Уильямс Урсула Морей

Gobbolino The Witch's Cat. The Further Adventures Of Gobbolino And The Little Wooden Horse

1. GOBBOLINO THE WITCH’S CAT

1

Gobbolino in Disgrace

One fine moonlight night little Gobbolino, the witch’s kitten, and his sister Sootica tumbled out of the cavern where they had been born, to play at catch-a-mouse among the creeping shadows.

It was the first time they had left the cavern, and their round eyes were full of wonder and excitement at everything they saw.

Every leaf that blew, every dewdrop that glittered, every rustle in the forest around them set their furry black ears a-prick.

“Did you hear that, brother?”

“Did you see that, sister?”

“I saw it!And that! And that! And that!”

When they were tired of playing they sat side by side in the moonlight talking and quarrelling a little, as a witch’s kittens will.

“What will you be when you grow up?” Gobbolino asked, as the moon began to sink behind the mountains and cocks crowed down the valley.

“Oh, I’ll be a witch’s cat like my ma,” said Sootica. “I’ll know all the Book of Magic off by heart and learn to ride a broomstick and turn mice into frogs and frogs into guinea pigs. I’ll fly down the clouds on the night-wind with the bats and the barn owls, saying ‘Meee-ee-ee-oww!’ so when people hear me coming they’ll say:‘Hush! There goes Sootica, the witch’s cat!’”

Gobbolino was very silent when he heard his sister’s fiery words.

“And what will you be, brother?” asked Sootica agreeably.

“I’ll be a kitchen cat,” said Gobbolino. “I’ll sit by the fire with my paws tucked under my chest and sing like the kettle on the hob. When the children come in from school they’ll pull my ears and tickle me under the chin and coax me round the kitchen with a cotton reel. I’ll mind the house and keep down the mice and watch the baby, and when all the children are in bed I’ll creep on my missus’s lap while she darns the stockings and master nods in his chair. I’ll stay with them for ever and ever, and they’ll call me Gobbolino the kitchen cat.”

“Don’t you want to be bad?” Sootica asked him in great surprise.

“No,” said Gobbolino, “I want to be good and have people love me. People don’t love witches’ cats. They are too disagreeable.”

He licked his paw and began to wash his face, while his little sister scowled at him and was just about to trot in and find their mother, when a ray of moonlight falling across both the kittens set her fur standing on end with rage and fear.

“Brother! Brother! One of your paws is white!”

In the deeps of the witch’s cavern no one had noticed that little Gobbolino had been born with a white front paw. Everyone knows this is quite wrong for witches’ kittens, which are black all over from head to foot, but now the moonbeam lit up a pure white sock with five pink pads beneath it, while the kitten’s coat, instead of being jet black like his sister’s, had a faint sheen of tabby, and his lovely round eyes were blue! All witches’ kittens are born with green eyes.

No wonder that little Sootica flew into the cavern with cries of distress to tell her mother all about it.

“Ma! Ma! Our Gobbolino has a white sock! He has blue eyes! His coat is tabby, not black, and he wants to be a kitchen cat!”

The kitten’s cries brought her mother, Grimalkin, to the door of the cavern. Their mistress, the witch, was not far behind her, and in less time than it takes to tell they had knocked the unhappy Gobbolino head over heels, set him on his feet again, cuffed his ears, tweaked his tail, bounced him, bulliedhim, and so bewildered him that he could only stare stupidly at them, blinking his beautiful blue eyes as if he could not imagine what they were so angry about.

At last Grimalkin picked him up by the scruff of his neck and dropped him in the darkest, dampest corner of the cavern among the witch’s tame toads.

Gobbolino was afraid of the toads and shivered and shook all night.

2

Gobbolino is Left Alone

[????????: img_4]

In the morning Gobbolino heard the witch talking things over with his mother.

“I think we ought to apprentice the kittens very quickly,” she said. “There is Sootica, who is eager to learn, and will make a clever little cat, while the sooner the nonsense is knocked out of her brother’s head the better.”

So when the moon rose round and full the witch and her cat mounted their broomstick with the two young kittens in a bag slung behind them, and sailed away over the mountains to apprentice them to other witches, for that is the way to train a witch’s cat.

They flew so fast, so fast, that little Gobbolino, peeping through a hole in the sack, saw the stars of the Milky Way flutter past him like a shower of diamonds– so fast that the bats they overtook seemed to lumber along like clumsy elephants.

It made him dizzy to look below him at the sleeping hills and rivers, the chasms and lakes, the watchful mountains and brooding cities. Little Sootica mewed for joy at their wild and giddy flight, but Gobbolino shivered at the bottom of the sack, while tears of terror dropped on his white front paw.

“Oh, please, stop! Oh, please, please, please!” he sobbed, but nobody paid any attention to him.

At last with a glorious swoop like the dive of a wild seabird, the witch and her broomstick came down on the Hurricane Mountains, where lived a hideous witch who agreed almost at once to take little Sootica into her cavern and train her as a witch’s cat.

The kitten was so overjoyed she could hardly stop to say goodbye to her little brother, she was so eager to begin learning how to turn people into toads and frogs and other disagreeable objects.

Gobbolino cried a little at parting with his playmate, but the witch quite refused to take him with his sister.

“A witch’s cat with a white paw! Ho! Ho! Ho!” she croaked. “You’ll never get rid of that one!”

So Gobbolino rode away on the broomstick once more, behind his mother Grimalkin and her mistress, and although they visited fifty or more caverns before the dawn broke over the Hurricane Mountains, not a witch would look twice at the kitten with the white paw and beautiful blue eyes.

So they flew home again and flung Gobbolino into the cavern among the toads, and there he stayed day after day, till one fine morning he woke up and found himself all alone.

The witch had gone and Grimalkin too, the cauldron, the book of spells, the toads, the foxes, the magic herbs, the brews, the broomstick, everything that had once made magic.

They had all flown away and deserted him for ever.

3

Gobbolino Finds a Home

[????????: img_5]

The witch and her cat Grimalkin had been so unkind to him that little Gobbolino was not sorry to be without them, but all the same it is a terrible thing for so young a kitten to be left all alone, and he spent some hours at the door of the cavern crying bitterly and wondering what was to become of him.

“Suppose they never come back!” sobbed Gobbolino. “Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?”

But at last the idea came to him that if his mother Grimalkin and her mistress the witch had really left him for good there was no need for him to stay in the cavern and be a witch’s cat any longer. He could go out into the world whenever he pleased and find a happy home to live in for ever and ever.

When this happy idea had struck little Gobbolino he stopped crying immediately and began to look round him.

The witch’s cavern was on the edge of a forest, but not very far away were fields and woods and a river, and beyond these must be houses and farms and cities such as he had seen from his ride on the witch’s broomstick.

Surely somewhere there must be a comfortable hearth and kind people, willing to offer a happy home to a little cat?

Gobbolino washed his face and then his coat and paws very carefully before he left the cavern for ever.

He trotted through the fields feeling very bold and brave, till the forest was out of sight behind him, and there in front was the river, winding its way in and out of reeds and shallows, bubbling and churning like the spell-water in the witch’s cauldron, or flowing smoothly, with bright fishes in it that caught little Gobbolino’s hungry eye and made his mouth water.

He had had nothing to eat the whole day long and the sight of those bright fishes reminded him how hungry he was.

“Never mind,” said Gobbolino. “Presently I shall come to a fine big farmhouse with a fine big kitchen, where they will invite me in and give me a saucer of milk and a corner by the fire. Then they will ask me to live with them for ever – Gobbolino the kitchen cat!”

As he said this he thought of his little sister Sootica apprenticed to the witch high up on the Hurricane Mountains, and he began to cry again, but after all, it was what she had wished for, so there was no more to be said about it.

Presently Gobbolino met a little bridge that crossed the river from bank to bank. It was a very narrow bridge, no more than a plank, and so low over the water that the little cat could touch the ripples with his paw as they passed beneath it.

He thought he might catch a fish this way, so he settled himself in the middle of the plank and waited until one of the beautiful creatures should come swimming by.

Before long a lovely trout dressed in pink and gold and blue swam slowly down the stream towards him.

Little Gobbolino trembled with excitement and waited for it to pass beneath the plank.

He stretched out his paw at the same moment as the trout saw him and flashed by with a scornful swish of its tail. The little cat made one wild grab after it, reached too far, overbalanced, and tumbled head-over-heels into the water.

There was a terrible splash and commotion as he thought he was drowning, and then Gobbolino began to swim.

He swam and swam as the river carried him swiftly downstream, far from the forest and the cavern where he was born. He swam till the river ran into farmland, towards a great mill where the mill-wheel waited to churn Gobbolino into a thousand bits.

The little cat did not know his danger, and it was lucky for him that the children of the farm were playing on the river bank just above the mill-stream.

“Look! Look!” they cried to one another. “Here comes a kitten swimming for its life!”

“It will get caught in the mill-wheel!” said one of the little girls. “Quick! Quick! And get it out!”

Her brothers ran to get a stick and fished out Gobbolino as they might have fished a plum out of one of their mother’s pies.

“What a black coat he has!” they said.

“It is almost tabby!” said the little girls.

“And what bright eyes!” said their brothers.

“They are a beautiful blue!” said the little girls.

“He has three black paws!” said the boys.

“But one is pure white!” said the girls.

They took Gobbolino into the farm to show him to their mother.

The farm was fine and big, and it was the kind of kitchen Gobbolino had dreamed of.

There were red stone tiles and bright pots and pans sitting on shelves all the way round the room. There was a blazing fire in the hearth and a kettle singing on the hob. There was a baby in a cradle that rocked as the children’s mother pushed it gently to and fro.

“Oh, what a lucky cat I am!” he said to himself, in spite of his weariness and cold. “Here is the first house I come to, the home of my dreams! A friendly roof, a good fire, a worthy mother, and kind-hearted children! Now I can settle down happily and be a plain little kitchen cat for ever and ever.”

The farmer’s wife took Gobbolino on her lap and wiped his wet fur with a warm cloth.

“And where do you come from, my little cat?” she asked him kindly. “How did you come to fall in the terrible mill-stream? Don’t you know you might have been drowned?”

“Yes, ma’am!” replied Gobbolino gratefully. “I fell in catching fishes. I come from the cavern in the forest up yonder, and the river brought me down here.”

When his fur was dry the farmer’s wife gave him a good drink of warm milk, and while she went out to milk the cows he amused the children and the baby by all kinds of strange tricks that every witch’s kitten knows by heart. He made blue sparks come out of his whiskers and red ones out of his nose. He became invisible and then visible again, and hid himself in all kinds of strange places for them to find him again, in the cuckoo clock, in a teacup, in the farmer’s shoe, till the children were tired of laughter and begged him to be quiet, and give them a little peace.

In the middle of all this the farmer himself came in to tea. He kissed the children all round, but when he saw Gobbolino at his tricks he suddenly became very grave, and soon shooed them all off to bed in a hurry, while the little cat curled himself up in a wooden box under the kitchen table that the farmer’s wife herself had provided for him there.

“What a lucky cat I am,” he said, as he tucked away his three black paws and the white one and closed his beautiful blue eyes. “Now my troubles are over for ever and ever. I am Gobbolino the kitchen cat.”

4

Hobgoblin

[????????: img_6]

As little Gobbolino slept sweetly beneath the kitchen table the voices of the farmer and his wife mingled with his dreams.

“Where did that kitten come from, mother?”

“The children found it swimming in the millrace, father.”

“Kittens don’t swim, mother.”

“The children said it was swimming for its life.”

“It seems strange to me, mother, that a kitten should find itself in the millrace unless somebody tried to drown it.”

“It fell in catching fishes, it said. It came from the cavern on the hill.”

“Ah!” said the farmer, and he was silent for a long while.

“Did you see the tricks it was after when I came in?” he asked presently.

“I heard the children laughing, from the cowshed,” said the farmer’s wife. “It was playing with a cotton reel.”

“It was playing stranger tricks than that,” said the farmer. “Sparks in its ears, sparks in its eyes, vanishing, popping out of cuckoo clocks – that’s no way for a kitten to behave, mother.”

“The sparks came out of the fire, and the children put it in the cuckoo clock,” said the farmer’s wife.

The farmer was silent again for several minutes.

“It’s a strange-looking kitten, mother,” he said at last.

“The children are very fond of it,” replied the farmer’s wife.

The farmer said no more about it, and soon enough they went to bed, while Gobbolino slept and purred and dreamed and the sparks died out of the fire, and a hobgoblin tapped at the windowpane.

Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!

Now every kitchen cat knows that when a tap comes on the window after dark no notice should be taken of it at all. If it is a stranger looking for shelter, sooner or later he will wake the farmer up, but the kitchen cat goes on sleeping under the table. It has nothing to do with him.

But little Gobbolino, who had never been a kitchen cat before, sat up immediately with his ears a-prick and whispered:

“Who goes there?”

Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!

The hobgoblin peeped in through the window and winked at Gobbolino.

He had a little brown face and a little brown cap, and he beckoned with a little brown finger, whispering:

“Come and let me in, my little cat, now do!”

Gobbolino sat and stared at him, saying nothing at all.

“What a lovely kitchen you have, my little friend!” sighed the hobgoblin. “What bright dishes! What glittering pans! What a pretty cradle! What a nice warm hearth! Won’t you let me come in and warm my toes, my pretty one?”

Gobbolino only sat and stared at him, saying nothing at all.

The hobgoblin became very impatient, and rattled at the windowpane, saying:

“You kitchen cats are all alike! All selfish! All self-satisfied! Look at you warming your toes in safety and comfort, and look at me, all lonely and lost in the cold outside!”

When Gobbolino heard these words he did not hesitate any longer. He remembered how a short while ago he too had been lonely and lost, and might be still if the children had not brought him into the farm. When the hobgoblin called him a kitchen cat he remembered how lucky he was, and trotted straight across to open the window.

“You may come in and warm your toes for a little while beside the fire,” he said.

The hobgoblin slipped across the table and sat down on the hearth beside Gobbolino, leaving dirty wet footmarks all across the kitchen floor.

“How is all your family?” he asked in a friendly manner, giving Gobbolino’s tail a friendly tweak.

“My mother Grimalkin has gone away with my mistress the witch!” replied Gobbolino. “And my little sister Sootica is apprenticed to a hag in the Hurricane Mountains. I don’t know how any of them are.”

“Oho!” said the hobgoblin with a gleam of mischief. “So you are a witch’s kitten?”

“Oh, no!” said Gobbolino shaking his head, “I am no longer any witch’s cat. This afternoon I became a kitchen cat, and a kitchen cat I shall be for ever and ever.”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed the hobgoblin, turning head over heels as if he thought Gobbolino was the greatest joke in the world. His somersault brought the farmer’s wife’s knitting off the chair, and in a moment it was tangled round the table legs, the pins were strewn over the floor, and the stitches running higgledy-piggledy after one another in greatest confusion.

“Take care! Take care!” cried Gobbolino, but the hobgoblin made one bound into the dairy and slammed the door.

Now every kitchen cat knows that no one may enter the dairy between sundown and sunrise, except the farmer’s wife, but Gobbolino had no idea of it.

He trotted round and round the kitchen gathering up the wool and the knitting-pins, trying to set them straight again, but all in vain. When the hobgoblin bounced back from the dairy sucking his fingers, which were covered with cream, the tangle was as hopeless as ever, and there was nothing to do but put it back on the cradle just as it was.

“Well, I’m off!” said the hobgoblin, jumping out of the window in one leap. “Maybe I’ll come back again and see you another night, maybe I won’t. Goodnight, my little witch’s kitten, and pleasant dreams to you!”

Gobbolino felt very relieved when the hobgoblin was gone, and he had bolted the window fast behind him.

“I have learned the first lesson of a kitchen cat,” he said. “I shall never open the window again.”

He trotted back to his box beneath the kitchen table and slept the rest of the night without waking.

Early in the morning when the farmer’s wife came down the stairs she found her knitting in a tangle and all the cream stolen from the dairy.

Written across the stone floor in milky letters were the words:

“Gobbolino is a witch’s cat!”

5

The Orphanage

[????????: img_7]

The farmer’s wife called her husband to come downstairs.

“The cream has gone!” she said. “My knitting is in a tangle, and look what is written on the dairy floor!”

“I told you so!” replied the farmer. “Kitchen cats don’t swim, and they don’t have blue and crimson sparks coming out of their whiskers. Kitchen cats don’t tangle knitting and steal the cream from the dairy. They don’t put strange writings on the floor! He’s a witch’s cat, and no good to anybody. I’m going to drown him directly!”

But when Gobbolino heard his angry voice and saw him coming across the kitchen with long and angry strides, he was out of his box in one bound and out of the kitchen door, across the cobblestones, past the hayricks, and up the hill.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” sobbed Gobbolino when he had left the farm far behind him and came to the other side of the hill. “What an unlucky little cat I am! Why was I ever born a witch’s kitten? Why – oh, why?”

He was sobbing so bitterly that at first he did not hear the sounds of sorrow that came from a tumbledown cottage beside the highway, but presently the noise of sobs and tears and lamentations became so loud that his own tears ceased, and he stopped to look in through the open door and see what could be the cause of such misery.

The cottage was as wretched as any he had seen, while in the middle of it three little brothers were packing all their worldly goods into three red handkerchiefs, while a baby in a basket looked on and joined in their sorrow, which was very loud and miserable indeed.

When they caught sight of Gobbolino they stopped crying immediately and rushed to pick him up.

The middle brother fell over the biggest brother, the smallest brother squeezed between their legs and brought them both down in a heap, while the baby tumbled out of its basket, and lay squalling in the middle of the floor, for he saw that he would never reach the kitten first, which made him very distressed indeed.

“Oh, you dear, sweet, pretty little cat!” cried all the little brothers together. “What is your name and where do you come from? And what are you doing wandering along the highway all alone?”

Gobbolino jumped lightly over their heads and tucked the baby back into his basket before he said sedately:

“My name is Gobbolino, and I come from the farm down yonder. I am looking for a home where I can catch the mice and mind the children and sit by the fire for ever and ever.”

“Oh, do stay with us!” begged the little brothers, and then they suddenly burst out crying again and sobbed:

“Oh! Oh! But we haven’t got a home any longer! We are orphans, and the house is tumbling to pieces! We’ve got to go out into the world and find a new house and a new father and mother! Oh! Oh! Oh!”

When Gobbolino found that the little brothers were in just such a plight as himself he took them all to his heart and tied up their little bootlaces and helped them pack their bundles one by one. Then he picked up the baby in the basket and led them out of the tumbledown cottage on to the king’s highway, where their tears soon dried as they chased butterflies and picked great bunches of kingcups that they gave to Gobbolino to carry for them.

As they ran and skipped and hopped they talked about the happy home they meant to find, the kind father and mother, and the splendid house with large gardens and a beautiful nursery full of rocking-horses and a thousand different toys, with a golden cradle for the baby.

“And of course there will be a place by the fire for you, dear, kind, good little Gobbolino!” they cried. “You must stay with us for ever and ever!”

Gobbolino felt he would like nothing better than to stay with these happy-go-lucky children, but if he could first help them to find kind parents and a happy home he did not mind what became of himself.

They were so young and innocent, he felt it was his duty to find a father and mother for them as soon as possible.

They had walked for some miles, and all the little brothers were tired as well as hungry, when they came to some high iron gates set in a high stone wall. Written across the top of the gates in gilt letters was the word“ORPHANAGE”.

When the little brothers read these words they clapped their hands with joy, while the baby in the basket crowed, and Gobbolino’s heart fluttered with pleasure at meeting such good fortune so quickly.

“What a lucky cat I am!” he said, putting down the basket to ring the bell. “This is just the place I was looking for! Surely here they will feed these poor children and be kind to them, or who else will?”

Before long a kind, rosy-faced woman in a white cap opened the door, raising her hands in astonishment at the sight of the three little brothers and the baby in the basket, who all began talking to her at once.

“Oh, please, ma’am, we are four orphans and our house is tumbled down and we are looking for a kind home and a father and mother and a cradle for the baby and a place by the kitchen fire for Gobbolino our little cat!”

“My goodness gracious!” exclaimed the rosy-faced porteress, trying to fold them all into her arms at once. “Come in and warm yourselves and eat a bowl of hot soup. Who will be kind to four orphans if it isn’t an orphanage? And who will turn out such a pretty little cat? Come in, come in, the sun is going down, and all children should be having their supper and going to bed.”

The little brothers trotted into the orphanage behind her, while the porteress carried the baby in the basket and Gobbolino followed at their heels.

Soon the little boys were seated at trestle tables with four and twenty other orphans, and when Gobbolino saw how hopefully they gobbled up their soup, how often they passed their plates for more, and how cheerfully they banged the heads of the other orphans with their wooden spoons, he trotted into the kitchen behind the porteress in great contentment and thankfully lapped up the saucer of bread and milk that she offered him there.

“Such pretty boys!” said the porteress. “A father or mother would be proud to own them!”

And she told Gobbolino that in a few days’ time the Lord Mayor and Mayoress were coming to the orphanage to choose an orphan to bring up as their own child. She felt quite sure that when they saw the little brothers and their pretty ways they would choose all three of them and the baby as well.

“And as for you, my pretty Gobbolino, we need a cat in the kitchen to keep down the mice,” said the porteress. “You can stay here and help the cook and mind the orphans for as long as you please.”

Gobbolino thanked her very gratefully, though he sighed a little at the thought of parting from the little brothers, of whom he had grown quite fond; but he liked to think of the kind home waiting for them, and of the father and mother who would care for them and bring them up as worthy citizens. It would suit him very well, he thought, to become an orphanage cat, and although the cook was very sour-faced and bad-tempered, the porteress was very kind.

So he slept well enough on the piece of old carpet that the cook threw at him, and was up early in the morning watching at the mouseholes in the hope of showing what he was worth by the time the cook came downstairs.

A witch’s kitten is always an excellent mouser.

Gobbolino had only to turn himself into a piece of Stilton cheese and wait outside the mousehole.

Presently,sniff-sniff-sniff! Scrabble-scrabble-scrabble! The mouse came down the wainscot sniffing with its pointed nose and twitching its greedy whiskers. It crept into the kitchen and looked about for the cook, but there was nobody there– only a tempting piece of Stilton cheese lying on the shiny red tiles.

Sniff-sniff-sniff! The mouse crept closer and closer, and then all of a sudden Gobbolino was a cat again, and there was one thief the less in the kitchen– for the mice stole the orphans’ cake and ran all over the larder leaving dirty little footmarks on all the food, doing nearly as much damage as the hobgoblin.

6

Gruel

[????????: img_3]

Gobbolino had caught three mice by the time the cook came downstairs, but she would not look at him or give him a word of praise.

She set about making gruel for the orphans’ breakfast. It was very thin and grey and unpleasant, and the orphans hated it. The porteress had told the cook to make them good porridge, but she never woke up herself until the tables were cleared. So the lazy cook made gruel day after day, and the porteress knew nothing whatever about it.

When Gobbolino saw the unpleasant grey mixture that the cook was stirring in the cauldron he felt sorry for the orphans, and when her back was turned he put a spell into the gruel that filled it full of sugar-plums.

No wonder their eyes shone with pleasure as their little bowls were filled, no wonder that they scraped them clean and shining so that the cook could hardly believe her eyes when the cauldron came back empty into the kitchen. She was accustomed to giving most of the gruel to the pigs.

The next day Gobbolino put caramels into the gruel, and the orphans shouted for joy. He also caught five mice for the cook, but she never gave him a word of praise, although he made himself as useful as ten kitchen maids about the kitchen, wiping the dishes, peeling the potatoes, and polishing all the orphans’ little boots.

The little brothers romped joyfully with the other orphans, playing at hide-and-seek, touch last, follow my leader, and other nursery games. The baby sat on the porteress’s lap and sucked its thumb. It gladdened Gobbolino’s heart to see them so contented and happy.

When he crept into the nursery to see how they were doing the little brothers flew to clasp him round the neck.

“Oh, our dear, our darling, our beautiful Gobbolino!” they shouted, while the baby crowed and kicked, but they had no time to make a fuss of him before the cook called him back to the kitchen. She said that the mice came out and jeered at her when he was out of the way.

The next day all was bustle and confusion, for the Lord Mayor and his lady were coming on the morrow to choose an orphan to bring up as their own child, and everything in the orphanage was made ready to receive them.

All the orphans’ best white frocks and shirts must be starched and ironed, their hair put in curlers, their nails cut, and their shoes polished; in the evening Gobbolino helped the cook and the porteress to bath them, every one, with many shouts and splashings and a great deal of water over the kitchen floor,which annoyed the cook very much indeed.

The orphans that were being bathed by the cook tried to escape from her to Gobbolino:

“Oh, dear, kind Gobbolino – do come and bath us! Oh, do!”

When the little brothers fell into the bony hands of the cook they cried and screamed and made such a fuss that she boxed their ears in desperation and left the kitchen, to the great joy of all the orphans, who skipped about the floor in their little nightshirts crying“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” till even Gobbolino grew a little weary of them.

In the morning the cook was still so angry that she put salt into the gruel instead of sugar, and all the sugar-plums in the world could not hide the taste of it, so Gobbolino made another spell and turned it into chocolate sauce.

No wonder that the orphans’ eyes grew round with wonder and delight as they sat round the table in their clean white frocks and shirts, covered with clean white bibs, all ready for the Lord Mayor’s visit. No wonder that they polished all their little bowls until not a scrap was left, and then dug their wooden spoons into the cauldron and polished that too till it gleamed and shone, and Gobbolino, watching from the doorway, purred with joy to see them all so happy.

But when the cook came up from the kitchen to fetch away the cauldron her eyes nearly started out of her head, for the orphans’ rosy cheeks were covered with chocolate sauce, and so were their clean white bibs, put on in the Lord Mayor’s honour. No wonder that their faces shone with pleasure, or that their bowls were so clean and polished.

The cook rushed away to call the porteress, who appeared in her nightcap, blinking with sleep, for she was no early riser.

When she heard the cook’s story and saw the orphans’ bibs she turned quite pale.

“Where have you come from, my little cat?” she asked Gobbolino. “And who was your mother?”

“Please, ma’am, I was born in a witch’s cave and Grimalkin was my mother!” replied Gobbolino innocently. “My little sister Sootica is apprenticed to a witch in the Hurricane Mountains, but I wished to become a kitchen cat, so I left home, and here I am!”

“I knew it! I was positive of it!” stormed the cook. “Only a witch’s cat could do such things! No cat could kill so many mice without the aid of magic. He may cast spells on the children! He may turn us all into herrings or bats or horrible reptiles! Do away with him directly, ma’am! Don’t keep such a creature among innocent babies!”

The eyes of the honest porteress filled with tears as she looked at Gobbolino, for she had no heart to turn even a witch’s kitten out of doors, while all the orphans set up such a weeping and a wailing (particularly the little brothers) that they threatened to ruin all their best starched shirts and dresses as well as their dirty bibs, stretching out their arms and sobbing:

“Oh, don’t send away our dear, darling, beautiful Gobbolino!”

And in the middle of it all the Lord Mayor’s coach rolled up to the door, and the Lord Mayor’s coachman pulled the bell.

The porteress had just time to dry the orphans’ tears, wipe the chocolate sauce off their faces and remove their bibs, while the cook, having flung her slipper at Gobbolino and driven him into the kitchen, ran to open the door.

The orphans were ready with bows and curtseys and shy smiles of excitement when the Lord Mayor and Mayoress came into the hall, but the cook bounced back into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her.

“Now be off with you!” she cried to Gobbolino. “Witch’s cat! Magic maker! You shall never put spells into my cauldron again! Out into the street you go, and let me never see a whisker of your face again!”

So saying she picked up a stick and chased Gobbolino out of the back door into the street.

The little cat shivered and shook when he found himself safe round the corner.

“Oh, my goodness, how unlucky I am!” he said to himself, sitting down for a moment to get his breath. “I never meant any harm, I only meant to give some pleasure to those innocent children! Who would have thought it would lead to such trouble? Oh, why was I born a witch’s cat – oh, why?”

But as he became calmer he began to think that after all it might be for the best. The little brothers and the baby, all of whom he loved dearly, were about to be adopted by the Lord Mayor and given a happy home. They would certainly be well brought up, and the baby would have a stately cradle.

As for himself, the cook had never liked him, and would sooner or later have turned him out.

He sighed to think of the orphans’ gruel, but the porteress presided over the rest of their meals and they had nothing to complain of.

“Some day I shall find a happy home,” said Gobbolino, trotting along in the dust, and purring to think of the good fortune that had come to the little brothers.

7

The Lord Mayor’s Coach

[????????: img_4]

Gobbolino had not left the orphanage more than two miles behind him when he heard a far-off sound like the rolling of distant wheels and the galloping of horses.

With his ears a-prick he jumped lightly out of the road in case the coach should run him over in its haste, for on the road behind him a cloud of dust was coming nearer and nearer with such a thundering of hoofs, jingling of harness, and creaking of wheels as Gobbolino had never heard before.

Presently he could distinguish four grey horses driven at a furious speed, and could even hear the shouts of the driver urging them on faster and faster and faster.

“Oh, my goodness!” said Gobbolino. “That looks remarkably like the Lord Mayor’s coach which I saw standing at the orphanage door! If it really is so, he must have left in a hurry! Whatever can be the matter?”

He crouched against the roadside while the great coach thundered past, swaying and jolting like a clumsy elephant, but it had scarcely passed him before three voices called out:

“Oh! Oh! Oh! Our darling, beautiful, sweet Gobbolino! Stop the coach! Stop! Stop! Stop! He’s here! He’s here! He’s here!”

And to Gobbolino’s horror and surprise he saw that the galloping coach with the sweating frantic horses and flying wheels was driven by the biggest of the three little brothers.

Two more leaned out of the windows, calling his name with all their might, while the baby, slung on the axle in his basket, solemnly sucked his thumb amid all the jolting and swinging and said nothing at all.

When they saw Gobbolino, Big Brother made a tremendous effort to draw in his horses, but they were galloping so fast that he only bewildered them. The coach swerved wildly round the next corner, catching the wheel hub on a large stone, and overturned. The next minute with a terrible crackling of shafts and splintering of gilded wood they were all upside down in the ditch.

“Oh, my goodness!” cried Gobbolino, galloping after them.

The horses were unharmed, and although all the little brothers were crying bitterly with distress and bruises on their foreheads, they were not sorely hurt either. The baby had been tossed on to the grass and was already picking dandelions, but the Lord Mayor’s beautiful golden coach lay in the ditch with broken shafts.

Gobbolino set the little brothers on their feet, prodding them for broken limbs in some anxiety. When he found they were all safe and sound, he cuffed their ears soundly all round, took the dandelions out of the baby’s mouth and said:

“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, you ought. I don’t know what in the world is to become of you! The Lord Mayor will never adopt you now!”

“Oh, please, don’t be angry with us, dear, sweet, kind Gobbolino!” sobbed the little brothers, bursting into fresh tears of grief and remorse. “How could you run away and leave us and not expect us to come after you and fetch you back again? How can you expect us to be adopted and leave youbehind? We didn’t mean any harm! How can you be so angry with us, Gobbolino?”

“Well, well, well, it can’t be helped now,” said Gobbolino, wiping away their tears. “I suppose the coach can be mended, and the horses seem as fresh as ever. We must go back to the orphanage and ask the Lord Mayor’s pardon directly.”

Big Brother caught the horses and mounted the leader. Brother climbed on the second and Little Brother on the third. Gobbolino leapt lightly on the fourth, holding the baby in his basket in front of him. The horses were no longer excited and unmanageable; they trotted quietly back to the orphanage gate and stopped in front of the door.

They found the whole orphanage, the Mayor and Mayoress, the porteress, the four and twenty orphans– even the cook, assembled on the steps peering anxiously down the road.

When they saw the little brothers the Lord Mayor was the first to gather them into his arms.

“Oh, my poor, unfortunate children!” he cried. “You might have been killed or terribly injured! You might have broken your legs or cracked your skulls, or been thrown out into the road! When you become my sons you shall never, never run into such danger again!”

The Lady Mayoress hugged the baby in its basket and exclaimed in horror at the dandelion stains on its fingers.

“We must send for a new coach and take them home with us directly!” she said.

“They ought to be beaten!” said the cook, disappearing into the kitchen, but the porteress had already found out about the gruel and dismissed her.

By the time the porteress had put arnica on the bruises of the three little brothers and had scolded them well and told them to behave and kissed the baby and blown all their noses and kissed them again, the Lord Mayor’s second-best coach was at the door and it was time for them to start for their new home.

The Lady Mayoress took the baby on her lap, the three little brothers scrambled aboard, quarrelling as to which should sit next to the driver, and the coachman was just cracking his whip when the boys cried out in chorus:

“Gobbolino! Gobbolino! Where is Gobbolino? – please, oh, please, kind sir, don’t take us away without our little cat!”

The kind-hearted Lord Mayor was ready to do anything for his four new sons, but the Lady Mayoress detested cats.

Gobbolino might have been left behind again had not the baby stretched out its little arms so pleadingly that the Lady Mayoress herself opened the door, and Gobbolino jumped inside. He was careful to avoid distressing her by sitting very quietly in a far corner of the carriage, and so the coach rumbled steadily towards their new home, and Gobbolino realized with pleasure that he was now to become a Lord Mayor’s cat.

8

The Lady Mayoress Doesn’t Like Cats

[????????: img_5]

The Lord Mayor’s house was large and noble, and the nurseries more splendid even than the little brothers had dreamed of.

There was a golden cradle for the baby, a rocking-horse, soldiers, engines, and a thousand different toys in cupboards and on shelves around the room.

There was a thick warm rug in front of the fire where Gobbolino might tuck in his paws and drowsily watch their play, and a high windowsill where he could sit and look down upon the courtyard, with the Lord Mayor’s lackeys running to and fro, the peacocks that sometimes strayed from the Lady Mayoress’s garden, and the messengers that were constantly bringing great sealed letters to the door.

The Lord Mayor and his lady were as kind and as loving as any parents the little brothers could wish for, the nurseries rang with laughter and happiness; it was the house of Gobbolino’s dreams – if only the Lady Mayoress had liked cats.

She tried to hide it, for she had a heart of gold and dearly loved the little brothers; but when she came into the nursery and saw Gobbolino there she turned pale and put her hand to her heart as though she might faint away. When she saw the baby cuddling him she shrieked aloud, and if any of the little brothers carried him near her she begged him with tears in her eyes not to let Gobbolino touch her on any account.

Gobbolino hated to displease her, and learned to hide whenever he heard her step on the stair, but she knew by a strange instinct when he was in the room, and as the little brothers would not let him leave without them, he spent many an hour crouching under the nursery table and wishing he had never been born a witch’s cat.

“For if I were a common nursery tabby or tom, her ladyship would not feel so nervous about me,” he told himself.

The Lady Mayoress became quite thin and ill, for all that the Mayor, the little brothers and even the baby could do to rouse her. The mere sight of Gobbolino set her shivering, till it was quite evident that she must soon take to her bed or pine away altogether.

But before this happened Gobbolino had made up his mind he would go.

He told the little brothers this, and their sobs, tears and lamentations filled the nursery, nearly breaking Gobbolino’s heart.

“You love your kind new parents, the Lord Mayor and Mayoress, don’t you?” said Gobbolino.

“Oh, yes!” said the little brothers.

“You are very grateful to them, aren’t you?” said Gobbolino.

“Oh, yes! Yes!”

“You would do anything in the world to please them and bring them joy?”

“Oh, yes! Yes! Yes!”

“Then stay with them and be good, dutiful, loving children,” said Gobbolino. “And don’t mind about me. Some day I will come back again and see what fine big boys you have become. I’m off to find a kitchen fire where there is room and a saucer of milk for a little cat, and there I shall stay for ever and ever. Goodbye!”

“Goodbye, our kind, good, faithful Gobbolino!” sobbed the little brothers, so smothering him with their kisses and their embraces that he was not sorry to escape from their hands and scamper away down the back stairs.

The Lord Mayor with his pocket full of sugar-plums stopped the little boys’ tears, and Gobbolino once again heard their joyful cries as he left the courtyard and trotted out into the wide world.

“Surely this time I shall be lucky!” said Gobbolino.

9

Gobbolino on Show

[????????: img_6]

By evening Gobbolino came to a town.

The lights in the windows winked at him like yellow and friendly eyes:“Come in! Come in!”

In a hundred happy homes the kettle was singing on the hob; fat, comfortable tabbies, careless of their good fortune, dozed under chairs, or grumbled at the noise the children made, bouncing in from school. Fires crackled frostily, and sleepy canaries, with dusters over their cages, twittered a last note before tucking their downy heads under their wings.

