Of course I was all curiosity to know every particular of my brother’s deliverance. In his own quiet, homely way, he told me his simple tale, keeping, however, all the time, a watchful eye upon the bundle beside him, while Whiskerandos acted the part of a sentinel to give me timely warning if any human being should approach so near as to endanger our safety. I will tell the story of Oddity as nearly as I can in his own words, I only wish that I could describe the expression of his bluff, honest face, at various parts of his narration.
[ CHAPTER XXII.]
THE FARMER AND HIS BRIDE.
“I was caught one evening in a hay-rick. A swift-footed creature like you, Whiskerandos, might perhaps have escaped, but I was never remarkable for agility or speed. I felt a strong hand grasping me by the back of my neck, and I gave myself up for lost.
“‘Well, here’s an odd creature,—a piebald rat! I take it that’s quite a curiosity!’ cried the farmer who held me in his grasp. I expected that he would dash me against the wall the next moment, and then set his heel upon my poor body!
“‘I wonder whether Mary ever saw the like of it before,’ he continued, examining me with attention; ‘I’ll put it in the empty wire-cage, and try if I cannot tame it for her.’
“Here was a reprieve, and a most unexpected one. No one who has not believed himself to be just on the point of being smashed, can tell how glad I was when I was set loose from the farmer’s terrible gripe, though only to find myself in a cage!
“But soon the longing for liberty came. I attempted to gnaw through the wires, but they resisted my utmost efforts. The farmer watched me, spoke to me, gave me food—treated me like a creature that could feel. That man has a gentle and kindly heart! At length I grew accustomed to my master, and to see him approach my prison with food was the only pleasure of my life. He ventured his finger between the bars, and I never attempted to bite it. He released me at last from my cage, and gave me a far warmer, snugger home—in the pocket of his own great-coat!”
At this point in the story Whiskerandos and I uttered expressions of amazement.
“Wherever he went,” continued Oddity, “I went too. He taught me many things altogether new to a rat. It is our nature to take what we can get,—he taught me to see food and not to touch it! He never suffered me to feel hungry: he conversed with me as though I were a little companion, and never one blow did I receive from his hand, or one kick from his heel! It was not in the nature of a quadruped to be insensible to kindness like this!”
“And yet you owed it all to your piebald coat!” exclaimed I. “Never was beauty such an advantage to a four-footed beast as ugliness has been to you!”