Gobbolino the Witch's Cat

“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 your head; 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

Gobbolino was sitting sadly by the roadside thinking of his hard fate when he heard the Clop! 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.”