It was the teatime hour, the hour when every cat is lord of his house, and every house without a cat is lonely. Every cat without a house is lonelier still, and Gobbolino trotted along missing the bright nursery fire, missing the noisy clatter of the little brothers, missing the chuckle of the baby, the clamour of the orphanage, the comfort of the farm kitchen, missing even the gloomy cavern where he had been born. He belonged to nobody, and nobody belonged to him.

He jumped on to a windowsill, peeping in through the lace curtains.

The room that he peeped into was very strange.

There was an ordinary table in the middle, certainly, and some chairs, and a kettle on the hob that sang and hissed. There were saucepans and a teapot and a blue-and-white china tea set and a clock that had lost one hand, but all the way round the room were dozens of large cages, and in each cage, sitting on a blue velvet cushion, was a cat.

A little old man stood at the table cutting up cat’s-meat on twelve blue china plates.

The cats looked very happy and satisfied. Their coats were glossy, their eyes bright and intelligent, their whiskers spruce and clean.

They purred as they watched the little old man and Gobbolino heard their purring through the windowpanes.

“They look very content and well cared for,” thought Gobbolino. “But nobody who has so many cats already can possibly want another.”

He jumped lightly off the windowsill, but not before the little old man had seen him, for the next minute the door into the street opened wide and a voice called:

“Pussy! Pussy! Pretty pussy! Come here!”

“Oh, my goodness!” said Gobbolino. “He really is calling me!”

The little old man stood at the door with a piece of cat’s-meat in his hand. He picked up Gobbolino and carried him into the room where all the cages were.

“There, my pretty!” said the little old man, setting him down on the table. “Oh, what a pretty cat you are! And what beautiful blue eyes you have!”

Gobbolino did not very much like being prodded and poked by the little old man’s hard, bony hands. His paws were felt, his teeth examined, his whiskers counted, and his tail measured.

“Oh, what a beautiful cat you are!” the little old man said over and over again.

The other cats looked on, sitting on their velvet cushions and growling with jealousy. They had finished their cat’s-meat, and all the blue china saucers were licked clean.

When he had finished poking and prodding Gobbolino, the little old man popped him into an empty cage with another blue velvet cushion in it and a saucerful of cat’s-meat.

Gobbolino would have preferred to sit by the fire, but he was grateful to the little old man for taking him in, so he ate up his cat’s-meat thankfully and said nothing at all.

“It’s nice to know there are such kind people in the world!” thought Gobbolino, as he sat on his velvet cushion. “For I might have been walking all night, or have starved to death.”

“I’m sure I shall be very happy here,” he said presently to his neighbour, a stately Persian madam. “But what are we all doing in these cages?”

“Don’t you know?” said the Persian scornfully. “Why, you are now a show cat!”

In the morning the little old man brushed and combed his cats one by one till their fur gleamed and shone.

He was a little surprised at the coloured sparks that flew from Gobbolino’s coat under the brush, but he did not stop praising him or telling him how beautiful he was.

“Such fur! Such a tail! Such colouring! And such beautiful blue eyes!” he exclaimed.

The other cats growled in their cages, for they did not like to hear the little old man praising Gobbolino.

“Ha! They’re jealous!” said the little old man, and tied a red ribbon round Gobbolino’s neck to make him smarter than ever.

Every morning Gobbolino was brushed and combed with the other cats, till his coat shone and gleamed as theirs did, his eyes were as bright, and his whiskers as spruce and clean.

Every morning the little old man praised and admired him from the tip of his tail to his beautiful blue eyes, while the other cats growled jealously in their cages; they would not make friends with Gobbolino.

One day the little old man was especially busy, combing his cats, brushing the velvet cushions and polishing the cages from dark till dawn. He became very bad-tempered with his haste and exertion, scolding and hustling the cats and never once telling Gobbolino how beautiful he was.

“What is all the fuss and fluster about?” Gobbolino timidly asked his neighbour, the Persian madam.

“Don’t you know?” she said scornfully. “Why, tomorrow is the Cat Show Day, and we are all going. That’s what it is all about.”

Gobbolino was quite excited to hear they were to have a change, for to tell the truth he had grown a little tired of his gilded cage and blue velvet cushion. He was very grateful to the little old man for giving him good food and a comfortable home, but sometimes he dreamed of a shabby rug before the fire, a cracked saucer of skim-milk, and the noisy chatter of children instead of the rows of cages, the proud unfriendly cats, the hours of brushing, and the bony hands of the little old man who poked and prodded him every morning, saying:

“Oh, what a handsome little cat you are! And what beautiful blue eyes you have!”

“But I am very ungrateful!” Gobbolino told himself, sitting upright on his velvet cushion. “For I might still be wandering homeless in the cold, and here I am, well fed and cared for, sitting on a velvet cushion – Gobbolino the show cat!”

Early the next morning the little old man began to take down the cages, one by one, and pile them on to a little cart drawn by a scraggy pony.

Gobbolino’s cage was put on the very top of all; he had a splendid view as they trotted along the countryside towards the show.

The Cat Show was held in the Town Hall, and long before they arrived, Gobbolino could hear the excited mewing of hundreds and hundreds of show cats.

There they were, in hundreds and hundreds of cages lining the Town Hall– big cats, little cats, black cats, white cats, tabby cats, Persian cats, fat cats, thin cats, handsome cats, ugly cats, cats from China, cats from Siam, Manx cats, pet cats, wild cats, tomcats, and last of all the little old man’s cats, and Gobbolino the witch’s kitten with his beautiful blue eyes looking on at it all.

“Oh, my goodness!” he said to himself as he looked at all the cats sitting on velvet cushions of every colour under the rainbow. “Whoever will notice any of us among such splendid company?”

For the little old man had told them he expected them all to win prizes, and especially Gobbolino. He had even threatened, if they did not, to stop their cat’s-meat and to take away their velvet cushions, especially Gobbolino’s. He had promised to cuff all their ears, and to turn them out into the street to look after themselves as best they might, particularly Gobbolino.

The little cat’s heart sank as he saw all the splendid cages and thought of the little old man’s words, for nobody would look at him among such splendid company.

But the other cats sat up proud and bold. They were all certain of winning prizes, whatever Gobbolino might say.

They began to talk to their neighbours, and whispers ran from cage to cage.

“Tell me, madam, who is that black and odd-looking stranger you have brought with you? I don’t think I saw him here last show.”

A silky chinchilla was speaking to the Persian who had been Gobbolino’s neighbour before.

“No, master adopted him lately,” the Persian replied. “We don’t know much about him. To tell you the truth …” she began to whisper and Gobbolino could not hear what she said, nor what, in her turn, the chinchilla whispered to her neighbour, till a kind of hiss was running the round of the cages, with a murmuring echo:

“Gobbolino! Gobbolino! Gobbolino!”

Gobbolino took no notice. He did not know why the cats disliked him, or why they should be jealous of him, as the little old man said they were. He felt sure they were all twenty times more handsome than himself. He wished them no harm, and if they chose to whisper about him among themselves, he did not mind.

The judges went round among the cages, looking at the cats, examining and judging.

They went away and came back again, after which the little old man gave each cat a small piece of liver, and went to sleep on a sack behind the cages.

Presently the judges brought round coloured cards and pinned them on the cats.

The Persian had a red one with“First Prize” written on it. The chinchilla opposite had only a blue one: she was so jealous she turned her back and would not look at the Persian till her master took her away.

Some of the other cats had coloured cards as well– red, yellow, and blue ones. The little old man trotted among his cages, well pleased, stroking the heads of his prize-winners and promising them all kinds of good things for supper.

Gobbolino was delighted to see how many prizes they would carry home in the shabby little cart. He had not even noticed that his own cage held no prize-card at all, when the chief judge stood up to announce the name of the champion– the best cat in the show.

It was Gobbolino.

For a moment there was a great silence, and then a murmuring ran through the Town Hall that rose to a hissing. It came from the cages.

The hissing grew to a spitting, and the spitting to a yowling.

In vain the judges tried to quell the noise, in vain the owners rattled on the cages or covered them with rugs– the angry cats yowled on and on, till one great voice arose from every cage announcing:

“But Gobbolino is a witch’s cat!”

The judges turned pale, so did the owners.

The cat-fanciers, who had come to buy, looked at each other in horror, for each of them had been ready to offer the little old man large sums of money for Gobbolino.

The little old man himself, crimson with fury, shook his fist at the judges, and then at Gobbolino, while round and round the cages ran the angry murmur:

“Gobbolino is a witch’s cat!”

“Oh, my goodness!” said Gobbolino, cowering on the blue velvet cushion in a corner of his cage. “Why was I born a witch’s cat, oh why? I don’t want to win prizes!” he sobbed. “I don’t want to be a champion and have people admire me! I only want a friendly home with kindly people, that’s not very much to ask. But oh, my goodness! What is going to happen to me now?”

He was not left long in doubt, for the angry judge turned on the little old man and ordered him to leave the Town Hall immediately. His cats were all disqualified, and especially Gobbolino. The little old man was bundled out into the street with all his cages, and at the last moment the judges sent his prize-cards after him. Perhaps after all, they said, he had not known he was showing a witch’s cat.

But the little old man’s rage was not cooled by saving his prize-cards.

He opened the door of Gobbolino’s cage and dropped him out into the road.

“Miserable creature!” he raged. “Look what trouble you have brought upon me! Why didn’t you tell me you were a witch’s kitten? Be off with you directly and let me never see a whisker of your face again!”

He whipped up the scraggy pony and galloped away in a cloud of dust, with the cats’ cages rocketing and banging, and the cats peering and mocking over their shoulders at Gobbolino.

He was not sorry to see the last of them, or to stretch his paws, which had become very cramped and stiff from sitting so long on a velvet cushion.

He was very sorry to have brought such trouble upon the little old man, but he had not really enjoyed being a show cat, and living in a cage had become very irksome and monotonous.

“I am sure there is a home not far away where I shall be welcome,” thought Gobbolino.

10

Gobbolino at Sea

[????????: img_7]

Gobbolino left the Town Hall far behind him and trotted steadily southward towards the sea.

He passed through towns and villages, past cottages and farmhouses, and small lonely dwellings, but every hearth had its tabby and every farm its brood of sleek mousers. There was no welcome anywhere for Gobbolino.

He kept himself from starving by killing rats in a rickyard, or mice in the hedges. He drank from the streams, where he sometimes caught a little fish, smiling to think of his clumsiness when, as an ignorant kitten, he had fallen into the millrace and nearly drowned himself– oh – ever so long ago it seemed today!

Sometimes he met a passer-by, walking along the road with a bundle on his back, or a stray dog or cat trotting down the highway on his own business, but they offered little companionship to Gobbolino.

Travellers had no hearth to share with him– they gave him a friendly nod and tramped away. Dogs gave him one look of terror and ran for their lives, yelping madly till they reached their own kennels with their hair standing on end, while cats hissed savagely at him and would not answer the most civil greeting:

“Good morning, sister!”

“Hiss-ss!”

“It is a very fine morning, ma’am!”

“Hiss-ss-ss!”

“Can you tell me the way to the nearest village, my lady?”

“Hiss-ss-ss-ss! Ss!”

So that Gobbolino was lonely enough on his travels, and no wonder that his heart bounded to see the silver, sparkling sea, the ships lying at anchor with brown sails furled, distance making a pattern of their masts, and all the cheerful, busy life of the port.

Gobbolino trotted here and there among the boats, the bustling sailors, the women with their baskets, and the noisy, mischievous children, who were as eager as he to watch everything that was going on.

Nobody took any notice of a little cat, but there was a feeling of companionship in the stir and bustle, and Gobbolino did not hurry away, but sat on the quay in the yellow sunshine watching the ships and the gulls and the sailors on the decks below.

Presently a mouse ran out of a pile of ropes, and with a deft pat of his paw Gobbolino killed it. He was hungry, and his mother Grimalkin had taught him to be a good mouser.

“That was very neatly done, my friend!” said a voice behind him, and there was a pleasant-faced sailor boy standing and watching him with a kindly smile.

“There are plenty of mice on my ship, theMary Maud!” said the sailor. “And we have no kitten at present. Would you like to come and catch them for us?”

Gobbolino’s blue eyes shone with gratitude and joy.

“Oh, my goodness, my luck has changed at last!” he said to himself, while he thanked the sailor kindly and prepared to go with him. “Here is somebody who really wants me and needs me at last. I am sure I shall be very happy at sea – Gobbolino the sailor cat!”

When Johnnie Tar, the sailor, strode on board his ship, theMary Maud, with Gobbolino under his arm, he received a great welcome from his mates. The cat was passed from horny hand to horny hand, petted, and made so much of that his heart nearly overflowed with joy.

“What a lucky cat I am!” said Gobbolino. “There was I, two hours ago, homeless, unwanted, unloved, and here I am, fondled and cared for by all the crew, from the captain to the cabin-boy. I have only to kill all the mice in the ship, to show them how grateful I am, and I shall certainly be very happy at sea. Perhaps, after all, I shall end my days on board this good shipMary Maud!”

And indeed Gobbolino was as happy as any cat could be in the days which followed.

Though his heart sank somewhat when the ship put out to sea, and his beautiful blue eyes filled with tears at the thought of the miles of ocean that now lay between him and the little brothers he had come to love so dearly, yet the life was so free and pleasant, the sailors so kind and merry, and the whole atmosphere so full of goodwill and honest charity, that before many days had passed Gobbolino had come to look on theMary Maud as his own home, and everyone aboard her as his close companions.

He cleared the ship of mice before she was out of sight of land. Those that he did not destroy jumped overboard in terror at the sound of his paws on the deck above.

“Here comes Gobbolino the mouser!”

He ran a thousand errands for the sailors, and, when there was nothing better to do, shared the watches with the look-out man, or paced the bridge side by side with the Captain, listening to age-old tales of the seven seas. All these he learned by heart so that he could repeat them to the little brothers on the happy day when he would be united with them again.

So they sailed on through sunny oceans, past yellow islands covered with palms, past coral reefs and lagoons so clear that the coloured fishes seemed to be lying on the top of the water watching theMary Maud as, with her great brown sails spread to catch the breeze, she moved sedately past them on her journey round the world.

Happy, happy life for Gobbolino, who began to forget he had ever been born a witch’s cat.

One fine morning Gobbolino sat in the prow looking out to sea, when a sudden shadow came over the sun, and a ripple of wind sent a hundred catspaws chasing down the calm blue sea.

Gobbolino shivered a little and turned round; sure enough, the shadow of a sea witch was crossing the sun, and although Gobbolino had never seen a sea witch before something told him that she was looking for trouble.

None of the sailors saw her flying up the sky, but they looked uneasily at the horizon.

“The wind is changing!” they muttered and began to reef in the sails.

By nightfall a storm was raging, and the waves were mountains high. TheMary Maud plunged up and down, while the wind shrieked in her rigging, and her timbers creaked and groaned.

The seas rose like pinnacles, curled over, and crashed on the decks, so that twice Gobbolino was only saved by a sailor from being washed overboard, and presently they carried him downstairs and locked him in the bo’sun’s cabin, for none of them wanted to see their pet cat drowned.

It was safe and warm in the cabin and not unpleasant. Gobbolino curled up and went to sleep to the sound of the howling storm, the creaking and groaning of theMary Maud.

“It will soon be over,” said Gobbolino. “After all, one is bound to meet bad weather at sea, and the sooner I get used to it the better.”

So whenever one of the kindly crew found time to shout through the cabin door:

“Are you there alive and hearty, Gobbolino?”

He answered:

“Ay, ay, mate!” in as cheerful a tone as he could muster and, closing his eyes, tried to imagine himself back in the warm farmhouse, or in the little brothers’ nursery, or even sitting outside the witch’s cave with his sister Sootica, telling each other all that they meant to do when theygrew up.

The storm grew louder and fiercer, and the poor ship trembled as each wave struck her. Once there was a tremendous crash as though a mast had fallen on the deck and always there were the shouts of the sailors– too busy now to come and ask Gobbolino if he were still alive and hearty – the wail of the wind and the groan of the weary timbers.

“Oh, my goodness!” said Gobbolino as he was rolled from side to side. “Will it never come to an end, never? Surely when the morning comes the waves will die down, and the sea will be as calm and as beautiful as it was before.”

But the morning came with the storm still raging, and now Gobbolino heard a new noise, the song of the sea witch as she flew round and round the ship:

“I’ll send her down, theMary Maud,

And every man of her aboard,

For not a sailor here can tell

The way to break a witch’s spell!”

When he heard these words Gobbolino sat up suddenly with his ears a-prick.

An old, old memory had stirred in him with the sea witch’s words.

Long, long ago, as he lay in the gloom of the witch’s cave with his little sister Sootica beside him, their eyes scarcely opened, their paws still pink and flat, he had heard his mother Grimalkin and her mistress, the witch, talking together.

“There is only one way to break a witch’s spell!” the witch had said. “You must pounce on her shadow, stand on her head and cry the words ‘Fiddlesticks to you, ma’am!’ before she whisks her shadow away. No spell is proof against this counter-witchcraft.”

When Gobbolino remembered this advice he grew quite crazy with excitement, and began to mew pitifully at the door, imploring the sailors to let him out.

For a long while nobody heard him, and when they did they quite refused to open the door.

“No, no, Gobbolino, the wind would blow you away, the waves would wash you overboard and the spray drown you. We cannot allow that. Stay where you are, and by and by when the storm is over we will let you out.”

“But I’m so frightened down here!” complained Gobbolino, trying to make his voice sound as piteous as possible.

“It is ten times more frightening up here,” said the sailor.

“I am so cold down here!” said Gobbolino.

“It is ten times colder up here!” said the sailor.

“I am so hungry down here!” sobbed Gobbolino.

“Well, I will see if I can find something for you to eat, if it has not all been washed away,” said the kind-hearted sailor, “but you must wait here like a good cat until I come back again.”

Gobbolino waited. As he listened to the groaning ship and the shriek of the storm that grew ever louder and louder, he thought that every minute theMary Maud must plunge to the bottom of the sea and be lost.

He could hear the sea witch singing her song over and over again as she circled the ship.

The sailors took her for a seagull, and her song for the cry of a bird, but to Gobbolino, born in a witch’s cave, a witch was always a witch, however she disguised herself, and he trembled to think of what she meant to do to theMary Maud and all the sailors on board her.

When at last his kind friend returned with a morsel of fish and some milk in a tin, Gobbolino could hardly wait for him to unfasten the door. He slipped between the sailor’s legs as the honest man stooped to lay the food before him, and was up on the deck in a flash.

“The cat has escaped!” the sailors cried who saw him, but theMary Maud was near her end, and no one could spare a hand from the ropes to grab at Gobbolino.

To his surprise he found they were not far from the shore, but the ship was running fast for a cruel-looking reef of rocks, and once she crashed on these there would be no hope left for her.

The night was gone and it was broad morning, but great clouds covered the sun, and where there was no sun there was no shadow for Gobbolino to jump upon. What is more, the sea witch flew aft the ship, as if she felt the danger of casting her shadow on it, and unless he could coax her nearer at the same time as the sun came out, theMary Maud and all aboard her would be lost.

Gobbolino had to cling with all his might to the ropes and sails to avoid being washed into the sea, but at last he found a more sheltered spot where the wind and water could not reach him, though showers of spray still drenched his fur and stung his eyes, alert to watch the passing of the sea witch.

Oh, joy! Oh, joy for Gobbolino, when all of a sudden the clouds rolled back, and the sun moved into a rift of clear blue sky that flooded the deck and bathed the battered ship in glory.

The sea witch circled out to sea, sweeping angrily past theMary Maud as if the cheering light annoyed her. Gobbolino was afraid she meant to fly away altogether, for the ship was bound for the rocks and nothing could save her.

And the sailors had suddenly caught sight of the little cat crouching in his corner.

“Save the cat! Save the cat!” they cried. “Put him in a basket, and if we strike the rocks he may float to shore!”

They left the ropes and six or seven of them ran to seize Gobbolino but he slipped out of their hands and leapt on to the cookhouse roof.

The cook, still busy with his pans in spite of the ship’s rolling, put out a hand to pull him inside, but Gobbolino made a leap and gained the Captain’s bridge. The Captain clutched him by the scruff of his neck. Gobbolino gave a wriggle, the ship plunged again, and they fell to the ground in a heap.

Gobbolino found his feet first and sprang up the remaining mast, up, up, up to the cross-trees, and there was not a man reckless enough to follow him there in such a tempest.

The sailors stood below wringing their hands, for they felt sure that at any moment their kitten would be flung into the sea, while the sea witch flew round the ship in ever-widening circles, and the next bank of storm clouds moved up to swallow the sun.

Even if the sea witch saw him crouching there in the rigging, it meant nothing to her that a small dark cat had been foolish enough to climb the mast with the ship breaking to pieces beneath him.

But Gobbolino could not let her vanish in this fashion:

“Mistress! Oh, mistress!” he cried above the storm. “Don’t you know me? Have you never met Grimalkin my mother, nor Sootica my little sister, nor my mistress the witch who lived in the cavern under the Hurricane Mountains? Oh, mistress! Oh, mistress! It is Gobbolino, the witch’s kitten,who is calling to you! For my mother’s sake, don’t leave me to drown on this miserable ship! Have mercy! Have mercy!”

The sea witch heard his pitiful cries and wheeled suddenly, just as she was preparing to fly away out of sight.

“Is it true what you say?” she cried above the storm. “If you are really a witch’s kitten, what are you doing on board this ship?”

“The sailors took me aboard!” piped Gobbolino. “I couldn’t escape – how could I, so far from the shore?”

“Witch’s kittens swim like seals!” said the sea witch suspiciously, creeping nearer and nearer the ship, but careful not to let her shadow fall upon the deck.

“It was so far to the shore, mistress, that I was afraid!” said Gobbolino, anxiously watching the bank of cloud drawing nearer and nearer the sun. “Oh, take me on your broomstick, kind mistress, and carry me back to the cave in the Hurricane Mountains! You would not let a witch’s kitten die, kind mistress?”

“Jump into the sea and swim!” said the sea witch. “When the ship is gone down I will pick you up on my broomstick and take you home again.”

“It is so far and so deep!” sobbed Gobbolino. “I am afraid! I am afraid!”

“And, oh, my goodness!” he thought to himself. “In one more minute the sun will be gone, and then nothing that I can do will save us!”

So he clung to the rigging with all his might and main, sobbing:

“Oh! Oh! Oh! The wind is pulling me off! I shall fall on the deck and be smashed into a thousand pieces, and what will my mother Grimalkin say, and my little sister Sootica, and my mistress the witch? I am falling! I am falling!”

“I will save you! Be ready to spring upon my broomstick as I pass!” cried the sea witch angrily as the ship wallowed once more into the depths of a wave, and the rim of the sun touched the bank of cloud.

Gobbolino crouched on the mast as the ship rose again, watching, watching the deck.

The anxious sailors, who had heard his pitiful mewing, but could not understand all that he said, stood watching too, each one ready to plunge into the sea to save him if he should fall.

The sunlight began to fade.

“Oh, my goodness, if it is already too late!” said Gobbolino, and now he saw the cruel reef of rocks rearing to the ship’s bows.

“Be ready!” shrieked the sea witch almost in his ear. “Spring!”

But as she passed him like a streak of summer lightning her shadow fell for one moment on the deck, and in that moment Gobbolino sprang, not on her broomstick, but right on to the shadow of her head, crying loudly:

“Fiddlesticks to you, ma’am!” – and with a shriek of rage the sea witch was gone.

“Traitor! Traitor!” she cried, as the wind swallowed her up and then a dead calm fell on the sea.

A ship’s length from the reef theMary Maud lay becalmed, as if at anchor. The last storm clouds raced northward while the sun shone out of a hot blue sky.

The sea sparkled like a still lagoon, and far below, Gobbolino could see brown weed moored to rock terraces, pretty fishes, crabs, and eels, as clearly as if they swam in an aquarium.

All traces of the storm were gone.

Gobbolino looked about him in bewilderment. The sailors too seemed dazed and uncertain– they gathered in little groups, talking uneasily and peeping at Gobbolino.

“It was no seabird, I tell you!” he heard them whisper. “It was a witch!”

“He was talking to her! I heard him plainly!”

“He said he was a witch’s kitten! Can you believe it?”

“No wonder she followed the ship and would not let us alone! We mighty nearly perished, I can tell you!”

“The cat bargained with her to stop the storm, and who knows what he may have offered her in exchange?”

“He cried, ‘Fiddlesticks to you, ma’am!’ or some such rubbish!”

“Ah! Who knows what that may mean to a witch’s cat!”

So they stared suspiciously at Gobbolino, and when he walked towards them none of them stooped to pick him up, or stroked his head.

All night long the ship lay becalmed under a silver moon.

Gobbolino sat on the deck, lonely and sad, for the sailors were awkward with him, and nobody invited him to share their meal.

In the morning a little breeze sprang up, but not a sailor appeared on deck, or made any attempt to unfurl the sails.

At midday the Captain came up alone.

“Gobbolino, my little cat,” he said kindly, but with great solemnity, “I am afraid the time has come when we must part. My sailors refuse to put to sea until you leave the ship. They are afraid of fresh troubles coming upon them or the sea witch revenging herself upon the ship for your sake. There are captains, and there are ships, Gobbolino, who will not have a cat aboard, they think it is unlucky. TheMary Maud is not one of these. But awitch’s cat– oh, no! That is quite a different thing!”

Gobbolino nodded and answered,“Ay, ay, Cap’n!” though his eyes filled with tears at the thought of leaving his kind friends and the ship he had come to look on as his home.

11

The Little Princess

[????????: img_4]

Gobbolino was very touched when the Captain himself rowed him ashore in theMary Maud’s lifeboat.

The sailors, watching from the ship’s side, gave him a friendly cheer as the boat ran on the silver sands and the little cat jumped out, but he could not look back and see theMary Maud setting sail without him.

So he hurried bravely along, never once turning his head, and taking very little notice of where he was going, because he was so busy trying not to cry, until he found himself in what must have been a very large town indeed, for the streets were so full and so busy that there wasn’t room even for a kitten as neat and agile as himself to walk in peace.

For a time he dodged in and out of legs and leapt from in front of wheels until at last, after an extra hard kick had landed on his ribs, he decided that it would be safer to continue his journey overhead.

With one leap he was on top of a high wall, another leap and he was among the chimneys. With a sigh of relief he set out to continue his journey along the housetops.

When he came to the very end of the town he popped down what he took for a drainpipe.

“This will take me down again!” said Gobbolino. “And once I am on the ground I can run off into the open country and find somewhere where I shall be more welcome than in this place.”

But what he had taken for a rainwater pipe was really a royal chimney.

Gobbolino did not know it, but he had popped down one of the chimneys in the king’s palace.

Down, down, down the dark and narrow chimney fell Gobbolino, like a round ball that became blacker and blacker as he swept away the soot.

Bump! He landed at the bottom, and shot out into an open room, in time to hear a little voice like silver bells saying:

“Oh! Oh! Oh! Whatever can be coming down the chimney?”

Gobbolino opened his beautiful blue eyes and looked about him. He was in the prettiest room he had ever seen, all white lace and pink ribbons.

Watching him from a white bed in the middle of the room was a little girl with golden curls upon which rested a tiny crown. Her pink quilt was littered with toys and dolls. There were games and books on her satin pillows, flowers in great clusters round her bed, but her little face was pale and sad, even when her blue eyes opened wide in surprise at seeing Gobbolino.

He knew in a moment that she must be a princess.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” said the little princess. “It’s a cat! It is a lovely cat with the most beautiful blue eyes I ever saw! Oh, dear little cat! Pretty little cat! Do come nearer so I can speak to you and stroke your soft fur! Come and tell me your name and how you came to fall down my nursery chimney!”

Her voice was so kind and so charming that Gobbolino jumped upon her bed at once, quite forgetting the sooty black paw-marks he left wherever he went.

“The town children were chasing me, Your Highness!” he exclaimed. “My name is Gobbolino!” And then, her little hand was so kind, and her voice so gentle, while his own heart was so lonely, that he began to tell her his whole story from beginning to end, and all the while the princess gentlystroked his fur, saying “Oh!” and “Ah!” whenever he paused, till the tale was over, when she said:

“Oh,poor little Gobbolino! How could people be so stupid and cruel? I can’t understand it at all! But you mustn’t be lonely and sad any longer, because I want you to live with me now for ever and ever – you shall be Gobbolino the royal cat!”

At that moment the door opened and the princess’s nurse came into the room.

She threw up her hands in horror at the sight of Gobbolino.

“Your Royal Highness! Your Royal Highness! However did that dirty little cat get on your bed?” she exclaimed. “I thought I shut all the doors! I thought I shut all the windows! And he can’t possibly have come down the chimney!”

“Hedid come down the chimney!” said the little princess. “He is Gobbolino, and he is going to stay with me and be my cat for ever and ever.”

“We’ll see what your doctor says about that!” said the nurse tartly, whisking away the pink satin cover which was all covered with Gobbolino’s paw-marks. “He is just on his way to see you now. I can hear him coming up the stairs.”

The princess’s doctor was round and rosy. He came into the room smiling like the sun, and in less than no time the little princess had persuaded him to allow Gobbolino to stay for ever and ever.

“I feel better already, with him beside me!” she told him. “But if you send him away I shall certainly be worse.”

“What about all those pretty toys, those dolls and games and picture books I ordered for you instead of medicine?” said the doctor. “Those didn’t make you better.”

“They weren’t alive,” said the little princess. “I was just as lonely all the time they were there as before they came!”

So Gobbolino stayed in the little princess’s room day in and day out, and which of them was the happier it would be difficult to say.

“Oh, my goodness!” Gobbolino said to himself sometimes, as he sat in the window looking down on the busy street below. “Here am I, born in a witch’s cave, shunned and despised by everyone, about to live for ever and ever in a royal palace! What would my mother say? And my sister Sootica? Oh, my goodness! Whoever would have believed it?”

He did all in his power to amuse the little princess and keep her happy, for she had lain ill so many weary years that she had almost forgotten how to feel well again, but now, as Gobbolino talked to her, told her stories, and went through his tricks for her, the colour began to creep back into her pale cheeks once more.

When he told her of the adventure of the little brothers in the Lord Mayor’s coach:

“One day I shall ride in a coach again!” she cried.

When he told her of his friends, the crew of theMary Maud:

“One day I too shall go to sea!” she said.

Gobbolino would sit long hours on the windowsill telling her about what went on in the street below.

Sometimes musicians came round the corner, and when Gobbolino had described how well they played and how the crowds gathered to hear them, the little princess had them brought up to her nursery, where they played her the sweetest airs they knew.

Another day a performing bear came down the street, so clumsy and droll, and playing such merry pranks that Gobbolino nearly fell off the windowsill with laughter, and the little princess would not rest until the bear too, and its master, were brought up the stairs to her room, though her parents, the nurse, the servants, and even the doctor, did all in their power to prevent it.

Sometimes it was a flower-seller, with a basket of yellow, pink, heliotrope, blue, all the colours of the rainbow, who was brought to the little princess’s bedside, and sometimes an acrobat who stood on his hands and walked about the room, or a juggler that tossed a dozen balls in the air at once, and balanced dishes on his nose.

The days were never dull for the little princess now. The roses bloomed in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled.

Her doctor, her nurse, and her parents were delighted with her.

“Soon she will be running about again, and then she will be able to go to boarding-school like the other princesses,” they said.

“Can I take Gobbolino with me when I go to school?” the little princess asked.

“Oh, no, of course not!” said her parents, her nurse, and her doctor, looking quite shocked. “You will have so much to do there you will have no time to play with your cat!”

“Then I don’t want to get better and go to school!” sobbed the little princess when she and Gobbolino were left together again. “I want to stay here in my nursery with you, and have fun together! I shan’t get well after all!”

So the little princess refused her meals and lay on her back looking up at the ceiling.

She no longer asked for the singers, the performing animals, the acrobats and the jugglers to be brought up to her room as before. She wanted everyone to think she was very ill, or they would send her to school immediately.

But when her parents, the doctor, and the nurse were out of the room, the little princess sat up on her satin pillows and asked:

“What can you see in the street, Gobbolino?” and Gobbolino would reply:

“I can see a procession, Your Highness!” or “I can see a farmer going to market!” or “A circus!” or “A fair!” and the little princess would cry:

“Tell me all about it!”

But one day Gobbolino cried out all by himself:

“Oh! Oh! Oh! I can see a Punch and Judy show coming round the corner!”

“Tell me all about it! Tell me all about it!” cried the little princess, but Gobbolino was so doubled up with laughter at the antics of the cherry-nosed Punch, the policeman, and the dog Toby that he could not speak fast enough to please her, and at last the little princess skipped out of bed, ran across the room, and knelt on the window seat beside him where she began to split her sides, crying:

“Oh! Oh! Oh! I’d rather belong to a Punch and Judy show than anything in the world!”

Gobbolino and the little princess were so busy clapping their hands at the Punch and Judy show, shouting:

“Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!” and bouncing up and down, that they did not hear the door open behind them, until a whole chorus of voices exclaimed:

“Princess! Princess! Your Highness! Your Highness! What is the meaning of all this?” and there on the threshold stood the princess’s parents, her nurse, her doctor, and all the palace servants, staring with astonishment into the room.

The little princess skipped back to bed and drew the bedclothes over her head.

“Did you see that?” said her parents.

“She is perfectly well!” said her nurse.

“There is nothing whatever wrong with her!” said the doctor, and they all added:

“She must go to boarding-school at once!”

“I don’t feel well at all!” sobbed the little princess, but nobody believed her any longer.

The very next morning she was packed into her father’s coach and galloped away to boarding-school with a dozen or so other princesses, where I feel bound to tell you she was very happy indeed.

She had only time to fling her arms round Gobbolino’s neck before she went.

“Goodbye, my dear, darling, little cat!” she said. “How lucky you are, Gobbolino! You can go anywhere in the wide world that you please, but look at me!”

“I don’t know where to go,” said Gobbolino, with tears standing in his beautiful blue eyes at the thought of being alone in the world once more.

“Why don’t you join the Punch and Judy show?” said the little princess. “That’s what I would do if I were free.”

At that moment she was bundled into her father’s coach with all her boxes and trunks, and before long a cloud of dust hid them all from view.

Gobbolino sat on the nursery windowsill watching the coach until it disappeared with the princess’s tiny white handkerchief still fluttering from the window.

The nursery seemed so empty and silent without her, he did not care to stay even a night longer in the king’s palace, but slipped silently down the stairs and out into the street the first time the door was opened.

12

Punch and Judy

[????????: img_5]

Gobbolino left the town as quickly as possible and trotted down the country lanes.

Often he stopped a passer-by to ask politely:

“Please, sir, or ma’am, can you tell me, has a Punch and Judy show passed this way?” and often he had the answer:

“Why, yes, my little cat. I saw it playing on the village green back yonder. You will certainly catch it up if you trot fast enough.”

And Gobbolino trotted as fast as his paws would carry him to the next village and the next and the next.

At the entrance of every village he was sure to ask:

“Please, has a Punch and Judy show been here lately?”

And he always had the answer:

“Why, yes, my little cat, it was here only yesterday. You will certainly catch it up if you trot fast enough.”

At last in the distance he saw a crowd gathered under a tree, and there sure enough was the striped show-box, and the gaudy figures of Punch and Judy.

But they were not playing today to an eager crowd. The show-people sat around sad and despondent. Some bent their heads on their hands, while others stared into the distance, saying nothing at all. It was a pitiful sight to behold, and Gobbolino lost no time in asking a woman on the outskirts of the crowd what the matter could be, and whether he could give them any help in their distress.

“Our dog Toby has died!” the woman told him, wiping away a tear. “And of course Punch and Judy cannot perform without him. We shall all be ruined.”

“Oh dear! Oh dear! That is very sad!” said Gobbolino with much sympathy. “I was just about to join your show and travel the country with you, but I see now I shall hardly be wanted since there is not a show any longer.”

The woman looked him up and down. Then she called the showman, who was gloomily mending a rent in the show-box.

“Dandy! Dandy? Come here and look at this kitten! He talks of joining our show. Why shouldn’t he take Toby’s place and go along with us? With a ruff round his neck, who is to notice? Only a black face instead of a white, and such beautiful blue eyes! He may save our fortunes yet!”

Dandy the showman stared at Gobbolino and finally said:

“Well, why not? He looks pretty enough and clever enough, and if we have no Toby we shall be ruined. Will you do your best for us, little cat with the blue eyes, if we give you a home in our company?”

“That I will gladly, master!” said Gobbolino in delight, so the showman’s wife dressed him up in a paper ruff and a blue jacket and popped him into the striped show-box with Punch and Judy and the policeman and the baby.

At first these were very ready to be jealous of him and to dislike him, but when they saw how modest Gobbolino was, how sweet-tempered, and how eager to ask:“Should Dog Toby act like this? Or like this?” they soon became friendly in return, and it was the gayest company in the land that set forth again presently to entertain the next village they could find.

