It was about this time that an unaccustomed quiet seemed to be settling upon the Hall and the demesne. There were less people about, no visitors, and some familiar faces among the servants were missed. I had never seen much of the Squire himself, but in these days he seldom came into the bowling-alley at all, as he had been used to do in the earlier days of my captivity. Even the boys seemed to have grown quieter. They laughed less often, and frequently I saw them talking to one another with grave faces.
At times I had an uneasy conviction of something wrong, but it was only a passing impression, for I, at least, never suffered in any way. Every fine day Jack took me out of doors, and I had a scamper in the clump of shrubs to which, ever since my narrow escape from the terrier, I was careful to confine myself. And as for food, no squirrel could have fared better. My master was always bringing me fresh delicacies. One day it would be a cob of Indian corn, which grew to perfection under the south wall of the kitchen garden, and which I enjoyed vastly, ripping off the thick green husks and pulling the kernels out one by one. Another morning he would pick me a fine summer apple, its sunny side delicately tinged with streaky red, while he was always discovering new nuts for my delectation. Once, I remember, I made myself quite ill with the rich greasy kernel of a huge Brazil-nut. A very pet delicacy of mine in which I was often indulged was a piece of hard ship’s biscuit. There were few other eatables which I enjoyed so much. Now and then I was given a morsel of banana, and perhaps my greatest treat of all was a few of the black, oily seeds of the sunflower.
So things went on until the time that the blackberries began to ripen. Then, one warm sunny morning Jack got up very early and dressed quickly. I wanted to play as usual, but he seemed to have no time, and I was quite hurt at his apparent neglect. As he took me in my cage to the bowling-alley the Squire was in the hall. I had never seen him there so early. He looked old, and worn, and there were new lines in his face, while his hair and beard seemed greyer than I had thought them.
‘Be quick and have your breakfast, Jack,’ I heard him say. ‘Your train goes at nine, remember.’
‘All right, dad,’ returned the boy. ‘Take care of Nipper while I’m gone.’
Then, when he had put me in my place in the bowling-alley just opposite old Joey’s perch, he did a very unusual thing—took me out again and stroked me. Then he put me back very gently and hurried away.
The morning passed; but when afternoon came and I looked for my master, as usual, there was no sign of him. I scratched vehemently at my cage-door, but no one came. Only old Joey made rude remarks and began to mimic me, so at last I retired in a very bad temper, and curling up in my hay began to wonder whether Jack had forgotten me. You see we had never been separated for a single day, and I could not in the least understand his absence.
At last some one came in, and I jumped out eagerly. But, to my great disappointment, it was Harry, not Jack, who came up and opened the door of my cage. ‘Poor old Nipper!’ he said, and held out his hand, inviting me to come with him.
I came eagerly enough, for I had the idea that he would take me to my master. The two brothers were so nearly inseparable that I could not imagine one being long away from the other. He did not, however, carry me out of doors, but up to his own room, where he turned me loose and offered me biscuit. But I am afraid he found me a dull companion, for I was listening the whole time for Jack’s familiar footstep, and did not pay much attention to his friendly overtures. At last he took me back to the bowling-alley and shut me up again, and there I moped sulkily for the rest of the day.
Night came on, and no Jack. I could not eat, but sat awake all night, hoping for and expecting my master. Next morning Harry came to feed me, and was horrified when he found that I had not eaten my supper. He brought me every delicacy that he could think of, and at last, just to please him, I ate a nut or two. That evening he was taking me up to his room again, but as we got to the door I hopped out of his pocket and scampered off to Jack’s door. He let me in, and though it was a fresh and bitter disappointment not to find my master, yet I felt a little happier among the familiar surroundings, and plucked up spirit enough to dig out a nut which I had hidden in his big bath-sponge and eat it. So that night Harry turned me loose in his brother’s room. I went to bed in a pocket of one of Jack’s old coats which hung against the door, and tried hard to imagine that my master was wearing it.
It was morning when I poked my head out. There was the smooth, white, empty bed, and still no sign of Jack. Presently the maid came in, and not seeing me, opened the window to air the room. After she had gone I clambered out of the coat-pocket and began aimlessly wandering about the room. Presently I found myself on the window-sill, and, catching sight of the elm branches waving close by, with one spring I was in the tree, and, running down the trunk, rapidly reached the grass. Outside the shadow of the tree the wide, smooth lawn sparkled with thick dew. I had never been out so early before, and I greatly disliked the cold wetness of the grass. But so anxious was I to find Jack that I hardly thought of the discomfort, and I made my way with all speed to the bench where he so often sat.
But he was not there. All was deserted and strangely quiet; only the thrushes hopped past searching for their breakfast of worms, and a robin sang from the sunny summit of a clump of evergreens.
