THE RAT

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 429, 4 August 1904, Page 3

THE RAT

SHORT BTOKL

I? ia milking-time lit Hajliag'g F-na Ib the warm, quiet, euedj atmosphere job caa hear distinctly the tinkling of the milk as it falls into the paila. and tne clink of the buckets ca the milkers every now and then get up and go to a fresh cow. The warm afternoon sun ia shining in at the cowhouse door, and the cows are standing peacefully flicking their tails, to keep off the intrusive flies that come in and settle on them. Every now and then the cart-horses move in the stable, rattling their headpieces as they pull the hay out of the racks above their heads. Up by the farmhouse the two sheepdogs that are cba'ned across the path to keep away tramps are lying flat on its ennwarmed stones. On the roof of the granary, pigeons of every colour are bowing and strutting—blue rocks the colour of the bloom on a plum: white fantails arching their necks and spreading their tails t red ones with the shifting colours on their necks turning from green to purple, from purple to blue, with every turn of their hesda in the sun. They All the air with their low monotonous cooing —n peaceful sound of a hot summer’s afternoon. As they all fly down past the kitchen window, presently the sun on the fantails’ white feathers ia so dazzling that they flash a bright reflection into the room } they settle on the path, and begin peck about." By-ind-by a cart drawn by a bony old white borse comes rattling down the lane and (tops at the farm-gate, and a man gets ent and enters the farmyards The old horse immediately goes off to the hedge and begins to munch the long grass in it. Inside the cart is a disreputablelooking terrier, with one eye closed up from a swelling over it where a rat has caught him. He sits up in the cart with his head rather on one side, and one ragged ear cocked, listening to the barking of the two sheepdogs, that had woke np from their slnmbers directly tte cut stopped, and are now dancing ronnd on the ends of their chains, barking furiously at the man as he comes through the farmyard and np the little path. He pauses when he reaches them; then, seeing that they cannot get quite across the path, slips past them, and goes np to the door. The pigeons fly np with a brilliant flash of colours as he does so. He is a thin, middle-sized man, with pale red hair, and light eyelashes, under which his eyes, that ace much the darkest thing about him, have a canons, shifty, humorous expression He is clad in ragged whitybrown clothes, that give him the appearance of : a' very untidily-tied-up brown paper parcel. He taps gently with his knuckles on the door—a tap that ia as furtive as bis face—then loros round and looks down the path and at the two long narrow borders on either side of it, in which lilies, cabbage-roses, bachelor’s buttonholes, lavender, lad’s love, and white pinks, are mingling their gay colours and filling the air with fragrance. Then he shuffles with his fe-t, aad mp-H-m faces at the two dogs, that are sill! straining at their chains and barking, making them more furious than ever. No notice being taken of his tap, he knocks again, this time a little loader ; then, as still no one comes, he goes and looks under the flapping butter-cloth that hangs over the dairy window to keep out the sun and dust.

-The dairy looks deliriously cool this hot afternoon with ita fresh whitewashed walla and damp Btoae floor, over which buckets of icy.cold water from the deep weir-ontride are thrown constantly, to keep the air cool. In one corner stands a quantity of cream jars of all shapes aHd sizes, some of pale rough red pottery, others of rich shiny red brows with yellow linings. On the shelf of deal, white with constant scrubbing, that runs round the dairy, stand great primrose- coloured milkpans, filled with milk; and one shelf is covered with pota of fresh deep yellow butter ready for to-morrow's market. The very sight of such a dairy carries one's thoughts away to a low-lying meadows, where the cows are standing knee-deep in the long grasses, on which the white clouds throw swift shadowß as they pass, and every breese that blows by takes away with it a wcra N milky fragrance; where the swallows are" flying low, and the only sounds are the lows' deep sighs of contentment and quick* oroppiag of the sweet dewy pasture. IJbe sight of the yellow butter in conjunction with a smell of hot cake that is jnuing from the kilchen apparently, from the expression of hiß face, suggests to Babe the ratcatcher that he is very hungry, and he drops the corner of the butter-cloth and turns away again. Then he goes and lookß through the lattice window into the kitchen. The stone floor has evidently just been freshly whitened and the hearth swept; the kettle is boiling away briskly ; but the room is unoccupied, save for a great cat that is sitting blinking dreamily at the red coals. . .