Crowds gathered the moment that the striped show-box came into sight:

“Here’s the Punch and Judy! Here’s the Punch and Judy!”

Dandy the showman would halt on the village green and set up the box; soon Punch and Judy were at their tricks and the crowd were roaring with laughter, but it was always the dog Toby who was asked for again and again:“Toby! Toby! Show us Dog Toby! Oh, what a clever fellow he is, and what beautiful blue eyes he has!”

Gobbolino acted so well and entered into his part so eagerly that there was always a whole capful of silver at the end of the show.

The showman’s children had new shoes, his wife wore bracelets, and the showman himself wore a yellow waistcoat.

“And all thanks to you, my little friend!” he would say affectionately, rubbing Gobbolino under the ears. “What do you say to joining the show for good – eh? A cat might have a worse home, after all.”

“I will gladly stay with you for ever, kind master!” Gobbolino replied at once, for strange as were his new surroundings after the luxury of the palace, he found his new life as pleasant as he could wish for.

He enjoyed watching the crowds gather as the striped Punch and Judy went from village to village. He enjoyed the grins that widened on the children’s faces when he and Punch popped up in the box. He loved to see the careworn faces of the old men and women, the worried faces of mothers, break into smiles as they forgot their troubles in following his tricks.

“Really there is nothing so pleasant as making people happy!” said Gobbolino. “I shall be perfectly content to stay here for ever – Gobbolino the performing cat.”

He often wished the little princess could watch his acting. He had secret hopes that one day the showman might find his way to the boarding-school, or to the orphanage gates, or even to the nursery of the little brothers, and meanwhile he was very happy, particularly in the evenings when the show-people put up their little tents round a blazing campfire and Gobbolino sat peacefully beside it, his paws tucked under his chest, as content as the sleekest tabby on a kitchen hearth.

“At last I have found my home!” he said to himself. “Who would ever have believed it would be such a strange one? But what matter? For here I am.”

One day they came to a village that was less pleasant than the rest.

The houses were grey and dirty. No flowers grew in the gardens, which were full of weeds. The street was littered with rubbish, while the pond on the village green was thick with duckweed and slime.

Nobody came out to greet the Punch and Judy show when the showman put up his striped box on the green.

A few children, slouching home from school, stared rudely but went home to tell their parents, for just as the showman was about to move on, a few people began to straggle up and stood about in little groups to watch the show.

The showman would willingly have left such disagreeable people behind, but being a merry-hearted man himself, he thought he had better do all he could to cheer their misery, so he set Gobbolino beating a drum and drew up the curtain.

The children and their parents watching did not clap their hands as most children did.

Instead, they began to make rude remarks.

“Punch has cracked his nose! Judy’s pinny is torn! Look at Toby’s face! Whoever saw a black dog Toby before?”

“The old show-box could do with a clean! And the showman too, I daresay!”

“And Dog Toby, he’s black enough!” shouted someone else.

All the children laughed, but it was very disagreeable laughter.

Suddenly a voice from the back called out:

“That isn’t a dog at all! It’s a cat!”

Gobbolino bristled all over with rage, and the voice called out again:

“It’s a cat, I tell you! And what is more it is a witch’s cat, or I am very much mistaken!”

The crowd turned round to stare at the ugly old crone who stood at the back, leaning on her stick and croaking out her words with an ugly leer.

“Old Granny Dobbin ought to know! She’s a witch herself!” cried the children in chorus.

The showman began to pull down the little curtain to close the show, but the children would not be quieted.

“A witch’s cat! A witch’s cat!” they sang. “Take off his ruff and let us see the witch’s cat!”

They made a path for old Granny Dobbin and pushed her to the front.

“Speak to the witch’s cat, Granny!” they shouted. “Make him speak to you! Make some magic for us!”

“Ha! Ha!” croaked the old woman, pointing her finger at Gobbolino. “I know you! Grimalkin was your mother! Your little sister Sootica is apprenticed to a witch, way up in the Hurricane Mountains!You a dog Toby, indeed! Ho! Ho! Ho!”

The fathers and mothers of the children, standing behind, grew threatening, and shook their fists at the showman.

“How dare you bring a witch’s kitten into our village?” they cried. “How dare you harm our children so? They might be turned into mice, or green caterpillars, or toads! If it hadn’t been for old Granny Dobbin here, goodness knows what might have happened! Away with you directly!”

“Out of the village! Chase them out of the village!” clamoured the children, picking up sticks and stones, and they all became so angry and pressing that the showman lost no time in packing up his box and preparing to depart.

Gobbolino, his ruff taken off, did all he could to explain himself to the angry villagers, but nobody would listen to him except old Granny Dobbin.

“It’s no good, my poor simpleton!” she said when he had finished his story. “Nobody will ever keep you for long. Once a witch’s cat, always a witch’s cat. You will never find the home of your dreams while your eyes are blue and sparks come out of your whiskers.”

“I have met plenty of kind people in the world!” said Gobbolino stoutly. “I feel sure that one day I shall find the home I am looking for.”

“Never! Never! Never!” said the old hag. “Today or tomorrow you will realize I am telling you the truth! A kitchen hearth and a cosy fireside! Ha! Ha! Ha! That you will never know, witch’s kitten!”

Gobbolino’s beautiful blue eyes filled with tears, but there was no time to stay and ponder over the witch’s words, for the showman had shouldered his box and was striding up the village street with a pack of village children at his heels, all jeering and booing in the most unpleasant fashion.

They kept this up all the way to the next village, so that the showman dared not stop there, although it was quite a pleasant place, but had to trudge on all the weary miles to the next, by which time darkness had fallen and it was time to camp for the night.

It was pleasant to awaken to bright sunlight shining on whitewashed cottages and gardens gay with flowers.

The children were clean and rosy-cheeked in their pretty pinafores. The showman was surprised to see them hanging back as he set up his box on the green.

“Won’t you come and look?” he invited them.

“We’ve heard you have a witch’s cat instead of a dog Toby!” they told him, with their fingers in their mouths. “Our mothers said it would hurt us, and our fathers told us to go straight to school. We mustn’t stop.”

So they took hands and ran away. There was nobody left to watch the Punch and Judy, and soon the showman packed up again and went on his way.

It was the same at the next village, and the next and the next. The word had gone before, as swift as the wind,“The showman has a witch’s cat!” and nobody would come to see.

“It is of no use, master!” Gobbolino said at last, when the seventh village had refused to look at them. “You will be ruined, I see, if I stay with you any longer. You must find a new dog Toby, and I must find a new home. I am sorry, dear master, I really am, for bringing such trouble on yourhead; but I did not choose my birthplace, and sorrow enough it has brought me. Goodbye and good luck to you, master dear. And may your fortune mend quickly!”

The honest showman, with tears running down his cheeks, agreed at last that Gobbolino was right. He embraced the little cat very fondly, and when Gobbolino had said a sad goodbye to all the show-people he watched them trudge away in a little cloud of dust without him.

“Oh, why was I born a witch’s cat? Oh, why?” thought Gobbolino when at last they were out of sight. “I could wish for nothing better than a home with such kind and pleasant people as these, but no! Everyone turns against me, and, oh, my goodness, what is to become of me now?”

13

Gobbolino in the Tower

[????????: img_3]

Gobbolino was sitting sadly by the roadside thinking of his hard fate when he heard theClop! Clop! Clop! of an approaching horse and rider.

A white horse was coming along the king’s highway, decked in gold and scarlet as a knight’s horse should be, but for all this gay dress the knight who sat astride it was pale and wan. He gazed straight ahead of him so mournfully that Gobbolino’s heart ached for him, and he quite forgot his own troubles.

The knight would have passed by without noticing the witch’s kitten had not his horse suddenly shied, nearly throwing his rider, who became aware of Gobbolino, and looking kindly into his beautiful blue eyes said:

“Good-day to you, my little cat! What are you doing in the king’s highway? Surely you are rather far from home?”

“I have no home, kind sir!” replied Gobbolino humbly. “I beg your pardon for getting in your way, but I was wondering how best to find one.”

“You are a very pretty cat!” the knight said, stooping to stare at Gobbolino. “And you have beautiful blue eyes and three very handsome black paws besides a white one. Tell me, do you think you could amuse a fair lady?”

“I am not very clever, but I could tell her stories,” said Gobbolino, thinking of the tales he used to tell the little princess.

“Could you make her laugh and sing?” asked the knight.

“I am not very amusing, but I could play tricks on her!” replied Gobbolino, thinking of the pranks he had played on the farmer’s children and on the little brothers.

“Could you make her fall in love with a humble knight?” the knight asked very sadly.

“I could put her under a spell,” said Gobbolino, remembering the magic he had learned in the witch’s cave. He wished with all his heart to help this kind knight with the sad eyes, who spoke to him so gently.

“Then I think you will do very well as a present for my lady fair,” said the knight, holding out his foot to Gobbolino. “Jump upon my horse and come with me!”

Gobbolino sprang lightly on to the knight’s foot and then on to the saddle, and they rode away together in a cloud of dust.

While they rode, the knight told Gobbolino the cause of his sadness.

He was in love with a beautiful lady who had been shut up in a tower by her father until she should make up her mind which of two suitors she would marry. One was the sad knight himself, and the other the black baron who lived in a castle nearby.

Both of them went to visit her every day and took her presents, and each of them tried to bring her something that would please her better than the other.

Every day when he came, the black baron would guess what present the sad knight had brought the day before, and he was always right. Every day the sad knight tried to guess what present the black baron had brought her. And he never made a mistake either.

The fair lady, whose name was Alice, had laughingly promised to marry the suitor whose present the other could not guess.

The sad knight had brought lilies, roses, jewels, and a nightingale in a golden cage– and the black baron had guessed them all.

The black baron had brought a silver swan, lovebirds, rare fruits, and a musical box– and the sad knight had never failed to find out any of them.

Neither of them had ever thought of a little black cat with three black paws and beautiful blue eyes.

The tower stood in the middle of a wood. It was guarded by a dragon, but he was old and lazy, and he always let the knights go by.

Gobbolino had never seen a dragon before, and he was more than a little frightened when the trees opened out into a grassy sward, the tower rose before them, and he saw the green coils of the monster lying about its foundations. The knight jumped boldly from his horse, however, and thundered on the door of the tower, holding Gobbolino on his arm.

The dragon opened one eye and looked at them, but it did not move, and a little serving maid, the Lady Alice’s only attendant, tripped down the stairs and opened the door.

“Is my lady alone?” the knight asked her.

“Why, yes, Sir Knight,” said the little maid. “The baron departed half an hour ago, having brought my lady the loveliest set of ivory balls you ever saw! She heard your horse splashing across the ford, and is waiting to receive you.”

Gobbolino was no longer surprised that the suitors found it so easy to guess each other’s presents, and he made up his mind that the baron should not find out so quickly about himself.

The knight and Gobbolino followed the little maid up the winding stair to the top where the Lady Alice sat beside her spinning-wheel and looked out over the forest.

The moment she saw Gobbolino she cried out:

“Oh, what a pretty little cat! Oh, do let him come and sit on my lap, so I may tickle his ears!”

Gobbolino leapt lightly on to her lap and sat there purring, while the fair lady rubbed his chin gently with her long white fingers and her rings played a hundred tunes in his ears.

“Stay with me for ever, little cat!” the Lady Alice whispered. “It is so lonely here in the tower with nobody but my serving maid and these stupid knights and that lazy fat dragon to talk to.”

“I will stay with you willingly, madam,” Gobbolino replied, for he was always anxious to please and to make people happy. Besides, he could think of worse homes than the tower in the forest, with a fair lady to tickle his ears and all the wide woods and trees to behold around him. If he couldcheer the Lady Alice’s solitude a little he felt he would be willing to make his home with her for ever.

The knight was highly pleased to see Lady Alice so delighted with his present.

“I have never had such a pretty gift before!” said she.

“What about the gift my friend the black baron brought you earlier in the day?” said the knight slyly.

“Oh, that!” said Lady Alice. “Yes, it was very pretty indeed, but it hadn’t such sleek black fur, such dainty paws and such beautiful blue eyes!”

“I wonder what it can have been?” said the knight, pretending to be very puzzled.

“I wonder, indeed!” returned the lady with her eyes full of laughter.

“Not a goldfish, I suppose?” said the knight.

“Oh, no! No! No! What amusement should I find with a goldfish in this tower? I wouldn’t thank him for a goldfish!”

“Not a pot of ferns?” said the knight.

“Oh, no! No! No! My little serving maid can bring me all the ferns I want out of the forest. I wouldn’t thank him for a pot of ferns.”

“Then it was not, I suppose, a set of ivory balls?” suggested the knight.

“Why, yes, it was!” said the lady, clapping her hands. “How clever you are to be sure! I shall have to tell the baron I cannot marry him after all, since you have guessed his present.”

“He will never guessmine!” said the knight, looking at Gobbolino. “And then you will have to marryme!”

“We shall see! We shall see!” said Lady Alice, gently stroking Gobbolino’s fur.

When he left the tower the knight pressed a silver coin into the hand of the little serving maid and whispered:

“Don’t tell the baron of my present, Rosabel!” and the little serving maid dipped a curtsey as she meekly replied:

“Oh, no, Sir Knight, that I never will!”

Gobbolino passed the rest of the day telling stories to the Lady Alice. He found her kind, and as bored as the little princess. She listened with interest to the tales he told, and laughed aloud when he blew coloured sparks out of his ears and hid himself in odd places round the tower.

The little serving maid peeped through the door and laughed too, while purple shadows crept over the forest, the stars came out, and Lady Alice pulled her harp close to the fire and began to sing.

Sitting at her feet, Gobbolino thought he had never been so contented before.

“How strange this is!” he said to himself. “Here am I, born in a witch’s cave, turned out of an orphanage, betrayed by a sea witch, the plaything of a little princess, come to end my days after all in a tower in the middle of a forest, guarded by a dragon. But it suits me very well, and if every evening is as pleasant as this one I shall be happy to remain for ever Gobbolino the prisoner cat.”

But out of loyalty to the knight he did not want the black baron to guess his present, so when the next morning Lady Alice leaned out of her tower window and cried:

“I can see the baron crossing the ford! Go down and let him in, Rosabel, and mind you do not let him know what present the knight has brought me!”

Gobbolino, who guessed that the little serving maid had broken her promises before, slipped out of the room behind her and hissed in her ear:

“If you tell the baron about me, Rosabel, I will turn you into a gingerbread doll, and the dragon will eat you up!”

“Oh, my! Oh, my!” shrieked the little maid in terror, running down the stairs.

Gobbolino had never threatened anyone before and he did not know if he really could turn anyone into a gingerbread doll if he tried. He felt very ashamed of himself as he trotted back to his fair mistress and crept under her couch.

“I didn’t mean it,” he said to himself. “I wouldn’t hurt her for the world. Bad will out, I suppose. It comes of being born a witch’s cat.”

The black baron thundered on the tower door, and the little serving maid opened it, but she would not say a word about the present the knight had brought the Lady Alice. The baron came up the stairs in a very bad temper, for Rosabel had never failed to tell him before.

“Oh, no! No! No! I mustn’t! I mustn’t!” was all she would reply.

Lady Alice received the baron very graciously, but when he came to the knight’s present she only closed her eyes and smiled.

“It wasn’t a pair of pigeons, I suppose?” the baron asked.

“Oh, dear me, no! Just look at all the pigeons there are in the forest that come to my call!” said the Lady Alice scornfully.

“It wasn’t a silver mirror?” the baron said.

“Oh, dear me, no! I have a bowl of crystal water from the spring that is better than any mirror,” said Lady Alice. “When I smile into it the smile breaks into little ripples till all the water is laughing.Ha! Ha! Ha! He! He! He! I wouldn’t thank him for a mirror!”

“It wasn’t a little black rabbit to amuse you?” said the baron.

“Oh, no indeed!” said Lady Alice, but she turned just a little pale, and soon after the baron took his leave and went away.

If he did not guess in two more days the Lady Alice would not marry him at all, and that would certainly please the knight.

The baron left behind him a handsome golden cockerel, but it crowed so loudly that the knight heard it far across the forest as he rode to the tower in the evening.

He was so sure that the baron could not guess his gift that he had not brought any other present, and so delighted that he gave the little serving maid two silver coins when he left and whispered:

“Now, mind you do not tell the baron anything about my present!”

“Oh, no, Sir Knight!” the little serving maid replied, but Gobbolino thought it as well to say the next morning:

“Remember if you say anything about my being here I shall turn you into a gingerbread doll, and the dragon will certainly gobble you up!”

“How terrible this is!” he said to himself as he crept under his mistress’s gown. “Bad will out, I suppose, or I would not twice be threatening that little maid with such terrible revenge. But she is very heedless, I feel, and after all, I owe this kind home to the knight.”

“Oh, my! Oh, my!” sobbed the little serving maid, flying down to open the door to the baron, and she would not breathe a word to him about the knight’s present.

The baron came up the stairs in a passion. He guessed a silken gown, a lace pillow, and a jar of honey, all of which were wrong.

He threw his gift of roses on the floor and stamped down the stairs. When the knight came up later there were still petals clinging to the tapestry and of course he guessed at once what the baron had brought.

He was so sure of his own success that he had brought no other present, and he gave the little serving maid three silver coins when he went away.

“Now, don’t you tell the baron of my present tomorrow,” he said to her. “And by the evening Lady Alice will be mine.”

But when night fell the Lady Alice brought out her harp while the little serving maid went down to wash the dishes. Gobbolino sat at his mistress’s feet and listened, but the music grew sadder and sadder, till at last she burst into tears and, taking Gobbolino into her lap, laid her face against his fur and sobbed:

“Alas! Alas! What is to become of me? Tomorrow the baron will come for the last time, and when he fails to guess the knight’s present I shall have to marry the knight. Certainly he is pleasant enough, but both are so stupid, I have no wish to marry either of them! I had far rather remain for ever in this tower and play my harp, my dear sweet little Gobbolino, until my true lover comes to find me! Once, long ago, I was in love with a noble young lord, but we were too young to marry and he left home to go to the wars. I have never seen him since, and now my father says I must marry one of these foolish suitors. Oh, Gobbolino! Gobbolino! What shall I do? What shall I do?”

Gobbolino was terribly distressed when he remembered how he had helped to bring about his mistress’s downfall.

“It comes of being born a witch’s cat,” he told himself. “Bad will out, I see. Now, if I had not threatened Rosabel, and let things take their course, the knight and the baron might have gone on guessing till the end of their days, and my fair lady would not have to marry either of them.”

So he determined the next day to leave the tip of his tail exposed when he crept under the couch, so the baron would see him and guess what the present had been.

But before he could play this trick the baron had found out all for himself.

He arrived at the tower in the greatest state of excitement, for he knew that if he failed today, the Lady Alice would never be his.

In his hand he held five golden coins, for he was quite determined to bribe the little serving maid into telling him what the present had been.

Gobbolino had not said a word to her this morning, but she was far too frightened to open her mouth to the baron.

“Oh, no! No! No!” she sobbed. “Indeed I dare not; do not ask me, Baron, for pity’s sake leave me alone!”

“But what can harm you, my poor child, if you just breathe one word to me?” asked the baron.

“Why, the present, Baron! The present can harm me!” cried Rosabel. “He had the fiercest look you ever saw when he threatened me!”

“Why, you do not mean to tell me that the present had a tongue?” asked the astonished baron.

“Why, yes, Baron, indeed it had a tongue, and the brightest blue eyes you ever saw!” said the little serving maid directly. “And it said it would harm me severely!”

“Why, you don’t mean to tell me the present had claws?” the baron asked.

“Why, yes, indeed it had, Baron, and the longest tail you ever saw!” said the little serving maid. “And the way it ran up and down the stairs in great bounds would astonish you! But it promised to put a spell on me if I told, and the look on its whiskers was so terrible, Baron, that I dare not disobey!”

“I have it!” shouted the baron. “It was a cat!”

“Oh, my! Oh! Oh! Oh!” sobbed the little serving maid in terror. “Now you have found out all about it by yourself! But it is a witch’s cat, Baron, and very mischievous and harmful! I saw it blow sparks out of its ears! I saw it hide in my lady’s shoe! It said it would turn me into a gingerbread doll and the dragon would eat me up! Oh! Oh! Oh! Whatever will become of us all?”

At that moment a second thundering knock shook the tower, and the knight arrived at the door.

He was so impatient to claim Lady Alice’s hand that he could not wait till evening, but had arrived hard on the heels of the baron.

Both sprang up the stairs with the little maid sobbing between them and there sat Lady Alice with Gobbolino on her knee, for she had heard every word that went on below.

“It is a witch’s cat!” shouted the baron.

“The serving maid betrayed me!” cried the knight.

“It will cast a spell on us all!” said the baron.

“I claim your hand, my lady!” said the knight, at which the baron drew his sword and they fell upon each other.

At that moment a bugle call sounded through the forest, and a white horse and rider came galloping across the ford.

The Lady Alice, who had been wringing her hands, gave one look from her window and tears of joy sprang into her eyes.

“It is he! It is my lord himself!” she cried and darted to the stairs.

The little maid followed her, jumped over the dragon’s coils and ran sobbing towards her home at the edge of the forest, but Lady Alice ran to meet her young lover, who lifted her into his arms, placed her gently before him on the saddle, wheeled his horse round, and galloped back through the ford again with one last bugle call of triumph.

Gobbolino, halfway down the stairs, saw them disappear in a cloud of dust, and his heart was happy for them.

He watched the pink frock of the little serving maid vanishing among the trees, and wished her well too, as she departed.

Upstairs the knight and the baron were still fighting when a rumbling as of an earthquake shook the tower.

The dragon was beginning to wake up.

The tower began to rock as he slowly uncoiled himself, and to totter as he stretched his claws one by one.

Then with a tremendous gape he opened his mouth and roared, and the bricks came tumbling down.

Stones, parapets, stairs, collapsed on top of one another, and Gobbolino had barely time to leap clear himself when the whole tower crashed about his heels, bringing down the baron and the knight, still whirling their swords, among the ruins.

By the time they had picked themselves up, the dragon was crawling away to some peaceful cavern of his own in the forest.

Gobbolino decided to leave the place too, so he trotted quietly into the shadow of the trees and disappeared.

14

Gobbolino the Woodcutter

[????????: img_7]

Night fell, and the loneliness of the forest fell on Gobbolino.

He was an easily pleased and independent little cat, but company meant a great deal to him. He did not ask for much, only the murmur of friendly voices about him, the click of a knitting-needle, the bubble of a kettle, or the hiss of a cooking-pot.

Here, deep in the forest, the trees sighed as if they too missed the companionship of human beings, and Gobbolino, treading its gloomy ways, looked eagerly for the sign of some cottage or farmhouse, where the candlelight, shining through the windowpanes, might bid him welcome.

So it was with the greatest pleasure in the world that he saw, walking along the path in front of him, an aged woodcutter, quite bowed beneath a load of wood.

Gobbolino did not say a word as he joined him, but trotted silently at the woodcutter’s heels, while a great peace came upon his heart, and the night fell softly around them.

The moon had risen when at last Gobbolino and the old man reached a tiny cottage, and not until he had thrown down his bundle of sticks on the doorstep did the woodcutter notice Gobbolino.

“Well! Well! Well!” exclaimed the woodcutter. “This is a surprise to be sure. And where did you come from, my pretty little cat?”

“I was just walking through the forest, master,” Gobbolino explained. “The way was so long and so lonely, I was glad enough to fall in behind you. I hope you do not object.”

“Well, you are perfectly right, the forest is very lonely,” agreed the woodcutter, nodding his head. “Even an old man like me feels the need of company sometimes. My granddaughter is gone away, and I live all alone. What do you say to a place on my hearth and a saucer of milk in my kitchen?I can think of worse homes for a cat than mine!”

“Oh, master, master!” said Gobbolino, almost crying in his thankfulness and joy. “How can I thank you? Can it possibly be true that I have found a home at last – Gobbolino the woodcutter’s cat?”

“Come in and see your new home, my little friend,” said the woodcutter, opening the door, and Gobbolino trotted in at his heels.

What was his surprise to see a pink frock sitting on the hearth and above it the rosy cheeks and blue eyes of the little serving maid Gobbolino had last seen running through the forest!

“Granddaughter!” exclaimed the woodcutter in great astonishment. “What has happened? What are you doing here? Have you been dismissed?”

“Oh, no! No! No!” sobbed the little serving maid, beginning to cry bitterly.

“Such terrible things happened, Grandfather, as you cannot imagine! The knights fought, the dragon roared, the tower fell down, and my Lady Alice rode away on a white horse! I was so frightened I jumped over the dragon and ran away. I have been running through the forest all day long to find you,Grandfather!”

“Well, well, well!” said the woodcutter, patting her very kindly on the head. “All is well that ends well, for here you are safe at home, Granddaughter, and no doubt we shall live together very comfortably as before. And just see what a pretty playfellow I have for you here, with such a splendid coat, such elegant paws, and such beautiful blue eyes!”

But his granddaughter screamed when she saw Gobbolino.

“Oh! Oh! Oh! Send it away! Send it away! That cat is the cause of all our troubles! It is no common tabby, but a witch’s cat that blows sparks out of its whiskers, as I saw with my own eyes. Turn it out directly, Grandfather, or I shall run straight out into the forest and never return!”

But the woodcutter picked up Gobbolino and set him gently on his knee.

“Tell me, my little cat,” he said kindly. “Is this true what my granddaughter says about you?”

“Why, yes, master, it is,” agreed Gobbolino sadly.

“And can you blow sparks out of your whiskers as my granddaughter says you can?”

“Why, yes, master, I can certainly do that,” said Gobbolino.

“But you have never done anyone any harm, have you, my little cat?” the old man asked.

“Oh, no, master, never, never, never!” said Gobbolino, shaking his head. So, although his granddaughter sulked and stamped her foot and tossed her head, the woodcutter refused to turn Gobbolino out of doors, but poured him out a saucer of milk and gave him a comfortable corner beside the fire.

Now that she was home again, the woodcutter’s granddaughter looked after the house, kept the kitchen spick and span, washed the dishes, and cooked the dinner while her grandfather worked in the forest.

“Stay at home with her and look after her!” the woodcutter said to Gobbolino. “I should not like any harm to come to her while I am away.”

So Gobbolino stayed in the cottage, and although at first the girl tossed her head whenever she saw him, by and by, having no one else to talk to, she threw a remark or two at him while she wiped the pots and pans, till presently she was chattering merrily, and seemed to have forgotten her grudge against him.

“It was bad enough in the tower,” she grumbled. “But there was my lady who talked to me, and knights who came every day, bringing such beautiful presents! My lady gave me all her old dresses to wear, but here I am with nothing at all but this patched gown that I tore sadly when I ran through the forest. Oh, if only I could have one new dress!”

And that evening she plagued her grandfather to give her the money to buy one.

“No! No! No!” said the woodcutter. “Your old gown is good enough for the present. If I give you one now, when the colder weather comes you will say it is not warm enough and ask for another one. When the berries turn brown, you may ask me again, and perhaps I will give you one then.”

But his granddaughter could not wait till the berries turned brown.

She sulked and scolded and complained until the cottage echoed with her ill temper, and at last her grandfather gave her a silver coin to keep her quiet.

“If you cannot buy yourself a gown with that you will have to wait till the berries turn brown,” he said. “For I have no more to spare.”

His granddaughter was delighted, and gave the woodcutter several kisses.

Now there was nothing to do but wait for the pedlar-woman to pass by with her silks and satins and laces, stuff for fine dresses and cloaks and petticoats.

“Stay by the door, Gobbolino!” the woodcutter’s granddaughter told him as she polished the floor and wiped the dishes. “Watch for the pedlar-woman, and don’t fail to tell me if you see her coming!”

Gobbolino waited many days in vain, but at last he saw the pedlar-woman approaching through the forest, with her bundles of silks, satins, and laces, all tied on the back of a little donkey that trotted beside her.

“Here she comes, mistress! Here she comes!” cried Gobbolino, and the next moment his mistress was at the door.

“Stop, good mistress! Stop!” she cried to the pedlar-woman. “Come in by my fire and have a bowl of milk, and show me some of your wares!”

The pedlar-woman laughed as she tied up her donkey outside the cottage door.

“No pretty girl has ever let me past her door without asking me to walk inside!” she cackled, stepping into the woodcutter’s cottage with her arms full of her wares, which she laid on the kitchen table.

There was something about the pedlar-woman’s cackle that made Gobbolino prick his ears and look at her more closely. Before he had stared at her more than a few moments he felt sure that the old woman was a witch. Only witches laughed like that, and had such long crooked fingers and such long crooked noses.

He quite made up his mind about it when the woodcutter’s granddaughter began to turn over the silks and satins.

When she exclaimed:

“Oh! How I should love that crimson silk if it were only a little shade less purple!” The old woman just passed her hand over it, and – lo and behold! – it was exactly the shade the girl had dreamed of.

“Oh!” she cried. “How beautiful is this brocade! If only it had butterflies on it instead of birds!” And the next moment the birds were gone, while in their place fluttered gorgeous butterflies as large as life.

Gobbolino knew something of these tricks, but he did not like them, or the old pedlar-woman either.

He hid himself under the kitchen table and hoped nobody would notice him there.

At last the woodcutter’s granddaughter chose a splendid material of sheer gold, so bright that it glittered in the sunlight. Once she had seen this she would look at nothing else.

“How much would it cost to make me a dress of this beautiful gold satin?” she asked.

“Oh, that would cost two silver pieces!” said the pedlar-woman.

“And I have only one!” cried the girl, bursting into tears of vexation.

“The scarlet is very pretty, or the green,” said the pedlar-woman.

“I don’t want any of them except the gold,” said the girl. “Won’t you take a little less for it, madam? Oh, do!”

“What! Do you wish me to give my wares away?” said the pedlar-woman in a huff, gathering up her stuffs.

“Oh, stop! Stop! Won’t you take something in exchange?” begged the girl. “Won’t you take my silver piece and one of those excellent dough cakes I have in the oven?”

“Dough cakes ruin my digestion!” whined the pedlar-woman. “I live on berries from the forest and clear spring water. Don’t offer me your heavy dough cakes.”

The woodcutter’s granddaughter was offended, for she was an excellent cook, but she still wanted the gold satin very badly.

“Will you take my silk counterpane, perhaps?” she offered. “I made it with my own hands.”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” croaked the pedlar-woman. “What should I want with a silk counterpane? I sleep in the ditches, side by side with my donkey. People would laugh to see us wrapped in silk embroidery. Don’t offer me your counterpane!”

The woodcutter’s granddaughter was hurt, for the counterpane was the finest thing she possessed, but she still wanted the gold satin very much indeed.

“Perhaps you would like our cuckoo clock?” she said.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” croaked the pedlar-woman. “I tell the time by the sun and the moon! It’s the whimbrel and the lark who chime my hours. Don’t offer me your cuckoo clock!”

The woodcutter’s granddaughter was very annoyed, for she had loved her grandfather’s clock ever since she was a tiny girl, but the longer she looked at the gold satin the more she wanted it for her own.

“Well, I don’t want any of the others,” she said crossly, pushing them across the table to the pedlar-woman. “I shall just go without, that’s all.”

“Stop a moment, there is just one thing I will take in exchange!” said the old dame. “At present I have no cat. If you will give me the handsome cat that is hiding under your table, as well as your silver piece, I will let you have the gold satin for your dress.”

“I dare not! I dare not!” said the woodcutter’s granddaughter. “The cat belongs to my grandfather, and he would never forgive me if I gave him away.”

“Well, no matter,” said the pedlar-woman, walking towards the door. “Perhaps your grandfather will give you another silver coin if you ask him prettily.”

“But you will be gone by then!” wept the girl.

“Three miles on, through the forest, there is a tinker’s hut,” said the pedlar-woman. “There you can find me for the next three nights. Goodbye, my daughter.”

But when the woodcutter came home, not all his granddaughter’s tears and prayers could win another silver coin from him.

When he found out that she had let the pedlar-woman go he was very angry.

“What? You refused a red or a green gown for the sake of a gold one you could not buy? Shame on you! What is one colour more than another? Now the pedlar-woman is gone, and you will have to wait for your dress until she comes back again.”

The next day the woodcutter’s granddaughter sulked all day long. She burned the cakes, left the pots dirty, and threw a frying pan at Gobbolino.

When her grandfather came home in the evening she begged him again to give her a silver coin, but he would not listen to her.

The next day she would not eat a thing from dawn till dark, but still he would have nothing to say when he came home to his tea.

The next day she spent weeping and walking up and down the floor, for it was the third day, and by evening the pedlar-woman would be gone.

She clenched her hands and stamped on the floor, while Gobbolino trembled in a corner, for whenever she caught sight of him she exclaimed:

“Don’t look at me like that! How dare you cast your dreadful blue eyes upon me when you have brought me to such misery! It is all your fault, I tell you, all your fault!”

But all of a sudden in the early evening her manner changed, and her unkindness towards Gobbolino turned to tenderness and compassion.

With her own hands she poured him out a saucer of cream and stood watching him drink it, murmuring:

“Beautiful Gobbolino! How handsome you are! What a shining coat you have, and what beautiful blue eyes! When you have finished your milk, Gobbolino, I have a piece of liver for you, and I believe in my drawer I have a little velvet bag that will make you a bed.”

Gobbolino purred with gratitude, for the last three days had been very uncomfortable for him, and he had been very frightened of the girl’s ill temper and the saucepans and frying pans that she flung at him.

“But how wrong I was to think her a shrew!” he said as he lapped the cream. “How wrong and how unkind! It comes of being born a witch’s kitten, I suppose. I see the bad in other people that is in myself. The girl is young and her disappointment upset her. Her true nature is tender and bright, and how good she is to me!”

He could hear the woodcutter’s granddaughter singing in her bedroom as she looked for her little velvet bag.

“Look at this, Gobbolino!” she cried as she ran into the kitchen. “Isn’t this a handsome bed for you? And see! Here is a little piece of liver to go inside it, to give you pleasant dreams!”

“I thank you, dear mistress! It will make me a beautiful bed!” said Gobbolino gratefully. “But I see the sun is going down, and I must hurry off to meet my master, your grandfather.”

“How ungrateful you are!” said the girl, with tears of vexation in her eyes. “Here I have given you my velvet bag for a bed and you won’t even try it first!”

Gobbolino was ashamed of his carelessness when he saw how he had offended his young mistress.

“Well, I will just pop in and out again!” said he. “But I am quite sure there is no need to doubt the comfort of such an elegant bag, dear mistress.”

But the girl still insisted that Gobbolino should try it for himself, so to please her he hopped inside at once.

The moment he had done so the deceitful girl drew the strings tightly, so that the mouth of the bag was closed, and he was a prisoner.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed the woodcutter’s granddaughter, swinging the bag by the string. “Now you are in my power. You wicked, tiresome little cat that has brought me nothing but trouble! Now I can have my gold dress! I shall give you to the witch along with my silver piece, and I hope I maynever see you again!”

“Oh, my goodness!” exclaimed Gobbolino, as the girl snatched up her bonnet and ran away through the forest swinging the velvet bag. “That I should come to this! Whatever will my master, your grandfather, say?”

“I shall tell him you ran away of your own accord!” replied the girl. “He will not find out the truth in a hurry, and the pedlar-woman will never let you go. You are going back to the place where you belong – Gobbolino the witch’s cat!”

Large tears filled Gobbolino’s eyes and splashed upon his shirt front as the bag swung to and fro.

The woodcutter’s granddaughter was running very fast, for she was afraid the pedlar-woman would be gone, and then what was she to do for her gold dress? She was afraid too to be out after dark, and there were three miles to walk home when she had parted with Gobbolino.

“I will tell my grandfather I was searching for his cat,” she said to herself as she hurried along, and at last the tinker’s hut came in sight.

The old pedlar-woman was just on the point of departing. She was loading her wares on the back of the donkey standing before the door.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” she croaked as the woodcutter’s granddaughter arrived, quite out of breath with her haste. “I knew you were coming!Psst! I heard you put the cat in the bag!Bang! I heard you slam the door!Pat-a-pat! Pat-a-pat! I heard you running through the forest to meet me. You thought the old pedlar-woman would be gone!”

“Then youare a witch! I thought as much!” said the girl boldly. “Well, I have brought you a witch’s cat! Don’t let him escape, I beg of you, for if my grandfather once finds out what has happened he will turn me out of the house. Here is the cat, and here is my silver coin. Where is my gold dress?”

The pedlar-woman took the silver piece in one hand and the velvet bag in the other. She slipped the coin into her bodice, and hung the bag on the donkey’s saddle.

Then she bundled up the gold material, and the woodcutter’s granddaughter was so busy exclaiming over it and over all the other materials that it was almost dark when she turned to go home.

“Won’t you come part of the way with me, mistress?” she asked the pedlar-woman.

