Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/65

 Rh hunted the animal, he unwisely admitted—or so at least deposed several garrulous witnesses—that Satan had need of all the cats his servants could bring him, being unable without their aid to raise storms or to wreck ships,—a curious limitation of diabolic power.

The trial which of all others, however, established the Scotch cat's reputation for sorcery was that of Margaret Gilbert and Margaret Olson, two women of Caithness, who were accused of bewitching the household of a stone-mason named Montgomerie by means of a number of cats. No bolts nor bars could exclude these emissaries of evil, nor could they be killed like ordinary animals. When run through by a sword, or cleft in twain by a hatchet, they merely disappeared, to return again at some more convenient opportunity. Moreover, they had a habit of conversing together at night with human voices, but in an unknown tongue;—a habit which seems to have thrilled the unfortunate Montgomeries with terror, and which, it may well be admitted, was calculated to try the nerves. No wonder that a little maid servant fled from the house in mid-term, and would enter it no more, after she had heard these cats talking by the kitchen fire. No wonder that villagers came in time to look askance upon all pussies as possible imps of Belial;—a possibility which assumed definite shape and