COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE. 167 



vanished! For then, of course, people went to 

 the other extreme, and, in contempt of Freya and 

 her coursers, cats with bladders tied to their feet 

 were cruelly thrown from the church-tower at 

 Ypres, as a sign that the people had done with 

 heathen beliefs. Perhaps they had, but that was 

 a strange proof of orthodoxy. I doubt not the 

 pussies would have been better satisfied with the 

 religious rightness of their owners if neither cat- 

 reverence nor cat-contempt had prevailed. 



Still I do not know that the custom of Ypres 

 was any more cruel than the ancient Scottish 

 method of treating cats. For, anciently, when 

 some one of the tartan-wearers wanted to know 

 something of the future, he would catch a live cat 

 and hang it up before the fire, and leave it there 

 until by its cries it had attracted other cats to the 

 place. Then the worthy Highlander would ask 

 the questions he wished to have answered, and 

 would interpret the cat-cries so as to make re- 

 plies in the Gaelic tongue. And then, when the 

 Highlander was fully satisfied, he had mercy on 

 the singed cat and set it free. 



Even Paris was not kind to cats, for, on the eve 

 of St. John, the mayor of the city used to put 

 about a dozen cats into a large basket, and then, 

 kind man, proceed to throw the unlucky beings 

 into the bonfires that were built on that festival. 



All this would be horrible news to that cat 

 down in the grass, I am afraid she would faint 



