Part 14

_To Cat a Chimney._--To enclose a vent by the process called _Cat and Clay_ (_Teviotd._).

_Cat and Clay._--The materials of which a mud wall is constructed in many parts of S. Straw and clay are well wrought together, and being formed into pretty large rolls, are laid between the different wooden posts by means of which the wall is formed, and carefully pressed down so as to incorporate with each other, or with the twigs that are sometimes plaited from one post to another (_S._).

_Cat and Dog._--The name of an ancient sport (_S._). It seems to be an early form of _Cricket._ (Query, is this the same as Cat and Trap?)

_Catband._--1. The name given to the strong hook used on the inside of a door or gate, which, being fixed to the wall, keeps it shut. 2. A chain drawn across a street for defence in time of war. Germ., _kette_, a chain, and _band_.

_Cat-fish, Sea-cat._--The sea-wolf (_S._). _Anarhicas lupus_ (LINN.) Sw., _haf-cat_--_i.e._ sea-cat.--SIBBALD.

_Cat-gut._--Thread fucus, or sea laces. _Fucus filum_ (LINN.), _Orkney_, "Neill's Tour."

_Cat-Harrow._--"_They draw the Cat-Harrow_"--that is, they thwart one another.--_Loth. Ang._, LYNDSEY.

_Cat-heather._--A finer species of heath, low and slender, growing more in separate, upright stalks than the common heath, and flowering only at the top (_Aberd._).

_Cat-hole._--1. The name given to the loop-holes or narrow openings in the wall of a barn (_S._). 2. A sort of niche in the wall of a barn, in which keys and other necessaries are deposited in the inside, where it is not perforated.

_Cat-hud._--The name given to a large stone, which serves as a back to a fire on the hearth in the house of a cottager (_Dumfr._). Sw. G., _kaette_, denotes a small cell or apartment, which corresponds to the form of the country fireside; also a bed; a pen. _Hud_ might seem allied to Teut. _huyd-en_, _conservare_, as the stone is meant to guard this enclosure from the effects of the fire.

_Catling._--Small catgut strings for musical instruments, also a kind of knife used in surgery.

_Cat-loup._--1. A very short distance as to space (_S._); q. as far as a cat may leap (HOGG). 2. A moment; as, "I'se be wi' ye in a _catloup_"--_i.e._, instantly. "I will be with you as quickly as a cat can leap."

_Catmaw._--"To tumble the _catmaw_," to go topsy-turvy, to tumble (_S. B._).

_Catmint._--An herbaceous plant (_Mentha felina_), that cats delight to roll on.

_Cat's Carriage._--The same play that is otherwise called the "King's Cushion," q.v. (_Loth._).

_Cat's Cradle._--A plaything for children, made of pack-thread on the fingers of one person, and transferred from them to those of another (_S._).

_Cat's Crammocks._--Clouds like hairs streaming from an animal's tail (_Shetland_).

_Cat's Hair._--1. The down that covers unfledged birds (_Fife_); synon. _Paddockhair_. 2. The down on the face of boys before the beard grows (_S._). 3. Applied also to the thin hair that often grows on the bodies of persons in bad health (_S._).

_Cat-siller._.--The mica of mineralogists (_S._); the _katzen silber_ of the vulgar in Germany. Teut., _katten silver_, _amiantus_, _mica_, _vulgo argentum felium_; Kilian.

_Cat's Lug._--The name given to the _Auricula ursi._--LINN. (_Roxburgh._).

_Cat's Stairs._--A plaything for children, made of thread, small cord, or tape, which is so disposed by the hands as to fall down like steps of a stair (_Dumfr._, _Gall._).

_Catstone._--One of the upright stones which support a grate, there being one on each side (_Roxb._). Since the introduction of Carron grates these _stones_ are found in kitchens only. The term is said to originate from this being the favourite seat of the _cat._ _See_ Catstone (English).

_Catstone-head._--The flat top of the Catstone (_ibid._).

_Catsteps._--The projections of the stones in the slanting part of a gable (_Roxb._). _Corbie-steps_, synon.

_Cat's-Tails._--Hare's Tail Rush (_Eriophorum vaginatum_). LINN. _Mearns_; also called _Canna-down_, Cat Tails (_Galloway_).

_Catten-Clover._, _Cat-in-Clover._--The Lotus (_South of S._). Sw., _Katt-klor_ (Cat's Claws).

_Catter._--1. Catarrh (BELLENDEN). 2. A supposed disease of the fingers from handling cats.

