CATS


In opening this volume on Animals and their associations with the
unknown, I will commence with a case of hauntings in the Old Manor
House, at Oxenby.

My informant was a Mrs. Hartnoll, whom I can see in my mind's eye, as
distinctly as if I were looking at her now. Hers was a personality that
no lapse of time, nothing could efface; a personality that made itself
felt on boys of all temperaments, most of all, of course, on those
who--like myself--were highly strung and sensitive.

She was classical mistress at L.'s, the then well-known dame school in
Clifton, where for three years--prior to migrating to a Public School--I
was well grounded in all the mysticisms of Kennedy's Latin Primer and
Smith's First Greek Principia.

I doubt if she got anything more than a very small salary--governesses
in those days were shockingly remunerated--and I know,--poor soul, she
had to work monstrously hard. Drumming Latin and Greek into heads as
thick as ours was no easy task.

But there were times, when the excessive tension on the nerves proving
too much, Mrs. Hartnoll stole a little relaxation; when she allowed
herself to chat with us, and even to smile--Heavens! those smiles! And
when--I can feel the tingling of my pulses at the bare mention of
it--she spoke about herself, stated she had once been young--a
declaration so astounding, so utterly beyond our comprehension, that we