“MUNSTER.”

Letter 6

Mrs. E.J.  Ellis’s Story—­“The Old Woman’s Cat"

My wife, writes Mr. Ellis, who was brought up in Germany, and who is not sufficiently confident about her English to attempt to put down anything for publication in that language, tells me the following story for the Occult Review:—­

“When I was a little girl living with my family near Michelstadt in the Odenwald, I remember an old woman like an old witch, whose name was Louise, and who was called ‘Pfeiffe Louise,’ because she exhibited pipes for sale in her cottage window, along with the cheap dress-stuffs, needles and threads, and simple toys for children which were her stock-in-trade.  She had a favourite cat which was devoted to her, but its attachment doesn’t seem to have been enough to make her happy, for she married a young sergeant named Lautenschlager, who might have been her son—­or indeed her grandson—­and who, as everyone said, courted her for her money.  She died as long ago as 1869, and during her last illness the devoted cat was always with her.  It kept watch beside the body when she was dead, and refused to be driven away.  In a fit of exasperation Lautenschlager seized it, carried it off, and drowned it in the little River Mumling, at a place where the road from Michelstadt to the neighbouring village Steinbach runs near the water’s edge.  It was bordered with poplars then, but chestnut trees shade it now.

“Soon after his first wife was buried Lautenschlager married again, and opened an eating-house in Steinbach, where he established his second wife.  He had a sister whom he placed in the cottage of poor ’Pfeiffe Louise.’  She carried on the business, and every day Lautenschlager used to walk over from Steinbach to see how she was getting on, returning in the evening to his wife, who used to relate to my mother that he frequently came home terrified and bathed in perspiration, for as he passed the place where he had drowned the cat, its ghost used to come out of the river and run beside him along the dark road, sometimes terrifying him still more by jumping in front of him.

“After a few years of married life the second wife died, and Lautenschlager married a third.  The little cottage business had prospered, and in its place he now had a considerable draper’s shop in Michelstadt.  He continued to walk over from Steinbach, where now the third wife lived in the eating-house, and the ghost of the cat continued to frighten him by appearing at nightfall as he walked beside the river.