The Blue Cat of Castle Town by Catherine Cate Coblentz

Author:Catherine Cate Coblentz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2017-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

“You will if you are stuffed with sawdust!” gloated Arunah. “You are fat enough right now!” And he grabbed for the blue cat.

The cat struggled. He scratched and bit and clawed. He clawed and bit and scratched. But because he was so fat his breath was short and he was losing the fight.

When — a stagecoach came crashing to a stop. And Arunah must needs drop the blue cat to rush forward to the door. But even as he rushed he held onto the blue cat’s tail.

The cat, with one final surge of strength, tore his tail loose from Arunah’s grasp. And as the door opened the blue cat dashed through. Only a few hairs from his tail remained in Arunah’s hands. And what were a few hairs compared to the life of a grown-up blue cat?

Away from the Mansion House dashed the blue cat. Up the road and up the road, back the way he had come. Not even Arunah’s horses ever ran as hard and fast as the blue cat was running. At least he had learned speed from Arunah. He was headed back for the meadow where he was born. Past the cobbler’s shop he ran, by the old tavern the weaver had sketched for his weaving, past John Gilroy’s shop, to the village green and the shop where Ebenezer Southmayd, the pewterer, had worked. On and on, back and back, raced the blue cat, losing weight with every step.

When he was quite exhausted he hid under a mulberry bush and considered. Somehow, in spite of what Arunah Hyde had almost done to him — stuffing him with cream in order to stuff him with sawdust — the blue cat felt sorry for the man.

Speed and gain and power. That was Arunah’s spell, and it drove Arunah Hyde harder than he drove his horses. It was a dark spell, spreading far and wide over Castle Town.

“‘And in the end that spell will overpower him.’ I am sure that was what the river said, or something very like. I was asleep, or ’most asleep — but still I heard. I must have heard. Poor Arunah!” mourned the blue cat. “Poor, poor man!”

Two great crystal tears gathered and dropped slowly from his amber eyes. One was for Arunah. One was for the thick yellow cream, the beautiful lake salmon and the plates piled high with chicken, which the blue cat had left forever behind him.

A long, mournful, unearthly sound went through the valley, wailing up and down, louder, more frightening than any loon. Wailing, wailing, from Bird Mountain to Lake Bombazine.

The blue cat was startled, for he had never heard such a sound. He felt tired and sick, very sick. His thoughts began to swirl in his head, like the yellow cream swirled when poured into Arunah’s tinny bowl. The sound was, he decided, a whistle of some sort from the future. Blue cats, who were born under a blue moon, his mother had said, often heard things no ordinary cat could hear.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.