And they all came into the Ark.
For to get out of the rain.
——
Rats! Hamlin Town (with Bishop Hatto thrown in) cannot offer a comparison with our sufferings from these pestilent vermin.
During the day time they contented themselves with playing in twos and threes about the house, getting in the way of our feet, and generally making themselves a nuisance. But at night when we had retired to rest, they came in their hundreds, from their homes beneath the house, and to use an expressive Americanism "simply bought the place."
I am not naturally a "Mrs. Gummidge," but in this instance I am certain I suffered more than any others in Remyo. Why the rats should have preferred my room I know not, but undoubtedly they did. They gave balls every night on my dressing table, and organised athletic sports, chiefly hurdle races, on the floor. They had glorious supper parties on my trunks, leaving the whole place scattered with half-eaten walnuts, bits of biscuit, and morsels of cheese. They had concerts and debating societies in the still hours of the night, brawls and squabbles at all times; and true to tradition, made nests inside my Sunday hats, helping themselves to such of my finery as took their fancy.
As I have said, they came in their hundreds, and I was powerless against them. In vain did I sit up in bed and "shoo" and clap my hands, they would pause for an instant, as the revellers in Brussels paused when they heard the cannon of Quatre Bras, then: "On with the dance let joy be unconfined, no sleep till morn when rats and walnuts meet," and the noise would become more deafening than ever. I think they grew to enjoy my "shooings;" "the more noise the merrier" was evidently their motto; but one night when I dozed off after making myself particularly disagreeable, a large rat sprang upon my pillow, tore aside the mosquito curtains, and hit me violently with its tail. They are revengeful creatures.
And what appetites they had? Poison they scoffed at, but ate everything else that was not soldered up in tin boxes, (from our Christmas pudding, to the Baby's pelisses, and my best gloves). Their most criminal act of depredation, was in regard to my brother's pipe. It was a beautifully grained pipe which I took out from England for a Christmas present. On Christmas Eve the rats penetrated into the drawer where I kept it, tore away the wrappings, and set to work. In the morning nothing was left but the stem, the perforated and jagged remains of the bowl, and a little heap of chawed bits of wood. My brother was very angry when I broke the news to him, but it wasn't my fault, they were his rats; he ought to have had them under better control.
We got a dog, but he was useless. He was a pariah puppy, of respectable parents; a cheery, popular fellow, who had so many evening engagements among his friends in the village, that he could scarcely ever spare a night at home; and during the day time he mostly slept. My sister and I both disliked him, she because he would worry the Baby's legs, I because he developed such an unbounded devotion to my shoes.