The life story of a squirrel

by T. C. Bridges

In the woods we squirrels seldom trouble about rats. In some of the old banks and hedgerows there are hundreds of them, but they don’t interfere with us as they do with the earth-livers and with the birds that nest on the ground. They cannot harm us tree-dwellers. But we do not trust them, any more than do the rest of the woodland folk. Cruel, cunning and treacherous, the grey Hanoverian rat is the most detested and despised of all the animals, and the vile odour of his unclean body at once drives away all other creatures from his neighbourhood. For myself, I have and always had a perfect horror of rats. Mother once told us a ghastly story of how one of our people, accidentally caught in a steel trap, was literally eaten alive by rats. And here I was, in an almost equally helpless case, at the mercy of a score of the carrion brutes.

If there had been only one of them, I should not have been afraid. A solitary rat is always a coward, but in packs they are as fierce as weasels. For a long time they watched me without moving. The musty carrion odour grew worse and worse. Presently there was more rustling, and I saw the heads pushed out farther and farther from the dark recesses in the sides of the well. Then they began to squeak. They were talking, asking one another if it was safe to attack me. Suddenly one great brute, as big again as I, dropped from his hole almost on top of me. Fright gave me strength to make a last bid for life. I made another wild dash at the side of my prison, and instantly the rats all vanished. This time I was lucky enough to find a piece of wall rough enough to give me foothold, and though my claws slipped again and again, yet each time I managed somehow to save myself, and at last reached a deep, square niche in the wall where a number of bricks seemed to have fallen out. Here there was room to sit, and I had sense enough to stay where I was and rest before trying anything else.

My rush had only frightened the rats for the moment. Very soon the rustling and squeaking began again, and louder than before. The heads reappeared, and as each came out the keen nose was turned upwards and the beady eyes fixed upon me again. Two or three sprang down into the bottom of the well and began snuffing about. I saw several little ones appear. All the rats were very quiet and leisurely in their movements. Evidently they felt perfectly certain that I could not escape. I could see them licking their greasy lips in anticipation of their meal.

Certainly I was better off in one way. I had climbed so high that now I was above their ring of holes. But above me the brickwork was less decayed. There was no foothold at all. Plainly I could not possibly climb any higher. Even if the rats did not come after me where I was, it was only a matter of time before I was starved out and dropped down amongst them.

A long time passed, and though the rats still moved about at the bottom of the well, none came near me. I saw the sunlight begin to pierce through the shrubs above, and patches of light shone on the rusty iron railings which surrounded the top of the old well, and even gleamed on the green moss which coated its sides. But none reached me where I crouched, shivering in the cold and damp.

A dog barked somewhere up above, and then at last I heard human footsteps pass across the crackling leaves close to the well mouth. They were Harry’s. I shivered all over with excitement, and gave the little bark which was my call to Jack; but evidently he did not hear me, and the steps passed on, and all was quiet again. Even the rats had stopped squeaking, and most of them had gone back to their holes. Only the old buck who had jumped down at first was sitting in front of his hole below and opposite me, seemingly half asleep, but really keeping a watchful eye upon me.

The sunlight slowly faded, and the shadow of the stable fell across the mouth of the well. Night was coming—night, when the rats would surely attack me. I was desperately hungry, though I do not think that just then I could have eaten the finest nut in the coppice. At last the first star twinkled overhead. For some time the rats had been moving again. I could hear them, though I could not see them. The bustle increased with the darkness, and there was more squeaking.

Presently I heard something climbing towards me. It was the father rat. Of that I was certain, though I could not see him. He came up slowly but steadily, and I shook all over with fresh panic.

All day I had sat quite still in my nook, staring upwards in the hope of seeing Jack’s head up above. I had not even once taken a look round my place of refuge. Now, as my enemy came stealthily nearer I backed into the recess. The hole ran in further than I had supposed, and I went in twice my own length before touching the brickwork.

Suddenly there was a slight snuffing sound. The rat was over the edge, and right upon me. What happened next I hardly know. I made a blind, panic-stricken rush, and found myself wedged between two bricks. The rat’s jaws closed upon my brush. I struggled madly, and suddenly I was free and scuttling away down a sort of tunnel. Away I went, bumping against the top and sides, but still finding room to run.