Off they scampered helter-skelter, all my seven brothers, awkward heavy Oddity, as usual, in the rear. He had often been laughed at for his slowness, but this time it was well for him that he was slow! On rushed the six foremost, almost together, scrambling one over another in their haste; they disappeared into what looked like a dark hole, and then – alas! alas! what a terrible squeaking!
Poor unhappy brothers! all caught in a trap! All at the mercy of their cruel enemy, man! I ran to the spot in a terrible fright. Nothing of my six companions could I see; but Oddity, with a very disconsolate look, was staring at the drop of the trap. His had been a very narrow escape, – it had grazed his ugly nose as it fell!
This is a very melancholy part of my story, and I will hasten over it as fast as I can. In vain the poor captive rats tried to gnaw their way to freedom from within, while Oddity and I nibbled from without. There was something which defied even our sharp little teeth, and all our efforts were in vain. My poor brothers could not touch the fatal feast which had lured them to their ruin! They passed a miserable night, and were every one carried off in a bag to be worried by dogs in the morning!
“Cruel, wicked man!” I exclaimed, as with my piebald companion I sought my old shelter behind the canvass in our shed. My exclamation was overheard by old Furry.
“Cruel, wicked man!” he repeated, but in a different tone from mine; “well, I think that even when setting a trap to catch inexperienced rats, man may have something to say for himself. I have often noticed the big creatures at work, and much they labour, and hard they toil, and we can’t expect them to be willing to take so much trouble to collect dainties just to feast us! Those who live on the property of others, like rats, have no right to expect civil treatment!”
“Are there any creatures that lay traps for man?” said I, in the bitterness of my spirit almost hoping that there might be.
“As well as I can understand,” replied Furry, “man himself lays traps for man. I have seen several of these traps. They are large, and generally built of brick, with a board and gilt letters in front. They are baited with a certain drink, which has effects something like opium, which destroys slowly but surely those who give themselves up recklessly to its enjoyment.”
“Well,” cried Oddity, “having once seen what comes of running into a trap, I, for one, shall be always on my guard against them, and am never likely to be caught in that way. I suppose that it is the same with man. When he sees that one or two of his companions are lost by the big man-trap, he takes good care never to go near it himself.”
“Not a whit!” exclaimed Furry, with a scornful whisk of his tail. “They like the bait, though they know its effects quite well. They walk with open eyes into the great man-trap, they hasten merrily into the great man-trap, when the gas-lights are flaring, and the spirits flowing, and the sound of laughter and jesting is heard within! They know that they are going the straight, direct way to be worried by sickness, poverty, and shame, (what these are I never heard clearly explained, but I have gathered that they are great enemies of man, who are always waiting at the door of the great man-trap,) and yet they go gaily to their ruin!”
“So this is your account of the wise creature man!” I exclaimed; “he is a great deal more foolish than any rat!”
CHAPTER III
POORER THAN RATS
We had not our shed always to ourselves. One cold evening in autumn, when there was a sharp east wind, and a drizzling rain, two human creatures came into the place and cowered down in a corner of our shed. I call them human creatures, for they certainly were not men; they were so different from the tall powerful fellows whom I had occasionally seen at their work in the warehouse. These were much smaller, and so thin that their bones seemed almost ready to break through the skin. Their hair hung in long loose masses about their ears. They had nothing on their feet to protect them from the stones, and one of them had a hurt upon his heel, which looked red and inflamed.
I found that these were young human beings, neglected and uncared for, as young rats would not have been. We were at first afraid of them, and only peered out curiously upon them from our holes and hiding-places; but when, gathering courage, we ventured to come forward, we seemed to frighten them as much as they had frightened us.
“Look there – there, Bob!” screamed the younger child, clinging more closely to his brother.
“Them bees rats,” said the other one more quietly. His poor thin little face looked as if the life and spirit had been so starved out of it, that he could not be much astonished at anything.
“I don’t like staying here, Bob, amongst the rats!” cried the terrified little one, attempting to pull his brother towards the entrance by the sleeve of his jacket. The wretched rag gave way even under his weak pull, and another rent was added to the many by which the cold crept in through the poor boy’s tattered dress. “I won’t stay here; let us go, let us go!”
“We’ve no-wheres to go to,” replied Bob, in the same dull, lifeless tone. “Never you mind the rats, Billy, them won’t hurt you,” he added.
Hurt him! not we! If ever I felt pity it was for those ragged little urchins. We were well-fed, but they were hungry; Nature had given us sleek warm coats, but they trembled with cold. It was very clear that it was much harder to them to support life than if they had been rats. I wondered if in this great city there were many such helpless children, and if there were none to care for them!
“I say, Ratto,” observed Oddity, licking his soft coat till the beautiful polish upon it made one almost forget its ugly colour, “’tis a pity that these children are so dirty; but may be they are not so particular about such matters as we rats.”
In time a sort of acquaintance grew up between me and the ragged boys. We ceased to fear each other, and I would venture almost close to Billy’s thin little hand when he had a crust of bread to eat, for he always broke off a little bit for me. The poor little fellow was crippled and lame, so he rarely left the shed. Bob often went out in the morning, and returned when it was growing dark, sometimes with food, and sometimes without it; but whenever he had anything to eat, he always shared it with his little lame brother. I see them now, crouched close up together for the sake of warmth. Sometimes Billy cried from hunger and cold, and his tears made long lines down his grimy face. Bob never cried, he suffered quite quietly; he patted his little brother’s shaggy head, and spoke kindly to him, in his dull, cheerless way. I felt more sorry for him than for Billy.
The little one was the more talkative of the two. Perhaps he was more lively in his nature; or perhaps, from having been a shorter time in a world of sorrow, he had not learned its sad lessons so well. I certainly never heard him laugh but once, and then it was when Oddity, who was more shy than I, ventured for the first time since Billy’s coming to cross the shed.
“Oh! look – look, Bob! what a funny rat! what a beauty rat!” he cried, clapping his bony hands together with childish glee.
It was comical to see the expression on Oddity’s blunt face on hearing this unexpected compliment, perhaps the first that he had ever received in his life. It was enough to have turned the head of a less sober rat; but he, honest fellow, only lifted up his snub nose with a sort of bull-dog look, which seemed to say, “Well, there’s no accounting for taste.”
“Bob,” said little Billy one evening, with more animation than usual, “I’se been a-watching the rats, and I saw – only think what I saw!”
“Eh, what did ye see?” replied Bob, drowsily, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. He looked very hungry and tired.
“I was a-watching for the fat spotted one which ran across yesterday, when out came creeping, creeping, two others” – the child with his fingers on the floor suited his action to his words, – “and one had some white on its back; it looked old and weak; and Bob, I saw as how it was blind.”
“A blind rat!” cried Bob; “’twould soon starve, I take it.”
“But there was the other rat at its side, with such shining eyes, and such a sharp little nose!” I plead guilty to vanity; I could not