“Indeed, my daughter, my way lies in the opposite direction,” said the old woman. “I must be well on my journey by the time the moon rises.”

“It is so far to go alone!” said the girl, clutching her roll of gold satin and peering among the trees.

“There is your little cat!” said the pedlar-woman with a malevolent smile. “You can take him back with you and give me back the dress.”

“Oh, no! No! No!” cried the girl, running away through the trees as fast as her legs would carry her.

She ran so fast and so far she mistook her way and lost the path. Soon she was floundering waist-deep in brambles that clutched at her frock and tore great rents in the beautiful gold material that she carried.

She had no time to stop and cry about this, she was so far from home, and when she tried to find the path she fell into a swamp and nearly drowned herself. When she struggled out again the mud had stained the beautiful gold stuff black, and the woodcutter’s granddaughter was soaked to the skin.

The moon rose, but shed no light into the inky forest; the stars twinkled, but hid their faces behind the dancing branches of the trees.

Small twigs reached out to scratch at her, twisted roots tripped her up, and the beautiful gold satin she had bought from the pedlar-woman had become a handful of muddy shreds.

When at last she reached the cottage door she was in a fever, and the woodcutter, who had been nearly mad with anxiety, put her straight to bed.

She was ill for many days, and when she recovered, her grandfather had burned the shreds of her dress in the fire, taking it for a bundle of rags.

So there she was with no dress and no Gobbolino and no silver piece, and nobody to be sorry for her either.

The woodcutter thought his cat had run away, and his granddaughter was wise enough not to tell him the truth of the adventure.

15

Gobbolino the Witch’s Cat

[????????: img_6]

Meanwhile Gobbolino was travelling the roads with the pedlar-woman, tied up in a velvet bag.

“After all, who am I to grumble at my fate?” he said to himself. “A witch’s cat I was born, and here I am a witch’s cat again. If only I can escape from harming people, I will do my best to serve my mistress well, but make the innocent unhappy I never will.”

And he was so meek and quiet that before long the pedlar-woman let him out of the velvet bag, and allowed him to trot along at her heels along the highway. She asked him about his home, his mother, and his little sister Sootica and encouraged him to perform his tricks whenever a crowd of children collected.

She taught him too to tell fortunes, but here Gobbolino soon got into trouble.

When a pretty young girl approached him, an old woman, or a handsome young man in love, he could not bring himself to chase away their smiles or their hopeful glances by telling them bad fortunes.

“Hope enough, and all you wish for will come true!” he whispered in their ears.

The pedlar-woman was very angry with him.

“You must tell them of sorrow first, and ill luck, and distress!” she told him. “Then they will be so cast down and dispirited they will come to me for a better fortune! Then I shall say you were wrong and tell them a little better fortune, but still your cruel words will ring in their ears, and they will come back again and again! Every time they do this I will tell them something a little better and something a little sadder, at the same time. And so our pockets will be full of silver!”

But Gobbolino had not the heart to bring sorrow to anyone, however false. At the sight of their distress his beautiful blue eyes filled with tears, and he told them:“Indeed, indeed, it is not true!” although his mistress beat him every time he did so.

And he did not like to see the pretty girls bringing their hard-earned pence to the pedlar-woman to exchange for ribbons, satins, and pieces of silk. He knew that the first time they tied up their hair with the ribbons, and met their lovers decked out in their new silk dresses, the ribbons would rot to shreds, and the dresses fall into fragments, for such was the witch’s treachery.

“Don’t buy! Don’t buy!” he entreated them, but few would listen to him, and when she heard him at it the pedlar-woman boxed his ears.

At last their travels brought them to the foot of a high mountain range which the pedlar-woman told him would have to be crossed.

It seemed very high and dangerous to Gobbolino, but the donkey, who seldom spoke a word, assured him that there was a zig-zag path leading to the summit and down again the other side, and on the top there was a cave belonging to another witch, where they would probably spend the night.

Gobbolino looked forward rather fearfully to spending a night in another witch’s cavern.

“But after all,” he said to himself, “what else can I expect? Who am I to expect anything different? How ungrateful I am! – and how wicked! It comes of being born a witch’s cat, I suppose. I had better spend the rest of my life being a proper one.”

But nothing could make him harm people willingly, and the savage blackness of the mountains, the icy torrents, and the dark cavern filled him with dread.

Up and up they climbed, the pedlar-woman first, leading the little donkey, and Gobbolino last, on his three black paws, limping slightly on the white one that he had bruised with a stone.

“Perhaps one day we shall see the green fields and sunshine again!” he told himself. “And oh! How welcome they will be after this dreary witch-country!”

The higher they climbed the wilder the country became, and presently Gobbolino had the strange sensation that he had been here before.

He could not make it out at all.

“It comes of being born a witch’s cat, I suppose,” he said to himself. “Something inside me recognizes all this savagery, but oh! How dreary it is and how lonely!”

But the sensation grew stronger and stronger, till all of a sudden the mouth of an immense cavern yawned before them, at the entrance of which sat a black cat with emerald eyes, whom, in spite of her size, he recognized directly.

It was his little sister Sootica, and he was back on the Hurricane Mountains!

She knew him too, and her astonished cry of:“Gobbolino! My brother!” brought her mistress hurrying to the door of the cavern.

Gobbolino remembered her well, for she had not changed like his sister Sootica, whose sleek black coat, bright eyes, and forest of whiskers showed how much she enjoyed being a witch’s cat.

Once her surprise was over she looked him up and down, while the witches went into the cavern together.

“You have not grown so very much, brother!” she told him. “Your coat is almost tabby, your eyes are still blue, and only three of your paws are black. What are you doing tramping round with that old pedlar-woman, instead of living with a proper witch?”

Gobbolino had so much to tell her that he did not know where to begin.

He could only stand and look at her with joy shining in his beautiful blue eyes, as he purred over and over again:

“Oh, sister! How glad I am to see you! How well you look, and how happy! Oh, what good fortune to meet you again in this fashion, my dear sister Sootica!”

At that moment the witch called them inside to have supper, and soon the two young cats were sharing a bowl of soup, ladled out of the familiar cauldron by the witch of the Hurricane Mountains.

“And how have you been getting on, my little man?” she asked Gobbolino, when the dishes were empty. “You can see for yourself what a fine cat your sister has become. She has learned nearly all that I can teach her. Show them some of your tricks, Sootica my dear!”

Sootica at once went through some of the more difficult tricks of witchcraft. She made beautiful music come out of the cauldron and flying pigs swoop about the room like dragonflies.

She turned Gobbolino a bright scarlet colour, which he did not like at all, and made his own mistress invisible. All this she did without winking an eyelid, so clever had she become.

“Now, show us what you can do, Gobbolino!” said the witch of the Hurricane Mountains.

“Oh, he cannot do anything at all!” said the pedlar-woman scornfully. “If you say he is brother to this handsome Sootica of yours you may be right, but he is no true witch’s cat. He cannot even tell fortunes – any kitten could beat him at it. And as for his tricks, la! They are not worth a chicken’s liver, sister!”

Gobbolino was so angry at her scorn, and so anxious to show his little sister Sootica that he was quite a fine fellow after all, that he began to tell the story of his adventures, beginning with his swim down the river, right down to his being sold by the woodcutter’s granddaughter for a dress of gold satin.

“And here I am!” ended Gobbolino modestly, looking for his sister’s praise, but she and the two witches were looking coldly at him.

“There is nothing in all your adventures that is worthy of a witch’s cat,” said the witch of the Hurricane Mountains. “If your mother, Grimalkin, knew what a poor thing she had reared, she would have drowned you at birth. Bah! Get into the corner there, and let us hear no more of your sillyvoice. Witch’s cat indeed! You have the heart of a common kitchen mouser!”

Gobbolino sighed deeply as he wished the many homes that had rejected him had thought the same, but he crawled obediently into the corner and slept, while the two witches and his sister Sootica talked witchcraft half the night.

When Gobbolino awoke it was broad morning.

The fire beneath the cauldron was out, and the cavern was lit by the sun’s warm rays that sent the spiders scuttling to their holes, and shamed the dusty cobwebs hanging in festoons across the craggy roof.

Wrapped in her cloak, the witch of the Hurricane Mountains snored in a corner. Sootica slept at her side, her green eyes tightly closed, but Gobbolino could not see the pedlar-woman anywhere.

He was wide awake so he thought he would go outside and talk to the donkey, but when he trotted outside, it was nowhere to be seen either.

He looked high and low, but there were only jagged rocks and precipices with a couple of ravens sitting on a nearby pinnacle that croaked at him and flapped their wings and croaked again.

Gobbolino trotted a short way up the path, but there was no sign of the donkey anywhere, so he trotted back again and sat on the threshold of the cavern basking in the sunshine, and waiting for the pedlar-woman to come and tell him where the donkey was.

The day went by and the pedlar-woman did not come. The witch and Gobbolino’s little sister Sootica slept on too, while the sun mounted slowly, slowly over the top of the Hurricane Mountains, and began slowly, slowly to descend the other side.

Gobbolino sat in the entrance to the cavern basking in the sunshine and waiting for the donkey or the pedlar-woman to appear, but neither of them came, and presently long shadows crept up the side of the Hurricane Mountains and touched Gobbolino’s toes with their cold blue fingers, so that he scuttled inside the cavern to escape the evening chill.

His little sister Sootica was just stirring in her corner, stretching her long and shining claws, blinking her green eyes and yawning widely as she said:

“Good-day, brother! I hope you slept well? No unpleasant dreams, I trust?”

“Oh, very well, thank you, sister,” replied Gobbolino, glad to have company at last. “And you too, I hope? You have certainly slept very late.”

“Late?” said Sootica, staring. “Why, it is barely sundown! My mistress and I never stir before the sun has set. Whatever should we do by daylight? Come, you can help me light the cauldron and prepare the evening meal.”

Gobbolino obligingly blew sparks out of his whiskers until the fire began to smoke and the cauldron to bubble.

“You can be quite useful, I see!” said Sootica agreeably, casting some herbs into the mixture. “Now I think all is ready, and if you will call your mistress I will call mine, for we are ready to dine.”

“I don’t know where my mistress is gone to!” said Gobbolino. “I can’t see her anywhere outside, and the donkey is not to be found either.”

“What?” screamed his little sister Sootica. “Mistress! Mistress! Do you hear that? Gobbolino says his mistress is gone and the donkey too. When did you find that out, Gobbolino?”

“Why, early this morning when I awoke!” said Gobbolino, quite frightened at the angry glances of his sister and her mistress the witch, who had bounced out of her corner and was standing over him in a threatening attitude.

“Why didn’t you go after her, you dunderhead?” she said in a fury.

“Why! I expected her to come back again at any moment!” said Gobbolino, wringing his paws and crying. “I waited all day long, but she never came! How could I tell she did not mean to return?”

“Blockhead! Numbskull!” cried the witch. “Do you mean to say you have been sitting outside the whole day long without saying a word about it? Don’t you know she meant to get rid of you? Don’t you know she meant to leave you behind so that she would not be plagued with you any longer?”

“Oh, no! No! No!” sobbed Gobbolino. “Indeed I never thought of that, ma’am! I am very sorry to have been so foolish, but such a thought never entered my head!”

“Send him after her!” said Sootica.

“She will be a thousand leagues away by now,” said the witch. “She may have been a poor witch, but she knew a trick or two, and she wouldn’t be caught that way – not she! No – such a poor cat as this is not worth keeping. I shall throw him down the mountainside!”

“Oh, no! No! No!” sobbed Gobbolino, while his little sister Sootica, although rather more composed, pleaded:

“Pray, mistress, think again. He is my bloodbrother and although I am very ashamed of him, I do not wish to see him die. Perhaps if we were to keep him a little while, mistress, you might teach him better ways, for you are very clever, and, after all, if you do not succeed, there is plenty of time to throw him down the mountain by and by.”

“True enough,” said the witch rather less fiercely. “Well, take your soup and let us get to work.”

As Sootica shared her bowl of soup with him, Gobbolino thanked her gratefully for saving his life.

“Don’t thank me!” said Sootica tartly. “Try to be a better cat, and worthy of our mother Grimalkin, for if you do not succeed, my mistress will certainly throw you down the mountainside and nothing that I can do will save you then.”

“I will try, sister,” said Gobbolino meekly.

After their meal the witch gave Gobbolino a bundle of spells to disentangle, so mixed and muddled, like a tangle of giant cobwebs, that he did not know where to begin or end.

“See, it goes like this – and this!” said Sootica, deftly dividing them with her paws, but Gobbolino fumbled and snatched at the spells, tearing and knotting them, until they were in as fine a muddle as before.

The witch and Sootica left him at it when they set out on their broomstick some time later.

Gobbolino toiled a little longer and then fell asleep, utterly weary, beside the tangle of spells.

His sister and the witch returned at dawn. The witch went straight to bed, but Sootica trotted to his side and woke him up.

“Brother! Brother! Wake up! Where are the spells? Don’t you know my mistress will throw you down the mountainside if they are not ready by sunset?”

“I can’t do it! Indeed I cannot!” sobbed Gobbolino, sitting up while the tears sprang to his beautiful blue eyes. “My goodness, what shall I do? What shall I do?”

“Don’t cry, brother. I will help you this time, just for once!” said Sootica, and with a few deft twists of her paw the spells fell apart and lay in neat piles upon the cavern floor. “There, that is how it is done! Thus! – and thus! – and thus! Now you will know for another time! Goodnight, brother, and try to be a better cat, or my mistress will certainly throw you down the mountainside!”

“Yes, sister!” replied Gobbolino meekly, as he too curled up and slept again.

The next night the witch set Gobbolino to catch a hundred lizards for her in the rocks round the cavern. She wanted to make a very strong kind of spell, and in order to make it she must have a hundred lizards first.

So while she and Sootica flew away on the broomstick Gobbolino trotted out among the rocks, but although he saw thousands of lizards, green, scarlet, and blue ones, all frisking about in the moonlight, he could not catch a single one.

They knew all the tricks he had learned as a kitten, for they had not lived in witch-country for nothing.

When he turned himself into a piece of cheese they laughed at him and squealed like mice. When he changed into a fly they mocked and danced about the rocks like a thousand bluebottles. When he became invisible they held their sides and told him just exactly where he was hiding. Not one would come within a paw’s length of him.

At last, tired out, Gobbolino crept into the cavern and fell asleep, and there his sister Sootica found him when she returned at sunrise with her mistress the witch, who went straight to sleep, wrapped in her cloak in the corner.

“Brother! Brother! Wake up, brother!” cried Sootica, shaking the sleeping Gobbolino with her paw. “Where are the hundred lizards my mistress wanted? Don’t you know she will throw you down the mountainside if she does not have them by sundown?”

“Oh, I couldn’t catch them, sister, indeed I could not!” sobbed Gobbolino, waking up in a hurry. “I tried and tried! They mocked and laughed at me, and would not come near me! I never even caught one, sister, and oh, my goodness, whatever is to become of me?”

“Don’t cry, brother! I will help you, just this once!” said his sister Sootica, trotting out into the daylight with Gobbolino at her heels.

Out on the rocks she sat upright looking at the sun and admiring her shadow and very soon the lizards peeped out in their thousands to look at her.

“I can see you all,” said Sootica sedately. “I came out to look at you and to catch a hundred of you, if I can, for my mistress to put in her spell.”

“Oh, you can’t catch us!” said the lizards, wriggling with delight. “Your stupid brother has been at it all day, and he hasn’t so much as touched our tails!”

“Catch you indeed!” said Sootica with great contempt. “Why, I should not even try! For one thing, I do not expect there are fifty of you, far less a hundred, that are fine enough for what my mistress requires!”

This made the lizards very indignant.

“Fine enough?” they chattered. “Why, look at me! – and me! – and me! – and me!” and they came scuttling out of their holes to show Sootica how fine and handsome they were.

“Why, yes!” she said. “You will do – and you! – and you! – and you!” So saying she scooped up the first hundred that showed themselves in her paw, and stalked with them into the cavern.

“Why, how clever you are, sister!” said Gobbolino admiringly, trotting at Sootica’s heels. “I played all the tricks I knew upon them, but they would not come near me!”

“Ah! You would never catch such lizards as these by witches’ tricks,” said Sootica wisely. “They live too near our cavern and are always in and out – they pick up everything. Go to bed now, brother, and try to be a better cat. Good-day to you.”

On the third night the witch told Gobbolino to do nothing but stir the cauldron all night. She was brewing her great spell, and before she left the cavern she told the young cats about it.

“Far, far away from here there is a castle with a princess in it,” she said. “Tomorrow she will be twenty-one. Twenty-one years ago, when she was born, her parents did not invite me to her christening. Now I am going to have my revenge. When this spell is ready I will mould it in the form of a golden dove. This I shall take her as a birthday present, dressed in my best clothes so she will think me her fairy godmother. But the moment she holds it in her hands the dove will peck her, and she will fall asleep for a hundred years. Then her parents will be sorry they did not invite me to herchristening.”

“Oh, how beautiful, mistress! How beautiful!” cried Sootica clapping her paws in delight, but Gobbolino’s blue eyes grew round with horror and dismay.

“Unless the spell is put upon her on her twenty-first birthday, it will have no power over her,” said the witch. “And in order to be ready it must boil all night. You must stir it, Gobbolino, and never stop a moment, or it will be spoiled.”

“At least you cannot fail with that!” said Sootica joyfully, as she bade her brother goodbye, and set off behind her mistress on the broomstick.

But the moment they were gone Gobbolino sprang off the stool on which he had been standing to stir the cauldron, and began to pace up and down the cavern.

“Oh, my goodness, how wicked! How cruel! How wrong!” he said to himself. “Think of the parents’ sorrow and distress! Think of the lovely girl doomed to a hundred years of sleep on her birthday! Oh, no! No! No! Never will I take part in such cruelty! Oh, why was I born a witch’s cat? Oh,why?”

And leaving the cauldron to bubble as it chose, he curled up in a corner and fell asleep.

The witch and Sootica were early in returning.

All night long, as she flew about her errands, the witch had been uneasy and anxious about her spell.

“Suppose he stirs it too fast! Suppose he stirs too slowly? Suppose he lets the fire out? Or scalds himself and drops the ladle? I ought not to have left it, Sootica, for if that spell fails then all my hopes are lost.”

“Indeed it cannot fail, dear mistress!” said Sootica. “Stupid and ignorant as my brother is, the merest kitten could stir a spell all night. I am sure you have no cause for fear!”

But the witch was not easy, and long before the dawn she had turned the broomstick for home and was speeding back towards the Hurricane Mountains with the wind whistling through Sootica’s whiskers as she clung behind her.

“Whee-eew!” they whistled, and people in the towns and villages below murmured: “There goes Sootica, the witch’s cat!”

Once at the cavern’s mouth the witch leapt off her broomstick and rushed inside. Sootica followed her, but more sedately, for she felt sure Gobbolino would not have been so foolish as to stop stirring the cauldron as he had been told to do so.

What was her horror to see the ashes grey under the cauldron, the bubbling silent, and worst of all, Gobbolino asleep in a ball in his usual corner!

“Miserable cat!” shrieked the witch, picking him up by the scruff of his neck. “What do you mean by this, you wretched creature?”

“It was so cruel!” sobbed Gobbolino. “I couldn’t do it! Indeed I couldn’t do it, ma’am!”

“Cruel! What word is‘cruel’ for a witch’s cat?” asked the witch, shaking him. “Don’t youwant to be cruel? Don’t you want to be bad? Don’t you want to be wicked? Don’t you want to be ungrateful? You have the heart of a kitchen cat, the ambitions of a kitchen cat, and the looks ofa kitchen cat! Henceforward you shall be a kitchen cat!”

And with one shriek of rage she hurled him into the cauldron.

16

Gobbolino the Kitchen Cat

[????????: img_3]

The bubbles rose and broke about him as Gobbolino struggled in the cauldron. Had it been boiling he might have died, but he had let the fire out and it was almost cold.

At last the witch fished him out with a stick, and set him, dripping miserably, on the floor.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” she jeered. “If only your mother could see you now! If she was ashamed of you before she would be ten times more so to look at you as you are this minute! Ho! Ho! Ho! Kitchen cat! Kitchen cat!”

“I should like to be a kitchen cat!” said Gobbolino. “I never wanted to be a witch’s cat – not I! Witches are cruel and wicked and bad! They do evil and make people miserable! They come to a bad end, and nobody is sorry! They are bad! Bad! BAD!!”

“What! Haven’t I silenced you yet?” shrieked the witch, making a snatch at him to hurl him down the mountainside, but Gobbolino skipped aside, and next moment Sootica had mounted the broomstick and called to him: “Jump up behind me, brother, quick!”

Gobbolino made one leap just as the witch made another grab at his tail.

Up-up-up! soared the broomstick, higher and higher, till the witch’s shrieks and angry cries could no longer be heard and the grey peaks of the Hurricane Mountains were like shadows below.

Dizzy and sick with fright, Gobbolino could only close his beautiful blue eyes and cling to his sister Sootica as he thanked her over and over again for saving his life.

“Don’t thank me!” said Sootica. “You are a disgrace to the family, and I never want to see your face again. But you are my blood brother after all, and I did not want to see you hurled down the mountainside.”

“But what will happen to you when you go back without me?” asked Gobbolino.

“Oh, pooh! I am far cleverer than my mistress the witch!” said Sootica scornfully. “She would never dare touch a hair of my head. Don’t you worry about me, brother, but make up your mind to be a better cat in future. But there! I suppose it is of no use telling you that as things are now!”

Gobbolino was rather mystified by her words, but he had little breath left for wondering what she was talking about. It was all he could do to cling to the broomstick without falling off as they rushed through the air. It was ten thousand times worse than anything he had ever done before.

“Oh, please stop, sister! Oh, please! Please! Please!” he begged, but Sootica paid no attention to him at all.

A little later he was terrified to hear her say:

“I am going to drop you now, brother. It is time I was returning home!”

“Oh, no! No! No! Sister! Whatever will become of me?” sobbed Gobbolino, but his sister only said:

“Don’t be foolish! Do as I tell you, and when I say ‘jump!’ leave go!”

“Oh, no!” sobbed Gobbolino, clinging all the faster. “I shall be killed, indeed I shall!”

“Nonsense!” said his little sister Sootica. “Even kitchen cats land on their feet, you know!”

The next moment she cried:“Jump!” and gave him a little push with her paw.

For one terrible moment Gobbolino clung wildly, and then he fell,down, down, down!

Gobbolino did not open his eyes as he fell, for he expected to be killed at any minute. He did not see his sister Sootica flying away on her broomstick back to the Hurricane Mountains, nor the green grass and brown farmland coming up to meet him as he fell, nor the winding river making its indolent way through the valleys and fields.

He did not even know there was a river, until with a terrible splash the water closed over his head, and then he bounced to the surface again in a flurry of bubbles.

“Oh, I’m drowning! I’m drowning!” cried Gobbolino, and he began to swim for his life.

But where as a witch’s kitten he had swum mile after mile as strongly as any little duck, now he found he could only struggle and splash, while the current carried him rapidly down towards the great mill-wheel waiting round the bend, beside the farmhouse.

It was lucky for Gobbolino that the children of the farm were playing on the bank just above the millrace.

“Look! Look!” they cried to one another. “Here comes a little cat swimming for its life!”

“It will get caught in the mill-wheel!” cried one of the little girls. “Quick! Quick! And get it out!”

Her brothers ran to get a stick, and fished out Gobbolino as they might have fished a plum out of one of their mother’s pies.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” they all cried. “He is exactly like our little Gobbolino that came swimming down the river just like that, oh, ever so long ago!”

“Gobbolino swam!” said the boys. “And this cat wasn’t swimming!”

“Gobbolino’s coat was nearly black,” said the little girls. “And this one is quite tabby.”

“But he has three black paws and one white!” they all exclaimed together. “And just look at his beautiful blue eyes!”

Gobbolino looked at them and purred and rubbed his wet body against their legs. Now that he was really a kitchen cat he found he could not speak their language any longer, but he did not mind, for they were all putting their arms about his neck and calling him their dear, long-lost Gobbolino.

“Can you still blow sparks out of your ears, Gobbolino? Can you still become invisible? Can you hide in father’s shoe or in the baby’s rattle?”

Gobbolino shook his head, but they still hugged and petted him and carried him up to the farm, where the farmer’s wife threw up her hands to see him.

“Father! Father!” she exclaimed. “Just see what the children have found drowning in the millrace! It’s the witch’s kitten come back again!”

“Witches’ kittens swim, they don’t drown!” said the farmer, coming into the kitchen.

He took Gobbolino out of the children’s hands and looked at him very carefully while the children crowded anxiously about his knee.

“That’s no witch’s kitten!” he said at last. “That’s a common kitchen cat, that is!”

Gobbolino’s grateful purrs almost choked him, while the children sang and shouted for joy at their father’s words. Even the baby in the cradle – who was now sitting up and playing with a string of cotton reels – crowed with delight, so that the kitchen rang with gladness, and no one heard the sound of wheels outside until the door suddenly opened and in burst three boys, each a little bigger than the last, all shouting:

“We’ve come to spend the day! We’ve come to spend the day! We’ve come to spend the day!”

The next moment they had hurled them selves on the top of Gobbolino, exclaiming:

“Oh! Oh! Oh! It’s our dear, our darling, our sweet little long-lost Gobbolino! Oh where, oh where have you been? And why haven’t you come to see us before?”

It was none other than the three little brothers, who had come to spend the day with the farm-children, as they often did for the benefit of their health.

The Lord Mayor’s coach was even now rolling away from the door, while the baby, who had stayed outside to pick dandelions, was crawling over the lintel with angry cries at being the last to reach Gobbolino and hug him to death.

For the rest of that long, happy day the children and their long-lost friend played and gambolled about the farm, and when evening brought the Lord Mayor himself to collect the little brothers they knew that another morning would bring them back to their Gobbolino.

The farm-children, tired and hungry, trotted into the kitchen, where, beneath the trestle-table laden with good food, a saucer of cream awaited Gobbolino.

One by one the children went off to bed, the cradle creaked its lullaby, and the farmer’s wife washed the dishes.

“There are worse kitchens than this, Gobbolino, and worse homes than ours,” said the farmer, filling his pipe. “While there’s a fire on the hearth, there’s a place beside it for you, and a saucer of milk and a bit of fish on Sundays. Is that true, mother?”

“That’s true, father!” said the farmer’s wife, and Gobbolino purred his gratitude.

When the dishes were wiped and put away, the farmer’s wife sat in the rocking-chair gently pushing the cradle with her foot as she darned the stockings, and Gobbolino crept quietly into her lap and dozed there. He knew that he had found his home at last and for ever and ever. Nobody would turn him out again. The children would become boys and girls and men and women. The baby would grow up and rock its own baby to sleep in the wooden cradle. The farmer and his wife would grow old and watch their grandchildren and great-grandchildren toddle across the kitchen floor, and every one of them, from the oldest to the youngest born, would always have a friendly word and a place in his heart for Gobbolino the kitchen cat.

2. THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF GOBBOLINO AND THE LITTLE WOODEN HORSE

1 A MESSAGE FOR GOBBOLINO

One evening in late summer, Gobbolino the kitchen cat was basking on the steps of his happy home, and thinking how lucky he was to have arrived in such agreeable surroundings after all the adventures that had befallen him as a witch’s kitten.

“And I hardly deserve it,” thought little Gobbolino, “for I was born and bred and brought up in the cavern of a witch. My little sister Sootica was happy enough learning to make wicked spells, and inventing naughty tricks to play on people. I wonder what has become of her now?”

He could hardly remember his mother, Grimalkin, but his sister had once been dear to his heart, and he could not help thinking of her now and again. True, she had teased and scoffed at him and called him all kinds of unkind names, but in the end she had saved his life when the witch wanted to get rid of him, and he hoped she had not suffered for it on his account.

While he lay drowsing in the sun the farm children were busy at their tasks on the farm. The girls were helping their mother in the dairy making butter, skimming the cream and scalding the shining pans. The boys were working in the fields with their father, and presently everyone would come home to tea in the farmhouse, where nobody would pass him by without a kindly word or a chuck under the chin. It was a happy life for a kitchen cat, and Gobbolino expected it to last for ever.

Presently twilight fell, and the farmer’s wife closed the dairy doors. She and her daughters, tired but contented, clattered across the yard to the kitchen, carrying jugs of cream and milk.

Down in the fields, gates were opening and shutting, horses’ hooves were stamping, and the iron-rimmed wheels of the hay carts could be heard grinding across the stones of the farm lane. Now the finished hayricks would be standing like sentinels at the edge of the fields— food for the cattle in the long winter days to come. The farmer and his boys were trudging home to tea, content that life was mainly as it should be, and that the last of the hay was cut and stacked.

They stabled the horses and tramped into the house, stopping for a moment to say a friendly word to Gobbolino, who would only wait a very few minutes before he followed them into the kitchen. He knew there would be a saucer of milk set down for him at the fireside, and when it was finished he might choose any lap he liked to sit on, for the rest of the evening.

But as the rim of the sun dipped behind the far-off purple mountains, a large owl flew silently up the lane and dropped a leaf on the farmhouse steps, close to Gobbolino’s feet.

In a minute the owl was gone, but the leaf flapped a little in the soft evening breeze, and came to rest by his paw. Even a moving shadow tempts a cat to chase it, so Gobbolino raised a forefoot and brought it down smartly on top of the leaf.

A flight of wild geese from the river below the farm flew over his head, uttering their strange cries. Gobbolino ducked with his ears pressed close against his head, and when they were gone the leaf had fluttered hallway across the yard and was still flapping. Gobbolino got up to follow it, but voices called him from the kitchen door:

“Gobbolino! Gobbolino! It is supper-time and your milk is ready by the fire! Where are you, Gobbolino?”

Gobbolino trotted indoors.

His milk was warm and fresh as usual. The fire was hot and glowing. When the family had finished eating he waited until the farmer’s wife sat down with her knitting, for the children were so restless he seldom got half an hour in peace upon their knees. While she cleared the table and washed the dishes he took a last, short stroll outside, and found that a great harvest moon had risen over the farmyard, making a new, white world of the barns and the straw stacks and the stables and the wagons quietly ranged beside the pond.

Halfway across the yard the leaf still lay, motionless now, because the breeze had followed the sun behind the hills to rest Gobbolino walked across the yard and sniffed at the leaf, not so much from curiosity but because it stood out in the moonlight like a finger that beckoned, spoiling the lovely quiet carpet of light spread out in front of him.

As he lifted a paw to flatten the leaf against the earth, the moonlight shone upon a number of words written across the leaf; a sight that Gobbolino found exceptionally strange, since leaves fall off trees, and do not provide sheets of writing paper any more than trees provide writing tables in their native state. He held down the leaf with his forepaw and carefully read the inscription upon it.

When he had made out the meaning of the words written there he nearly fell over backwards in his astonishment; and for a moment his heart almost stopped beating. He raised his paw for the briefest second and the leaf fluttered away from him, stirred by the very last echo of the evening breeze. It disappeared underneath the chicken house.

Gobbolino found it after a while, among the shadows. Holding it very firmly this time he read aloud:

“PLEASE COME AND HELP ME, BROTHER! OH, PLEASE DO! OH, DO! DO!”

It was such an extraordinary message to be written on a leaf. And it was such an extraordinary message for a kitchen cat to receive! Gobbolino did not know what to make of it.

There was only one person in the world who had the right to call him brother, and that was his little sister Sootica, who was a witch’s cat.

Long ago Gobbolino had been a witch’s cat himself, until he was saved by a spell, and became what he had always longed to be, an ordinary kitchen cat with a home of his own and a coat that was almost tabby.

Nobody really liked witches’ cats, or wanted them at their firesides. The farmer and his wife did not like them. Gobbolino remembered the day, now long ago, when they had turned him out into the wide world to fend for himself because he had blown sparks out of his ears, and turned himself into all kinds of grotesque shapesand sizes to make the children laugh.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_003.jpg]

It was such an extraordinary message

As he remembered those far-off days the old sensation of loneliness and not being wanted came back to him, and he shivered in the moonlight at the thought of his little sister Sootica feeling wretched and unhappy too, far up there in the Hurricane Mountains, or wherever else she might be now And yet… his sister Sootica had been glad to be a witch’s cat. Over and over again she had told him of her ambitions to know the book of magic by heart, to cast spells over people, and to fly down the night on a broomstick, making people cringe and shiver. She hoped to be the most famous witch’s catin all the world!

What could have happened to make her call for help in this manner? Was it possible that the witch had punished her with some dreadful revenge because she had rescued Gobbolino when he was about to be flung down the Hurricane Mountains? And because he owed her his life ought he not to help her when she called out to him?

But where could she be now?Where?

The owl never came back.

Gobbolino waited outside in the yard until the children came and chased him indoors.

“The hobgoblins will get you!.” they teased him, spreading out his blanket beside the fire.

But all night long Sootica’s message to him rang in his ears: “PLEASE COME AND HELP ME, BROTHER! OH, PLEASE DO!. OH, DO! DO!”

2THE LITTLE WOODEN HORSE [Êàðòèíêà: i_004.jpg]

By MORNING Gobbolino had not slept a wink all night. He tried to tell himself that the message was perhaps a trick to get him back into the witch’s cave and make him a slave again, but in his heart of hearts he knew this was not true. Witches did not want ordinary cats in their homes any more than ordinary people wanted witches’ cats, and she would be glad to get rid of him.

Besides, there was something so beseeching, so pleading in the message scrawled on the leaf that he felt it could only have come from his sister Sootica. And just as she had helped him before so he must help her now.

It broke his heart to leave the farmhouse and the kind family without a word of explanation, but he was afraid that if he stopped to explain his mission they would either prevent him from going, or, worse still, they would refuse to have him back again, because his sister was a witch, and with all his heart he counted on a welcome and his usual place by the fire when he came home.

He had made it his duty to watch the baby asleep in its basket under the apple trees, and again he was overcome with remorse at leaving his post. But one of the farm dogs, who was too old to go into the fields, kindly agreed to take his place, and just as the clock was striking seven in the morning Gobbolino crept out of the orchard, across the yard and away from the farm.

For the first mile he felt so lonely that half a dozen times he nearly turned back. It was so long since he had travelled all by himself. The happy bustle of the farmhouse, inside and out, had become so much a part of his new life that he did not realize how much he would miss it.

“But I shall soon be back again,” Gobbolino comforted himself. “I don’t know what I can do to help my sister, but once I see her I shall find out, and then I shall come home.”

He set his face towards the Hurricane Mountains, because that was the only place he knew where his sister Sootica might be, and thinking, as he did, that every hour was bringing them closer together he began to feel much more cheerful, and even to purr a little as he trotted along.

“For I am such a lucky cat!” his heart sang. “I have a home to come back to, and kind friends to welcome me on my return. The children will be a little sad waiting for me and wondering when I am coming home, but when I do return they will be very happy, and everything will be as it was before.”

The mountains were a great way off, and although Gobbolino walked all day they did not seem to come any nearer. He drank at a stream, but had had nothing to eat since leaving the farm, and his paws were so sore he could hardly stand up on them. Every now and again he stopped to give each of them a good lick, and to clean out the dust and grit from between his pads. This refreshed him a little, but he thought very anxiously about the next day and the next, and the terribly long distance he would have to walk before he reached the far-off Hurricane Mountains.

At last the road ran into a forest, and here the going was easier, because the pine needles made a carpet, quite springy and pleasant to walk upon.

Gobbolino was trotting along quite happily when he came upon a little wooden horse grazing in a small green glade.

They greeted one another very civilly. Gobbolino was delighted to find someone he could talk to for a little while, but he wished he were able to enjoy the berries that the little wooden horse was helping himself to from the bushes round the glade. Gobbolino noticed that he kept removing his head and putting them through the hole into his wooden body.

“Are those berries good to eat?” he asked the little wooden horse.

“Why yes! They are very good indeed!” said the little wooden horse. “But I am not picking them for myself. I am picking them for my mistress, the wife of my dear master, Uncle Peder the toy-maker, who lives close by, and she will turn them into jam, and put them into little pies, and bottle what is left over for the winter.”

“Did you say you lived close by?” said Gobbolino eagerly “Do you think your master has a shed where I could spend the night, and maybe catch a mouse or two for my supper? Because I still have a long way to go,” he added, “and I have had nothing to eat all day”

“Why! You must come home with me at once!” said the little wooden horse. “My missus will give you something nice to eat and a comfortable bed for the night. Follow me!”

He set out at such a pace on his twinkling wooden legs, with his wooden wheels spinning round like tops, that Gobbolino could only limp after him, losing distance all the way.

When the little wooden horse saw how he was faltering he came cantering back and exclaimed in sympathy:

“Why! You are quite lame! You must have blisters on all four of your feet! Jump on my back, and I will take you to my home!”

