The beat cat-and-mouse story (designated "Melancholy Accident--a Cat killed by a Mouse") is to be found in "The Poor Artist," the author of which seems to have derived the story from a somewhat questionable source, though we must admit the possibility. "A cat had caught a mouse on a lawn, and let it go again, in her cruel way, in order to play with it; when the mouse, inspired by despair, and seeing only one hole possible to escape into--namely, the round red throat of the cat, very visible through her open mouth--took a bold spring into her jaws, just escaping between her teeth, and into her throat he struggled and stuffed himself; and so the cat was suffocated." It reads plausibly; let us imagine it was true.
The best spider-and-fly story we also take from the last-named book. "A very strong, loud, blustering fellow of a blue-bottle fly bounced accidentally into a spider's web. Down ran the old spider, and threw her long arms round his neck; but he fought, and struggled, and blew his drone, and fuzzed, and sung sharp, and beat, and battered, and tore the web in holes--and so got loose. The spider would not let go her hold round him--and _the fly flew away with the spider_!" This is related on the authority of Mr. Thomas Bell, the naturalist, who witnessed the heroic act.
This is Harrow Weal Common; and a lovely spot it is. Time was when the whole extent lay waste, or rather covered with soft herbage and wild flowers, where the bee sought her pasture, and the lark loved to hide her nest. But since then, cultivation has trenched on much of Harrow Weal. Cottages have risen, and small homesteads tell of security and abundance. It is pleasant to look upon them from this rising ground; to follow the windings of the broad stream, with pastures on either side, where sheep and cattle graze. Look narrowly toward yonder group of trees, and that slight elevation of the ground covered with wild chamomile; if the narrator who told concerning the miser of Harrow Weal Common has marked the spot aright, that mound and flowers are associated with the history of one whose profitless life affords a striking instance of the withering effects of avarice.
On that spot stood the house of Daniel Dancer; miserable in the fullest conception of the word: desolate and friendless, for no bright fire gleamed in winter on the old man's hearthstone; nor yet in spring, when all nature is redolent of bliss, did the confiding sparrow build her nest beside his thatch. The walls of his solitary dwelling were old and lichen-dotted; ferns sprung from out their fissures, and creeping ivy twined through the shattered window-panes. A sapling, no one knew how, had vegetated in the kitchen; its broken pavement afforded a free passage, and, as time went on, the sapling acquired strength, pushing its tall head through the damp and mouldering ceiling; then, catching more of air and light, it went upward to the roof, and, finding that the tiles were off and part of the rafters broken, that same tree looked forth in its youth and vigor, throwing its branches wide, and serving, as years passed on, to shelter the inmates of the hut.