A story is told of one, Jean Foucault, who one moonlight night had, like Tam o’ Shanter, sat overlong
Fast by an ingle bleezin’ finely,
Wi’ reaming swats that drank divinely,
where the cider was as good as the company, and, issuing at midnight’s weary hour from his favourite inn, was not in a mood to run away from anything, however fearsome. Walking, or rather rolling, across the moor singing the burden of the last catch he had trolled with his fellows at the ale-house, all on a sudden he stumbled into a circle of sorcerer-cats squatting around a cross of stone. They were of immense size and of all colours, black, grey, white, tortoise-shell, and when he beheld them seated round the crucifix, their eyes darting fire and the hair bristling on their backs, his song died upon his lips and all his bellicose feelings, like those of Bob Acres, leaked out at his finger-tips. On catching sight of him the animals set up a horrible caterwauling that made the blood freeze in his veins. For an awful moment the angry cats glared at him with death in their looks, and seemed as if about to spring upon him. Giving himself up for lost, he closed his eyes. But about his feet he could hear a strange purring, and, glancing downward, he beheld his own domestic puss fawning upon him with every sign of affection.
“Pass my master, Jean Foucault,” said the animal.
“It is well,” replied a great grey tom, whom Jean took to be the leader; “pass on, Jean Foucault.”
And Jean, the cider fumes in his head quite dissipated, staggered away, more dead than alive.