Gobbolino was only too grateful to jump on to the wooden back of his kind friend. He saw how strong was the little wooden horse, and how well made.

His stripes were blue and freshly painted. His saddle was red and his spots were black, yet there was nothing brand-new about him. He seemed wise and good and kind, as if he had been around some time in the world, and Gobbolino wondered very much how he came to be in this wood, and what was his story.

But before he could ask him any questions they arrived at a little house in the middle of the forest. It was built with white walls, a green painted door, and there was a pretty dovecot in the garden.

The little wooden horse trotted through the garden gate and deposited Gobbolino at the door, which he then pushed open with his wooden wheels, and led the cat inside.

A rosy-faced old woman was cooking at the kitchen stove, and from her cooking came the most delicious flavoursome smells.

Gobbolino had not intended to go into the house. He meant to find a corner where he could spend the night in the garden. But the little wooden horse was blocking the doorway, and before he could escape the old woman had turned round.

“Well, I never!” she exclaimed in surprise. “Whatever have we got here now? What a handsome cat! What lovely dark fur, and what beautiful blue eyes! Wherever did you find him?”

The little wooden horse was explaining how they had come across each other while picking blackberries in the forest, but at that moment the door behind them gave way to a tall, handsome old man who at once took the little wooden horse’s head in his hands and began to rub it very affectionately.

Before many minutes had passed Gobbolino found himself lapping a saucer of rich yellow milk, while a comfortable cushion awaited his tired feet Kind hands brushed and combed his fur and, while the old woman disposed of the berries the little wooden horse had picked in the glade, Gobbolino fell fast asleep, lulled by the bubbling of the pot and the crackling of the fire.

He slept so soundly that he did not wake up all night. When he opened his eyes it was morning, and there was nobody in the kitchen but himself and the little old woman.

She was just as kind to him as she had been the night before, and, when he went into the garden to find his friend the little wooden horse, she explained to him that the horse had gone off with his master, Uncle Peder, to take some toys to a far-off customer, and they would not be home until nightfall.

Gobbolino was very disappointed, for he wanted to say goodbye and to thank the little wooden horse before he went on his journey, but he knew he ought to leave early if he was to get well on his way to the Hurricane Mountains before dark.

He explained this to the old woman, who looked disappointed in her turn.

“I thought you were coming to live with us!” she said reproachfully. “Why are you in such a hurry to get to the Hurricane Mountains?”

Gobbolino began to tell her his story.

“I have a good home of my own to return to,” he explained, “but I have a little sister high up in the mountains, who belongs to a witch. I am afraid she may be in some kind of trouble, because she sent me a message to come and help her, and that is where I am going. I am truly grateful, ma’am, for your hospitality and I so badly wanted to say goodbye to my friend the little wooden horse before I left.”

But the old woman was looking at him with horror in her face.

“Your sister is awitch’s cat?” she exclaimed. “Then what are you?”

“I am a kitchen cat!” said Gobbolino simply but she turned away and began to make such a clatter with the pots and pans that he felt sure she did not believe him. He crept into a corner of the kitchen and tears of shame filled his beautiful blue eyes. He was afraid that if he left the house now his friend the wooden horse would get into trouble for bringing a witch’s cat into the house. Twice he left the kitchen and trotted out through the garden gate, but twice he came back again. His paws, too, were so sore he realized he would not be able to go far without another day’s rest; so he crept into a little potting shed in the garden and waited until he could tell the whole of his story to the little wooden horse.

Late in the afternoon Uncle Peder and the wooden horse returned. Gobbolino was about to run out and greet them, but he saw the old woman in the doorway, and he did not want to run the risk of being sent away without an explanation.

So he crouched in the shed, and heard his wooden friend inquiring anxiously where the cat was, and whether his paws had healed during the day.

“Why, I have no idea where your friend the cat is,” said the old woman testily. “I haven’t seen it since breakfast-time this morning. And a fine trick you played on me!” she added, rounding on the little wooden horse. “It is just a bold, wicked witch’s cat, off to join its sister witch in the Hurricane Mountains! We don’t want that sort of thing here!”

‘ “I can’t believe such a story!” said Uncle Peder in astonishment. “That was agood cat if ever I saw one! Remember, wife, you made a mistake once before, and it is quite possible to make one again!”

“Oh dear! Oh dear! How hasty I am!” lamented the old woman, remembering the time, long ago, when she had chased away the little wooden horse from her door. “Well you may be right, Uncle Peder, and I am wrong… but the creature told me himself that his sister was a witch’s cat, and what does that make him himself I should like to know?”

Gobbolino stole out of the potting shed and into the kitchen. He sat down beside the little wooden horse and told his whole story to the family.

The old woman was ashamed that she had not listened to him before. She gave him an excellent dinner, and began to put scraps of food into a little bag for him on his journey to the mountains.

“I must set off immediately,” Gobbolino said in some anxiety, “because I have wasted a whole day, and my sister must be desperate to know if I am coming.”

“You can’t go into the forest by night!” the little wooden horse said. “It is very dangerous, and you could lose your way. Wait until first light in the morning, and then I will go with you as far as the open plain, and see you on your journey.”

Having heard his story Uncle Peder and the old woman were quite agreed that the little wooden horse should go a short way with him and see him on his journey, especially since Gobbolino’s paws were by no means healed, and he had many miles to travel before he came to the Hurricane Mountains.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_005.jpg]

He… told his whole story to the family.

“But come back to us as soon as you have seen your friend on his way!” they told the little wooden horse. “Because if anything happened to you it would break our hearts. We could not possibly go on living without you now!”

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse lay down together beside the fire and slept till early dawn. Then they each took a bag of food that the old woman had prepared for them and set out into the forest, with the early morning awakening all around them, bird calls, spiders’ threads, little gold dawn clouds in the sky above, and mists weaving and waving between the distant trees.

Gobbolino hopped along on his healing feet, using three paws at a time to rest the other, until the wooden horse persuaded him to ride while he could, and save himself for the rougher roads when he would have no one to help him.

3 THE OWL [Êàðòèíêà: i_006.jpg]

SEVERAL times during the day Gobbolino begged the little wooden horse to set him down and go back to Uncle Peder and his wife, but the horse only said:

“Wait a little! Only just a little while longer and we shall have come to the end of the forest I will go home then.”

At last it seemed that the trees were thinning out, and the dense woods were coming to an end.

But the light that was filtering through the branches was less bright, because the sun had gone behind the clouds, and it became quite obvious that a large storm was blowing up in the sky.

“Now isn’t that tiresome!” said the little wooden horse. “While we were deep inside the forest it couldn’t have harmed us very much, but now that the trees are thinner there is no shelter and nowhere to hide ourselves. We shall just have to make up our minds to get soaking wet until the storm is over.”

Beyond the trees the landscape spread far out across meadows and valleys, and still infinitely distant appeared the ramparts of the Hurricane Mountains, now shrouded in a pall of driving rain.

“I thought we must be nearly there!” said Gobbolino sorrowfully. “They look every bit as far away as when I first left home. And just suppose, when I arrive there, I find my sister is not there at all? Whatever shall I do?”

They both realized that besides the rain, night was now falling, and as the darkness slowly enveloped them they could not tell if it were stormclouds or evening that was stealing the daylight out of the sky.

The rainclouds dallied over the meadows, but a few heavy drops spattered Gobbolino and the little wooden horse huddling together under a tree.

Suddenly Gobbolino became aware of a large owl sitting above them on a branch, looking at them very seriously out of round amber eyes, which it closed the moment they looked back at it.

Remembering the owl who had brought him his sister’s message he stood on his hind legs with his paws reaching up the bole of the tree, while he begged the owl to tell him if he really were the same bird or quite a different one.

The owl took absolutely no notice of him. If anything it closed its eyes rather tighter than before.

It must be quite another owl, Gobbolino thought, but on the other hand, owls flew far and wide, and knew a great deal about the goings-on in field and forest, and in the district round them.

“Sir Owl!” Gobbolino called politely. “Please can you tell me one thing? Do you know whether a witch still lives in the Hurricane Mountains, in a cavern right at the top?”

The owls great amber eyes opened wide for a moment, and then shut up tightly, like boxes.

“Oh, please, please tell me, Sir Owl,” Gobbolino pleaded. “It is so very important to me to know if there is a cavern up there still lived in by a witch! Please tell me if you can! Please do!”

The owl gave the faintest nod of its head, although its eyes remained tightly closed.

“And does the witch have a cat?” asked Gobbolino, trembling with excitement.

This time the owl’s nod was so faint that he looked down at the wooden horse in perplexity.

“It said ‘yes’!” said the little wooden horse quite positively. “But I think you forgot to say “Thank you!’”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you, kind Owl!” said Gobbolino, much abashed. “And please, sir, please will you tell me.. does the cat have a name? And can you tell me if that name could be Sootica?”

At that, the owl gave such a loud screech that both the friends were startled. Gobbolino fell backwards from the tree, and at the same moment the owl left the branch above and sailed away into the darkness.

The single drops of rain became a downpour that battered the scanty branches and fell upon their heads like wet pebbles. The little wooden horse turned his head towards the tree and told Gobbolino to crouch underneath his wooden body, but there was not much protection there. In his turn Gobbolino tried to shroud the little wooden horse in his fur.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_007.jpg]

“…does the cat have a name?”

“How ashamed I am at bringing you so far from your home!” Gobbolino said. “You could be warm and comfortable beside your own kitchen fire if you had not chosen to come and help me find my little sister. First thing in the morning you must go home, for I can see my way now as far as the mountains, and when the storm is over and the daylight comes I can find the road to them alone.”

“We will see about that,” said the little wooden horse, “but just remember, I came of my own accord. You have nothing to feel ashamed about.”

It became so dark that they could no longer see each other, but Gobbolino knew his friend was there by the feel of his strong and sturdy legs, and the four wooden wheels at the ends of them, while the little wooden horse could feel Gobbolino’s soft coat until the rain turned it into a soaking wet blanket that dripped wet on to the earth around them.

Above them the storm roared and raged till they seemed surrounded by clamour and the relentless sweep of the drenching rain.

Suddenly the noise became much fainter, and then ceased. At the same time something like a thick, soft eiderdown descended gently on top of them, wrapping them closely and blotting out the sound of the storm. Their cold wet bodies began to glow with warmth and dry themselves, their feet felt warm and cosy, and they sank gratefully into the soft feathers of the owl’s wings spread over the pair of them, to dry and comfort them during the night.

4THE CHASE [Êàðòèíêà: i_008.jpg]

They awoke to bright sunlight. The owl was gone, leaving them warm and dry.

Gobbolino’s fur shone like silk, while the paint on the little wooden horse gleamed as if it had just been polished.

The Hurricane Mountains were clean and blue in the morning light. They did not look so far away after all.

“Why!. I shall get there by the evening!” said Gobbolino joyously. “Now you can go home again, my kind friend, because I really cannot accept your kindness any longer. You can be quite certain that by this time tomorrow I will have found my little sister Sootica!.”

The little wooden horse looked doubtful.

“And what then?” he said. “After such a long journey you will be much too tired to confront the witch or any other danger that may threaten her. While I am beside you, you can ride on my back and keep your strength for any adventures still to come. I will go just a little further with you before I turn back.”

Gobbolino could only be grateful, as much for his company as for his help and kindness. His paws were nearly healed, and since there was no sign of the owl, they left the forest and stepped out across the vast plateau of fields and meadows towards the mountains.

They were very glad of the food that the old woman had given them for their journey, and they had eaten their dinner beside a little stream in the middle of the plain when Gobbolino raised his head and exclaimed, “What is that strange noise I can hear?”

The little wooden horse listened too, but the noise had died away, and they finished their meal.

Gobbolino heard it again.

“There! Far away to the west of us! It sounds like wild birds crying, only different.. quite different! Don’t you hear it yourself?”

The little wooden horse did hear it. He raised his wooden head and sniffed the air.

“I can hear it!” he said. “And I think we ought to go back to the forest as quickly as we can!”

“What?” exclaimed Gobbolino in horror. “When we have come so far? Just look what a long way behind us the trees are! Why! We are more than halfway to the mountains already! Don’t let’s go back! Let’s go on as quickly as we can!”

The sound had ceased. The little wooden horse jumped to his feet and stood looking westward with his ears pricked.

“I think we should go back to the forest!” he repeated solemnly.

Gobbolino looked at him in astonishment.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked. “How can wild birds hurt us… if it is wild birds?”

“Supposing it isn’t wild birds!” said the little wooden horse. “Supposing it is.. wild.. things!”

“Not wild beasts?” said Gobbolino. “How could it possibly be? Not lions! Not tigers nor hyenas! Not leopards! And wolves hunt in the forests, yet you want us to go back there!”

“Dogs!” said the little wooden horse flatly.

“Dogs?” screeched Gobbolino jumping three feet into the air.

“Hounds… I On the scent..” said the little wooden horse. “I don’t know what scent.. but if they smell us it could be us. Jump on my back and see if you can tell me which way they are coming.”

Gobbolino jumped on to the back of the little wooden horse, standing up as high on his hind legs as he could stretch himself But far as he could view across the western plain there was nothing threatening in the landscape, and the noise of the baying had quite died away and disappeared.

“I daresay they are not coming in this direction after all!” said the little wooden horse, much relieved.

“Then we can go on!” said Gobbolino happily.

“I still think we should go back and wait till evening,” said the little wooden horse. “By then the hounds will have gone home, and we can travel quite easily out in the open. There will be some moonlight presently to help us.”

“But we shall have lost so much time!” wailed Gobbolino. “We ought to be in the mountains by sundown, and if we go back we won’t be there till late tomorrow. Let’s wait a little while and listen, and if they come no nearer we can go on our way!”

Together they crouched down by the stream where they had eaten their dinner, listening to every sound that came across the plain— the trilling of the larks above, the sizzling of the crickets, the babble of the water and the spasmodic chirp of a water bird. There was no other sound at all.

“We must go on!” said Gobbolino. “Every minute is important if I am to reach the mountains before the sun sets.”

The little wooden horse still hesitated.

“This is where we must part, my kind little friend!” said Gobbolino. “I will go on to the mountains and you must go home. We will both be well on our separate journeys before dark. I have so much to thank you for, and I cannot accept any more of your kindness or your companionship. It is time that we said goodbye.”

The little wooden horse looked very unhappy, shifting from one wooden leg to the other.

“I would gladly go further with you,” he said at last,

“but I have such a very strong feeling that we ought both to go back to the forest and wait till evening.”

“I can’t see any reason for it!” said Gobbolino pettishly “All those miles backwards when we could be going forwards? How can you think of such a thing? Go back by all means, my dear faithful friend, but don’t ask me to come too until I have found my sister and heard what she wants of me. How can youpossibly think of asking me to turn my back on the mountains now?”

The little wooden horse began to paw the ground in an agony of embarrassment and distress. When he saw that nothing he said would move Gobbolino he bowed his wooden head and said very sadly:

“Very well, my friend, we will do as you say] I will go home to my dear old master and missus, who need me even more than you do, and I will wish you the very best of luck on your journey and protection from every danger. For I am very much afraid therewill be danger!” the little wooden horse said sadly, but Gobbolino only tossed his head, while a spark of bravado flashed in his beautiful blue eyes as he exclaimed, “Danger? Why! Haven’t I met danger before? Haven’t I confronted witches and spells and wicked enchantments, and been flown away with on a broomstick and dropped in a raging river? Do you think I am afraid of danger, my little wooden friend? Not I!”

But the little wooden horse was looking forwards across the plain, not north to the Hurricane Mountains. His wooden ears were pricked and listening, although no sound came but the flutter of the wind in the grass, the trilling of the larks, the sizzling of the crickets, the babble of the water, and now and again the sudden chirp downstream of a water bird.

“Goodbye, Gobbolino!” he said quietly. “May your journey be successful, and I hope you will soon find your sister. I shall watch every day for your return once you have helped her. Be sure you come by the cottage on your journey home, and tell us all your adventures. Goodbye!”

There were tears in the eyes of the little wooden horse, and Gobbolino was crying too. He thanked his friend over and over again for his companionship, assuring him that he would never have come as far as this if he had not had his help, and been able to rest his blistered paws by riding on the horse’s back.

Very sadly they climbed up opposite sides of the stream, and set off, one northwards to the mountains, and the other southwards to the forest and home. Every now and again they turned and waved to one another until the tall grasses enveloped them, and the great vast plain seemed as empty as if it had swallowed up the pair of them.

Gobbolino felt terribly lonely, but nothing would have persuaded him to retrace his footsteps, and with every pace forward he congratulated himself on getting nearer and nearer to his goal.

“How could I possibly have gone back to the forest?” he asked himself. “My sister will be counting the minutes till I arrive, and already she will be wondering why I have not come sooner!”

He had trotted on for more than an hour, and had made a wide circle to avoid one of the few farms and villages that were dotted about the plain, when he heard again the strange sound that had so disturbed the senses of the little wooden horse.

From the far westward came the cry of hounds moving up the plain, a long protracted baying that could no longer be confused with the cry of geese, or of any other bird. It was unmistakably the baying of a pack of hounds.

Gobbolino’s heart began to thump. At the same time he quickened his pace, hurrying along on his four paws that were once more sore and aching. The noise was a great distance off, and no doubt the hounds were after their own quarry, and had nothing to do with him at all, but they were closer than they had been when the two friends ate their dinner beside the stream, and it was quite possible that they were coming back to their kennels in the village and might cross his trail.

Gobbolino began to gallop, the little bag of food bouncing up and down under his chin. It became such a burden that he threw it away, and was able to run faster without it, but the baying of the hounds came nearer.

The pack was sweeping up the plain now, and Gobbolino realized at last the honest fears of the little wooden horse, for there was not a rock, not a tree where he could hide himself until they passed. He turned his face towards the village, hoping he might reach it in time to find a shed or a shelter of some kind before the hounds overtook him. He tried not to think of other dangers like watchdogs or youths with sticks, or stones being thrown at him, or similar dangers. The threat behind him was quite enough to concentrate on while he was running.

He galloped along gasping with terror, and now it seemed almost certain that the hounds had found his trail, for the baying grew louder and louder and more terrifying the faster he ran.

And another sound had joined them— a rattling, clattering noise that pursued him and came closer and closer, with snorts and blowings and the thunder of spinning wooden wheels.

Gobbolino was about to fall flat on his face from sheer terror when a familiar voice panted in his ear, “Jump on my back, Gobbolino! Don’t stop for a moment! Jump, I tell you! Jump!”

[Êàðòèíêà: i_009.jpg]

“Jump on my back, Gobbolino!”

The little wooden horse overtook him at full gallop, and with a desperate leap Gobbolino gained the painted saddle and they tore on, clinging together as the horse’s wooden wheels spun and clattered across the plain.

The hounds were not far behind them, and the baying was terrible. It was quite obvious that they had picked up Gobbolino’s scent and were following it in full cry.

But all of a sudden the baying died down, as if the pack had stopped for a moment, or overrun the trail. They seemed to be casting about to find it again, uttering little whimpers and false cries before returning to the same place again, and once more becoming bewildered and more and more defeated. This happened at the point where Gobbolino jumped on to the back of the little wooden horse, and his scent gave place to the trail of wooden wheels. For a short time it seemed as if the two friends had escaped from their pursuers.

Then the hounds realized that the scent they were following was mingled with the smell of wood and paint. It was still there, though faint and uncertain. All they had to do was to follow the new smell of paint and wood, and with a united howl of delight they set off again.

Now, although the little wooden horse sped like a streak of lightning, the hounds were gaining on him fast.

“Put me down and let me run!” Gobbolino pleaded, for he felt sure his weight was holding back the speed of the little wooden horse, but even side by side they could not outpace the pack of hounds.

When both were at the end of their strength and about to turn and face the baying pack, they arrived suddenly at the gate of an ancient church, and slipping quickly through the lych-gate, arrived inside the churchyard.

5 SANCTUARY IN THE HAUNTED CHURCH [Êàðòèíêà: i_010.jpg]

An OLD PRIEST came from the doorway of the church and walked down the path of the churchyard.

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse flew to hide themselves in the folds of his cassock, as a last and desperate refuge from the hounds, but to their amazement the pack stopped short at the lych-gate. One or two jumped over the wall and ran about among the tombstones, but they seemed very uneasy, and took no further notice of their prey.

The next moment a fearful clanging of bells in every discord burst out of the belfry above their heads. The old priest flinched, closed his eyes and crossed himself. A crowd of terrified bats flew out of the tower, and every hound turned tail and fled, howling. They could be heard retreating, still howling, across the plain, until they had run quite out of earshot.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_011.jpg]

A crowd of terrified bats flew out of the tower…

The old priest stooped down, and gently stroking Gobbolino murmured:

“Ah, my little cat! For once the haunted church has stood you in good stead, for I think it has saved your life!”

While they had been running for their lives the first shades of evening had crept across the plain, and were mingling with the pink glow on the peaks of the Hurricane Mountains.

At first Gobbolino and the little wooden horse were too shaken and breathless to tell their story to the priest, but as they recovered their breath they asked him if they might have sanctuary in the church overnight.

“Sanctuary!” exclaimed the priest. “Yes, of course you may have sanctuary! But I doubt if any of my parishioners would call it that! The church is haunted. You heard for yourselves the terrible clamour of the bells, though nobody rings them! The bell-ringers refuse to come any more. The choir won’t sing, in case it happens in the middle of a service. Nobody will clean the church, because the cleaners are so frightened. And I no longer have any congregation to preach to. It is no wonder they won’t sit in the pews because the place is so neglected and dirty.”

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse explained their plight, and the priest gave them all the comfort and sympathy in his power.

“I would invite you to spend the night in my house,” he said, “but my housekeeper does not like animals in the house. But I know she will give me some food for you, and at least you will be safe and dry, whether you sleep in the vestry or in the pulpit. Bless you both— I wish you well!”

The priest went away, and soon returned with a bowl of warm bread and milk which the two of them gladly shared.

Then he blessed them again, adding sadly:

“Not all my blessings seem able to rid the church of its haunting, nor all my prayers. All my life I have believed that Good is stronger than Evil, but in this case there seems to be nothing that I can do about it. Take as little notice as you can of the haunting bells, and sleep in peace!”

The priest went home to bed, while the little wooden horse and Gobbolino explored the old church, which was very beautiful, but dirty with bat droppings and months of neglect.

The bats themselves kept up a constant whirring of wings as they came back into the church tower from the churchyard, where the baying of the hounds had driven them. They disappeared inside the bell tower, having, it seemed, no particular fear of ghosts.

Gobbolino remembered bats from his life in the witch’s cave. He did not care for them very much, but he looked on them as harmless. A clinging suspicion that the hounds might come back that way made the friends decide not to sleep in the body of the church. When they had finished their bread and milk they climbed up the winding stair to the bell tower and saw hundreds of bats clinging to the bell-ropes, with their wings folded one across the other. They did not seem to worry about ghosts.

It was warmer up here than down below. Gobbolino and the little wooden horse found a comfortable alcove halfway up the stairs, and were thankful to rest their legs, and to warm themselves a little in the last rays of the sun pouring through a niche in the side of the tower.

Presently they became aware of a rustling and a whispering. The bats were waking up and peering at them.

“Who are you? Where are you from? Did you come with those horrible howling dogs? And if so, why did they leave you behind?” Their eager little heads were peering forward and their bright eyes twinkled at Gobbolino and the little wooden horse.

These began to tell them their story, but they had hardly begun before a bat perched on the biggest of the bells called out:

“The sun has touched the rim of the bell, brothers! It is time to get up! Now! Now!”

Suddenly, with the most fearful clamour every bat left the bell-ropes at once, and dived below into the body of the church. Some of them slipped through cracks into the churchyard outside, but the rest of them joined in a mad chase round and round the nave and the aisles, in and out of the screen, up and over the organ, in and out of the pulpit, while above them and around them the clamour of the liberated bells filled every corner of the building and echoed far beyond the priest’s house, the churchyard and the village.

It all happened so suddenly that Gobbolino and the little wooden horse were taken by surprise.

They cowered in their alcove, quite overwhelmed by the dreadful noise and the flurry of the whirling black bodies streaming past them. They could well understand the horror of the village, and the unwillingness of the congregation to enter the church. The bells took a long time to calm down after such agitation.

There was nothing they could do to calm the mad ecstasy of the bats, and they were so tired that all they desired was a little peace and quiet to sleep the night away after their adventure.

Peace they had at last, once they became used to the constant whirling of the bats, which was, after all, rather like the noise of the wind in the trees on a stormy night.

They slept, in spite of their exhaustion, with one ear open, expecting the same blast of bells when the bats should have finished their cavorting and come back to their perches at daybreak. But to their surprise they returned quietly, taking up their places one by one, and clinging like moths to the bell-ropes, till the whole tower seemed to be draped in velvet columns.

When he thought they were all assembled, and before they closed their eyes, Gobbolino addressed them, in the pale dawn light that was filling the belfry.

“Gentlemen!” Gobbolino said. “I have something to say to you! Do you realize how much trouble you are causing in this fine old church by the way you are behaving? Everybody thinks the place is haunted!”

“It’s our home!” whined some of the bats.

Others murmured, “We don’t like the bells any more than you do! Some day perhaps they will fall down and then we can live here in peace and quiet!”

“How can you speak like that?” said Gobbolino, shocked. “The place is so dirty, and everybody hates you, apart from the haunting. Once they find out who is ringing the bells I wouldn’t give much for your chances! They’ll smoke you out, I wouldn’t be surprised!”

“Oh! Oh!” raged the bats. “And who is going to tell them? What business is it of yours anyway? We already have the old priest preaching at us, and it makes us feel most uncomfortable! We don’t want to stay in his old church, but we haven’t anywhere else to go.”

“Turn them out of the belfry! We don’t want them in here!” called out more bats.

“The church is a sanctuary!” other bats reproved them. “We are not allowed to turn them out.”

They began to whisper among themselves.

“Wait until they leave of their own accord, and then we’ll set upon them!” Gobbolino distinctly heard them say.

He and the little wooden horse looked at one another.

They had planned to leave first thing in the morning, but to be attacked by the bats would be just as bad as being chased by the hounds. The alternative was to stay inside the church. And of what use was safety if they were in prison?

The little wooden horse shook his head in perplexity. He felt brave enough to take on any number of bats, and his wooden body would not suffer much harm from their scratches and bites, but he was afraid Gobbolino would come off very badly if a lot of the creatures attacked him at once, and he stood thinking in some dejection of what to do next.

Suddenly he heard Gobbolino speak, and at once every bat in the belfry stopped squeaking and pricked up its ears and listened.

“Gentlemen!” Gobbolino said. “I have something to propose to you. But please tell me first: are you happy in this place, or would you prefer to have another home?”

“Why, yes we would!” said the bats complainingly. “It is noisy here! It is crowded— we hardly have enough room to sleep in, all on top of one another like that, and the bells make a hideous noise if we turn over. Of course we would rather have another home!”

“Ah!” said Gobbolino wisely.

“But there are so many of us it is quite hopeless to think of finding one!” the bats continued. “And we don’t want to split up our families. We’ve got grannies and great-grandpas and great-great-aunties and all kinds of ancestors as well as little nieces and nephews, and lots of babies. We all want to live together, and where would we find enough room except in a belfry?”

“Ah!” said Gobbolino again, very wisely.

“Why? Do you know of anywhere?” the bats asked, all agog with interest and excitement.

“I do!” replied Gobbolino. “Up in the Hurricane Mountains where I used to live there are hundreds and hundreds of empty caves. I was born in one and I know. There is room there for thousands of bats! There are no church bells and nobody comes and tells you to go away. Every family could have its own cave… every family!”

By now the bats were shimmering and wriggling with anticipation.

“Are you sure? Do you promise?” they asked Gobbolino, beginning to leave the bell-ropes and to fly round the belfry not all at once, but in ones and twos so that the hideous clash of bells did not occur.

“I am sure! And I promise!” said Gobbolino solemnly. “But you must go and take possession in an orderly fashion, because a witch lives in the highest cave, and you don’t want to annoy her or she might turn you into something horrid. Leave this place two by two, and fly straight up to the mountains. You have only to come back here if you find I am not telling you the truth.”

“But they won’t come back, because Iam telling them the truth!” said Gobbolino, as two by two and quite quietly the bats left the ropes, flew out of the tower, and vanished in the early dawn towards the Hurricane Mountains.

Gobbolino stopped the very last pair as they were leaving.

“Please do me a little favour,” he asked them. “If you find that I have kept my promise and there are splendid new homes for you up there as I have described, then will you of your kindness fly up to the highest cave on the Hurricane Mountains and tell my sister Sootica that I am on my way to help her? Say that I have received her message and I am coming as fast as I can!”

The bats promised to do this.

So Gobbolino’s disappointment was all the greater when the little wooden horse, standing on the belfry steps with the light of the early morning shining on the great new peace around them, said that he thought they ought to clean the church before they left.

6THE CHURCH IS SAVED [Êàðòèíêà: i_012.jpg]

“It will take us hours and hours!” said Gobbolino sadly.

The little wooden horse was already hunting in the vestry for dustpans and brushes, dusters and brooms. He sent Gobbolino outside to find a dustbin.

Gobbolino went out into the fresh morning air, very glad to be free of the bat-ridden church. He found a large dustbin, and also a tap with a pail underneath it, but he was in no mood for spring cleaning. He looked wistfully towards the Hurricane Mountains, envying the bats, who would be there by now, exploring the caves, and even making the acquaintance of his little sister Sootica.

There was one comfort— they would be telling her that he was coming.

He filled the bucket with water and carried it inside.

The little wooden horse had wasted no time in idleness. He was on the top of the belfry stairs sweeping the bell-ropes with the broom until no dirt or dust remained, and then he swept the bells. Beyond a faint chime every now and again no sound came out of them. They hung limp and heavy above the chancel far below. Gobbolino felt they must be very relieved to be at peace.

“Once the bats are gone and the church is really clean again the people will come back!” said the little wooden horse, sweeping and polishing and mopping. Gobbolino joined in with a will, thinking the sooner the job was finished the better, and it was surprising how quickly they swept away the rubbish, washed the stones, and put the place to rights.

Shortly before midday the old priest returned, carrying a large plate of cold meat and a jug of milk. He nearly dropped these in his astonishment when he stepped inside the church. Gobbolino and the little wooden horse were just sweeping out the last of the dust and droppings, while the nave and the aisles gleamed with cleanliness. The pews shone.

“Oh my dear, good, kind little friends!” the old man said. “How can I thank you enough? But I am afraid all your work will be in vain, because within a week the bats will have made it all dirty again, and nobody else has the courage to come and clean up after them.”

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse were so eager to explain that they both began to talk at once, and it was quite a while before they could make themselves understood.

“But do you mean to tell me…” the priest exclaimed, when at last he could make out their astonishing story, “do you mean to say that the haunting which has terrified my whole parish was nothing more nor less than the bats jumping off the bell-ropes?”

“Just that!” said the little wooden horse and Gobbolino, nodding wisely.

“And that the bats are really gone for ever? So that the church will stay clean and tidy and the bells will never clamour any more without a human hand to ring them?” the priest went on.

“The bats will never come back! They have gone to the caves on the Hurricane Mountains where there is room for thousands of bats!” Gobbolino said. “So they will never ring the bells again, and your church will stay clean— that is if your parishioners are willing to keep it that way”

“I can hardly believe it!” said the priest, his heart swelling with gratitude and happiness. “So my prayers have been answered after all, and Good has banished Evil, just as I said. We must have a service of thanksgiving as soon as possible, and I will tell the congregation all about it. I must gather them all together! But first, we must ring the bells!”

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse stared at him in amazement, but the next moment each of them found himself at the end of a bell-rope. The old priest took a third, and directed them as he rang:

“One.. two.. three! One.. two.. three! One.. two.. three!”

The merry chimes rang out crystal clear, since the cleaning of the bronzes and scraping of the ropes had brought back the very best of their tones.

The notes were unmistakably clear and harmonious, and all round the parish where people had grown to dread the sound of the bells, they now stopped to listen.

“It is like the old days before the church was haunted!” the older ones said to each other. “The priest is calling us to church. We had better go!”

One by one, or in twos and threes, even in family parties, they left their homes and walked to church, curious at the merry sound coming out of the church tower, a little apprehensive too, but trustful of their priest’s bidding.

The priest begged Gobbolino and the little wooden horse to stay and take part in the service of thanksgiving. He wanted his parishioners to meet them, and to realize what had been done for them, once he had explained to them all that there was nothing more to fear. The bats who had been the cause of all the dread and terror were now many miles away in the mountains, and would never come back to the church.

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse were anxious to leave, for the day was far advanced, and they had many miles to go. It was all very well for the bats with their wings, they could fly leagues at a time without effort. But for wooden wheels, and paws unused to travelling, the distance was likely to be very exhausting. There was also the faint risk that the hounds might return during the afternoon, and the sooner they took to the road the better.

However, the old priest was so insistent that they agreed to stay for a short while, and to slip out of the church before the sermon began. In this way they planned to avoid shaking hands and being introduced to all the congregation when the service was over. They felt they could not face a further delay in resuming their journey.

But now Gobbolino insisted that the little wooden horse should leave him to do the rest of the journey alone.

“Think how they are missing you at your home in the forest!” he reproached him. “Uncle Peder is old, and so is his wife. Every evening they will be looking up the forest path and calling for you. You should have been sitting at home by the fire with them by now! I can see my destination ahead of me, and it cannot be very far away Do go back, my kind little friend, and give me the pleasure of knowing that you are on your homeward journey!”

The little wooden horse was terribly reluctant to agree. He wanted to see Gobbolino safely across the plain to the foot of the mountains.

Yet all that he had said was true. The danger was over. There was not the smallest whisper of a hound’s cry on the still afternoon air, while he knew how anxiously his dear old master would be looking for his return. The village was behind them, and they had travelled three parts of the plain. The little wooden horse had no fears that he would not be able to gallop back to the forest before darkness fell, and he would be home by early morning.

They stood looking at one another on a little hummock in the plain, one pleading for the other to go, the other pleading to stay.

“Just a little further!.” begged the little wooden horse.

“Not one step, my kind friend!” said Gobbolino.

At last, very, very reluctantly; the little wooden horse agreed to say goodbye. He rubbed his wooden nose against Gobbolino’s soft fur and asked him over and over again to come back as quickly as possible; and not to fail to call in at the cottage in the forest and relate all his adventures. Both of them knew that Gobbolino must cross the plain again on his homeward journey and this time he would be all alone. Neither of them dared to think much about that.

For the second time the friends parted and proceeded in different directions. But this time the little wooden horse did not go far on his way. He crouched down in the grass to watch Gobbolino out of sight; quite determined to keep an eye upon him until he reached the mountains.

And so he saw what for a long time Gobbolino did not notice. A small black shadow was forming over the peaks; a shadow that circled and gyrated and gradually became bigger and bigger. For a while it looked like one of the small stormclouds that creep up into the sky on a summer’s afternoon; and sometimes develop and sometimes come to nothing.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_013.jpg]

For the second time the friends parted…

The little wooden horse took it for no more, no less than that. But as he watched his friend plodding purposefully onwards he realized that the cloud had left the peaks and was advancing to meet him. A summer thunderstorm would hurt nobody very seriously, however unpleasant it might be. But this cloud was different from a thunderstorm.

For one thing, there was no thunder. But there was a strange high noise of a kind one might meet in a tropical storm… a high, screaming, whistling sound, almost beyond the normal range of an ear. And the cloud that had seemed so high now swooped lower and lower, till it was flying just above the level of the plain.

The bats were coming back!

7 THE BATTLE OF THE BATS [Êàðòèíêà: i_014.jpg]

The awful realization struck the little wooden horse like a thunderclap. He stood up trembling on his little wooden legs.

It was not Gobbolino he was worrying about. It was not himself. What had brought the bats back out of the mountain caves he could not tell. Gobbolino had been responsible for their going there, but the agonizing thought in his own mind was the memory of the assembled congregation they had left behind them, all rejoicing in answer to their pastor’s prayers, the sparkling clean church, the shining bells, and above all, the silence that he and Gobbolino had assured the priest would last for ever. Was it to be shattered so soon? Nobody would ever trust the priest’s word again.

He hurried after Gobbolino, catching him just as the little cat stopped, and, raising himself on his hind legs, suddenly became aware of the advancing cloud of bats.

There were hundreds of them… no, not hundreds, butthousands! And they darkened the land beneath them as they flew southwards, uttering their shrill and indignant cries.

There was no doubt at all that they were angry.

At first it looked as if they would be passing to the right of the two friends, but at the last moment they caught sight of them, and the great cloud wheeled and dived on them, their cries even shriller as they screamed aloud:

“They’re here? After them! Revenge! Revenge!”

