Perhaps Thomasina did not really have divine powers. Possibly she was only an ordinary cat. But it cannot be denied that she changed three lives in a near- miraculous manner . . . There was Andrew MacDhui, Scottish veterinarian, whose bristling manner matched his fiery beard. Dour and withdrawn since his wife’s death, he had little patience with wooing sick animals back to health and was said to be a wee bit too quick with the chloroform. There was Andrew’s seven-year-old daughter, who brought her ailing cat, Thomasina, to her father to be cured—only to be bitterly disappointed by Andrew’s hasty and unfeeling disposal of her beloved cat. And there was Lori—beautiful, “daft Lori,” whose gentle and mysterious powers of healing caused some of the villagers to call her a saint—or a witch. How Thomasina, taking full advantage of a cat’s nine lives, brought these three together is a story which may be enjoyed for its face-value excitement and whimsey, but in which the more discerning reader will find both trenchant allegory and spirit-lifting philosophy. Set in the rugged and picturesque Scottish highland, Paul Gallico’s latest and finest work, while it retains the elements of faith and enchantment which have long delighted his many devotees, is primarily a novel of romance, character, and high adventure. With superb artistry, the author of The Snow Goose and The Small Miracle blends fantasy and warm humanity into a poignant tale of the natural and the supernatural in the Enchanted Cat. Books by Paul Gallico FAREWELL TO SPORT ADVENTURES OF HIRAM HOLLIDAY THE SECRET FRONT THE SNOW GOOSE LOU GEHRIG—PRIDE OF THE YANKEES GOLF IS A NICE FRIENDLY GAME CONFESSIONS OF A STORY WRITER THE LONELY THE ABANDONED TRIAL BY TERROR THE SMALL MIRACLE THE FOOLISH IMMORTALS SNOWFLAKE LOVE OF SEVEN DOLLS All of the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 57-13018 Copyright © 1957 by Paul Gallico Designed by Diana Klemin Cover and Frontispiece by Gioia Fiammenghi All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America TO VIRGINIA T H O M A S I N A 1 Mr. Andrew MacDhui, veterinary surgeon, thrust his brick-red, bristling beard through the door of the waiting room adjacent to the surgery and looked with cold, hostile eyes upon the people seated there on the plain pine, yellow chairs with their pets on their laps or at their feet awaiting his attendance. Willie Bannock, his brisk, wiry man of all work in dispensary, office, and animal hospital had already gossiped a partial list of those present that morning to Mr. MacDhui, including his friend and next-door neighbor the minister, Angus Peddie. Mr. Peddie, of course, would be there with or because of his insufferable little pug dog, whose gastric disturbances were brought on by pampering and the feeding of forbidden sweets. Mr. MacDhui’s glance dropped to the narrow lap of the short-legged, round little clergyman, and for a moment his eye was caught up in the unhappy, milky one of the pug, rolled in his direction, filled with the misery of bellyache, and yet expressing a certain hope and longing as well. The animal had come to associate his visits to this place, the smells, and the huge man with the fur on his face with relief. The veterinary disentangled himself from the hypnotic eye and wished angrily that Peddie would follow his advice on feeding the animal and not be there wasting his time. He noted the rich builder’s wife from Glasgow on holiday with her rheumy little Yorkshire terrier, an animal he particularly detested, with its ridiculous velvet bow laced into its silken topknot. There was Mrs. Kinloch over the ears of her Siamese cat, which lay upon her knee, occasionally shaking its head and complaining in a raucous voice, and, too, there was Mr. Dobbie, the grocer, whose long and doleful countenance reflected that of his Scots terrier, who was suffering from the mange and looked as though a visit to the upholsterer would be more practical. There were a half dozen or so others, including a small boy whom he seemed to have seen somewhere before, and at the head of the line he recognized old, obese Mrs. Laggan, proprietress of the newspaper and tobacco shop, who, with her aged, wheezing, nondescript, black mongrel, Rabbie, his muzzle grayed, his eyes rheumy with age, was a landmark of Inveranoch and seemingly had been so