Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/278

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248
THE FIRESIDE SPHINX

an old Essex place, formerly tenanted by a gentleman named Farquharson. Mrs. Farquharson had a cat which she highly prized, and which she sent by coach in a closed bag or basket to her new home at Yatesby Bridge, in Hampshire. Five days later. Young received a letter from her, bewailing the loss of her favourite who had promptly disappeared as soon as released from constraint; and, on the following morning. Pussy made her appearance at Samford Hall, looking very forlorn and out at elbows, but plainly delighted to be home again. She had not only travelled seventy miles over an unknown country filled with dangers; but had actually crossed or skirted London,—"threaded the Metropolis," says Young more poetically,—in the course of her adventurous journey.

Mr. Andrew Lang is responsible for the story of a cat which was carried from Saint Andrews to Perth. He came back in less than a week. "Did he swim the Tay and Eden," asks Mr. Lang meditatively, "or did he travel by rail, changing at Dundee and Leuchars? "A Flemish cat, living in the country near Malines, outsped twelve carrier pigeons, traversing eight leagues, crossing the Scheldt, Heaven knows how! and reaching home well in advance of his winged competitors."

Men prize the heartless hound who quits dry-eyed his native land,
Who wags a mercenary tail, and licks a tyrant's hand.