warder

Kent. Mortimer, ’tis I.

But hath thy portion wrought so happily?

Younger Mortimer. It hath, my lord: the warders all asleep,

I thank them, gave me leave to pass in peace.

When, lo! the king chang’d suddenly his Mind,

Casts down his Warder to arrest them there;

The conspicuous position thus accorded to the cat as a warder-off of evil fortune seems oddly paralleled, though not imitated, by the place accorded to the same animal in popular European folklore.