98 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



" True calendars as Pusse's eare, 

 Wash't o're to tell what change is neare," 



sang Herrick in his Devonshire vicarage ; and John 

 Swan, writing his " Speculum Mundi " in 1643, tells 

 us very seriously that the cat " useth therefore to 

 wash her face with her tongue ; and it is observed 

 by some that if she put her feet beyond the crown 

 of her head in this kind of washing, it is a signe of 

 raine." 



In fact there was scarcely a movement of the 

 cat which had not its meaning for the villager, who 

 did his domestic Sphinx the honour of close scru- 

 tiny, and who attached so much significance to her 

 simplest actions that the poor creature, like other 

 oracles, was too often held responsible for the evils 

 she presaged. Thus the yokel, being told that 

 Pussy's ablutions foretold rain, passed, by an easy 

 mental process, to the conviction that they brought 

 rain ; and so — eager for the harvesting — killed 

 his cat, as the simplest method of escaping showers. 

 The sailor's wife, in her uncertainty as to whether 

 the fast rising wind was the cause or the effect of 

 Tabby's nervous clawing at bed curtain and table 

 leg, deemed it but common prudence to drown the 

 animal which might otherwise drown her good man 

 at sea. It is not wise nor well to herald calamity. 

 The part of Cassandra is ever an ungrateful one 

 to play. 



