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ESP Beyond Time and Distance – T C Lethbridge

This house, Hole, in Branscombe, stands on the side of a combe, which is narrow and steep sided. The farm on the opposite side is almost exactly 300 yards away and between the two houses the ground falls some 200 feet. Like most of the houses in sight, these two stand on a ledge, or terrace, at the 900 foot level. Between Hole and the slope is a narrow strip of garden bounded by a high wall, which was once the back of cow sheds. I have cut this wall into wide scallops, so that we can lean over it and look at the view.

There is a cross wall running back towards the house at right-angles to the scalloped one and almost in the angle I have set a stone seat made from a slate slab taken from a disused dairy. The level of this seat is well below that of the lowest curve in the other wall.

When we are looking out over this curve, my wife's cat invariably materializes and joins in the proceedings. It is seldom visible when we begin to look out, but arrives within a minute or two.

One warm evening last autumn, my wife and I went to look over the wall for a few minutes. The cat appeared as usual, but soon lost interest and went to lie on the seat, which was still in sunlight. Suddenly we saw him spring awake and sit bolt upright. In this position his head was about a foot below the curve of the wall. He could not see out over the curve on which we were leaning. He began his range-finding operation and soon his head became almost stationary in one position. He was not facing directly at the wall, but at a slight angle to it.

Wishing to see what had attracted the cat's attention, we took a rough bearing and looked out at the opposite side of the combe.

We saw a small black and white object moving here and there among the bramble bushes about 450 yards from us. We fetched the field-glasses and saw that it was a black and white cat hunting. Had there not been a lot of white on its body, we probably would not have seen it. I do not think we could have noticed a rabbit at that distance. Our cat certainly could not have seen it through a stone wall 2 feet thick.

Yet he had sensed it was there.

It had woken him up and when he had learnt all he wanted to know he lay down and went to sleep again.  Cats when hunting are remarkably silent. It seems impossible for our cat to have heard the other at 450 yards.