_Catterbatch._--A broil, a quarrel (_Fife_). Teut., _kater_, a he-cat, and _boetse_, rendered _cavillatio, q._, "a cat's quarrel."

_Catwittit._--Harebrained, unsettled; _q._, having the _wits_ of a _cat_ (_S._).

_Kittie._--A North-country name for a cat, male or female.

_Kitling._--Sharp; kitten-like.

"His _kitling_ eyes begin to run Quite through the table where he spies The horns of paperie butterflys."

HERRICK, _Hesperides_.

_Kittenhood._--State of being a kitten.

"For thou art as beautiful as ever a cat That wantoned in the joy of kittenhood."

SOUTHEY.

_Kittenish_, kitten-like.

"Such a kittenish disposition in her, I called it; ...the love of playfulness."--RICHARDSON.

_Kit_, or _kitten._--A young cat. A young cat is a kitten until it is full-grown, then kittenhood ceases.

A school-boy being asked to describe a _kitten_, replied: "A _kitten_ is chiefly remarkable for rushing like mad at nothing whatever, and generally stopping before it gets there."

_Puss gentleman._--An effeminate man.--DAVIS, _Glossary._

"I cannot talk with civet in th' room, A fine puss gentleman that's all perfume."

COWPER'S _Conversations._

CAT

PROVERBS.

_A BLATE cat makes a proud mouse_ (Scotch). An idle, or stupid, or timid foe is never feared.

_A cat has nine lives, a woman has nine lives._ In Middleton's _Blurt Master Constable_, 1602, we have: "They have nine lives apiece, like a woman."

_A cat may look at a king._ In Cornwall they say a cat may look at a king if he carries his eyes about him.

"A Cat may Look at a King," is the title of a book on history, published in the early part of the last century. On the frontispiece is the picture of a cat, over it the inscription, "A cat may look at a king," and a king's head and shoulders on the title-page, with the same inscription above.

_A cat's walk_, a little way and back (Cornwall). No place like home. Idling about.

_A dead cat feels no cold._ No life, no pain, nor reproach.

_A dog hath a day._--HEYWOOD. In Essex folks add: _And a cat has two Sundays._ Why?

The shape of a good greyhound:

A head like a snake, a neck like a drake, A back like a beam, sided like a bream, A _foot like a cat_, a tail like a rat.

_Ale that would make a cat talk._ Strong enough to make even the dumb speak.

"A spicy pot, Then do's us reason, Would make a cat To talk high treason."--D'URFEY.

_A half-penny cat may look at a king_ (Scotch). A jeering saying of offence--"One is as good as another," and as a Scotchman once said, "and better."

_A muffled cat is no good mouser._--CLARKE, 1639. No good workman wears gloves. By some is said "muzzled."

_A piece of a kid is worth two of a cat._ A little of good is better than much that is bad.

_A scalded cat fears cold water._ Once bit always shy. What was may be again.

_As cat or cap case_.

"Bouser I am not, but mild sober Tuesday, _As catte in cap case_, if I like not St. Hewsday."

_The Christmas Prince_, 1607.

_As gray as Grannum's cat._--HAZLITT. So old as to be likely to be doubly gray.

_As melancholy as a cat._--WALKER. The voice of the cat is melancholy.

_As melancholy as a gib-cat_ (Scotch). As an old, worn-out cat.--JOHNSTON.

"I am as melancholy as a gib-cat or a lugged bear."[B] SHAKESPEARE.

[B] A lugged bear is a bear with its ears cut off, so that when used for baiting there is less hold for the dogs.

Gib-cat; an old, lonely, melancholy cat.

_Before the cat can lick her ear._ "Nay, you were not quite out of hearing ere the cat could lick her ear."--_Oviddius Exultans_, 1673, p. 50. That is never.

Dun, besides being the name of one who arrested for debt in Henry VII.'s time, was also the name of the hangman before "Jack Ketch."--GROSE.

"And presently a halter got, Made of the best strong teer, And ere a cat could lick her ear, Had tied it up with so much art."

1664, COTTON'S _Virgile_, Book 4.

_By biting and scratching dogs and cats come together._--HEYWOOD. Quarrelling oft makes friends.

_Care clammed a cat._--SIR G. C. LEWIS'S "Herefordshire Glossary." Clammed means starvation; that is, care killed the cat; for want of food the entrails get "clammed."

_Care killed the cat, but ye canna live without it._ To all some trouble, though not all take heed. None know another's burden.

