wn to itself, as was the place where it lay,
for even a cat must lie down sometimes; though a labouring man who
occasionally dug in the garden told me he believed that in the springtime
it ate freshets, and the woman of the house once said that she believed
it sometimes slept in the hedge, which hedge, by-the-bye, divided our
perllan from the vicarage grounds, which were very extensive. Well might
the cat after having led this kind of life for better than two years look
mere skin and bone when it made its appearance in our apartment, and have
an eruptive malady, and also a bronchitic cough, for I remember it had
both. How it came to make its appearance there is a mystery, for it had
never entered the house before, even when there were lodgers; that it
should not visit the woman, who was its declared enemy, was natural
enough, but why if it did not visit her other lodgers, did it visit us?
Did instinct keep it aloof from them? Did instinct draw it towards us?
We gave it some bread-and-butter, and a little tea with milk and sugar.
It ate and drank and soon began to purr. The good woman of the house was
horrified when on coming in to remove the things she saw the church cat
on her carpet. "What impudence!" she exclaimed, and made towards it, but
on our telling her that we did not expect that it should be disturbed,
she let it alone. A very remarkable circumstance was, that though the
cat had hitherto been in the habit of flying, not only from her face, but
the very echo of her voice, it now looked her in the face with perfect
composure, as much as to say, "I don't fear you, for I know that I am now
safe and with my own people." It stayed with us two hours and then went
away. The next morning it returned. To be short, though it went away
every night, it became our own cat, and one of our family. I gave it
something which cured it of its eruption, and through good treatment it
soon lost its other ailments and began to look sleek and bonny.

CHAPTER VIII

The Mowers--Deep Welsh--Extensive View--Old Celtic Hatred--Fish
Preserving--Smollet's Morgan.

Next morning I set out to ascend Dinas Bran, a number of children, almost
entirely girls, followed me. I asked them why they came after me. "In
the hope that you will give us something," said one in very good English.
I told them that I should give them nothing, but they still followed me.
A little way up the hill I saw some men cutting hay. I made an
observa