The little wooden horse had arrived at Gobbolino’s side. Both instinctively ducked their heads against the bats attack, and the next minute they were in the centre of a whirling mass of raking claws, flashing teeth, and buffeting wings.

True enough, these made less impression on the wooden flanks of the little wooden horse than they did on Gobbolino, but on the other hand the cat was better equipped to fight back with all four feet, and claws outstretched. He too bit and scratched and hooked and tore, till the earth around him was strewn with wounded bats, but still they dived down row after row, and still Gobbolino bit and fought and the little wooden horse battered.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_015.jpg]

There were hundreds of them… no… thousands!

When there came the briefest pause in the fighting the little wooden horse jumped on to his hind legs and shouted at the top of his voice:

“Stop! Wait! Listen! Do us the honour, gentlemen, of telling us what we are fighting about! Why are you revenging yourselves on us, and what have we done to make you so angry?”

“Promises! Promises!” hissed the bats, stopping their attack for a moment. “Empty promises! Deceit! Lies! False expectations! Empty, broken promises to get us out of our proper homes!”

“But didn’t you findbetter homes in the caves?” asked Gobbolino in great surprise.

“Better, yes! Homes, no!” hissed the bats. “Cave after cave we tried, and all in vain! No sooner had we found a home for our families than we were driven out again! Over and over and over again! There wasn’t one cave in the whole of the mountains where we were allowed to stay and make a home!”

“Butwho drove you out?Who didn’t let you stay?” asked Gobbolino.

“That wicked, ugly witch’s cat!” chanted all the bats. “The moment we were settled in, all nice and warm and comfortable, along she came and chased us out again! We complained to the witch, her mistress, but she only laughed! The selfishness of it!” shrieked the bats. “Hundreds of empty caves! All perfect family homes for the asking, and no hope of getting even one for ourselves! You knew it when you sent us there! You did! You did! It was just a trick to get rid of us out of the church! And now we will have to go all the way back again, and nobody wants to have to sleep in the bell tower now we have seen those beautiful caves!”

But Gobbolino had no sympathy to spare for their troubles.

“What was the witch’s cat like?” he asked eagerly. “Did you notice her at all?”

“As if we could help it!” said the bats scornfully. “She followed us everywhere! She was a fluffy black thing. She was rather like you!” they said rudely pointing their wings at Gobbolino. “Only her eyes were green, not blue, her fur was black, not tabby, and she had no white paw.”

“Itmust be my sister Sootica!” Gobbolino said to himself. “Did you give her my message?” he asked the bats.

They were silent. At last one of them piped up:

“I’m sorry! I quite forgot!”

Gobbolino was bitterly disappointed.

“Tell me how she looked!” he pleaded. “Was she sad? Or did she look happy? Did she seem ill-used, did you notice?”

“Happy? Sad? How could we tell?” said the bats. “She was too busy chasing us to be sad or happy while we were there. She did say that her mistress the witch would beat her if she didn’t get rid of us, because we interfered with her spells. All those beautiful caves! How could she need them all for her spells?”

The bats seemed to have lost their spirit for fighting. They began to close their ranks, ready to fly southwards again. The wounded ones picked themselves up and found they were not so badly hurt as they had imagined.

“Wait! Please wait!” Gobbolino begged them. “You can’t go back into the church until the people are gone, and they are all there saying their prayers and being thankful that the church is clean and tidy and not haunted any more.”

“Just let them wait till tonight!” jeered the bats. “Well give those bells such a clanging, we’ll have everyone in the parish out of their beds with their hair standing on end!”

“Will you wait for just one more day?” pleaded the little wooden horse. “My friend Gobbolino here received a message from his sister Sootica in the witch’s cave. She said she needed his help, and asked him to come to her.”

“So you are a witch’s cat too!” screamed the bats, preparing to fly at Gobbolino.

“Stop! Stop! Listen to me!” cried the little wooden horse. “Gobbolino isnot a witch’s cat! He was badly used by the witch of the Hurricane Mountains, and she turned him into a common cat for ever and ever, but you can’t blame a brother for going to the help of his sister. What would you do yourselves? What we do not know iswhy she needs him. And now it strikes me that we might well be able to bargain with Sootica for the caves, in return for whatever favour it is that she wants from Gobbolino. Wouldn’t that be a better idea than going back to the church?”

The bats immediately became calmer, and agreed that this might be better than going back to the draughty belfry to sleep among the clanging bells.

“It means, of course, that you would have to come back with us to the mountains,” said the little wooden horse, “and while we make our way up to the witch’s cave you will have to arrange yourselves as best you can to pass the night in the rabbit burrows at the foot of the mountain. We shall do our best to arrange things to your best advantage, and you will have to play your part, as I have just said. I am sure it will all turn out for the best, for all of us.”

The faith and confidence of the little wooden horse put new heart into Gobbolino as well as the bats, who agreed to go back to the mountains with the two friends.

“It is quite a long way,” they said, as they arranged their ranks. “Wouldn’t you prefer to ride with us?”

The little wooden horse and Gobbolino were only too glad to accept their offer, and watched with interest while a number of bats formed two circles by hooking themselves wing-tip to wing-tip, while others spread their wings within the circles and hooked themselves on to the sides. The result was a couple of flying hammocks, and in these Gobbolino and the little wooden horse deposited themselves very comfortably.

They flew off, leaving the plain far below them. Even the church tower was lost in the clouds, while the Hurricane Mountains loomed nearer and nearer.

Long ago Gobbolino had flown away from these same mountains behind his sister Sootica, on her broomstick, but on that occasion he had his back turned to the crags, and had not noticed how steep and savage they were. Now, the closer they approached the more fearsome they seemed, and he shivered at the thought of scaling them to find his sister and her mistress in the cavern. Sootica’s message had been such a heartfelt cry, but her treatment of the bats was more like the normal practice of a witch’s cat — it did not sound like the behaviour of a creature in distress. He became terribly worried, not only on his own account, but because he might be leading his friend, the little wooden horse, into danger.

The great cloud of bats wheeled round the base of the mountains, flying in circles lower and lower, until it deposited them both on the grass. There were sandy banks here, and these were riddled with rabbits’ burrows.

The bats were rather dissatisfied with these, but they agreed to spend one night only in the holes, while Gobbolino and the little wooden horse did what they could to get possession of the caves for them.

The little wooden horse refused to go home until this was done. He had a growing feeling that Gobbolino would need all the help he could find in the next part of his adventure, and he did not mean to abandon his friend until it seemed quite safe to do so.

8 SOOTICA [Êàðòèíêà: i_016.jpg]

Leaving the bats to find shelter for themselves in the rabbit holes, Gobbolino and the little wooden horse began to climb the very steep and narrow path between the rocks to the summit of the mountain.

Now that he was back again in this bleak and unfriendly country Gobbolino became very nervous, and said no more about sending the little wooden horse home. If his friend had left him Gobbolino would hardly have had the courage to climb on alone, so dark and angry were the crags, and so steep the track below them. The sun was rapidly leaving the sky, and the rocks were cold and blue.

For a short while they could still hear the squeaking of the bats below, but soon these sounds died away and they were terribly alone.

The path wound up and up and up. The sun went down, and the mountains seemed to be covered in a great black counterpane. The moon had not yet risen, and the stars were very faint. It was not a good place to be caught in at night, but neither of them wanted to arrive after dark in the witchs cavern.

Round a corner they came upon one of the many caves squeezed in between the rocks— caves that the bats had not been allowed to claim for their own. The cave was empty now, and the friends looked at one another with one single thought in their minds. If they crept inside and spent the night in the cave they might face the next morning with more courage, and in daylight. They did not need to say a word aloud to each other, but turning off the path they stole inside.

Gobbolino felt much safer when the walls of the cave were around him, and he was deadly tired. He lay down close beside the body of the little wooden horse, and almost immediately fell asleep.

The little wooden horse stayed awake only long enough to make sure that the cave was quite empty, and that no strange noises threatened them from the mountain above. His wooden heart beat pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, for he did not like this part of the country any better than Gobbolino did. But nothing would have persuaded him to desert his friend, although he could not help thinking very anxiously about his dear master back there in the forest, who would be daily expecting him to come home.

Their adventure had scarcely begun, since they did not know why Gobbolino’s sister had sent such a piteous message, nor what kind of trouble she might be in.

“But there is nothing I can do about it till the morning,” said the little wooden horse very sensibly, so he too went off to sleep.

When he woke up the cave was full of moonlight. It shone straight in from the entrance, and standing in the middle of it, looking straight at him, was Gobbolino.

The little wooden horse leapt to his feet. He thought Gobbolino must be leaving without him, taking advantage of the moonlight and not wanting to waste any more time waiting in the cave.

But Gobbolino was cominginto the cave, not going out, and his face did not wear the kind and friendly expression that the little wooden horse had learnt to know so well. It wore a suspicious, rather fierce look, and he now noticed that the cat’s eyes were flashing with a green light, not blue, and that all its paws were black. It was so exactly like Gobbolino in every other way that the little wooden horse had to stare at it again and again to make sure he had not made a mistake, and thiswas his friend after all.

But if he had any doubts left these were quickly dispelled by a flurry of dark fur at his side. Three black paws and one white one sprang out of the shadows in a single bound, as Gobbolino’s voice cried joyfully:

“Sister! My sister Sootica!. Is it really you? Oh, sister! Sister! How glad I am to see you!”

The two cats fell upon each other, licking and purring. The green fire died down in Sootica’s eyes. She seemed overwhelmed with joy to see her brother. The cave resounded with their joyous miaows and purrs, and the little wooden horse was feeling slightly left out in the cold when suddenly Gobbolino remembered him, and proudly introduced him to his sister.

“My best, my most true and trusted friend!” he said. “I would not be here at all if it had not been for him!”

“Well, I never! Well, I never!” said Sootica, walking round and round the little wooden horse. It was quite evident that she had not seen anything like him before.

“Where do you come from?” she asked curiously. “And what are you doing here?”

“I came to help my friend Gobbolino in answering your plea,” said the little wooden horse solemnly. He could not help noticing that Sootica looked perfectly healthy and able to look after herself. She did not appear harassed, or in distress, nor, in fact, in any kind of trouble at all.

“The owl brought me the message that you sent, sister!” said Gobbolino eagerly. “I started out that very same morning, and here I am! And why did you send for me, sister? Please tell me why!”

The eyes of the witchs cat half closed, and grew cunning.

“I was missing you, brother,” she whined, looking at him through green slits, “I was feeling so lonesome without you! But I thought you would come by yourself! I did not expect you to bring a friend!”

Sootica did not seem at all at ease with the little wooden horse. Every time she looked at him she shifted from one black paw to another, and she kept walking round and round him, staring.

“You needn’t be nervous, sister,” said Gobbolino, “he is the best and bravest little horse in all the world! And if we can do anything between us to help you, let us know quickly what it is, because in the forest Uncle Peder will be anxiously waiting for his horse to come home, and I promised the children at the farm that I would not be long away.”

Suddenly the witch’s cat lost all her bravado. Her green eyes filled with tears, and she looked piteously at the two friends.

“I want to be a kitchen cat too!” she sobbed. “I am tired of being a witch’s cat! My mistress gets more and more bad-tempered every day! I am never allowed to do as I please. I have to work at making spells and practising wickednesses from dawn till dark! I don’t enjoy it any morel I want a safe and happy home like yours to live in!”

[Êàðòèíêà: i_017.jpg]

“I want to be a kitchen cat tool”

Gobbolino was very distressed. He knew how he had suffered himself while trying to find a home when he was half a witch’s cat, and here was his sister Sootica, steeped in spells and sin, but longing to settle down in some safe and happy home while she was still under the power of a witch. How could she imagine such a thing was possible? And how long would she be satisfied to live the life of a common mouser? How far could she be trusted to behave like an ordinary cat, and not get up to tricks which, as Gobbolino knew, were sure to be worse and more unpleasant than any he had ever learnt himself. And how likely was it that the witch would allow her to go free? A witch relies on her cat to stay by her side for ever and ever. She would not part with Sootica just for the asking.

“How can you bear to give up the life you told me was so exciting?” Gobbolino reproached her.

“I am tired of my exciting life, brother!” said Sootica simply, and the tears rolled out of her green eyes down to the black fur of her bib. “I want to be good and happy like you!”

“For ever?” said Gobbolino, disbelievingly.

“For ever!” Sootica repeated, nodding vigorously

“Your mistress threw me into her cauldron to turn me into a kitchen cat,” said Gobbolino. “When I came out I wasn’t a witch’s cat any longer. Would she do the same for you?”

“Oh, no!.. Never, never, never!” shuddered Sootica. “I wouldn’t tell her I was leaving her, because if I did she would never let me out of the cave again! I must come with you secretly, while she is asleep. In the early morning, perhaps, when she is fast asleep after being out all night, and she won’t notice if I am there or not.”

“But if she were to wake up and find you gone,” shuddered Gobbolino, “she would be sure to chase you, and she would catch us all three!”

“Oh, she would! She would!” chuckled Sootica, her tears drying. “But I have a trick worth two of that! We must pass through running water! Witches can’t pass through running water, or even over it, but witches’ cats can! Well be quite safe when we have done that!”

Gobbolino thought of the stream halfway across the plain, where they had eaten their dinner. He thought too of the hounds that had chased them, and suddenly remembered the bats.

“If you were to come back with us, would the bats be able to live in the caves at the foot of these mountains?” he asked his sister. “Because we promised them we would try to arrange it, and they would not have to go back to the church belfry and disturb the villagers any more.”

“Oh, the bats!” said Sootica scornfully. “They can sleep anywhere they please for all I care! My mistress will soon get tired of turning them out of the caves when she hasn’t got me to do it for her!”

The little wooden horse had not said anything for a long while, but now he spoke, looking very gravely at the witch’s cat, Sootica.

“I think you are intending to behave very badly towards your mistress,” he said severely. “After all, hasn’t she brought you up since you were a kitten? Hasn’t she fed you, and given you a home, and taught you all you know? Bad she may be, but she is your mistress and you owe it to her to be faithful. What is she going to do for a cat if you leave her like this?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, and I certainly don’t care!” said Sootica crossly.

“Do go and ask her permission first, sister,” urged Gobbolino. “Perhaps she will allow you to leave if you really want it so badly!”

“You are perfectly crazy if you think so, brother,” said Sootica scornfully. “Do you really think that at her age she wants to train up another kitten to be as clever as me? Not likely!.”

“Just as I told you!” retorted the little wooden horse. “You really cannot be so inconsiderate towards your mistress. Make the best of the life you have chosen, my friend— I can assure you that you would soon get tired of living the quiet existence of a kitchen cat, like your brother Gobbolino!”

“I would never get tired of it!” scowled Sootica.

“Perhaps your mistress still has the spell in the cauldron that she dipped me in!” said Gobbolino suddenly. “And if she has, you have only to dip yourself in it and all will be settled in an instant. Once you are an ordinary cat the witch will not want to have you, and you will never want to be a witch’s cat again!”

“Ha!” laughed Sootica scornfully “You do have some foolish ideas in your head, my poor silly brother! Why, when I returned from dropping you off the back of my broomstick on to your happy farmyard home, the witch had already tipped the rest of the spell down the mountainside! No, there is no hope for it but to escape, and I intend to come with you first thing in the morning!”

“But why did you send for me if you meant to escape in any case?” asked Gobbolino, puzzled.

At once the eyes of the witch’s cat became sly, and she half closed them again.

“I will tell you how you can help me, brother!” she said. “My mistress is old and getting very blind. She would never know the difference between us if, for a few hours, you took my place, just long enough for me to reach the plain and across the water that will break her power over me. Only a very few hours, Gobbolino! Just long enough for you to hide your tabby coat in the shadows while she sleeps away the daylight, and as long as she thinks it is me sleeping in the corner she will not take the slightest notice of you. Do just this little favour for me, brother, and I will be grateful to you for the rest of my life.”

Gobbolino’s ears flattened on his head from sheer terror at such a dreadful idea.

“But my paw! My white paw! And my eyes are blue!” he protested helplessly.

“You must keep your eyes half closed and she will never notice the colour!” cried Sootica. “And I shall black your paw with dirt off the walls. After all, it is only for such a little while!” she coaxed him. “My mistress sleeps for hours and hours after her night excursions, and I can assure you you will be as safe up there in her cave as by your own fireside at home!”

“Oh, no! No! No!” sobbed Gobbolino, while the little wooden horse stood up as straight as a wooden soldier beside him, determined to defend his friend to the last.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mistress Sootica!” he exclaimed. “How can you ask such a thing of your brother? It is wicked and cruel and heartless, and if I have any say in the matter he shall do no such thing!”

“And I shall have to stay a witch’s cat for ever and ever!” said Sootica subsiding into tears. “Very well! You are selfish and cold-hearted, the pair of you! And it isyou who ought to be ashamed of yourselves! There you are both of you with happy homes, and a welcome waiting for each of you when you return; but here am I, doomed to a miserable existence for the rest of my life. I hope you will think of me now and again when you are warm and purring by your own hearth, brother!. We were born and bred side by side, but look at us now!”

Gobbolino was nearly sobbing himself.

It all came back to him, the wretched hours and days and weeks he had spent in the witch’s cave, a slave to her powers and her spells and her mischief. He had never been so miserable in all his life as in those days, and now he was going to abandon his sister to the same fate, rather than help her, just for the shortest possible time, to make her escape.

He looked at the little wooden horse.

“It would be very much better not to do as she asks,” said the horse. “I think you will regret it if you do!.”

“I only want to be good like you are!” wept Sootica. “I don’t want to be wicked any more! Won’t you help me to be good, dear friends? Or are you going to abandon me for ever and ever and ever?”

Even the little wooden horse was silent now.

It was a problem bigger than any he had had to deal with. On the one hand, there was the well-being and safety of his friend Gobbolino, and on the other the saving of a fellow creature, steeped to be sure in wickedness, but who might, if they helped her, turn into something better.

The one person he could think of who might make a good cat of Sootica for the rest of her nine lives was his dear old Uncle Peder. But the risk! Oh the awful risk of such an undertaking, even for a few short hours!

While they all stood dumbly facing one another in the moonlight a shrill and far-off screeching summoned Sootica from the top of the mountain. It was the witch, calling for her cat to join her on her night’s excursions.

Sootica shot to her feet with her fur standing on end.

“My mistress! I must go before she sees you!” she exclaimed. “Brother! I beseech you to do this one thing for me! Just this one little thing! Meet me high up on the mountain when the sun touches the topmost crag, and I will show you where to hide yourself! Please, brother! Oh, do! Oh, do! Just think! You will be giving me my last chance of happiness!”

There came another screech from above, and Sootica shot out of the cave and was gone.

9SOOTICA’S PLAN [Êàðòèíêà: i_018.jpg]

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse stood looking at each other in great perplexity and even despair. Their legs felt weak with terror at Sootica’s suggestion, and even the little wooden horse could think of nothing positive to say.

“If we left her now,” Gobbolino said at last, “we could be back in the forest before dark! But what would become of my poor sister? And then there are the bats! We have promised to help them. How can we be so selfish as to abandon them now, to help ourselves? If they can’t use the caves they will fly back to the village and harass the priest and the congregation. Surely we can’t allow that to happen?”

The little wooden horse could only shake his head very sorrowfully. The whole plan filled him with dread and foreboding.

He did not doubt that Sootica really did long to leave the witch and become an ordinary cat, like her brother, but even if her escape was successful and they all arrived safely home, would she really make a kitchen cat after her long training in a witch’s cave? And even more important than that, what awful risks did his friend Gobbolino run in taking her place? What would the witch do if she caught him at it? He began to shiver in all his little wooden legs.

But Gobbolino was making plans, and the more positive the plans the braver he felt about coming to a decision.

“You and Sootica must start for home the moment the sun rises over the top of the mountain,” he announced. “In that way you can be at the river by midday, avoiding the village. Then, if the witch is still asleep as my sister supposes, I will leave the cave and follow you. Once we are across the water we shall all be safe.”

“I shall not go with your sister Sootica,” said the little wooden horse with outraged dignity. “I shall wait and come with you!”

“Oh, no!” said Gobbolino. “Because my sister will not be safe until she has crossed the stream, and while she is still this side of the bank the witch can still catch her, if by any unlucky chance she finds out the trick we are playing on her. You must go with her, and swim her across on your back as you did me.”

“But she can swim herself! Witches’ cats can swim!” protested the little wooden horse. “Witches may not be able to cross spring water, but their cats can! And I’m not going from here while you are still in danger!”

At the word “danger” Gobbolino shivered again, but he tried to disguise his fears.

“You must think of your dear old friends waiting for you!” he told the little wooden horse. “If anything happens to me you can explain it when you come to Uncle Peder and his wife, and they will tell the farmer and his family. Why, they may even take in my sister Sootica for my sake!”

But the little wooden horse would not hear of leaving the Hurricane Mountains without Gobbolino.

“We will think about it in the morning!” he said, still very troubled, and side by side they lay down to sleep until dawn.

They slept so long and so late after their adventures of the day before that they forgot to wake up in time to climb the peak and meet Sootica on her return from her excursion with the witch. In fact, daylight was streaming into the cave, and the little wooden horse was just congratulating himself that it was now too late to carry out Sootica’s horrid plan, when the cat herself tore into the cave, bursting with indignation.

“Ahl So you are still here!” she cried in triumph. “I thought you must be gone! Coward and humbug!” she spat at Gobbolino. “You said you had come to save me, and already you have left me to my fate!”

“Oh no, sister! Oh no! Indeed I have not!” cried Gobbolino, springing up and rubbing the sleep out of his beautiful blue eyes. “I am ready! I am ready!”

“Stop!” cried the little wooden horse, but Sootica pushed past him and collected some black mould from the rocks at the side of the cave.

“Give me your paw, brother!” she commanded, and in a minute or two Gobbolino’s paws were all as black as one another.

“Keep your eyes half shut,” she told him. “Look out through the slits as I do! My mistress has been asleep for half an hour already, the morning is well on its way. We have no time to lose. Follow me!”

The little wooden horse protested in vain. Gobbolino ran out of the cave after his sister Sootica, and together they galloped up the steep mountain path to the crest. The little wooden horse was not far behind them. But they had not gone far before the witch’s cat rounded on him:

“Go back! Go back!” she hissed. “Your wooden wheels make such a noise my mistress will wake up and hear you coming! You must stay a long way behind us, or else not come at all!”

Very crestfallen the little wooden horse fell back, turning his wooden wheels very carefully so as to make no noise at all. His heart ached unbearably to see his friend Gobbolino disappearing round a corner of the path far above his head, just one pace behind his sister Sootica. He dared not hurry, for fear of waking the witch, and it seemed to him that the two little cats had been gone for hours on end when suddenly Sootica appeared, coming towards him on the path just above his head.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_019.jpg]

Very crestfallen the little wooden horse fell back

She passed him like a streak of summer lightning, her eyes shining with green fire.

“I’m off!” she cried with a wild laugh of triumph. “And my brother has taken my place… all curled up by the side of my mistress the witch! I’ll meet you both on the far side of the stream, after midday! Don’t venture any higher up, my friend, if you value your life. If my mistress catches sight of you there’s no saying what she may do to the pair of you! At midday, with luck, my brother will join you in the cave below, and you can both follow me to the river! Be careful! Be very careful! Goodbye! Goodbye!”

She was gone, and the little wooden horse was left alone on the mountain path, terrified by the thought of what might happen to Gobbolino if either of them were seen by the witch.

He decided to do as Sootica suggested, and wait in the cave below until midday. It was not so long, after all, and yet it seemed a thousand years ahead.

10IN THE WITCH’S CAVE [Êàðòèíêà: i_020.jpg]

If IT SEEMED A LONG TIME to the little wooden horse it seemed ten times as long to Gobbolino, curled up in a dark corner of the witch’s cave beside the ugly old woman whose face he remembered so well. He shrank into the shadows among the cobwebs and dust, hoping she would not notice him if she woke up. Sootica had assured him that she would sleep till sunset, but his heart beat so loudly he was afraid it might rouse her, and the harder he tried to suppress it the louder it beat.

There next to her was the same cauldron he had been forced to stir, and beside which he had fallen asleep in the middle of making the witch’s most important spell. He wondered what the cauldron contained today.

There too were the spiders, and one or two lazy bats, hanging in the rocks above the cauldron. It was all so familiar he began to feel he had never left it, and yet how different it all was from his happy farmyard home!

He tried to imagine his sister Sootica at the farm, but he could not. It was much more natural to think of her in this shadowy cave beside the snoring witch. Gobbolino tried not to look at the witch, but her snoring made him very nervous, especially when it stopped for a little and then went on again.

He pictured Sootica tearing down the mountainside, past the little wooden horse, who he hoped was now starting for home, but he knew his loyal little friend was more likely to be waiting for him in the cave below.

He hoped Sootica would remember to stop and tell the bats that by evening their caves would be free for them. And suddenly he remembered how the bats had carried them to the mountain. Perhaps they would help them again! In gratitude for the caves they might even carry them back to the river! This thought was so hopeful and comforting that his heart actually settled down and began to beat less noisily but that only made the witch’s snores the louder.

Through the open doorway he could see the sun painting the crags with gold.

“When it reachesthat one…” Sootica had told him, pointing with her paw, “it will be midday, and I shall be safely across the river, so you can leave the cave and come after me. You will have arrived there yourself by the time my mistress wakes up, so you have nothing to fear!”

The long morning crawled by. Outside, Gobbolino could see that the view from the mountain top was very beautiful. The sun warmed the rocks below and beyond, slowly spreading a flush of colour higher and higher like the sweep of a gigantic paintbrush. Yet it moved so slowly Gobbolino wondered if it would ever reach the rock Sootica had pointed out to him, and allow him to go free.

What would happen, he asked himself, if he left the cave early, before the sun reached midday?

For one thing, the witch could easily awake early herself, and find her cat gone. Searching and calling, she might fly down the mountainside and overtake him, or she might soar very high into the sky on her broomstick and see, not only himself, but Sootica making her way to the river across the plain. And when she had pounced down on her cat, and brought her back to the cave the bats would be forbidden the caves below, and things would be just as bad as they had been before. What his own punishment would be Gobbolino did not dare to think. At the moment he was more concerned about Sootica and the bats.

One thing consoled him. The witch had nothing against the little wooden horse. She did not even know he was there, and provided he kept himself out of her sight he was quite safe, whether plodding home across the plain, or hiding in the cave where they had passed the night. Gobbolino preferred to think that he was on his way back to the forest, and that by nightfall they might be there together.

The bats and the spiders in the witch’s cave took no notice of him, and a wrinkled old toad in the corner merely stared at him for a while and then shut its eyes again and went back to sleep.

Gobbolino was very thirsty. He was hungry too, for he had not eaten since the tasty dinner brought to them in the church by the old priest the day before, but he dared not touch the strange-looking food in the witch’s cooking pan, nor take a drink from the cauldron, for fear of the magic it might hold. Presently, above the snores of the witch, he noticed the steady drip of water not far from him, and saw a tiny spring far above his head, that spattered a drop or so of crystal clear water on to the stones atevery minute.

Very thankfully and carefully Gobbolino moved towards it and held out a grateful tongue to the drops of water. They tasted very cold and sweet. Some of the water had formed a tiny pool in the hollow of a rock, and this he drank too, but very quietly, in case the witch should hear his lapping.

He felt better now, and told himself that at least three hours must have passed since Sootica went away, for the sun had moved quite a distance across the rocks.

Presently he noticed that the witch’s snoring had changed a little. It was no longer so loud and regular as it had been in the early morning, when it had been rather like listening to a clock ticking. Even the short pauses that had frightened him so much had become part of a rhythm that seemed set to go on for ever. But now the snoring became lighter, and rather quicker, as if the witch were dreaming… as if her dreams were disturbing her… as if they were waking her up..

She gave a little shriek… a cough… a hiccup.. and then the snoring stopped altogether.

Gobbolino froze with terror. He was in the darkest, most shadowy corner of the cave, but who could tell how much witches were able to see in the dark?

He listened, hoping that she would settle down and begin to snore again, but meanwhile she was moving, and clearing her throat… yes, and muttering.. the witch was awake Silence fell. Gobbolino could hear her shuffling her feet, and then — horror of horrors! — she was getting up!

[Êàðòèíêà: i_021.jpg]

Gobbolino froze with terror.

He shut his eyes as tightly as possible, so that the gleam in them should not catch her attention, and heard her shuffling across the floor to the doorway.

She stood there for a while, looking out at the morning, but it seemed that the sunshine was not to her liking, for she came back grumbling, and began to move round the cavern looking for her stick.

“Sootica!” she muttered, and then louder, “Sootica! Puss! Puss! Where are you? I’m calling you, Sootica!”

Gobbolino froze.

Perhaps if he did not move she would think her cat had gone outside on to the mountain. She might even fall asleep again, waiting for Sootica to come back.

But the witch did not seem inclined to settle down and go to sleep. She walked round and round the cave grumbling and calling for her cat in a louder and louder voice till Gobbolino cringed with fear. Once she passed so close to him that she scuffed him with her shoe, but she did not know what she had touched.

Gobbolino remembered that his sister had told him that her mistress was getting rather blind.

At last she found her stick, and now the search for Sootica began in earnest, as if the witch knew by instinct that her cat was not far away. The stick went tap tap tap across the floor as she poked and prodded in the corners, and in the holes behind the rocks. Now and then she went to the doorway and yelled Sootica’s name in louder and louder tones, but she always came back into the cave, looking very puzzled and dissatisfied.

Suddenly, as she passed him for the third time, Gobbolino received a painful poke in the ribs from the stick, and at once the witch stopped short.

She poked again, and Gobbolino was forced to move away to avoid the painful prods that seemed likely to crack his ribs if he did not escape from them.

“So there you are!” cried the witch in triumph, hitting out with her stick where she thought he might be. Gobbolino shot out of his corner and took refuge behind the cauldron.

“Lazy good-for-nothing creature!” cried the witch, slashing at the rocks. “Why didn’t you answer when I called you? Afraid I was going to set you to work, were you? Where are you? Come out and show yourself, wherever you are!”

Gobbolino thought it best to obey her, while keeping well out of the way of her stick.

She saw him now, and flung a little clay pot in his direction.

“Go and fetch me some honey, now that you have taken the trouble to show yourself!” she ordered him. “I’m hungry, and I want something sweet. You know where the bees’ nest is. Round the corner between the rocks! Go quickly!”

Gobbolino did as he was told. He snatched up the pot and ran from the cave, glad to be out of her reach, though not at all sure where to find the honey.

Fortunately the bees were busying to and fro, and he had only to watch them to find the hole between the rocks where they had their honeycombs. He could even see the sticky golden honey gleaming inside the cleft, and closing his eyes he bravely plunged his paw inside and filled the pot.

Where a true witch’s cat would have escaped without harm, the bees were quick to set about a mere kitchen cat raiding their store, and Gobbolino had several painful stings on his paw before the pot was full. He was forced to stop and lick it to ease the pain, and it was not until he had given the whole foot a long and comforting wash that he saw to his horror he had licked off the black covering his sister had painted on to hide his white markings.

He did not know what to do, and meanwhile the witch was bellowing at him from the cave, so carrying the pot carefully in his other paw he limped along to serve her.

“That’s better!” the witch said, smacking her lips over the honey. “Now I shall have another little doze. But first you can go and get me a drink of milk from the wild goats. They are just over the crest there. I can hear them. And the pipkin is hanging by the door.”

Gobbolino was only too glad to escape out of her sight. He snatched the milk jug and limped across the rocks to find the goats, who, when they looked up and saw him, knew in a moment that he was not Sootica, and proceeded to tease him and lead him a merry dance from crag to crag.

“Oh, please! Oh, please!” he begged them. “Just a little drop of milk! Not much! Please stop just for one moment and let me fill my little jug! The witch will kill me if you don’t!” sobbed Gobbolino, quite out of breath and at the end of his endurance.

At last one of the goats felt sorry for him and stopped her cavorting.

“Why, you don’t even know how to milk a goat, my poor cat!” it said pityingly. “Don’t they teach you common cats anything at all?”

Gobbolino was ashamed to explain that his paws were swollen with stings from the bees. He did the best he could, and the goat was patient.

Presently the jug was full, but not fast enough to please the witch, who was standing at the mouth of the cave, shrieking at him when at last he arrived with the milk.

“Dawdling and gossiping!” she scolded. “The goats are the worst gossips in the world, next toyou, lazy, good-for-nothing cat! Fetch me a cup and pour me out a drink!. You can keep a drop for yourself, but only a drop, mind!”

She followed Gobbolino back into the cave, where he spent a little time in finding a cup, and took the opportunity of rubbing a fresh coating of dirt over his paw. He was rewarded by a prod in the ribs and a fresh burst of scolding.

Fortunately he was able to pour out the milk with his back turned towards the witch, and he passed it to her with his left paw. He was very grateful to have a good drink himself, and the goat’s milk tasted very good and wholesome. He was just returning to his own corner when the witch called him out again.

“Feel the water in the cauldron, Sootica! Feel if it is getting hot! I want it ready and boiling by nightfall!”

Gobbolino put a paw nervously on the side of the cauldron, expecting to be burned, but it was only lukewarm.

“Not like that, you lazy cat! Get up on your hind legs and feel the water inside it!” the witch cried sharply, and she came to stand over him while he dipped his right paw into the liquid, where the oily bubbles swam round and round at his stirring.

“Not that paw! Will you never remember what I have taught you?” screeched the witch. “You must always stir a spell with your left paw, or you may spoil it before you begin! Go on then! Tell me if it is getting hot!”

Gobbolino was forced to obey her, and almost immediately the dirt was washed off his paw, which gleamed pure white in the murky cave before he could hide it out of sight.

The witch stared at it, and gave a gasp of horror. Then she seized Gobbolino by the neck and held him up in front of her, staring into his face.

“Sootica!Sootica!” she cried aloud. “Why, you wretched little impostor, you are not my cat at all!”

“No, ma’am! I’m sorry, ma’am!” gasped Gobbolino, his eyes wide with fright. “But I’ll do my best to serve you, ma’am! I assure you I will!”

He expected at any moment to be thrown into the cauldron, or else taken to the entrance of the cavern and hurled down the Hurricane Mountains as the witch had threatened to do long ago, but for the moment she dropped him on the ground and stared at him very thoughtfully.

“White paw!… Blue eyes!” she muttered. “Why I do believe… I do declare I have seen you before! I believe you are brother to my own good-for-nothing cat! And once, long ago,’ you were both here together in my cavern. Am I right, cat?”

“Yes, ma’am! If you please, ma’am!” said Gobbolino, lowering his beautiful blue eyes to the floor.

“Then what are you doing here now?” thundered the witch in a terrible voice.

Gobbolino could think of nothing better to say than: “I beg your pardon, ma’am!”

“And where is my cat Sootica?” demanded the witch.

Gobbolino was in a terrible quandary. He did not know how far on her journey his sister might have travelled, but he was almost certain the witch would be after her in a minute if he confessed their plans. What he did not know was that witches can see very little by day, and are afraid of sunlight. It was most unlikely that she would chase after Sootica until nightfall.

He went on looking at the floor and said nothing.

“Do you mean to tell me you have not seen her at all?” asked the witch.

“Oh yes, ma’am, I saw her!” confessed Gobbolino.

“WHERE did you see her?” demanded the witch.

“Why, in the cave, ma’am, all in the moonlight,” said Gobbolino.

“But this morning.. when the sun rose..?”

“When I woke up in the morning she was gone,” said Gobbolino truthfully.

“I see it all! I see it all!” raged the witch. “She has left me! My cat has deserted me! And she put you in her place to deceive me while she escaped! Isn’t that true, kitchen cat?”

“Yes, ma’am!” said Gobbolino, trembling and expecting to be destroyed at any minute.

But the witch sat down on her stool and rocked herself to and fro.

“Why did she leave me… oh why?” she moaned, with grey tears pouring down her shrivelled cheeks. “All these months I fed and trained her, and taught her all she knows. She had become the best witch’s cat in all the world! Why should she want to leave me here alone now that I am old and getting helpless? She knows I can’t get on without her! She knows I can’t even make a spell without her to read it to me out of my book. How could she desert me? How could she be so cruel? Has she gone to find a younger witch, who can teach her more than I can? So selfish! So unkind! If I had anything more to show her I would have taught it to her.. she knows that! I’m so old! I can’t go on for ever! Witches depend on their cats to stay beside them till they die! Didn’t she know it would kill me to let her go?”

The more the witch sobbed and cried the less like a witch she appeared and the more like a lonely old woman.

“Wasn’t I wicked enough for her?” she moaned; till Gobbolino’s heart was touched; and he cautiously rubbed his body against her legs.

“I think my sister had got tired of being a witch’s cat!” he told her. “I think she wanted to be a good cat for a change.”

