The Cameronian Cat

A well-known song from Hogg’s Jacobite Relics; and popular among the Cavaliers both of England and Scotland in the days of the Commonwealth.  It was usually sung to a psalm tune; the singers imitating the style and manner of a precentor at a Presbyterian church.

There was a Cameronian cat
   Was hunting for a prey,
And in the house she catch’d a mouse
   Upon the Sabbath-day.

The Whig, being offended
   At such an act profane,
Laid by his book, the cat he took,
   And bound her in a chain.

Thou damn’d, thou cursed creature,
   This deed so dark with thee,
Think’st thou to bring to hell below
   My holy wife and me?

Assure thyself that for the deed
   Thou blood for blood shalt pay,
For killing of the Lord’s own mouse
   Upon the Sabbath-day.

The presbyter laid by the book,
   And earnestly he pray’d
That the great sin the cat had done
   Might not on him be laid.

And straight to execution
   Poor pussy she was drawn,
And high hang’d up upon a tree—
   The preacher sung a psalm.

And when the work was ended,
   They thought the cat near dead,
She gave a paw, and then a mew,
   And stretched out her head.

Thy name, said he, shall certainly
   A beacon still remain,
A terror unto evil ones
   For evermore, Amen.