36 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



As for the poor cat, her fate was sealed ; and we 

 can hardly wonder at the deep suspicion with which 

 men regarded an animal so mysterious, and so 

 closely allied to the supernatural. Even when her 

 behaviour was harmless or beneficial, they feared a 

 lurking malice which never lacked the power for 

 evil things. M. Champfleury tells us of a French 

 woman, a native of Billancourt, who was peacefully 

 cooking an omelette, when a black cat strayed into 

 her cottage, and sat upright on the hearth. She 

 took no notice of the creature, but went on with 

 her work. The cat watched the omelette atten- 

 tively for a moment, and then said : " It is done. 

 Turn it over." Indignant at advice from such a 

 quarter, the woman hastily flung her half-cooked 

 eggs at the beast's head, and the next morning had 

 the satisfaction of seeing a deep red burn on the 

 cheek of an evilly disposed neighbour. 



The trials for witchcraft — always of absorbing 

 interest — offer ample proof of Pussy's wicked asso- 

 ciations. Again and again she figures with dire- 

 ful prominence in the records of demonology. A 

 black-hearted Scottish witch confessed in the year 

 1 591 that she had impiously christened a cat ; and 

 that she and other witches had carried this animal 

 "sayling in their Riddles or Gives into the middest 

 of the sea, and so left it before the towne of Leith ; 

 whereupon there did arise such a tempest at sea, as 