“Good?” said the witch, quite startled. “How could she be good? She was born and bred a witch’s cat!”

Gobbolino said nothing, and the witch’s eye fell on him again. “Ohyou!” she said scornfully. “You were only born half a witch’s kitten! Look at your white paw and your blue eyes! Poor miserable little creature, when I changed you back into a kitchen cat I had only to finish off what was already begun. But my beautiful black Sootica! How could she treat me so badly? How could she break my old heart? She has left me. Andwhere is she now?”

The old witch went back to sobbing and crying and rocking herself to and fro, till Gobbolino did not know how to comfort her. She seemed to have lost all her desire to punish him, in fact one of her claw-like hands was actually caressing and rubbing his neck as if he were Sootica his sister. The feel of his fur seemed to comfort her a little.

“What shall I do? What shall I do?” she sobbed over and over again, and Gobbolino was so overcome with pity that he crept on to her lap, and lay down as close to her crabby old heart as he could push himself.

But her tears and sobs went on and on. He had never known anyone cry so long or so bitterly He found himself blaming his sister Sootica for her selfishness and her desertion. If he had known how her escape would affect the old witch he would never have agreed to help her. Danger was one thing, desertion was another, and here was a poor old woman in the throes of bitter despair. Gobbolino was bitterly ashamed of his sister, and wondered how in the world he could fetch her back.

The old woman slowly sobbed herself off to sleep, but Gobbolino would not creep from her lap for fear of waking her to a new sense of loss. He was willing to give her what little comfort he could.

Meanwhile the sun crept slowly up the rocks and touched the crag that signified midday.

Gobbolino watched it.

Now Sootica would have reached the river! Now she would have swum across it and the witch could no longer capture her and bring her home. Half of Gobbolino rejoiced at her escape. The other half reproached her for her selfishness and cruelty in leaving her old mistress. Could she really hope to become a good kitchen cat if she began with such behaviour?

He shifted his paws, and the witch gave a little sobbing moan.

“Puss! Pretty Pusskins!” she murmured, but Gobbolino knew she was mistaking him for his sister.

Slowly the sun crossed the sky and moved across the rocks. He had a long way to go before nightfall, but if he left now he might just cross the plain before it became too dark to see his way. His friend, the little wooden horse, would be waiting for him in the shade of the forest, and oh, the joy of having his companionship again! He felt comforted by the very thought.

His fur was damp with the witch’s tears. He could not find it in his heart to leave her just yet. Perhaps, a little later, when she woke up, and seemed a little less wretched, he would go down the path and maybe spend the night in one of the caves with the bats below. He did not think the witch would want to harm him now. And she could not have any real interest in a common kitchen cat.

He dozed off on her skinny lap, and slept for a couple of hours.

When he awoke the cave entrance was golden with afternoon sunshine, and he thought he heard someone coming up the hill. It must be Sootica!

But the person who suddenly appeared in the cavern entrance was not Sootica, but the little wooden horse!

11AT THE FOOT OF THE MOUNTAIN [Êàðòèíêà: i_022.jpg]

The little wooden horse had waited patiently hour after hour for his friend to reappear.

Like Gobbolino, he had watched the sun moving across the sky and he knew that by midday Sootica was likely to have reached the river, and would therefore be safe from recapture by the witch.

He did not approve of her behaviour in the least, but he could understand the tender heart of a brother for his sister’s distress, if, in fact, the witch’s cat were really as distressed as she made herself out to be.

He saw the sun touch the midday crag, and pass on slowly across the jagged peaks of the mountain. At any moment he expected to see Gobbolino come flying down the mountainside, but Gobbolino did not come.

After an hour or two the little horse began to grow anxious. He did not want to be stranded in the middle of the plain when the sun went down. There was no shelter out there, while in the forest they could pass the night under a tree.

He trotted out of the cave and looked up towards the summit, but there was nothing to be seen of Gobbolino.

He waited while another hour crawled by, and then began very slowly to descend towards the bats, who were restlessly flying about below, and waiting to take possession of the caves at the foot of the mountain. They were in a very testy frame of mind, due to sleeping in rabbit holes and having nothing much to eat.

They took very little notice of the wooden horse, flying around in crazy circles and alighting on the rocks, only to dash around again like a crowd of mad mosquitoes. Not one of them volunteered to go up to the top of the mountain and remind Gobbolino that it was high time he started down the path to begin his journey home across the plain. They were afraid of being caught by the witch, and either having to stay in the cavern under her command, or being banished back to the rabbit holes again. Finally he persuaded a very young and dashing bat to go up the mountain.

“Just tell my friend Gobbolino that we should leave immediately,” the little wooden horse said, “that is, if we want to travel safely across the plain before dark. Tell him I am waiting for him down here, and I shall not set out until he comes.”

The bat whirred off in the direction of the summit. The wooden horse waited impatiently below.

It was some while before the bat came back, appearing like a small black fly against the sky above, soon to be lost in the darkness of the crags. The little wooden horse lost sight of it in craning for a glimpse of Gobbolino, but the path remained empty, and there was no sign of his friend.

Suddenly the bat flopped down at his feet, panting.

“I waited and waited,” it squeaked, “but it was no good— he won’t come!”

[Êàðòèíêà: i_023.jpg]

“Just tell my friend… that we should leave…”

“He won’t come?” the little wooden horse repeated in dismay. “Is the witch awake, then? Has she put a spell on him?”

“Not that I could notice,” said the little bat. “I think the witch is asleep, because she is snoring a little.. and your friend Gobbolino is fast asleep too, on her lap.”

“On her lap?” the little wooden horse cried out, in horror. “Onher lap?”

“Why, yes!” said the bat. “He is snuggled up on her knees, underneath her heart, and his white paw is folded round her wrist. It is quite a touching picture to see a poor old lady being comforted by her cat!”

“Old lady? Comforted?” repeated the little wooden horse.

“She looked very sad!” said the bat. “There were tears on her cheeks as if she had been crying, and the cat’s fur was quite damp in patches. I felt quite sorry for her!”

“But did you speak to Gobbolino?” pleaded the little wooden horse.

“Oh, I did! I did!” the bat said. “I flew round him a number of times, woke him up, and gave him your message, but he only shook his head. And when he moved the witch clutched him so tightly in her sleep that he could not have got away if he had tried.”

Panic seized the heart of the little wooden horse.

He hardly heard the bat’s plea to occupy the caves now that its mission was done. He left the busy little creatures surging out of the rabbit holes and taking possession of their new homes, while he galloped up the path to the summit as fast as he could go.

12 THE WITCH FINDS OUT [Êàðòèíêà: i_024.jpg]

By THE TIME HE arrived at the entrance to the witch’s cave the afternoon was nearly over, and the little wooden horse knew it was already too late to begin their journey before nightfall. But in his busy mind a plan was forming. They would go as far as the church in the village that night, and ask the old priest to let them shelter there till dawn. He did not believe the witch would follow them inside the church, and they would wait till she went back to the mountain before they made a run for the stream.

It all depended on rescuing Gobbolino as quickly as possible. He did not believe the bat’s tale that his friend did not want to leave the witch. He was afraid Gobbolino must be under some kind of enchantment, and what it was he would make it his business to find out as fast as he could.

He did not trouble to quieten the noise of his wheels, but galloped up the rough path, kicking stones to left and to right as he ran.

Sure enough, Gobbolino was sitting on the witch’s lap, but unlike the witch, he was not asleep. His blue eyes were wide open to welcome the little wooden horse, and a smile of pure joy and surprise spread across his whiskers.

“Oh, my friend! My own true and loyal friend!” Gobbolino purred, with tears of joy in his beautiful blue eyes.

He leapt gently to the floor, and licked the little wooden horse all over with a pink and grateful tongue. The sleeping witch made a feeble grab at him, moaned a little and sank into a deeper sleep.

“Come along! Come this instant!. We must leave immediately!” said the little wooden horse, for it seemed as if there was nothing to prevent Gobbolino from making his escape that very minute.

“No! No!” said Gobbolino. “You don’t understand, my kind little friend! The poor old lady is breaking her heart at the loss of her own cat, my sister Sootica.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_025.jpg]

…Gobbolino was sitting on the witch’s lap…

If you could have seen her tears you would understand that I can’t possibly run away and leave her all alone!”

“So sheknows?” said the little wooden horse.

“Indeed she does!” said Gobbolino. “In fact, she recognized me quite quickly, and although she knows I am no good as a witch’s cat I think I was able to give her a little comfort in her grief. If she woke up and found me gone as well I really think she might die of sorrow. She has become so old and frail. She told me herself that she can no longer make any real spells without my sister’s help. There is no harm in staying just a short while to comfort her until she gets used to the idea of living without Sootica.You go back, my dear friend, and tell my family that I am coming, but that I have had to postpone it for a few days. And if you can find a black cat who is willing to keep a poor old woman company for the rest of her life, then I can leave her with a quiet conscience.”

The little wooden horse’s heart was touched, but then he remembered the two anxious homes waiting for them far away in the forest. Uncle Peder would be waking each day with the hope that his little friend would arrive before dark, and the children at the farm would be going to bed in tears every night, because their beloved Gobbolino had neither come back nor sent them any message.

The little wooden horse was standing with bowed head in the middle of the floor when he heard an exclamation, and there was the witch sitting bolt upright on her stool and staring at him.

“And what in the name of all wonders can you be?” she exclaimed in astonishment. “Did you bring it with you, Gobbolino?”

“Yes, ma’am!.. No, ma’am!.. This is my friend, ma’am!” said Gobbolino in some agitation, for he was not at all sure how the witch would receive the little wooden horse. She might immediately turn him into something dreadful, or simply throw him down the mountainside on to the terrible rocks below.

But she did not seem inclined to touch him. Instead, she got up and walked round and round him as Sootica had done.

“Wooden head! Wooden body! Four wooden legs and wooden wheels!” she chanted. “What a strange sight to be sure! And do you know my faithless cat, Sootica, my little wooden friend?”

“I met her for the first time last night, ma’am!” replied the little wooden horse quite truthfully.

“Well, well!” the witch repeated, shaking her grey head. “Kitchen cats and wooden horses in my cave! Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!”

The witch was no longer crying, neither did she seem revengeful or angry. She even seemed to welcome Gobbolino and the little wooden horse. She offered them food, but they were too nervous to eat it, after which she fanned the ashes of the fire under the cauldron into a warm blaze.

“Make yourselves at home!” she told them, agreeably. “I have to go out for an hour or two, round about the mountainside, but I shall be back before long. If I find my cat Sootica I shall give her the drubbing of her life, but you have been kind and good to me, little Gobbolino, in all my troubles, and I shall not harm you. You won’t be lonely with your friend to talk to, and by nightfall I shall be home.”

She tottered out of the cave into the twilight, dragging her broomstick behind her.

Even the little wooden horse was hesitant to leave after such trust and confidence, and the two of them were glad of the chance to talk together and make a plan for the future.

They lay down together beside the fire, very glad to have one another’s company.

“My sister has betrayedus tool” Gobbolino said sadly when the witch was gone. “For she told me for certain the witch would not wake up till sundown, but she did. Only, if I had escaped while she was asleep, as Sootica suggested, just think of the poor old lady waking up all alone! I really can’t bear to think of if! Wicked she may have been, but now she is past all that, and what is to become of her?”

“It is just as bad as I said,” the little wooden horse agreed. “For she brought up your sister, and taught her all she knew, and now Sootica has deserted her. I told her how wrong it was, and she wouldn’t listen. But what about your own happy home, Gobbolino? Have you thought about that?”

“Why yes, of course I have!” said Gobbolino. “And I don’t mean to stay here for ever. Just for a day or so, or even less. I must let the witch settle down and get over the shock. Then I will ask her permission to leave, and I will go to find my sister Sootica, who in my opinion is never likely to make a good kitchen cat at her age. She is quite likely to be tired of it already! And do you go home ahead of me first thing in the morning, my dear friend, and I promise to follow you as soon as I can!”

But when the witch came back she was no longer unhappy but chuckling with glee.

“Nobody can leave me now!” she gloated. “Nobody can come in or go out! I have painted a magic ring with my broomstick all the way round the foot of the mountain! Down there in the caves the bats are sealed in as tight as little bunnies! The goats on the crest are up there for good, not that the goats want to be anywhere but on the tops of the hills. And nobody can come up the mountain either, unless they have witch’s powers or can undo my spell! We will all live happily together, my dear little friends, and nobody shall disturb us ever again!”

“What will happen to anyone who tries to go through the magic ring?” asked Gobbolino, quite horrified.

“They will FRIZZLE!” said the witch dramatically “And nothing will ever be seen of them.. not ever again!”

13 THE BOOK OF SPELLS [Êàðòèíêà: i_026.jpg]

As DAYLIGHT FADED and the stars came out, the witch’s spirits rose and she became more and more vigorous and cheerful. She showed great kindness to Gobbolino and the little wooden horse, and tried to tempt them with all kinds of tasty food which she dished out of her cauldron, and which immediately turned into anything she asked for.

“A piece of fish, Gobbolino?” and there was a delicious piece of fried fish in the middle of a plate.

“No thank you, ma’am. I am not hungry!”

“Some hay, little horse? Or a juicy carrot? Look! Here it is!”

The little wooden horse turned away from the tempting bowl and wished he did not feel so empty inside.

“A piece of sweet cake, Gobbolino? Some corn, or green grass, Dobbin? A little piece of meat dipped in gravy? Look how good it is! I don’t like to see you going hungry, my little friends,” the witch said, “but if you do not want it I shall eat it all myself!”

And she did: fish, corn, hay, meat, cake, grass and carrots, which made Gobbolino certain that there was something very odd in the food that would not have agreed with them at all.

“I am going out for the night on my broomstick!” she told them when her meal was finished. “I can take either one of you with me. Which of you would like to come?”

But the two friends explained that, since it was their first night on the mountain, whichever of them was left behind in the cavern would be lonely and frightened. Rather reluctantly the witch allowed them to stay together and set out without them.

The moment she was gone Gobbolino seized the milk jug and galloped up the mountain in the moonlight to find the goats, with the little wooden horse close on his heels.

The goats were sleeping. They were not at all ready to give any of their milk at that hour of night, but when they understood that the two friends had nothing else that they dared eat, and were on the point of starving, they kindly agreed to fill the milk jug, and this time Gobbolino milked them very nicely indeed.

His paws were soft and kind. The goats liked him, and asked him to come back in the morning. They also promised to show him a fine patch of bilberries to eat, and a wild apple tree sticking out of a rock, with sweet yellow apples hanging on its branches.

When Gobbolino and the little wooden horse had both drunk their fill of goats’ milk they returned to the cave. The witch was still absent, flying round and round the stars on her broomstick.

Her book of spells was lying under her bed, and Gobbolino dragged it to a rock, where the moonlight fell on its pages.

Many of the spells looked very disagreeable indeed. There was one which made a heart as cold as ice, for ever and ever. Another caused fingertips to paint every object they touched a horrid shade of green, and a third was a weeping spell, that made a person cry without ceasing until a fourth spell set him or her laughing again, when they laughed and laughed until they died of exhaustion.

There was a spell for causing the most appalling dreams, and one for creating a voice that croaked like a raven, or hair that stood straight up on end and would never lie down. There were spells that made fingers double their numbers up to ten on each hand, or feet twist and turn so that the owner could only proceed by spinning in giddy circles.

Shocked as they were by these nasty tricks Gobbolino and the little wooden horse were fascinated by the horrid collection, and found themselves unable to put down the book until they had finished it. They could well believe that the witch had the power to encircle the mountain so that no one could escape from it, and before long they arrived at the very page that described the way to do it. She must have known the spell off by heart.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_027.jpg]

Many of the spells looked very disagreeable indeed.

Their own hearts were very heavy, knowing that they were prisoners until the witch chose to let them go. And perhaps she will never let us go at all, thought Gobbolino.

He was about to close the book when some small print at the bottom of the very last page caught his eye. The lines were very narrow and compressed, as if someone had copied them out quite rapidly, without attaching much importance to the message. Even the proper capital letters were missing. The directions read:

“to undo a spell

use clean spring water 8 parts

and clean fresh fruit juice 4 parts

and clean new milk 8 parts

mix all together and stir with a clean left hand

together with the blessing of a good man and

five tears of true sorrow.

splash this on the spell and it shall be broken

pour over the victim and he shall be free.”

The little wooden horse skipped for joy.

“Why! We can make it in a moment and go home directly!” he cried happily.

“Wait! Wait! Don’t go so fast!” Gobbolino warned him. “How are we to collect enough spring water and enough fruit juice, and enough milk to wash away the spell that lies all round the bottom of the mountain? And what about the good man’s blessing? And the tears of sorrow, even when we have done all that?”

“Not thewhole mountain!” said the little wooden horse. “We only need to break a small part of the circle so that we can escape through it. We had better begin directly!”

“But the blessing! The blessing!” cried Gobbolino. “There’s nobody but ourselves on the whole of this mountain, and there is no way that anybody can come in without being frizzled to bits as he crosses the spell. How can you possibly say we can make it in a minute?”

“I think,” said the little wooden horse seriously, “that we had better go and ask the bats. You must stay here, since the witch is likely to need you, and I will go down the mountain and see what I can do.”

He set off alone, while Gobbolino set the jug underneath the spring to catch as many drops as he could for the making of the spell-breaker.

The witch came in thirsty and tired, about dawn. She did not notice the absence of the little wooden horse, but drank all the water in the jug, flung her broomstick into one corner and her shoes into another, sat down on her stool and went to sleep.

14 ASKING THE BATS [Êàðòèíêà: i_028.jpg]

As HE HURRIED down the mountainside a plan was forming in the head of the little wooden horse.

If the blessing of a good man was needed, who better than the good old priest who had befriended them in the church? And who were better fitted to take a message to him than the bats? Surely they could fly high enough to avoid being frizzled by the spell?

He kept a wary eye for the witch in the sky above, but she was far away on the other side of the mountain.

The bats were busy below, and so happy to have possession of the caves with no one to chase them out that they gave the little wooden horse a warm welcome, and insisted on his coming to inspect one dwelling-place after another. They made him admit that they had the best homes in the world to live in.

“Not that we could go back to the church, even if we wished to,” the bats said, “because somebody has put a magic circle round the foot of the mountain, and we could not fly through it without being frizzled as we flew. So it is just as well we have somewhere pleasant to make our homes in. The only trouble is that some of the younger bats lagged behind, and now they can’t join us! They are still living in the rabbit holes outside, and making a great fuss about it.”

The little wooden horse could see a few batlike shapes whirling and tumbling in the moonlight where the mountain joined the plain. He walked towards them till the bats in the caves begged him to stop before he got frizzled up.

“It is very dangerous over there!” they warned him.

The bats in the rabbit holes caught sight of him and came fluttering across to see what was happening.

“Ugh! You are scorching!” they cried, retreating a little, and flopping on to the ground like so many little black goblins.

“What do you want?” they asked curiously of the little wooden horse.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_029.jpg]

“It is very dangerous over there!” they warned him

“I want to send a message to the old priest in the church. Will you take it for me?” he asked them.

The bats began to twitter.

“We don’t want to go back to the church! We want to live in the caves like the rest of our families!” they protested. “The church is draughty and dirty and everybody hates us there! The priest calls us nasty vermin! The church cleaners detest us! We don’t want to go back again!”

“Then why not come and live in the caves with the others?” the little wooden horse said cunningly.

“We will get frizzled up if we try to cross the magic circle!” said all the bats in chorus.

“It’s the old witch!” one of the younger ones said. “She drew a magic circle round the mountain last night with her broomstick. We saw her!”

“But wouldn’t you like to find a way of breaking the magic circle?” asked the little wooden horse.

“Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!” chorused the young bats.

The little wooden horse began to tell them about the spell-breaker— not the whole of it, for fear they might spread the news far and wide until it came back to the witch’s ears, but vaguely, and introducing a few ingredients that would serve to put the witch off the scent.

“An owl’s feather,” he quoted. “And a white snail’s shell, and a four-leaved clover. But above all, we need the blessing of a good man.”

The bats were silent, looking at him with their bright and beady eyes. They seemed to be considering the subject. At last one piped up:

“But how shall we bring you the blessing if we get it?”

This question had indeed puzzled the little wooden horse, but now he found an answer.

“You must tell the whole story to the priest,” he said, “tell him about the spell-breaker we are about to make, and explain that his blessing is the most important part of it. You can ask him of his kindness to bless my little wooden ear, and send it back to me. Carry it very carefully between you. It isn’t very heavy! Hide it in one of your holes until sundown tomorrow, when I will come and fetch it.”

As he spoke the little wooden horse took off one of his little wooden ears, and threw it as high in the air as he was able, to the bats. It landed, just the slightest bit scorched, on the ground among them.

They picked it up gingerly with the sharp little claws at the ends of their wings, and he saw them fly away with it into the darkness of the plain.

When he got back to the cavern the witch was home and fast asleep, while Gobbolino was patiently waiting for him.

15 THE FLYING HORSE [Êàðòèíêà: i_030.jpg]

The LITTLE WOODEN HORSE and Gobbolino made up their minds to spend the next day collecting the rest of the ingredients for the spell-breaker.

They found an old pumpkin on a shelf, and this they thought would make a good receptacle for the ingredients, if they could only keep it hidden from the witch.

They pushed it into the very darkest corner of the cavern near the spring, and measured into it the first little clay potful of water, that had collected so slowly from under the dripping rock. They did not like to think how long it would take to collect seven more portions.

In the morning the witch was sleeping so soundly that they hoped she might really sleep all day as Sootica had described to them, and taking the milk jug with them they went out on to the mountainside. Since she knew they could not escape from her, the witch was quite content for them to roam among the rocks outside… so long as they came instantly to her bidding when she called them.

Only one thing perplexed them. They were expected to bring back the jug brimming with milk, so how were they going to carry the fruit juice, when they had crushed the bilberries and apples on the rocks and measured them to the right proportions?

Gobbolino brought the little clay cup with him, and suddenly the wooden horse had the good idea of using his hollow wooden body as a mixing bowl, and measuring the ingredients very carefully inside it.

The goats were willing enough to give their milk this morning, but the little wooden horse pointed out that this might go bad in the heat of the sun, and they would be wiser to collect it when they had gathered and crushed the fruit to their needs. Meanwhile, the goats showed them the way to a valley full of bilberries and wild apples, and these they picked and crushed between rocks till the juice ran out.

It took them half the day to crush and collect four measures in the little clay cup, but they were encouraged by finding a spring of fresh water that ran much more freely than the one inside the cavern. They were able to collect all they needed without any trouble, after which it only remained to milk the goats and go back with their work three parts finished.

Leaving the pleasant valley behind them they climbed back towards the summit where the goats had recently been grazing, only to find that the flock had disappeared. After a long search they were discovered on a far-off peak, and Gobbolino and the little wooden horse plodded after them, Gobbolino carrying the milk jug and the cup, while the little horse proceeded very carefully so that he would not spill the precious liquid that had been measured with such care inside his wooden body, and not a drop of which must be wasted on the ground.

They soon discovered that the goats were playing a game with them.

No sooner did they reach the peak than the whole flock raced back past them bleating derisively They led them a merry dance over crag and rock and valley before allowing themselves to be caught and milked. They thought it the greatest sport in the world to see Gobbolino and the little wooden horse panting and scrambling after them. They would wait until they were almost within reach and then set off again, leaping and bounding and flicking their tails— their bleating sounding for all the world like mocking laughter. It was as if, having had their milk rejected in the morning, they were now taking their revenge.

In the end real tears of frustration and despair began to flow down the cheeks of Gobbolino and the little wooden horse, and when they saw them crying the goats stopped their teasing and came crowding round them, saying how sorry they were, and trying to make up for their bad behaviour.

Gobbolino was the first to stop crying, for he wanted to milk the goats as soon as possible.

Just at the last moment he remembered to catch in his paw the last five tears shed by the little wooden horse, and drop them into the mixture already floating about inside his little wooden body.

The wooden horse stopped crying at once. He was horrified to think how nearly the precious tears had been wasted.

Gobbolino filled the milk jug when both friends had had a long drink, and the precious cupfuls had been added to the rest. Then they struggled back to the witch’s cave, both so tired they could hardly climb over the rough rocks and stones along their way.

Long before they arrived they could hear the witch angrily calling for them. Her spirits and her vigour rose rapidly at the end of the day, and from a sad old woman she became almost the familiar and fierce old witch that Gobbolino used to know.

“Why have you been dawdling out there?” she demanded. “I could see you half an hour before you arrived! Didn’t you hear me calling for you? Why didn’t you come running? Tell me! Tell me!”

“I didn’t want to spill the milk, ma’am!” Gobbolino explained humbly.

“Pah!” said the witch, taking the jug and tipping a large mouthful down her throat. “You could have brought it back earlier in the day! Why you have even lost an ear racketing about on the mountain!” she said, turning to the little wooden horse. “Whoever heard of such carelessness? Now, you have had the whole day to gad about in the hills and tonight one of you shall come with me! Which of you is it to be? I think itshall be the little wooden horse! Yes, yes… it shall be the little wooden horse!”

“Oh, no, ma’am! No, ma’am!” pleaded the little wooden horse in a great fright, for the idea of riding on a broomstick with the precious spell-break still inside him was quite terrifying. He looked round the cavern to see where he could tip the liquid, and saw the pumpkin standing beside the spring.

While the witch fetched her broomstick he trotted into the corner, emptied the pumpkin and tried to pour the mixture in behind her back. Meanwhile Gobbolino managed to slip in between her legs and trip her up, but in getting to her feet she saw what the little wooden horse was doing, and thought, being rather blind, that he was trying to hide from her inside the pumpkin.

Stumbling across the cavern she caught him by the tail, and before he could prevent it half of the precious spell-break was spilled on the floor.

The witch could not see well enough to notice that the liquid was coloured with fruit juice and pale with goats’ milk. She poked at it with her stick, and then poked at the pumpkin, which promptly fell over and emptied out the remains.

“Well, well— we don’t need water while we have milk!” the witch said, limping out of reach of the mixture on the floor. She let go of the little wooden horse. Both he and Gobbolino were shedding tears of bitter disappointment, and now there was no mixture to make good use of them.

“Come along! Jump up behind me, Dobbin!” said the witch, going to the entrance of the cave and mounting her broomstick.

Very reluctantly the little wooden horse climbed up behind her, but the broomstick would not leave the ground.

“Get off, then!” the witch cried to him, but when he jumped thankfully to the ground the broomstick stayed lifeless and inert, though the witch shook it and cursed at it, and kicked it and finally flung it on to the ground.

Only Gobbolino had noticed that the end of the broomstick had been resting in a puddle of the nearly finished spell-break, the rest of which had now vanished into the cracks of the cavern floor, taking with it all the efforts of their long day’s work. Even the pumpkin lay upside down and was drained quite dry.

“If my broomstick will not carry me, perhaps my horse will!” shrieked the witch, leaping on to the back of the little wooden horse.

“Up! Up! Up!” she yelled at him. “Up to the stars, my horse! Away! Away!”

To the great surprise of the little wooden horse and the distress of Gobbolino he suddenly found himself rising in the air.

The witch was no great burden, being mostly skin and bone, and the feeling of flight was so delightful he hardly heard his friend’s cries.

In fact, it was the witch who was flying, clasping the little wooden horse so tightly with her knees that he felt he himself had wings, and although the effort she put into it was greater than riding on a broomstick, she rose valiantly above the summit of the mountain and sailed away to the north; quite heedless of Gobbolino’s pitiful cries below.

The moon shone over the earth with a wide, white radiance, and below him the little wooden horse could overlook a great many miles of country spreading out on every side. He could see the river, and even the faraway forest across the plain, with the village and the church tower standing out clearly in the moonlight. Between the village and the Hurricane Mountains, far, far below them; and not very far out of the village itself; a small dot that might or might not be an animal; or a bird, or even a human being; was wending its way.

And suddenly the little wooden horse realized that the bat might indeed have delivered its message; and the moving dot might even be the old priest answering their plea and coming to help them! It was only an instinct; but it made him aware.

Too late! Too late! The little wooden horse groaned aloud as he thought of the wasted spell-break. It was true that the mixture as it stood had had some success in putting the witch’s broomstick out of action, even without the good man’s blessing, but what was the use of that when not a drop remained to challenge the magic of the witch’s circle?

The flying itself was wonderful.

When he had overcome his fears that the witch would let go of him, the little wooden horse began to enjoy the wild ride, the flashing past of countless stars, and, far away below, the small winking lights of towns and villages, the gleam of rivers, and the silver spread of the sea. For a witch that had such a dread of water they must have crossed a thousand streams.

What he did not know was that at such a height she might go where she pleased, but she could not descend to their level. Once she crossed a stream down on the earth her powers were done.

Round and round the night sky they whirled, and each time they came within sight of the plain the small black spot seemed to have moved a little nearer to the Hurricane Mountains.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_031.jpg]

…the little wooden horse began to enjoy the wild ride…

The little wooden horse felt sure now that it was the priest from the church, and his heart ached to think of the old man’s long journey on foot across the plain, by night, and all alone, when his journey was now quite useless. Why, oh why, could he not have sent back the little wooden ear with his blessing on it?

And then he thought: why should not he and Gobbolino make the spell-break again in the morning? But would the priest wait? There was no shelter on the plain outside the magic circle, and no human being could hide in a rabbit hole, like a bat. If the witch saw him he might be running a terrible risk. He did not think that witches cared for priests at all.

As they circled high above the mountains for the fifth time the little wooden horse noticed how the magic circle glowed at night with a fire that was quite invisible by day. It was really very beautiful, and he wished he could show it to Gobbolino waiting so sadly below. He wondered how many more times the witch would fly round the stars, and a dreadful fear crossed his mind that the priest might arrive before morning, quite unaware, and get frizzled up in crossing the magic circle. If only the messenger bat had thought to warn him!

To be sure, he was moving very slowly across the great, empty plain below, but every time he came in sight he was further from the village and nearer to the mountains.

The little wooden horse became agitated by the thought that he would not get back in time to warn the old man of his danger. Then he thought: surely the bats will tell him when he gets there? But bats are so empty-headed, they might not even think of it before it was too late to save his life.

The witch swooped and soared and made tremendous loops around the stars as if she were catching them in an invisible lasso.

“Are you enjoying yourself, my little horse?” she called out to him.

“Oh yes, ma’am,” the little wooden horse replied politely, “but I am getting rather tired, ma’am, and I should like to go home!”

“Oh fiddlesticks! We are only halfway through the night!” scoffed the witch. “My broomstick never got tired or asked to go home. And besides, I am doing all the work! How can you possibly be tired?”

The little wooden horse said nothing. But the next time they flew over the plain it seemed to him that the black speck had moved quite a lot nearer to the foot of the Hurricane Mountains.

“Please, ma’am,” he pleaded, “I would like to go home now!”

“You would like to go home?” jeered the witch. “Why we haven’t nearly finished our ridel Wait and see what I can show you! Do you see that great bank of thunderclouds? Have you noticed those lightning flashes? Now watch what we will do with them!”

Gripping the little wooden horse even tighter between her knees she plunged into the mass of tossing’ thunderclouds, diving in and out of them as if they had been breakers on a sea shore. It was exhilarating, it was exciting. If the little wooden horse had been there of his own accord he would have revelled in the plunging and the tumbling, the diving between flashes of lightning and the witch’s wild, triumphant shouts in reply to the pealing of the thunder. He even joined in with a shrill whinny as they chased after the rolling echoes and leapt over the lightning that struck at them like swordblades.

“There!” yelled the witch. “I told you that you would enjoy it!”

“Please, ma’am,” said the little wooden horse, “I should like to go home!”

She only laughed at him as the pair of them were tossed aloft and came streaking down a lightning flash so brilliant it seemed about to cut them in two.

At last even the witch grew tired of the breathtaking game. Her grasp faltered a little, and for an awful moment the little wooden horse thought she might be going to let him go, but she recovered herself, and sailed out of the tumult of the storm into the quieter circle of the night, lit by a thousand stars.

Now, thought the little wooden horse, she is bound to have had enough of her fun, and we will be able to go back to the cavern.

The moon had vanished behind the clouds at the edge of the storm, but its light still challenged the darkness, and out on the plain the little black speck had nearly reached its goal, although it was difficult to pick it out against the shadows.

In the east, a new and pinkish light was appearing, as morning crept very slowly over the edge of the earth.

“Can we go home now, please, ma’am?” asked the little wooden horse.

He had much better not have spoken, for his request put the witch into a contrary mood.

“Why, it isn’t morning yet!” she protested. “How feeble you are! Why, my cat Sootica and my old broomstick used to fly and fly and fly till the daylight blinded us!”

“I am sorry, ma’am,” said the little wooden horse, “but please may we go home now?”

“Just one more turn!” said the witch reluctantly. “And then maybe another..”

Away she sailed, round and round the great arches of the sky, and when once more the plain came into sight the little wooden horse could not see anyone on it at all. True, the daylight had come, and all kinds of shadows and rocks were standing up on the earth that might or might not be human beings, but the little wooden horse grew sick at heart when he saw that none of them were moving, as far as his eye could see.

Suddenly, with a magnificent sweep the witch came down on the crest of the Hurricane Mountains, at the same moment as the sun’s first rays shot into the sky. Far away in the north the last of the storm died away, and the clouds dispersed. A golden light stole over the land below as the morning came.

They came to rest beside the cavern, and the witch dismounted, staggering inside like a rider aching from long riding and a hard saddle.

“But a wooden horse is better than a broomstick to ridel” she said approvingly. “I shall have to make a spell to give you flying powers, and we will have some magnificent journeys together!”

She took off her hat and her shoes, sat down on her stool and went almost immediately to sleep.

The little wooden horse ran to awaken Gobbolino, who was fast asleep beside the cauldron.

“Come quickly! Quickly!” said the little wooden horse. “There is not a moment to be lost!”

16 SOOTICA ON HER WAY [Êàðòèíêà: i_032.jpg]

Two DAYS BEFORE THIS, when the old priest met a little black cat at the door of his house, he thought at first it was Gobbolino, and called to his housekeeper to get a saucer of milk and some other dainties for the little cat to eat.

He was very glad to see it again, and made Sootica very welcome, not least because he thought she had rid the church of the bats that had plagued the congregation for so long. Already the people were coming back to church, and the bells were rung joyously at the proper hours.

Sootica, for her part, had her eye on the tidy warm parsonage, and thought this was not at all a bad place for a cat to make her home. Already the big open world frightened her a little, but the old priest seemed very kind and harmless, while she felt positive her own mistress, the witch, would never dare to come near so holy a place as the church.

While he went to get the milk she sat in the sun washing her face and trying to make up her mind whether she would trouble to go any further when there was such a comfortable place close at hand to live in.

“But where is your friend, the little wooden horse?” the old priest asked her, coming back from the parsonage kitchen.

“Oh, he’s still up in the mountain!” said Sootica carelessly.

Hearing her voice, which was rather loud and shrill, the old priest stared at her, and at the same moment the housekeeper appeared, carrying a saucer of milk and a plate full of food that looked very good to eat.

The housekeeper stared too.

“That’s not the cat you had before,” she exclaimed. “I only caught a glimpse of it, to be sure, but I’ll swear it had slightly tabby fur and one white paw, and its eyes were blue! Look at this one’s feet — black as ink, all of them — and its eyes are green as little apples!”

Sootica looked at her angrily and sure enough, the flashing of her eyes was a brilliant emerald green.

She opened her mouth to spit, but thought better of it and applied it instead to the good food that the housekeeper had brought for her to eat.

“This is very extraordinary!” said the priest, puzzled. “Really this cat is very like the other one! Can it be.. no! It is hardly possible.. butis it the little sister Sootica that Gobbolino talked about? The sister he was going up the Hurricane Mountains to rescue?”

With her mouth full of food and splashes of milk round her chops Sootica mewed agreement. The old priest was more puzzled than ever.

“But what are you doing here without your brother, my young friend?” he asked her.

Sootica merely dipped her nose in the plate and went on eating. She did not intend to begin explaining to these people until she had eaten her fill.

“He was so anxious to save you!” the old priest went on reproachfully. “I never saw a cat so concerned about his sister! And his wooden friend likewise! I do pray and trust that no harm has come to them in saving you from the witch?”

“Oh none! None!” said Sootica carelessly licking the last of the gravy from the dish. “He will be passing by later in the day I do assure you, though it is quite possible he will not have time to pay a call.”

“I am glad to think he will be on his way home,” said the priest, much relieved. “And tell me, are the bats settled in their new quarters? And are they likely to stop in their homes?”

“Oh positively! Positively!” said Sootica, washing away, though not very carefully. “They have beautiful new homes, and so has my brother Gobbolino, and so has the little wooden horse, and it is their own affair if they don’t want to stay there! They all have beautiful new homes to live in except poor little me!”

