Gobbolino the Witch's Cat

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, the Mary 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, the Mary 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 ship Mary 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 the Mary 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 the Mary 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. The Mary 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 the Mary 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 they grew up.