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!"
"I found," pursued Oddity very quietly, "that Will Grange, my master,
was going to London, to be married to the young woman whom he had spoken
of as Mary. We travelled to the city together, I snugly sleeping, coiled
up in his pocket."
"And were you given to the lady?" said Whiskerandos.
"I was placed before her on a table, in a quiet little back-parlour, in
which she and my master sat together. She admired my appearance."
"No, no!" interrupted I, "that's impossible, I can believe anything but
that!"
"Well, then, she wished to gratify my master by appearing to do so. She
praised me, and fed me from her hand, and said that such a rat she never
had seen in her life. Then I crept under my master's chair, and there
very quietly remained, while he and his Mary talked over future plans
together.
"He told her of the various things that he had bought to make his home
more comfortable for his wife. How he had planted the garden himself
with all her favourite flowers, and twined honeysuckle over his porch.
Then he took her hand within his own, and in a lower and softer voice
asked her if she were happy.
"'Very happy,' she replied, looking on the ground, while her cheek grew
like a cloud at sunrise; 'only I cannot help feeling sorry,' --her voice
trembled a little as she spoke,-- 'sorry to leave father, and home, and
the dear children in the ragged school whom I have taught so long!'
I fancy," continued my brother, "that something like a dewdrop
glistened on her lashes.
"'Well, Mary,' said the farmer heartily, 'father will come and see us;
and as for your old home, why, you get a new one in exchange, and fair
exchange is no robbery, you know. Then for your ragged children, why,
I'm wanting an active, steady boy on my farm, and though I've no great
fancy for your pale-faced Londoners, yet if you know any really good
one, we'll take him down with us into Kent.'
"You should have seen how much pleased the young teacher looked! She
knew one, she said, a poor motherless boy,-- she would be so glad to
give him a helping hand. He was one of the best boys in the school,--
she would trust him in a room full of gold!
"So it was agreed between them that she should speak to the lad, and
tell him to call in the evening.
"In the evening he accordingly came. I had again taken my place under
the farmer's chair, and was just falling into a doze, when I was
roused by a gentle knock at the door. Mary's cheerful 'Come in!' was
followed by the entrance of,-- whom do you think?"
"Bob and Billy!" I exclaimed at a venture.
"Yes, Bob and Billy!" repeated Oddity, with a look of great glee; "I had
never thought to have seen them again! And they were so changed,
I should scarcely have known them. Bob, in particular, looked so much
taller, and stronger, and oh! so much happier than he had done last
year! He was no more the wretched, joyless, hopeless creature, cowering
in rags, one that even rats might look on with pity; he had a bright,
fearless eye, and hopeful smile; and if ever a face expressed gratitude
and affection, it was his when he looked on his gentle young teacher!
"'I beg pardon for bringing Billy,' said he, modestly but frankly,
'I was afraid to let him go home quite alone.'
"The farmer spoke in his kindly manner to the boy. He offered him a
place on his farm, and Bob's eyes sparkled, and his cheek flushed with
pleasure. It was but for a minute; the brightness and the glow faded
away as he glanced down at his little lame brother. I saw that Billy was
squeezing his hand,-- that squeeze served all the purpose of words.
"'Thank 'ee, sir,' said the boy, glancing first at the farmer, then at
his teacher, 'but I think as how-- I should rather-- leastways I had
better stay and earn my bread here in Lunnon.'
"'And how do you earn it?' inquired the farmer.
"'Please, sir, I clean boots,'* answered the boy; 'I am one of the
yellow brigade.'
"There was such a look of cheerful independence on the little fellow's
face, that no one could have glanced at him and doubted that his bread
was honestly earned.
"'And would you rather stay here and rub in blacking,' said the farmer,
'than be out in the open fields? Yours is an odd taste, I take it! Would
you not rather come with us?'
"'Oh, sir!' said Bob, uneasily, shifting from one foot to the other,
while Billy was squeezing his hand harder than ever, and looking half
ready to cry, as he pressed closer to his side; 'you see I could not
leave him behind,-- poor lame Billy, he's no one to care for him
but me.'
"'That's it, is it!' cried the farmer, clapping his knee. 'Well, Mary,
what say you? could we take the two with us do you think? If they've
always been together, poor fellows, 'twould be a pity to part them now!'
"Bob's only answer was a look of pleasure and gratitude, but little
Billy almost burst into tears of delight as he exclaimed, 'Oh, yes!
please, sir, take me too!-- take me too! I'll do anything,-- I'll
work,-- I'll make baskets for your fruit.'
"'And coops for my poultry, hey? We'll find some way of making you
useful.' And he turned to Mary with that smile which I think that all
human beings wear when they are doing some act of kindness.
"I was so much pleased," continued Oddity, "at this conclusion to the
affair, that I ran out from my place beneath the chair. Billy uttered a
cry of surprise:
"'There-- look! if that an't my own pretty spotted rat!'"
Here I rather rudely interrupted my piebald brother. "Pretty! did he
call you pretty? well, well, I shall be obliged to think you so myself,
I suppose. Spared by a man, petted by a woman, admired by a child,-- and
all for your beauty,-- Oddity's beauty!" I could not help laughing
outright at the thought.
"My ugliness has at least done me no harm," he replied, with a meekness
which made me more ashamed of my rudeness than if he had fired up at my
ridicule.
"And so you live all together here?" said Whiskerandos; "this farmer,
his wife, the two boys, and you?"
"Yes, and we are as happy as the day is long."
"Humph!" said Whiskerandos; "I should prefer my wild freedom; but it is
different, I suppose, with man. And as for you, Oddity, you were never
like other rats; you were always intended for a watch-dog. And you
really guard that can and parcel for hours, and resist the temptation to
nibble?"
"I am trusted," was the simple reply.
"Now, Oddity," said I, "I should much like to see you in your new home,
surrounded by all your human companions."
"Yonder is my master's house," answered Oddity, pointing across the
field with his nose. "You have but to clamber up to the window in the
evening, and peep through the clustering roses, and you will see us all
there together."
"I'll have a peep," said Whiskerandos, "and then off to old London
again!"
"You must take nothing from my master's house," cried Oddity.
"Not a potato paring!" laughed our valiant companion.
"And now I would advise you to be off," said my brother; "here's my
master coming for his dinner."
Away we scampered at full speed, my light-footed comrade and I; for well
we knew what was certain to be our fate if caught even by the
kind-hearted farmer. We were only rats after all.
[* In the course of a single year no less than _two thousand nine
hundred and eighty-one pounds_ were honestly earned in this manner
by 132 boys connected with ragged schools!]