_Care will kill a cat._

"Then hang care and sorrow, 'Tis able to kill a cat."--D'URFEY.

Alluding to its tenacity of life and the carking wear of care.

_Cats after kind good mouse hunt._--HEYWOOD. Letter by F. A. touching the quarrel between Arthur Hall and Melch Mallorie, in 1575-6, repr. of ed. 1580, in "Misc^{y}. Antiq. Anglic." 1816, p. 93. "For never yet was good cat out of kinde."--_English Proverbs_, HAZLITT.

_Cats and Carlins sit in the sun._ When work is done then warmth and rest.

_Cats eat what hussies spare._ Nothing is lost. Also refers to giving away, and saying "the cat took it."

_Cats hide their claws._ All is not fair that seems so. Trust not to appearances.

_Cry you mercy, killed my cat._--CLARKE, 1639. Better away, than stay and ask pardon.

_Every day's no yule; cast the cat a castock._ The stump of a cabbage, and the proverb means much the same thing as "Spare no expense, bring another bottle of _small beer_."--DENHAM'S _Popular Sayings_, 1846.

OF FALSE PERSONS.

_He bydes as fast as a cat bound with a sacer._ He does as he likes; nothing holds him.

OF WITTIE PERSONS.

_He can hold the cat to the sun._ Bold and foolish enough for anything.

INCONSTANT PERSONS.

_He is like a dog or a cat._ Not reliable.

_He looks like a wild cat out of a bush._ Fiercely afraid.

_He's like a cat; fling him which way you will, he'll not hurt._ Some are always superior to misfortune, or fortune favours many.

_He's like a singed cat, better than he's likely._ He's better than he looks or seems.

_He stands in great need that borrows the cat's dish._--CLARKE, 1639. The starving are not particular. The hungry cannot choose.

_He lives at the sign of the cat's foot._ He is hen-pecked, his wife scratches him.--RAY.

_He wald gar a man trow that the moon is made of green cheis, or the cat took the heron._ Never believe all that is laid to another.

_Honest as the cat when the meat is out of reach._ Some are honest, but others not by choice.

_How can the cat help it when the maid is a fool?_ Often things lost, given, or stolen, are laid to the cat.

_If thou 'scap'st, thou hast cat's luck_, in Fletcher's _Knight of Malta_, alluding to the activity and caution of the cat, which generally stands it in good stead.

_I'll not buy a cat in a poke._ F., _Chat en Poche_. See what you buy; bargain not on another's word.

_Just as quick as a cat up a walnut-tree._--D'URFEY. To climb well and easily. To be alert and sudden.

_Let the cat wink, and let the mouse run._ For want of watching and care much is lost.--HAZLITT'S "Dodsley," i. 265. The first portion is in the interlude of "The World and the Child," 1522.

_Like a cat he'll fall on his legs._ To succeed, never to fail, always right.

_Like a cat round hot milk._ Wait and have; all things come to those who wait.

_Little and little the cat eateth the stickle._--HEYWOOD. Constant dropping weareth a stone.

_Long and slender like a cat's elbow._--HAZLITT. A sneer at the ill-favoured.

_Love me, love my cat._--This refers to one marrying; in taking a wife he must take her belongings. Or, where you like, you must avoid contention.

_Never was cat or dog drowned that could see the shore._ To know the way often brings a right ending.

_None but cats and dogs are allowed to quarrel here._ All else agree.

_No playing with a straw before an old cat._--HEYWOOD, 1562. Every trifling toy age cannot laugh at.--"Youth and Folly, Age and Wisdom."

_Rats walk at their ease if cats do not them meese._--WODROEPHE, 1623. Rogues abound where laws are weak.

_Send not a cat for lard._--GEORGE HERBERT. Put not any to temptation.

_So as cat is after kind._ Near friends are dearest. Birds of a feather flock together.

_Take the chestnuts out of the fire with the cat's paw._ Making use of others to save oneself.

_That comes of a cat will catch mice._ What is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh. Like father, like son.

_The cat and dog may kiss, but are none the better friends._ Policy is one thing, friendship another.

_The cat invites the mouse to her feast._ It is difficult for the weak to refuse the strong.

_The cat is in the cream-pot._ Any one's fault but hers. A row in the house (Northern).

_The cat is hungry when a crust contents her._ Hunger is a good sauce.

_The cat is out of kind that sweet milk will not lap._ One is wrong who forsakes custom.--"History of Jacob and Esau," 1568.

