too trivial for an energetic and evilly dis- 

 posed cat. The mere presence of Isobel Grierson's 

 pussy in broad daylight would turn sound ale sour ; 

 and the most damning evidence brought against 

 John Fian, a Scottish schoolmaster, strangled as a 

 warlock in 1591, was that he had been seen by 

 neighbours in hot pursuit of a cat, leaping over 

 hedges and ditches like one with wings, so furious 

 was the chase. When questioned as to why he 



