"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 a good 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.
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
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.
"…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.