_The cat, the rat, and Lovel the dog, rule England under one hog._--"A Myrrour for Magistrates," edition 1563, fol. 143. This couplet is a satire on Richard III. (who carried a boar on his escutcheon) and his myrmidons, _Cat_esby, _Rat_cliffe, and Lovell.

_The cat would eat fish, and would not wet her feet._--HEYWOOD, 1562.

"Fain would the cat fish eat, But she is loth to wet her feet." "What cat's averse to fish?"--GRAY.

Dr. Trench has pointed out the allusion to this saying in _Macbeth_, when Lady Macbeth speaks of her husband as a man,

"Letting I dare not, wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i' the adage."

_The cat sees not the mouse ever._--HEYWOOD. Those that should hide, see more than they who seek. The fearful eye sees far.

_The liquorish cat gets many a rap._ The wrong-doer escapes not.

_The more you rub a cat on the back, the higher she sets her tail._ Praise the vain and they are more than pleased. Flattery and vanity are near akin.

_The mouse lords it where the cat is not._--MS., 15th century. The little rule, where there are no great.

_The old cat laps as much as the young._--CLARKE. One evil is much like another.

_They agree like two cats in gutter._--HEYWOOD. To be less than friends.

_They argue like cats and dogs._ That is to quarrel.

_Thou'lt strip it, as Stack stripped the cat when he pulled her out of the churn._ To take away everything.

_Though the cat winks awhile, yet sure he is not blind._ To know all and pretend ignorance.

_To grin like a Cheshire cat._ Said to be like a cheese cat, often made in Cheshire; but this is not very clear, and the meaning doubtful.

_To go like a cat on a hot bake-stone._ To lose no time. To be swift and stay not.

_To keep a cat from the tongs._ To stop at home in idleness. It is said of a youth who stays at home with his family, when others go to the wars abroad, in "A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Serving Men," 1598.

_Too late repents the rat when caught by the cat._ Shun danger, nor dare too long.

_To love it as a cat loves mustard._ Not at all. To abhor.

_Two cats and a mouse, two wives in one house, two dogs and one bone, never agree._ No peace when all want to be masters, or to possess one object.

_Well might the cat wink when both her eyes were out._

"Sumwhat it was sayeth the proverbe old, That the cat winked when here iye was out."

_Jack Juggler_, edit. 1848, p. 46.

Those bribed are worse than blind.

"_Well wots the cat whose beard she licketh._"--SKELTON'S _Garlande of Laurel_, 1523.

"Wel wot nure cat whas berd he lickat."--WRIGHT'S _Essays_, vol. i. p. 149.

"The cat knoweth whose lips she licketh."--HEYWOOD, 1562.

The first appears the most correct.

_What the good wife spares the cat eats._ Favourites are well cared for.

_When candles are out all cats are gray._ In the dark all are alike. This is said of beauty in general.

_When the cat is away the mice will play._--"The Bachelor's Banquet," 1603. Heywood's "Woman Killed with Kindness," 1607. When danger is past, it is time to rejoice.

_When the weasel and the cat make a marriage, it is very ill presage._ When enemies counsel together, take heed; when rogues agree, let the honest folk beware.

_When the maid leaves the door open, the cat's in fault._ It is always well to have another to bear the blame. The way to do ill deeds oft makes ill deeds done.

_Who shall hang the bell about the cat's neck?_--HEYWOOD, 1562.

"Who shall ty the bell about the cat's necke low? Not I (quoth the mouse), for a thing that I know."

The mice at a consultation held how to secure themselves from the cat, resolved upon hanging a bell about her neck, to give warning when she was near; but when this was resolved, they were as far to seek; for who would do it?--R. Who will court danger to benefit others?

A Douglas in the olden time, at a meeting of conspirators, said he would "bell the cat." Afterwards the enemy was taken by him, he retaining the cognomen of "Archibald Bell-the-cat."

_You can have no more of a cat than its skin._ You can have no more of a man but what he can do or what he has, or no more from a jug than what it contains.

THE CAT OF SHAKESPEARE.

Shakespeare mentions the cat forty-four times, and in this, like nearly all else of which he wrote, displayed both wonderful and accurate knowledge, not only of the form, nature, habits, and food of the animal, but also the inner life, the disposition, what it was, of what capable, and what it resembled. How truly he saw either from study, observation, or intuitively knew, not only the outward contour of "men and things," but could see within the casket which held the life and being, noting clearly thoughts, feelings, aspirations, intents, and purposes, not of the one only, but that also of the brute creation.