“That is a sad story!” said the old priest sympathetically. “Were you so very unhappy up there with the witch?”

“Miserable! Miserable!” said Sootica, although looking back on it the witch’s cavern already seemed more attractive than it once had done. The parsonage was almost too clean for comfort. “I don’t know what I shall do now!” she said plaintively with a final wipe to her chops.

“Why!. Perhaps we can find you a small corner in our house!” said the priest happily but his housekeeper broke in at once.

“That’s a witch’s cat, your reverence! It’s written all over it. You don’t want the likes of that in the parsonage, it would be worse than having those nasty bats about the place! Don’t you have anything to do with it, your reverence!”

“You rude hag!” said Sootica crossly.

Even the priest was shocked.

“Come! Come!” he protested, calming them both. “After all, the poor puss need not live in the parsonage. She could live in the church— in the vestry, of course — and catch the mice!”

“I don’t want to live in the church!” snapped Sootica, who was already trying to remember a spell that would turn the housekeeper into something particularly disagreeable, but there was an atmosphere about the old priest that made her powerless. She sat sulking on the floor and decided to leave as soonas possible.

“Please tell me, little cat, what has become of your brother?” the priest asked her. “And why are you travelling all alone? I thought he meant to take you back with him to his home in the forest, but that may have been a misunderstanding on my part. Is he still up there on the mountainside? And if so, why?”

“He has taken my place with the witch,” said Sootica calmly. “As you can see, we are very much alike, and when I left home the witch was asleep! She is getting blind, I don’t expect she will notice the difference!”

“Why, you selfish, good-for-nothing little baggage!” cried the housekeeper. “Do you mean to say you have run away and left your brother to his fate? What will the witch do to him when she finds you have deceived her?”

“If he is lucky she will never find out,” returned Sootica, “but I think after all I would be wiser to get to the far side of the stream as we planned when I left the cavern, and my brother will follow me at noon.

The witch is pretty blind by daylight, and she can’t cross water at earth level, as I can, so she is not likely to catch either of us, and as for the little wooden horse, he can look after himself I imagine!”

The priest realized that Sootica was a very different character from her brother Gobbolino.

“You say he will pass by here at midday?” he asked her again.

“Yes. The witch sleeps nearly all day long,” Sootica replied. “But it was necessary for Gobbolino to stay so that if she did wake she would think it was me. But if I’m not to stay here I must get on and cross over the stream, so I shall be safe. When my brother turns up you will know he is safe too. Tell him I shall not wait for him at the stream after all. We shall no doubt see each other by and by. It will take me all my time to find myself a good home to live in. I am determined to be a proper cat in the future and not a witch’s cat any more. At any rate, not often!”

“Much good may it do you!” muttered the housekeeper. She picked up the dishes and took them away to scrub them very thoroughly.

“I hope you find your hearts desire,” said the old priest gravely opening the door for Sootica to pass out.

She had not been gone more than an hour when the housekeeper came running to the priest in a great state of alarm.

“I told you no good would come of opening the door to that witch’s creature!” she cried. “It has even brought the bats back with it!”

“The bats!” said the priest in dismay. “What? All of them?”

“Well, one of them at any rate!” said the housekeeper. “It keeps banging away at my kitchen window and trying to get in. I’m not going to open up to the nasty brute! I’m off to find my brother-in-law to come and shoot it with his gun!”

She was gone before the priest could prevent her, and he made his way to the kitchen in time to see the bat disappearing round the corner of the house.

Later on, as he went to say his midday prayer in the church, he found the bat flying round and round the bell-ropes, twittering.

To his great surprise, for he had never been very friendly to the bats, the little creature flew down immediately and perched on his shoulder. He could see that it was quite a young bat, and it was carrying something in its sharp little teeth, something wooden and carved, which it now let fall to the floor, as it continued to twitter into his ear.

For a long while the twittering made no sense, and he stooped to pick up the little wooden object and examine it.

It lay flat in the palm of his hand, looking strangely familiar, although he could not for the life of him say what it reminded him of.

And then, in a flash, sudden recognition came to him.

It was the ear of the little wooden horse!

The old priest was horrified. What dreadful adventure had befallen his little friends up there on the Hurricane Mountains? He had not felt happy about them since Gobbolino’s sister had appeared in his stead, having escaped so heartlessly without him.

Her story had made him most uneasy. It was all very well to say her brother and the little wooden horse were safe and would soon be on their way home, but what would happen if the witch did, in fact, wake up and find they had deceived her? Sootica would not be there to take the blame, and what dreadful vengeance would she take upon them? Or, what dreadful vengeance had she in fact taken, since here was the little wooden horse’s wooden ear lying in his hand, perhaps the only bit of him left? It was too terrible to contemplate.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_033.jpg]

It was the ear of the little wooden horse!

And then he became aware of the young bat still murmuring and hissing in his ear, and repeating the words: “Bless it! Bless it! Bless it!” over and over again.

The priest was none the wiser, nor was he at all comforted by the bat’s instructions. Yet after all, if his good little friend were dead it was only right and proper to bury his ear with a suitable blessing. He went into the churchyard, still carrying the wooden ear, to get a spade from the toolshed and to find a quiet corner where he might bury it and say a blessing over his humble grave.

The bat became extremely agitated and even aggressive. When the priest tried to brush it away it beat his cheeks with its small wings and even bit the lobe of his ear till blood appeared. All the while it kept up its excited twittering: “Bless it! Bless it! Bless it!” till it became clear enough to the old priest that it did not intend him to bury the ear first.

Wiping the blood from his own ear he half turned his head towards the little bat and inquired mildly:

“And why are you asking me to bless it?”

This time the bat had some difficulty in getting out the words he wanted to say. After several attempts it stammered:

“Gobbolino!”

Then, delighted at mastering the name, it left his shoulder and flew back into the church, twittering:

“Gobbolino! Gobbolino! Gobbolino!.”

The priest followed it, carrying the wooden ear in his hand.

Standing in the nave, he sprinkled the ear with holy water and blessed it, first once, and then twice more, praying that its brave owner might be safe and sound, and find his way home from the witch’s territory without harm. The little bat perched on a choir stall, and seemed to take a deep interest in the proceedings.

The priest did not know what to do next. He walked to the door and looked out across the plain. It was past midday, and if Sootica’s word could be trusted the little wooden horse and Gobbolino ought to have passed through the village by now. No doubt she herself had already crossed the stream and was well on her way to the forest, or wherever she intended to look for a home. The priest did not think she would find it very easy to get one.

Perhaps the bat would take the ear back to its owner the way it had come? But the young bat seemed coy, and by its twitterings and mutterings he slowly made out its explanation that it was forbidden to go into the caves on the Hurricane Mountains where its elders had found new homes. It had to be content with living in a rabbit burrow at the foot of the mountain, and it did not want to return there at all. It had decided, it said, to go back to living in the bell tower, where at least it was warm and dry, and it did not get cold and wet at night.

Saying this, it flew swiftly round the church and disappeared above his head into the belfry, through the hole where the ropes hung down.

The priest did not feel inclined to climb the belfry stairs and chase it out. He guessed that, if he did, the bat would simply fly round and round the church and hide somewhere else.

Rather than waste his time on such a wild goose chase he thought it better to go himself to the Hurricane Mountains and find out what was happening, and why it was so important to bless the little wooden ear.

He waited all the afternoon for Gobbolino and the little wooden horse to appear, but when they did not, he carefully locked up the church for the night, and set out across the plain. The housekeeper’s brother-in-law, who had seen no sign of the bat in the house, stayed on to keep her company while the priest was out.

The young bat was frightened and lonely, but it hung itself up in a corner of the church and went to sleep.

17 THE MAGIC CIRCLE [Êàðòèíêà: i_034.jpg]

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse waited only long enough to hear the first snore from the sleeping witch. Then they fled from the cavern down the mountainside in the first rays of the sun, their hearts throbbing with anxiety.

They fully expected to arrive too late, and to find the good priest had been frizzled up in trying to cross the circle of magic fire. As they ran they met a few late bats, making their way home, and sure enough, some of them flying high had seen the old man advancing across the plain, and these were triumphantly certain that this must have been his fate.

“Yes! We saw him coming! And, yes, it was the priest from the church and none other! And, yes, if he has arrived he has probably been frizzled up by now! And serve him right, the horrid old man! Why couldn’t he let us alone? He can’t complain about us any morel We aren’t going back to his old church ever again! We don’t want to! We are quite comfortable where we are, with nobody flapping cloths at us, or shooting us with pellets if we dare to fly about outside! And those horrid, noisy old bells? We couldn’t move without their jangling, and whoever wants to hear them again?

“The young ones? Yes, they are grumbling and complaining outside the magic ring, but there aren’t many of them, and they ought to have come in with the rest of us. As far as we can tell they are making themselves some kind of homes in the rabbit burrows. Serve the priest right, we say, if he has met with the fate he deserves! The witch isn’t such a tiresome hag as she might seem!”

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse did not stop to listen to them. They were feeling more and more concerned for the old priest, and fairly galloped down the last part of the track, cutting and bruising themselves on the rough stones, and looking always ahead of them, where the pink flames of the magic fire had faded into the daylight and could no longer be seen.

And as they rounded the last corner before the mountain merged into the plain they came suddenly upon the old priest, not fifty yards beyond the rocks; his kind face broke into smiles as he saw them, and he held out his hands in delight at finding them safe and sound.

He was hurrying towards them when Gobbolino and the little wooden horse stopped short in their tracks and screamed at him to stop too, but a crowd of young bats flocked out of the rabbit burrows and twittered round his head.

It seemed at first as if they were warning him of the secret danger lying between him and the mountain, but soon it became apparent that on the contrary they were deafening his ears to the cries of Gobbolino and the little wooden horse. With shrill screams they were reproaching him, and blaming him for their exclusion from the mountain caves, and the homeless plight in which they found themselves. He struggled on, brushing them good-humouredly from his face and head.

“No! No!” Gobbolino cried out to him. “Don’t come any nearer! You will be burned alive!”

“There is a magic circle round the mountain!” the little wooden horse said. “The witch made it! You mustn’t come any closer!”

The priest could hardly hear their warning for the bats that were buzzing around his head.

“Throw us the blessing! Throw us the blessing!” Gobbolino urged. He knew by the warmth under their feet that they were very close to the edge of the spell.

“Throw it high in the air! Throw it very high!” the little wooden horse directed him, as the priest took the ear out of his pocket. He took a step or two forward in order to hurl it towards them.

“No! No!” cried Gobbolino. “Go back! Go back! You will be frizzled to pieces if you come any nearer! Throw it as high as you can!”

They danced on the edge of the spell while the priest, raising his arm to throw the little wooden ear, brushed away the swarming bats.

A small morning breeze came gusting across the plain, picking up sand and the odd leaf and tossing the priest’s cassock about his legs.

He shook his right arm free of the bats.

“Higher! Throw it higher!” called Gobbolino and the little wooden horse.

The bats pettishly lost interest and flew to the ground, where they sat about on the stones like little black goblins.

The priest hurled the wooden ear high into the air.

At the same moment the breeze hurtled round the rocks and snatched up the wooden fragment like a leaf. Up it soared into the sky, turning over and over as if it had been made of paper.

The priest ran after it. Gobbolino and the little wooden horse dashed forward to catch it as it fell. All three collided, and met where the magic circle tinged the earth with a warm, invisible glow.

In this glow they all stood for a moment, one opposite the other, their feet warm, but not uncomfortable— no sign of frizzling, none of burning, though the bats on their stones squeaked with dismay, and the ear of the little wooden horse fell harmlessly to the ground.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_035.jpg]

“Throw it higher!” called Gobbolino and the little wooden horse.

The priest stooped down and picked it up. He was now standing inside the ring of magic fire, and he handled with interest the scorched morsel of wood that had been the ear of the little wooden horse.

“I scorched it when I threw it over the circle,” the wooden horse explained. “I thought it would be completely burnt up!”

Seeing that the three of them were safe, the young bats tried to follow them across the circle, to the mountain. They hoped for the opportunity to find their way into the caves with the rest of their relations, but they very soon retreated, squeaking with pain, as their ears and toes and wings met invisible hot flames, so powerful that one could smell the singeing of their fur.

The hullabaloo they made brought the older bats out of their bedrooms, and a dozen or more came flying from the caverns to find the cause of the commotion.

“Those people went through the magic fire!” the younger bats squeaked, sucking their burnt toes. “Not one of them was burnt, not one! But when we tried to follow them we were driven back by the most dreadful flames!”

“Only the perfectly good can go through witches’ fire!” said the bats wisely “It serves you right! You will just have to go on living outside in the rabbit holes!” and they went back to their caverns.

The younger bats sat down and cried.

The priest, the little wooden horse and Gobbolino looked at each other in perfect astonishment.

“If it is quite true that we can go through unhurt we might just be able to help them,” said the little wooden horse, advancing very cautiously across the warm circle of the magic ring.

“And then we must go home!” said Gobbolino, who could hardly wait to put the Hurricane Mountains far behind him. But he too went forward to help his friend, and the priest did not hesitate to join them.

A dozen bats crowded on to the back of the little wooden horse. More clung to Gobbolino’s fur, hiding themselves in the ruff round his neck. The rest crept into the folds of the old priest’s cassock.

The little wooden horse put on his ear again.

Together they walked quietly back to the slopes of the mountain, the little bats squealing with joy and gratitude, and praising their rescuers at the tops of their voices.

There was ample room for double their number to live in the caves, which soon resounded to their chattering and squeaking and their noisy thanks.

The older bats were quite impressed; and sent a delegation to call on the rescuers.

“Thank you for helping our careless children!” they said politely. “It is more than they deserved; but now they can see for themselves that Good is more powerful than Evil. If we can do anything in our turn to help you, we will be glad to be of service.”

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse remembered how the bats had flown them across the plain from the village; and longed to ask them to do it again. They were both tired and longing to go home; but the bats could hardly carry the priest as well as themselves, besides which Gobbolino could not put out of his mind the sad picture of the old witch waking to find herself alone in the cave at the top of the mountain.

Bad she might be, but she was also a lonely old woman, already deserted by her cat, and now about to be deserted all over again. Yet the old priest and also the little wooden horse had come so far to help him, how could he refuse to go home with them now?

For all he knew, the witch would take the most terrible vengeance on him for the breaking of her spell, and for bringing the priest into her territory. She might throw them all three down the mountainside, and that would be the end of them.

It was thinking of their possible fate that decided him to turn his back on the Hurricane Mountains, and to follow his friends once more across the magic circle and across the plain in the direction of the village.

18ESCAPE [Êàðòèíêà: i_036.jpg]

AS THEY WALKED ACROSS THE PLAIN all three companions became more and more silent.

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse had told their tale to the priest The priest had told them his. They were all deadly tired, and although Gobbolino had rested all night long in the cavern, it was he who lagged behind the most.

The priest was footsore. The wooden horse was exhausted by circling the stars, and it took all the courage they had to drag their feet one after the other towards the village. They hardly looked behind them as they trudged.

Morning was high in the sky. Breezes and billowing clouds played at shuttlecock over the plain. The spire of the church came nearer and nearer. And Gobbolino fell further and further behind.

The little wooden horse noticed it first, and trotted back to him.

“Are you so tired, my poor little friend?” he exclaimed. “Climb on my back, and I will carry you. I expect you are much lighter than the witch!”

To his surprise he saw that Gobbolino was crying. Great tears were filling his beautiful blue eyes and falling to the ground.

“Whatever is the matter?” said the little wooden horse, in surprise. “Surely we are well on our way home now, and so far as I can see nobody is coming after us! Don’t be afraid! Ride on my back, and think that this time tomorrow you will be in your own home, and what a welcome will be waiting for you! Can’t you imagine it?”

Gobbolino still sobbed quietly, though he cheered up a little as he thought of the children’s welcome awaiting him at the farm. It helped him not to dwell on the lonely old witch in her cave, with nobody,nobody left to love her! He knew he could never send her another cat to live in such squalor and be her slave. One had to be born to a life like that.

So he refused to ride, and mended his pace till at last they reached the village, and were clasped in the arms of the priests housekeeper, who could not make enough fuss of them, nor finish stuffing them with all the best food and cream she could find in the parsonage larder.

The priest himself was so exhausted by his double journey that he went to sleep in his chair beside the fire, having first been into the church to say a prayer of thankfulness that his part of the adventure was safely over. He did not care for travelling in witch country at all.

He invited Gobbolino and the little wooden horse to stay the night with him, which they were very glad to do, since the sun was setting and it was still a very long way to reach the stream and safety.

As darkness fell they could see strange lights surrounding the Hurricane Mountains, and tongues of fire flashing up and down again. It all appeared very awesome and rather frightening, but Gobbolino only wept great tears, while the little wooden horse was very solemn. Towards midnight the fires went out.

“All those tears!” said the priest, waking up. “Tell me, little cat, are you homesick for the old witch up there? Or is it for your family in the forest?”

Gobbolino shook his head, for he really did not know why he was crying.

In the morning his tears were dried, and as soon as it was light he and the little wooden horse said goodbye to their kind friends and set out on the last stage of their journey to the forest.

They were refreshed and well fed by the housekeeper, who could not stop comparing Gobbolino with his sister Sootica— “that vagabond cat!” as she described her.

Gobbolino, she decided, was a perfect prince of cats, and as good as he was handsome, while as for the little wooden horse, she had never seen such a fine and gentlemanly fellow in all her born days. She stood at the parsonage door beside the old priest, waving to them until her handkerchief became as small as a daisy on the grass of the plain.

The priest had blessed them before their journey, and they trotted along side by side feeling as fresh and as free as the morning itself The witch’s powers seemed so far behind them that they crossed the stream with hardly a thought that she could now no longer harm them.

Gobbolino rode on the horse’s saddle, and he swam them both across the water, laughing at the sparkling ripples, and pretending to chase the water rats that stood on their hind legs in the entrance to their burrows, most curious to see such a sight go by.

They clambered up the further bank shaking the drops of water from their feet and laughing in the sunshine.

“We will be in the forest before sundown,” said the little wooden horse, “and I feel fresh enough to trot for a hundred miles! What about you, my friend?”

“Oh, a thousand miles if necessary!” replied Gobbolino, but he knew that his home was much nearer than that.

Already a distant whiff of pine needles came wafting on the breeze. Home scents and secrets were blotting out the bleak memories of the Hurricane Mountains. Their hearts bounded with happiness.

So it was with a quite unexpected jolt of dismay that a far-off yet familiar sound came to their ears.

Both stopped dead in their tracks to listen.

It now seemed weeks, even months ago that they had been crossing the plain to the sound of just this same dreadful music— the cry of hounds, far off, but coming nearer… in pursuit of… what?

Without hesitation they turned round and hurried back to the stream. Better to hide for a while among the rocks and rushes than be caught out on the open plain. For the hounds were running between them and the forest, and although at times they seemed to be heading in the opposite direction, at others they turned about, and it was obvious that they were coming closer and closer.

There was a cluster of rocks in the middle of the stream, and to these rocks the little wooden horse waded with Gobbolino on his back. They thought that if they could wait there for an hour or so with the water all round them, the pack might not find their scent, and they crouched in the stones and the sparse scrub that grew round about them, hoping against hope that the hounds might pass by on the far side of the stream without seeing them.

But soon it became quite apparent that they were actually coming up the stream itself, and in the not-so-far distance they could hear the baying and the howls and barking of many dogs, now casting about with muted yelps and whimpers, now in full cry tearing up the shallow places or plunging and splashing in the deep pools of the stream.

What they were actually chasing the two friends could not tell. They only knew that they were in great danger, and that the forest side of the stream was more dangerous than the other.

When the pack was almost within sight they burst out of their hiding-place and splashed to the bank, scrambled up the side of it, over the top, and away across the plain in the direction of the Hurricane Mountains, back over the weary distance they had come, panting, gasping, limping, never pausing or looking behind them, while the great open spaces around them felt even more dangerous than the hounds.

At any moment they expected the pack to pick up their scent and pursue them, and once they did this there would be no chance of escape. So they ran and ran and ran, not looking for any landmark or direction, while first the afternoon and then the evening closed in around them.

They might have found refuge in the church, but they left it far away to the right of them. The mountains came nearer and nearer, but they did not look up to see them.

Far behind them came that terrible baying, and it continued to pursue them in imagination long after the hounds had given up their quarry and gone home to bed.

They never noticed that in the darkness the magic fire round the mountain no longer glowed. Utterly spent, and more dead than alive they stumbled from the plain on to the rocks. Flinging themselves down in the first cave they found, they fell into an exhausted sleep.

When they woke up it was daylight, and the bats who lived in that cave were twittering about them.

“Why have you come back? Where is the priest? We thought you wanted to go home! What is the matter with you?”

They questioned them over and over again.

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse were too tired and unhappy to answer them at first. As they opened their eyes they remembered they were back again in the witch’s country and between them and their homes were the terrible hounds. There was only the remotest chance that they would ever get back again without losing their lives.

They did notice, however, that the bats were no longer confined to the caves. They were flitting on and off the mountain, back to the plain and back again, as if all the world were theirs and there had never been a magic fire at all.

“Aren’t you afraid of burning your wings?” the little wooden horse asked them.

“Oh pooh no! The witch is finished!” scoffed the bats. “When she knew that you were gone she took a fit and fell down screaming! She is probably dead by now!” they added complacently.

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse sprang to their feet. They left the cave and galloped up the mountainside as if they had never made the long journey across the plain the day before. No matter that their feet were blistered and sore. They did not stop until they reached the crest of the mountain and burst into the cave.

It was as still as a tomb and very cold, since even the ashes under the cauldron were dead and finished.

At first they thought the cavern was empty and the witch must be out on the mountainside. But her broomstick was in its place, and her shoes thrown one after another into a comer. Her pointed hat lay on the floor. The water still dripped sluggishly from the spring in the rock. It was the only sound in the whole cave.

They were about to go outside and question the goats when in the shadows something moved.

What they had taken for a heap of old rags proved to have wizened arms and legs, bare feet and a head. The head was crowned with long black hair, out of which peered a long, sad, pale face. They had to stare hard at it to recognize the witch.

As they stared at her the witch’s eyes came open, and for a moment she seemed to recognize them. She held out a claw-like hand towards them, and then sank back with a heartbroken sob.

Gobbolino crept up to her and licked her shrivelled face.

“Go and get milk from the goats,” he told the little wooden horse, “and I will fetch her some honey! Then we will light the fire and make her warm again.”

They flew to fetch honey and some goats’ milk.

While Gobbolino fed her spoonful by spoonful, the little wooden horse lit the fire. By the time the cave was warm again and full of pink light and dancing shadows the old woman was sitting up and panting a little as she watched them with tears of gratitude running down her cheeks.

“To meet with such kindness! To have such goodness shown to a wicked old woman like me!” she muttered. “And I thought I was to be left alone for ever and ever! But these two cared for me after all!. These two came back to look after me when all the world had left me alone. I was going to die of loneliness and a broken heart, but now I shall get better. I shall never be lonely any morel”

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse looked at each other in some anxiety at these words, but for the moment the witch’s comfort was all their concern. They dressed her and combed her hair, and washed her hands and feet.

When she was clean and tidy she looked quite respectable. As she smiled at them, and thanked them from the bottom of her heart she looked, just for a moment, like a pretty old lady.

As before, her spirits improved as the day went on, and by evening she was almost lively.

The little wooden horse was afraid that she might want to go riding again, but to his great relief she did not suggest it.

Instead, she got out her book of spells and drew her stool up close to the fire.

“Your eyes are better than mine, my dear!” she said to Gobbolino. “I want to make a spell.. just a little spell, so that you and your friend will be happy here with me, and not want to leave me ever again!

[Êàðòèíêà: i_037.jpg]

They dressed her and combed her hair…

I will make just a little spell so that we shall all three live in comfort in this cave of mine for ever and ever and ever!”

But as Gobbolino opened his mouth in a pitiful miaow of protest there came an answering miaow from the door of the cave.

All three looked up startled, to see the shape of a black cat standing in the doorway. And it was Sootica!

19THE LAST SPELL [Êàðòèíêà: i_038.jpg]

The WITCH uttered one shriek of joy.

Sootica uttered another.

The next moment they were in each other’s arms, and purrs, duckings and endearments mingled so thickly together that it was difficult to distinguish witch from cat or cat from witch.

“Is it really you, my little cat?” cried the witch, when the first excitement of their meeting had died down.

“Yes it’s really me! Me! ME!” shrieked Sootica. “And is it really you, my dear mistress? So thin! So old and pale! Hardly a witch any longer!”

“I don’t want to be a witch any more!” said the old witch, wildly swinging Sootica round by the tail, which she did not seem to mind at all. “All I want is a little company, a little love and affection, and a nice warm cavern to live in for ever and ever! I don’t like the outside world at all!”

“Why, you sound just like my brother Gobbolino!” said Sootica, still licking the witch’s chin, when she could get a perch on her shoulder. “And the strange thing is that all I want is just exactly the same thing! I had a dreadful time out in the wide world, trying to find a comfortable home to live in! Nobody wanted a witch’s cat like me! The more I promised to be good the less they trusted me. I’ve been turned out of doors with a boot behind me, or a broom, or a bucket of water! You have no idea how cruel people are out there in the places where people live and work and call themselves human beings. Mind you, nobody got away with treating me like that! The person who kicked me found thesole of his boot dropped off when he next set out from home! And all the bristles fell out of the broom! It was almost new, too! As for the pail of water, there is such a hole in the bottom now it will never hold water again! Serve them all right!”

Gobbolino stared at his sister with his beautiful blue eyes. It did not sound as if Sootica had altered her character very much since she went away.

She noticed him at last.

“So you are still here, brother, are you?” she said, fixing him with an impudent stare. “And your wooden friend with you! Are you sorry I have come back? Have you enjoyed being a witch’s cat after all?”

The witch seized her by the scruff of her neck and shook her soundly.

“You wicked little wretch!” she cried indignantly. “Don’t you know I nearly died of grief when I found you had deserted me? If it hadn’t been for your good little brother and his friend I would have been dead by now!They looked after me!They cared for me!They nursed me back to life! Get into your corner, miss, and count your blessings, for you may well find yourself shrivelled into a hazelnut in return for your heartless behaviour. I don’t need your companionship now! These good friends have come to live with me for ever, and I shall reward them as they deserve. Tell me, Gobbolino, my good cat, and tell me, my little horse, now that I have my Sootica back to help me read my book of spells, I can grant you any wish you may utter.What would you like me to do for you?”

Both Gobbolino and the little wooden horse announced in the same breath:

“Please, ma’am! We would like to go home!”

The witch’s face fell, but Sootica cackled with laughter, and immediately dashed for the book of spells and began to turn the pages.

“Let them go! Let them go!” she babbled. “Who wants to keep them?”

“Only, when we were crossing the plain, the hounds chased us!” said the little wooden horse.

“They chased me too,” boasted Sootica, “but I was too quick for them!”

“The bats might carry us back again!” Gobbolino said hopefully.

“Or my mistress might carry you on her broomstick!” said Sootica.

But the witch closed her lips angrily and shook her head.

“Two would be too heavy, and my stick won’t fly these days!” she muttered. “They put a kind of spell on it and it has never been the same since. Besides.. she began to sob, “if these two go home and leave me, how am I to know that you will stay with me and not desert me for a second time? What is to prevent you from flying off again onemorning and never coming back?”

“Oh no I shan’t!” said Sootica decidedly “I shall stay here for ever and be just a common cat for the rest of my days.”

“Do you promise that?” asked the little wooden horse.

“I promise,” said Sootica.

“No more making of wicked spells?”

“No more… not ever.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Cross your heart?” said the little wooden horse. “No, cross my ear! The old priest blessed it, so you must swear on my wooden ear that you will never be a witch’s cat again.”

“I promise! Oh, I promise!” agreed Sootica. “And my mistress must promise never again to be a witch.”

“I promise too!” said the witch.

“Will you swear it on my wooden ear?” said the little wooden horse.

“Oh I will, I will!”

The little wooden horse took off his charred wooden ear.

“But how are we going to get home?” asked Gobbolino. “Supposing the bats won’t take us?”

“Wait!” said the witch. “Before we swear these very important things on the wooden ear, let me make just one more spell. Just one little one!”

Gobbolino and the little wooden horse jumped to their feet in a fright. They did not trust the witch’s spells at all. She was whispering now to Sootica, but they could not hear a word that she said.

Sootica smiled and nodded her head. She began feverishly to turn over the pages of the book of spells with her paw.

“No thank you,” Gobbolino said, edging towards the door of the cavern. “I think we will start on our journey now! We wish you well, ma’am, and you too, sister Sootica, but it is time that we went on our own way.”

Secretly, he felt more ready to face the dangers of the long journey than to risk another moment or another spell in the cavern of the witch.

But both Sootica and her mistress were searching the pages with excited smiles on their faces, and uttering little cries of delight when they seemed close to finding what they wanted.

“Here it is! No herd Not quite! Two pages further on!”

It could only be a trick to keep them longer in the cave. The little wooden horse stooped down to pick up his ear, and trotted after Gobbolino to the entrance.

“Wait! Wait!” cried the witch. “Don’t be afraid! We aren’t going to harm you! We only mean to wish you well! Quickly, Sootica! Get the cauldron ready! Put in this!… and this!… and that! Don’t lose a moment!”

At these words the little wooden horse and Gobbolino fairly bolted out of the door. The little wooden horse dropped his ear in the entrance but dared not stop to pick it up. “Uncle Peder will make me another one if I ever get safely back to him again!” he panted.

They hurtled down the path which zig-zagged down the crags in a precipitous fashion. It was so steep, in fact, that when the witch and Sootica appeared from the cave, they were actually directly over their heads, high above them.

“Stop! Wait!” the witch shrieked, hurling something from a wooden ladle that fell like rain down the rocks, in a thousand rainbow-coloured drops.

As he galloped along the little wooden horse received a full dollop on his back, and all at once a most extraordinary sensation filled his body.

He found himself lifting his feet and his wheels from the path. The stones no longer bruised his feet. His wheels, that were wearing out, shed no splinters. He was beginning to fly!

“Gobbolino! Jump on my back! Quickly! Quickly!” he called to the cat scampering on ahead.

Gobbolino stopped, turned round, and leapt in one great bound on to his back.

As he did so the little wooden horse soared into the air.. higher, higher, and still higher..

Now they were on a level with the witch and Sootica who laughed and waved their hands to them from the door of the cavern. The goats, grazing on the rocks, raised their heads and bleated in admiration.

“Goodbye! Goodbye!” called Sootica and the witch, as the wooden horse veered away towards the south.

“We promise!” they shouted after the flying pair. “We promise! Goodbye! Goodbye!”

“My ear is there to make sure they keep their promise!” the little wooden horse said, flying steadily southwards. “If they try to throw it away it will burn their fingers far, far worse than the flames in the magic circle.”

“How do you know?” asked Gobbolino.

“I just do!” said the little wooden horse solemnly.

They flew high over the church, where the bells were ringing for service. They would have liked to go down and say a last goodbye to the old priest and his housekeeper, but they did not know how long the spell would last, and if it came to an end in the middle of the plain they would be worse off than before.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_039.jpg]

“Goodbye!” called Sootica and the witch.

So they flew over the steeple, and on across the stream, and now the forest was a dark shadow on the horizon, while down below the pack of hounds were quartering the plain, just as they had done the day before.

Safe as they were at such a height, neither of them could repress a shudder as the dreadful music came to their ears, but soon it was lost far behind them.

“Are you tired?” Gobbolino asked the little wooden horse, as he thought he felt him falter.

“Not exactly,” said the little wooden horse, “but I think the spell may be coming to an end, because I can’t fly quite as high as I did at first.”

“Well, never mind,” said Gobbolino comfortingly, “because we are very nearly at the forest!”

It was quite true. The trees, that for a long time had been only a far shadow, were now just a short distance below them, and as the flying powers of the little wooden horse slowly faded, they floated lower and lower towards the upraised branches, coming gently to earth at the foot of a pine tree, and landing on a bed of pine needles that felt as soft as feathers after the rigours of the mountain.

Gobbolino jumped to the ground.

“Do you think you will be able to fly again?” he asked the little wooden horse.

“No, never! Never, never!” said the little wooden horse, and he sounded perfectly satisfied.

It had been a lovely flight. Twice in his life he had soared in the sky, and seen the earth like a carpet spread out below him, but his wooden wheels were not made for sweeping the stars, and he was glad to be down on the earth again.

They decided to spend the night just where they were, and after a little searching they discovered a tree with branches that gave them protection like a kind of tent.

They were just settling down to sleep until the morning when a movement in the branches above them caught their attention.

Not ten feet above their heads sat the owl!

20 GOING HOME [Êàðòèíêà: i_040.jpg]

It WAS THE SAME OWL that had brought Sootica’s message to Gobbolino. He recognized it at once.

The owl made no sign of recognition, but it stared and stared at Gobbolino with its golden eyes, till, finding itself an object of curiosity to the pair of them, it turned its back, but before long it was twisting its head round on its shoulder and staring at them again.

“Oh, Owl! Owl!” Gobbolino cried. “If you are the same owl, and I know you are, will you please take a message back to our homes in the forest? Oh please, please do!”

The owl immediately rose several feet into the air on wide, soft wings, and came down facing them again. It ducked its head forward, and appeared perfectly willing to be made use of.

Gobbolino looked frantically for something that would do to write a message on, and finally a wide leaf beside the stream seemed large and strong enough to serve for a writing pad. The little wooden horse fetched another.

Side by side on a flat stone Gobbolino scratched the words on each leaf with his sharpest claw:

“WE ARE COMING HOME!”

The owl stretched out its head, flew down, and with a gentle beak received both the messages, transferring them to its powerful claws. Then, without a word, it flew off into the darkness, leaving Gobbolino and the little wooden horse greatly comforted. They lay down side by side and slept till morning.

As the sun rose they saw that the owl was back again. He looked very tired, and he was fast asleep with his head tucked underneath his wing.

Before leaving, they thanked and embraced him.

The owl did not open his eyes, but they felt by the fluffing of his feathers that he was pleased by their gratitude.

Far, far away across the plain behind them the pale blue outline of the Hurricane Mountains seemed a hundred years ago, soon to be swallowed up by the trees of the forest.

They were going home!

Steadily silently walking on soft needles instead of stones, they padded on their way, hardly talking now, because their thoughts were all of home.

They knew that they would miss their close companionship when the time came to part. They had not been friends and gone through so many adventures together for nothing. Gobbolino would never forget the loyalty and courage of his friend, the little wooden horse, who had dared so much for him, and risked losing his own life for Gobbolino’s sake.

But although the forest was wide, they did not live so very far from one another, and surely there would be days when they could meet and talk over their adventures? Surely the farm children would welcome the little wooden horse with great joy and delight in the farm kitchen? And perhaps Uncle Peder and his wife would be glad to see Gobbolino at their home in the forest when he came to call?

The thought of home was warm and comforting all through the long days travelling, when the forest trees seemed never ending, and the path was so full of turnings and corners it seemed that it would never arrive anywhere at all.

As morning merged into afternoon and afternoon into twilight they began to think they would have to spend yet another night sleeping out of doors.

In spite of the soft ground their paws and wheels were sore and very weary, and they were walking more and more slowly when far away through the forest a sound made their ears prick, and they stopped all of a sudden in their tracks.

This time it was not the cry of hounds, nor the twittering of bats, nor the far-off, familiar shrieking of the witch. It was music… children’s voices singing in the twilight… singing bravely and loudly to banish the terrors of the darkness, and with them a deeper, bolder voice was joining in the chorus to cheer them on.

Gobbolino gave a little miaow of excitement, while the wooden horse bounded forward with a whinny of joy.

Down the darkening path they galloped, never stopping for a moment until they were in the loving arms of the farm children, who, hand in hand with Uncle Peder, had braved the dark night and the shadows to come and meet them and take them home.

When their rapturous welcome was over they set off by the way they had come, only calling in for a brief visit to Uncle Peder’s home to assure his wife that all was well, and he and the little wooden horse would be with her once they had taken the farm children and Gobbolino safely home.

This being done, the walk back to the cottage from the farm was the happiest moment of the little wooden horse’s life.

Telling the story to his master he trotted by his side, with his one ear brushing Uncle Peder’s trouser leg, and another ear already promised for the morrow.

He had left his friend Gobbolino purring by the fire, the centre of everyone’s love and attention. They had promised to meet one another at the very earliest opportunity. It might even be tomorrow!

[Êàðòèíêà: i_041.jpg]

When their rapturous welcome was over they set off.

And now with his task successfully ended and his adventure over he was going back with his beloved master to his own place by the fire, in that home which he knew was his for ever and ever and ever.

Content

Уильямс Урсула Морей Gobbolino The Witch's Cat. The Further Adventures Of Gobbolino And The Little Wooden Horse