34^ The Poets Beasts. 



as a witch. The time comes when Death beckons to 

 Grimalkin, and, whatever she is doing, she has to obey. 

 But, unless it be for the ninth, and fatal time, there are no 

 corporal remains to show for the decease, no dead cat lying 

 in the garden, or on the outhouse roof, or wherever it may 

 have been that the dread summons reached her. On each of 

 the eight occasions the cat that had been simply vanished 

 from the earth, and in the same instant reappeared in a 

 new avatar. Tabby yesterday, she is black to-day. But 

 the supreme moment arrives at last. The ninth messen- 

 ger is at the door. The cat, conscious of coming change, 

 sits before the fire, looking into the heart of the blaze, and 

 lost in thought. A voice she dare not refuse to hear calls 

 her away from the comfortable hearth, and she goes, pen- 

 sively, out into the dark night. The wind blows shrill, the 

 clouds are driving fast. She would like to go back to the 

 fire and the cook. But something she may not resist draws 

 her onward, farther into the garden, deeper into the gloom. 

 The bushes round her hide the lights of the house. In the 

 distance she hears the caterwauling of familiar voices. 

 And while she sits, shivering, wondering, waiting, lo ! it 

 all happens, and Grimalkin suddenly finds herself whisked 

 off up into the sky. A long cloak streams backwards from 

 her shoulders. A broomstick is between her legs. She is 

 a witch. 



Several poets refer to her as a thing of " venomed spite 

 and cruel scratch," "from a witch transformed." So in 

 Southey's " Witch " — 



" Wluit makes her sit there moping by herself, 

 With no soul near her but that great black cat, 

 And do but look at her ! " 



and in Hcrrick's " Hag " — 



" 111 a dirty hair trace 

 She leads on a biacc 



