CHAPTER III.

      GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RATS,—THEIR DISEASES, FEROCIOUS CANNIBALISM, NATURAL AFFECTION, &C.

      I CANNOT ascertain any disease rats are subject to, except the one we have so much cause to complain of, namely, consumption of food; and for all I have seen, they have, without an exception, been fine fat fellows, with nothing in the shape of disease about them; yet, if kept in close confinement and dirty, then, like every other animal under similar circumstances, they are subject to a kind of surfeit or mange; but in a state of freedom I believe they are subject to no natural malady. Nevertheless they are the finest and most effectual physicians in the world; for should any of their fraternity be mopish and dull from pain or sickness, arising out of accident, old age, or what not, they cure all their maladies at once by eating them up. At the same time they are the most peaceable of all republics, for should any internal quarrels and fights arise, they all gather round the combatants, and no matter who wins or loses, or what the cause of contention, they put an end to the feud by tearing them in pieces, and transporting the pair of them down their throats; and thus is peace most speedily and effectually restored.

      This, then, may account for the healthy appearance of rats, since they instantly and so effectually dispose of their sick and ailing; and it may be no stretch of the imagination to infer that few die a natural death; but where such is the case, they will leave all other food to dispose of their dead. Hence has arisen the proverb I have heard, that in barns and ricks dead rats are almost as rare as dead donkeys; though, at the same time, there are instances on record of their filial and parental affection, and attachments as strong as is to be found among animals of any other class, not omitting even the human family; but should we at any time see a dead rat lying about, we may be almost certain that it has been very recently killed by some animal, trap, accident, or poison; but if left where it lies, the morrow’s sun will seldom or never shine upon it.

      The most determined instance of cannibalism among rats I ever witnessed took place about thirty years ago, at Ware-side, where I was at school. The Principal was a real old English schoolmaster, and the very antipodes of your modern pedagogues. He had no idea of storing our heads at the expense of our healths, or sending us home at Midsummer and Christmas a race of upstart, pigmy, juvenile men. His principle was to well fill our stomachs with the solids of life, and then, if any vacancy remained, to eke out with reading, writing, and arithmetic; but the latter only went as far as the rule of three—he cared nothing for anything beyond that, as it formed the boundary of his arithmetical knowledge; and since it had served his every purpose up to a good old age, why, of course, it was sufficient for any one else, and who dared dispute with a British schoolmaster in those days? His terms were tolerably reasonable, and to supply his establishment as economically as possible, he kept a farm, whereon he used to raise nearly everything for the school’s consumption, as well as supply the market on Saturdays.

      The cows were wont to be brought from the farm to be milked in a cowhouse adjoining the play-ground; and against which, on the opposite side, stood a large faggot-stack. Now, it was Milly the housemaid’s business to milk these said cows. Milly was a pretty, laughing, dark-eyed, kind-hearted, curly-headed creature—one for whom nature had done much, but education nothing; yet, nevertheless, her cheerful, single-hearted, innocent hilarity would rivet the affections even of the most serious. Suffice it to say, that with Milly I was an especial favourite; consequently I used to come in for many little attentions and favours; such, for instance, as having a good fill of new milk sucked through a straw when master was out.

      One afternoon, when on one of these succulent expeditions, I experienced two awful frights; for scarcely had I secreted myself in the cowhouse when I heard the master’s footsteps advancing from the adjoining stables. You may imagine my fright at being caught oat of the boundaries, when a retreat was impossible. Nor do I believe that our black cat felt more confounded and astonished when she missed the sparrow, and went souse into the water-butt, than I did at the terribly well-known grunting cough of this grand master of the rod. I thought he had gone to market, and I am satisfied that pussy did not scramble out of the water with greater agility than I clambered into the loft above the calf-pen, and as speedily buried myself among the straw. Nor was it till I heard the shuffling tramp of his heavy step and capacious slippers die gradually away, that I dared to breathe, or think myself something living.

      While thus listening and musing, with all the frantic bogies of imagination dancing menacingly before my mental vision, I was suddenly aroused from my unenviable reverie by the grumbling and squealing of rats in the adjoining faggot-stack; when, through a hole in the boards, in tumbled a pair of monsters, rolly-polly over each other, and fighting like two bull-dogs. In came others in all directions, till the place seemed one mass of living rats. They all gathered close round the combatants—those behind scrambling and pushing on those before them, till there was not a ring a foot in diameter left to fight in. Those in front, and those immediately next them, were reared upon their hind quarters. By this time the stronger had got the weaker down, and was in the act of killing him, when his dying moans seemed to be the invitation for a general onslaught. They then, one and all, as if by a given signal, fell upon the combatants, and scrambled over each other’s backs—those behind struggling hard to be in at the death, till nothing of the victims was seen. Indeed they looked like a mound of rats, or all backs and tails. Presently there was a most violent and general struggle; so that you would have thought they were all fighting together. When one ran away, he was followed by others scrambling for a piece. Then a second, a third, and so on, till the combatants were torn to tatters; and then came the quarrelling, grumbling, and scranching of bones—’twas enough to make one’s hair stand on end. No sooner were they demolished, than in came a large fellow, evidently attracted either by the