Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/91

 Rh and so brave, we come to a better understanding of her complex, subtle, and, to many minds, unlovely character. Self-sufificing by nature, she has learned distrust through centuries of suffering. To see a cat run across a street is to understand that her race has for generation after generation been hunted as cruelly as the hare. She scurries by swiftly and fearfully, as did that poor ancestress of hers whom the Puritan soldiers chased derisively around the nave of Lichfield Cathedral, until Prince Rupert interrupted their pious sport. She knows not now precisely what she dreads,—the coast being clear, and no boys nor dogs in sight; she knew not three hundred years ago why she was held responsible for theological errors in which she had no share. Catholicism, Anglicanism, Puritanism,—all were alike indifferent to her; yet, as we have seen, she bore the burden of man's devout distaste for his neighbour's creed. Perhaps the last authentic instance of feline persecution for conscience' sake was the case of the "ecclesiastical cat" that George Borrow met and rescued in Wales.

The Vicar of Llangollen, a most unpopular character in a stronghold of sturdy dissent, had returned to England, leaving behind him his black cat; and the antagonism formerly felt for the clergyman had been transferred to the clerical pet. No householder would give it food or shelter; and, if it slunk