How truthfully he alludes to the peculiar eyes of the cat, the fine mark that the pupil dwindles to when the sun rides high in the heavens! Hear Grumio in _The Taming of the Shrew:_

And so disfigure her with it, that she shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat.

As to the food of the cat, he well informs us that at this distant period domestic cats were fed and cared for to a certain extent, for besides much else, he points to the fact of its love of milk in _The Tempest_, Antonio's reply to Sebastian in Act II., Scene 1:

For all the rest, They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk.

And in _King Henry the Fourth_, Act IV., Scene 2, of its pilfering ways, Falstaff cries out:

I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

While Lady Macbeth points to the uncertain, timid, cautious habits of the cat, amounting almost to cowardice:

Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i' the adage.

and in the same play the strange superstitious fear attached to the voice and presence of the cat at certain times and seasons:

Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed.

The line almost carries a kind of awe with it, a sort of feeling of "what next will happen?" He noted, also, as he did most things, its marvellous powers of observation, for in _Coriolanus_, Act IV., Scene 2, occurs the following:

Cats, that can judge as fitly.

and of the forlorn loneliness of the age-stricken male cat in _King Henry the Fourth_, Falstaff, murmuring, says:

I am as melancholy as a gib cat.

He marks, too, the difference of action in the lion and cat, in a state of nature:

A crouching lion and a ramping cat.

Of the night-time food-seeking cat, in _The Merchant of Venice_, old Shylock talks of the

...Slow in profit, and he sleeps by day More than the wild cat.

In the same play Shylock discourses of those that have a natural horror of certain animals, which holds good till this day:

Some men there are love not a gaping pig, Some, that are mad if they behold a cat.

and further on:

As there is no firm reason to be rendered Why he cannot abide a gaping pig, Why he, a harmless necessary cat.

Note the distinction he makes between the wild and the domestic cat; the one, evidently, he knew the value and use of, and the other, its peculiar stealthy ways and of nature dread. In _All's Well that Ends Well_, he gives vent to his dislike; Bertram rages forth:

I could endure anything before but a cat, And now he's cat to me.

The feud with the wild cat intensifies in _Midsummer Night's Dream_; 'tis Lysander speaks:

Hang off, thou cat, thou burr, thou vile thing.

And Gremio tells of the untamableness of the wild cat, which he deems apparently impossible:

But will you woo this wild cat?

Romeo, in _Romeo and Juliet_, looks with much disfavour, not only on cats but also dogs; in fact, the dog was held in as high disdain as the cat:

And every cat and dog, And every little mouse, and every unworthy thing.

Here is Hamlet's opinion:

The cat will mew, the dog will have his day.

In _Cymbeline_ there is:

In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs.

The foregoing is enough to show the great poet's opinion of the cat.

SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCRAFT.

A very remarkable peculiarity of the domestic cat, and possibly one that has had much to do with the ill favour with which it has been regarded, especially in the Middle Ages, is the extraordinary property which its fur possesses of yielding electric sparks when hand-rubbed or by other friction, the black in a larger degree than any other colour, even the rapid motion of a fast retreating cat through rough, tangled underwood having been known to produce a luminous effect. In frosty weather it is the more noticeable, the coldness of the weather apparently giving intensity and brilliancy, which to the ignorant would certainly be attributed to the interference of the spiritual or superhuman. To sensitive natures and nervous temperaments the very contact with the fur of the black cat will often produce a startling thrill or absolutely an electric shock. That carefully observant naturalist, Gilbert White, speaking of the frost of 1785, notes: "During those two Siberian days my parlour cat was so electric, that had a person stroked her, and been properly insulated, the shock might have been given to a whole circle of people."

Possibly from this lively fiery sparkling tendency, combined with its noiseless motion and stealthy habits, our ancestors were led in the happily bygone superstitious days to regard the unconscious animal as a "familiar" of Satan or some other evil spirit, which generally appeared in the form of a black cat; hence witches were said to have a black cat as their "familiar," or could at will change themselves into the form of a black cat with eyes of fire. Shakespeare says, "the cat with eyne of burning coal," and in Middleton's _Witch_, Act III., Hecate says:

I will but 'noint, and then I'll mount. (_A Spirit like a cat descends. Voice above._) There's one come down to fetch his dues. (_Later on the Voice calls._) Hark! hark! the cat sings a brave treble in her own language. (_Then_ HECATE.) Now I go, now I fly, Malkin, my sweet spirit, and I, etc.