"It is on the same principle," was the reply, "for clover-leaves grow naturally in threes and ash-leaves in sevens. Both rhymes are equally silly where luck is concerned, and those who believe God's words--that even 'the hairs of our head are all numbered'--will have no faith in 'luck.' In old times the ash was believed to perform wonderful cures of various kinds, and in remote parts of England a little mouse called the shrew-mouse bore a very bad character. If a horse or cow had pains in its limbs, they were said to be caused by a shrew-mouse running over it. Our forefathers provided themselves with what they called a shrew-ash, in order to meet the case. The shrew-ash was nothing more than an ash tree in the trunk of which a hole had been bored and a poor little shrew-mouse put in, with many charms and incantations happily long since forgotten."