Gobbolino the Witch's Cat

“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. The Mary Maud is not one of these. But a witch’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

Gobbolino was very touched when the Captain himself rowed him ashore in the Mary 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 the Mary 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 gently stroked 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.