Going back to the door, Bube begins to knock on it in good earnest; when it is pulkft open froa the inside and the mistrees of the farm confronts him. 'Gracious! Bube, have you never been kept waiting befora a moment, that you put yourself into su3h a flying state. I declare you made noise enough to wake the dead!' Bube looks at her with a sly twinkle under bis nickering eyelashes, ' I kicked and I knocked,' he says, touching his hat aed bobbing at every other word, ' and I get quite anxious. I did say I thought sammat must hae bin the matter with yon, and I was just agwine to call outf - 'None of your nonsense, Babe; you knocked three times, for I heard you.' . Bube only grins imperturbably. * Well, what do you want ?' -' I yeaid as ycu've a tei'ble lot o* ratees about, and I come to see if you'd like vur • me to come over with my doags and fer'ta one day.' 'Well,they are a nuisance. They rob my hens' nests and carry off my young chickens. J don't know but that 'twould be as well fox you to come. 11l think about it, and let you know/ _' Better make up your mind at once, ma'am,' said Bube persuasively. 'l'vea rare handy tarxier; I'll warnt he will polish them off. I've bin up along to Farmer Abel's all the afternoon, and he killed three dozen in a hour.' 'Now, don't you try to gammon me, Babe} I've known your yarns too long.' Bube passes this by as though he does not heir. ' It be ter'ble dry work, rattin' be,' he says reflectively, looking past Mrs Willi, and fixing his eyes on the key of the beer, which hangs on a hook on the dresser. 'Ah!' says Mrs Hills pointedly, 'you finds it so, if all the tales one hears be true.' 'Don't you believe all the tales you * - year*, ma'am/ replies Bube, unabashed. m * Zome volks be that primed with spiteful W~ tales about their neighbours, as they'd bast if they didn't let some of 'em out.' At this moment, Joseph, the milkman, . comes sp the little path with a backet of warm foaming milk in each hand. He is a • tall old man, with a long shrewd weather-beaten face. He looks sharply at Babe as he passes into the dairy, where he begins pouring the milk into the pans, - keeping his ears well open to the conversation outside, Mrs Hills is lost fixing a

fingers on his lips. Babe, outside, is vainly endeavouring to catch what ia being said; there ia something the same expression on his face as that of the cock-eared terrier in the cart. •Babel Now I think of it/ says Mrs Hills, coming out to the door again, '1 can't have you, after all; your dogs would make such a route with the fowls; and I never could bear ferrets—Basty crawly things. Ton might let one of them go, and I should never be able to sleep abed again.'

Bube made a pretty Ehrewd guess as to Joseph's share in this sudden dislike to ferrets; but he took it very coolly; he touched his hat to Mrs Hills; gave JoEeph, who had come out again with his clinking pails, a calm wink, and walked off.

