The same gentleman tells me that in Coburg, Canada West, he knew a widow lady who had a Cat two feet in height, and beautifully marked. It was supposed to be a cross-breed between a wild and a domestic Cat. His youngest brother has often ridden on it when eight years old. It was very docile. It had been fed highly when young, and never showed the least desire to hunt mice or birds, or to leave the house.
With regard to the origin of the name “Cat-o’-nine tails,” referred to in a former chapter, a writer in Notes and Queries says:—
“As there appears to be some uncertainty about the number of cords or tails attached to this whip, it may be a question whether, like its namesake, the animal, it did not originally commence by having only one tail, and in course of time or fashion increase to nine, the number of lives proverbially allotted to our domestic friend Pussy.
“According to the Talmudists (Maccoth iii. 10), the Jews, in carrying out their sentences of scourges, employed for that purpose a whip which had three lashes (Jahn’s Arch. Biblica, page 247), and it is stated in the Merlinus Liberatus, or John Partridge’s Almanack for 1692, that in “May, 1685, Dr. Oates was whipt,” and “had 2,256 lashes with a whip of six thongs knotted, which amounts to 13,536 stripes.” Sir John Vanbrugh, moreover, in the prologue to his play of the False Friend (written A.D. 1702), alludes to this scourge in these words:—
“You dread reformers of an injurious age,
You awful cat-o’-nine tails of the stage.”
“In James’s Military Dictionary, the cat, etc., is described as “a whip with nine knotted cords, with which the public soldiers and sailors are punished. Sometimes it has only five cords.” The following passage occurs in Mr. Sala’s Waterloo to the Peninsula:—“A Dutch king, they say, introduced the cat-o’-nine tails in the British army: ere the Nassauer’s coming the scourge had three thongs.”
There is a little story of feline affection for which I should have found a place in an earlier chapter. A lady had a Cat which she called “the Methodist Parson.” It used for years regularly to go away every Sunday morning, and return to its home on the next (the Monday) morning. It was never known to miss for a series of years, going away on the Sunday morning, except upon one occasion, when it stopped at home on the Sunday, and went away on the Monday morning. After this it never returned. In the same lady’s house upon a certain occasion, for some reason or other, the water was turned off. It was in the evening, and she had the tap of the water-butt turned on, with a tub under it, thinking they would get water when they wanted it. The family went to bed, forgetting that the water-tap was left turned on. In the course of the night the Cat came to the lady’s bedroom door, making a great noise, mewing. Her husband got up several times, and drove it away, but it returned again, and would go to the corner of the stairs, and then turn round, as if to see whether he was following it. At last he followed it down-stairs, and found the whole of the lower premises inundated, the water having been turned on from the main.
Here, too, is a facetious story, which should not be omitted:—
One night, some hours after a certain family had retired to rest, there arose a most extraordinary and unaccountable noise in the lower part of the house. Had thieves broken in? If so they must have been very noisy thieves, and quite careless as to the noise they made. You can imagine Paterfamilias sitting up in bed, and listening with suspended breath; Materfamilias suggesting that he had better get up, and see what was the matter; Paterfamilias of the contrary opinion, and inclined to wait a-while, and see what happened next. Then a group of white figures, with whiter faces, at the head of the stairs, and the mysterious noise below growing louder and louder.
But the explanation of all this was simple enough, when some venturesome spirit summoned up courage to creep down-stairs and enquire into the cause. The servant, when she had gone to bed, had left a strong brown jug on the dresser, with a drain of milk in the bottom of it. After everyone had retired, Puss commenced prowling about, and, attracted by the milk in the bottom of the jug, put her head into it. Now, though the top of the jug was wide enough for the Cat to put her head through, it was not so wide but what it required a slight pressure for her to get her head into it. When the milk was lapped, however, she could not get her head out again, for it required some one to hold the jug, to enable her to do so. In the meantime, all being in bed and asleep, the Cat in her terror jumped about, knocking its head, with the jug on it, against the tables and chairs, and upon the kitchen floor. Hence the alarming and unaccountable disturbance.