II
So much for the birds and squirrels, those altogether shy denizens given to quick abdication. But the mice, being, I suppose, of a somewhat more reasoning and philosophical order, more given to treaty and capitulation, remained, after I know not what cautious considerations and watchful consultations among themselves. That these must have been sufficiently serious, I am convinced, for we heard at first very little indeed of their doings; as if they intended to wait and study this phenomenon of our usurpation before taking any risk with powers so unlikely and unknown.
But as time passed, their attitude toward the heavens and their horoscope must have altered. Doubtless there was some hope that matters were not so bad as the old and experienced among them had prophesied. Appropriately quiet in the day, in the night they began to dare, and to recover what was, I suppose, some of their erstwhile freedom, or old-time happiness. They began cautiously to come and go; to advance creepingly; to explore; to inquire and pry; to examine and study; and I think, no doubt, to report.
The usurpers, it seems, had a strange way of lying quiet at night (of all times!), and pursuing their busy activities in the day, when all good mouse citizens were in bed and asleep! Well, so far so good. Perhaps the mice set this down to a special providence. However that may be, it is certain that they acted on the intelligence; for at night, having now become well informed as to our habits, they began to come and go, if still a little cautiously, yet with more and more freedom.
I used to lie awake listening to them. One would scurry across the floor wildly overhead, forget something, and run back for it. Another, carrying a burden, would in fright or haste drop it, scamper away as if terrified (oh, good gracious!) and then would dare to go back for it, and roll it away soundingly into safety. I am inclined to think that a certain pleasure was attendant on these dangers, and that among them, as among ourselves, the brave were the gay; for there were among them now—oh, bead-eyed, venturesome spirits!—certain delicate squeakings that had all the effect of laughter. I could have sworn their feet tittered; there was—I do assure you I am speaking the truth—something giggling in their gait.
They were not, I am sure, without their Colchases and Cassandras; but, despite these, they began ere long to have certain celebrations. Go to! Let old White-Whiskers, who foretold calamity, take himself off and lie with his nose on his paws! There are better things in the world than prudence!
Celebrations there certainly were, though of what exact kind I am unable to state; weddings, very likely; town meetings, it may be, with the ladies present and welcome; picnics, in all probability; and christenings, I lean to believe, at which I make little doubt they drank deliriously of dandelion wine. One must not demand too curiously where they got it. I really have no idea. I keep my own well corked. I only know that circumstantial evidence is strongly in favor of the belief that they had it, and that in large quantities. How else is it conceivable they could so far forget our presence and their own risk? For I heard them coming home late one night between the rafters, shortly before dawn, in an openly riotous manner. Prudence they had flung to the winds. Their behavior was wholly ramshackle and reckless. Such squeakings! such tumblings and titterings and scramblings as could only have occurred among those totally oblivious to all danger! Such a drunken dropping of acorns and other picnic viands! with little shrieks from the ladies! Too evidently they had determined to eat and drink and be merry, let come what would.
I could not help laughing myself with them, yet I sobered, too, at such recklessness on their part. This was no mere indiscretion; it was sheer folly.
I have no way of knowing whether any Daniel rose to warn them. If so, he was not heeded. The feast went on uninterrupted. Or, it is possible, too, they had not the requisite education or conscience to enable them to read the moonlight on the rafter wall for writing of an ominous character.
When I wakened in the morning, not a sound or evidence. Like Bottom, it seemed to me that I had had a most rare vision, for daylight had laid a hushing and dispersing hand on them also. Then, suddenly, I knew it all for reality. Not a beady eye among them, of course, that was not closed now; in the daytime twilight of old rafters, all of them, without doubt, slept, dandelion deep, their noses and their whiskers on their tails.
Meanwhile, time and events went forward. Miss Layng, a North-of-Ireland woman who kept house for us, while I attended to the work required of me in my study, appeared before me with a white and sleepless face.
Miss Layng had ominous colored hair, which she heaped each morning in an exact manner above a face in which delicate health, gentleness, and unalterable determination were composite. She stood before me now, like an allegorical figure of Justice, or Commerce, or Law, bearing in one outheld hand a magenta "Dutchman's head" cheese.
"You heard them?"
She spoke with quiet severity.
I looked inquiring, innocent.
She disregarded this, as a person too much above a lie herself to recognize one.
"I think we shall need six traps, at least. Cook says she will not stay unless they go. She says one ran across her face last night!"
(Oh, the riotousness of them! More than I had suspected!)
At this moment the cook herself appeared, far less allegorical, comfortingly real, a lemon-squeezer in one hand.
"Oh, mum, I can't be saying exactly whether it did or not. Maybe it did, belike it didn't. But they do get me that nervous with what they might do!"
"You can see from this," antiphonied Miss Layng, solemnly.
She turned the Holland cheese toward me. In its side was eaten what could only be called a cavern. She stood there exhibiting it, eloquent, without need of words.
Meanwhile, my own mental processes were busy, delightedly. Of course! of course! Here was a revelation and an accounting! It was this, undoubtedly, that had been the occasion of so much merriment and wild celebration. And how altogether natural! For days they had been fearful, and oppressed with dark anxiety. What harm might not such a race as ourselves bring them! Other powers had fled before us. They had remained! But who dared tell the outcome? Dark prophecies! Sombre forebodings! Unthinkable possibilities! And then,—then,—when the dark-minded and old among them pointed out optimism as the sheerest folly,—then came this proof of unlooked-for benevolence! Age and pessimism received their due. Caution and timorousness were flung to the winds. Old wives and grandfathers were flouted, and their cautiousness set down to sheer envy and crabbedness. The day and the victory were in the hands of the young, the optimistic, the full of faith! Come, ladies; come gentlemen! Pay no heed to these pessimistic aged people. Preserve your faith in life! Here is good warrant! Quick! uncork the bottles! Bring the baskets along! This is a day for feasting, for feasting! Look upon this magenta miracle of benevolence, and be convinced. Life is kind!
Where is a man with heart and imagination so dead who would not understand, by the light of all this, why the night had seen such celebration? How well understood, now, was the daring of the gentlemen, the almost hysterical gayety of the ladies!
Meanwhile Miss Layng waited.
"I thought I would get six traps, but wished to speak of it first, otherwise you might wonder to see so many on the bill at the end of the month."
In this cryptic yet crystalline fashion the problem of their fate was presented to me. There was put before me a choice, a clear choice, between the proper maintaining of an honorable household, the retaining of a housekeeper and a cook with all that this implied as to my own comfort, and—a whole community of I know not how many fathers, mothers, children, step-children, brothers, half-brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins, first cousins once removed, prophets, sibyls, lawgivers.
Need I say which I felt constrained to choose?
Six were caught the first night.