•What did you mean, JosephP* asked Mrs Hills, watching him. 1 Why, it he like thiß yere T'other day he went over to Farmer Hollis's rattin', and he zhuta hisself into the barn wi' all hisdoaga and fer'ts, 'Wait a bit,'ziys he; 'and I'll zoon get 'em out,' zays he; and he z'aufcs to the barndoors. Well, arter a minute or two, Master Hollis years a gurt noise gwin' on inzide, him a hollerin' • Hilioo 1 Hilloo I' like mad; and he goes and looks through the air-hole into the barn, and then he zeeß the whule chap a-puUin' the ratsses out a' his pockets and growin' 'em down and ehoutin' out • Hilloo! Hilloo! Hilloo 1* like as though they was comin' out o' the walls, aad he wa3 a-zattin' the doaga at 'em !* In the meantime Babe had gone out through the farm-gate into the :yad again, where he found the old horse had eaten a great patch clear in the hedge, After he had turned the horse round, he got into the cart and rattled up the lana again, Aa he drove along, the rackety old cart swaying from side to Bide, and the old horse stepping out with such high action that hia knees were nearly as high as his long B?man nose, every one he met had a nod or a word for him. ' Well, Bube, how be the world agwine with you P' called one man as he passed. ' Oh! shall stoh hae enough so retire on the Continong!' replied Bube airily. Bube the ratcatcher had begun life ss a d&otcr'd coachman; but hia career in that capacity had been soon cut short through aid incorrigible jaaiuaad. After chat, Jas took to doing odd work; tlien La married a widow from ttu workhouse with six children—• to better hiEself,' he said—on which occasion he had had come out gorgeously attired in a blue coat with brass bnttons, and light gray trousers, that he had borrowed from a young farmer for whom he worked, as he wished to •look like a gentleman for once in his life.' The marriage turned out a very happy' one; and they managed to keep their heads above water somehow, she by taking in washing; and he by ratting, clipping horses, driving pigs, and hiring out the old horse, which he supported by begging a little hay or straw here and there at the farms round, cutting grass from the hedges, or tearing it out on pieces of waste ground, while he sat in the hedge, generally accompanied by half a dozen children, smoking hia pipe, and keeping guard over it—an occupation that just suited him. Each season in turn gives something, for he knows the sunny copse, or sheltered bank of the silently stealing watercourse, where the first primroses come oat; and later, when they are plentiful, where to sear oh among the nettles and moist dead leaves of last year for the dewy white violets and their pale blue Bisters. Again when every country lad has a bunch of them in his cap, he leaves them to gather the slenderstemmed cowslips and the bluebells. He knows, too, the tangled copse where the first marsh marigolds blow, glowing like cups of purest gold above the peaty waters of the brook, aa it glides slowly along under the brambles. And now his flower harvest is nearly over, for everywhere there is a faint scent of flowers opening. The amber-cinctured bees are busy the livelong day; the milk-white ouckoo flowers are blushing up to greet their namesake; the spotted-leaved orchis flower Btands tall amongst the grasß; the buttercups are so thick that the meadows look shot with gold; and the dwellers in the little market-town where Bube sells his flowers can fill their hands as full as they list in the course of a country evening strolL

By-and-by come the mushrooms, and Bube wanders for miles over the downs searching for them carefully, avoiding the 'fairy rings' as he does so, for he is deeply superstitious, and fancies that any one who steps into a fiiry ring passes under the influence of the fairies. There is a spot on a particularly lonely and bleak part of these downs around which is Borne dark Btory. It is very far back, and nobody knows exaotly what it is; but there are vague tales of Bights seen there and sounds heard' The Deadman'a Bidge it is always called; for it is a mound rising suddenly, covered at the top with a great patch of weeds. The country-folks associate these weeds with the story; for *lf you burias, a pig cr a hoss in a vield, doan't nettier <nd weeds come as thick as can be; and'-<io 'twould be wi' a man,' they say.

The foot of man is hardly ever heard there, for the Bhepherds shun it, and not even a poacher will come, for it is lonely enoughby day; and it rauat be dreadfully so by night, when the moon is silvering the downs, and the wind-blown trees and tall weeds are throwing wavering, myssterious shadows. Only the bat flits over it, or the owl glides by, showing dimly through the gloom; or, by day, the swallow skims past; or a sheep, straying from the flock, Btops to nibble for a moment at the long rank herbage, then goes bleating off again. And in winter "when the wind is driving up icy from the snow-fields it has blown over, sweeping the desolate downlands, and sending a shower of snowflakes in front of it, or whirling up a few dead leaves, its loneliness will remain unbroken for days at a time, save when sometimes a seagull will float by, coming inland from where the eea heaves dark and sullen.

about this spot Babe has one of his favourite stories. ' I was gwine athart the Deadman's Bidge, a-musherrooming, one d&y, when Izeed a gurt white hoss come gallopiu' along the down wi' fire hlowin" out vrom 'is nose and's hoofs like as though they'd j ast a coma off o' John Saunders' anvil, and switching like as though he'd a got summut ter'ble the matter with uu. And when I zeed un, I Tell on my face is vlat as a Chale Bay

J mackerel? and when I get* op again, 4fcere warn't notbin* to be seas, only the graßs looked aorfc o! singed like.' On wintry nights, when Babe tells this tale, leaning oat of the dark chimney corner of tho 'Golden Lion,' the firelight lighting up hia curiouß white face, and the pupils of hie eyeß dilating like a oat's, i tbere ia always a ecroop of chairs moving on the atone floor, aa every one hitches his t» little nearer, with an uncomfortable remembrance of the long lonely walk (home he will have under the gloom of great elm trees, past bleak waste grounds, or ghostly cross-roads. And when a move is begun, there ia always a good many enaarks, such as 'Be you a-comin' with ib,- BillP' or, 'lined just so well come i' you, Harry j* and no one has ever een kno.?n to accept Babe's challenge of, Wull, now, I'll be bothered if I wun't go p over now and zee if I can't aee nothin', If any one o'you wull come wi' rae'— with which he alwaya ends his story, whereby he has earned a cheap character for intrepidity,- There are one or' two sceptic?, however, who profess not to bslieve a word of the whole story, averring that they believe that all Bube saw was Farmer Book's old white horse, and that he got the whole thisg up on purpose to scare people from going to get mushrooms there; which I think myself is quite wif fain the bounds of probability. When the blue haze of autumn lies over the distance, and the sun, that has lost its summer heat and brilliancy, steeps everything in a mellow lights he saunters along By the hedges, a big basket on his arm, blackberrying. Every now and then he will put one in his mouth, closing one eye as he does so-with the air of a connoisseur tasting a glass of raro wine. Amongst hia many failings; Bube pos--1 eesses the rare virtue of a contented spirit. Wherever you meet him, whether sauntering over the downs on a balmy evening, or ratting in a bleak field, with a bitter wind driving a cold sheet of rain in his face; whether paddling with bare fa9t up the stream for cresses on a raw autumn day, or lying dozing in a hedge in the warm summer Bun—his face always wears the same expression of happy-gc-lucky contentment. 'lt bain't money nor good vittais as makes folks happy,' Bube often observes j ' vur I've a zeen amany as hae got all, they lookin' as zure as a dead mouse in a sink-hole i it be the right way ©' lookin' at things. Now, I don't believe as there be anythia' in the world as I Rants myself, except'—very insinuatingly —' as you'd hae a bottle of *my embrocation 1' For Bube 1b an inventor in his way. Besides the embrocation, he has invented a rat-trap that will never work, and a mole-trap that is equally unsuccessful, though he himself will volubly assure you that 'nothin' ever worked pertier than they does;' and not long ago he appeared at Hayling's Farm with an account of a wonderful rat poison that he had invented, "lis the most wunderful ever you zee, ma'am! I'll warnt it is! Only vive ehillen the bottle 1 And wall kill every rat in the place; and no cat nor dog wun't touch it, nor no fowls; but the raises will eat it up zo greody; ana it kills 'em off afore they can ziy Hullo! You zay the word, ma'atn, and I'll bring 1 jon rrp zorae, only vha shiiiea tha bottle!'' «Veey well, Bubs; you biing a bottle, and put it down; and as soon as I see the rata dead, I'll pay you.' ■Ah! But wun't zee 'em; they'll bae crawled away to their holses.' * But you say they die so quick; and if nothing else won't eat it, you can put it down in the middle of the rickust, or anywhere else away from their holes.' A slight change came over Bube'a face. ' Vurry well, ma'am, I'll bring un,' he replied cheerfully; but though he has been to the farm on fifty different errands since, he has never yet brought that bottle of rat poison