Often I had perched upon Jack’s shoulder as he strolled round to the stables to see his pony Tarbrush. To visit the stable was the next idea that came to me, and keeping as close as possible to the friendly shrubs and trees, I worked quickly round through the garden till I came to the belt of laurels which lay between the back premises and the stables.
I felt happier when I was off the ground and among the branches of the shrubs, and climbing quickly through them, soon came to the gate of the stable-yard.
There were cats here. I had seen them on my previous visits, and under any other circumstances nothing would have induced me to venture alone into the long, paved yard. But anxiety to find my master swallowed up all other considerations, and dropping from the laurels, I made straight for the door of Tarbrush’s stall.
There was no one in sight. Only from a stall on the other side came the hissing of a groom busy about a horse.
Imagine my dismay to find Tarbrush’s loose-box empty! So, too, were the other boxes in the same building. The place was absolutely deserted and deathly still. Feeling more lonely and miserable than ever, I turned uncertainly. I did not know where to go or what to do next; then I remembered that there was one other place where Jack had sometimes taken me—an old and long-disused stable at the far end of the yard, where his sister Mabel kept her hutches of tame rabbits.
The place was large and cool and dark. The windows had long ago been boarded up, and the back was shaded by thick shrubbery, through which the early sun had not yet pierced. I moved just inside the door, and sat up, listening keenly. But all that I could hear was the munch, munch of the rabbits’ teeth as they ate their breakfast of crisp leaves and roots. There was no human in the place.
At that moment a new sound broke upon my ear, a slight rustling, brushing noise. Then, before I could even turn, a large tabby cat came round the corner of the doorway. It was my old enemy, the same who had so nearly caught me in Jack’s bedroom. She was walking very slowly, rubbing her arched back against the wall as she went, and, terrified as I was, I had sense enough to see that she had not yet noticed me. I did the only thing I could—crouched down close against the wall and remained there still as a hare in her forme, hardly even breathing.
For a moment I fancied that she would pass on. But I had forgotten her keen sense of smell. Suddenly she threw her head up and began snuffing the air; then with one quick bound leaped inside the doorway, and stood there perfectly still glaring about her with great, round green eyes.
I did not wait, but ran for dear life. As I started so did she, and to the best of my belief she jumped clean over me. I certainly felt the wind of her paw as she struck at my head.
In the old stable the mangers and racks were still in place and the ruinous remains of the partitions of the stalls. More by good luck than anything else, I chanced upon a worm-eaten oak post at the end of one partition and bolted up it. It led straight up through a gap in the ceiling, and I thought I was safe. I was sadly mistaken. This cat was almost as good a climber as I, and up she came at my very brush.
Scuttling up the wall of the loft, I reached a cross rafter, not twice my own length ahead of my hunter. The cat was not quite so quick in getting on to the rafter as I was, and that gave me a short start.
A patch of sunlight came through a glassless window under the gable at the far end, and instinctively I made for this, jumping frantically from rafter to rafter. There was no time for plans. It was just one wild dash for any chance of safety.
The rafters were not very wide apart, not too far for me to jump from one to another with fair ease. But they were rough-hewn and narrow at the top, and the heavier cat could not get a foothold so quickly as I; so I gained all the way to the window. The second rafter from the window was a very narrow and awkward one. Even I found it hard to balance myself upon it. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of something hanging from the last rafter, the only one left between me and the window. It was a peculiar-looking, pear-shaped object, grey in colour, rough in texture, and in size rather larger than my body. I knew well enough what it was, though in my fright I barely noticed it. Next instant I had landed just above it, then, gathering all my powers for a longer leap than any before, launched myself towards the window-sill. I just succeeded in reaching it, only to find that the opening was covered with wire netting. I was hopelessly trapped.
Hot-foot after me came the cat. She could jump as well or better than I, but, as I said before, the narrowness of the beams bothered her. When she reached the narrowest, the second from the window, she had all she could do to keep her balance. The result was that her next jump was a trifle short. Her fore-paws clutched the beam, but her hind-feet failed to reach it, and struggling desperately to pull herself up, she drove her hind-claws deep into the pear-shaped object which hung exactly below her.
Instantly there arose a deep-toned buzzing, and the air was thick with a cloud of furious wasps. There followed a perfect squeal of pain and terror, and my enemy, covered with a swarm of the fierce little stinging insects, dropped with a resounding thump on to the boards below, and fled like a mad thing, pursued by scores of angry wasps.
The wasps rose to the very roof; they were all round me. I made one frantic scramble up the rusty netting, found a hole, squeezed through anyhow, and just as the first wasp landed on my back and drove a vicious sting through my thick fur, took a wild jump in the direction of the nearest shrub.
The distance was too much for me. My fore-paws just touched the leaves, and I went sailing downwards into the deep shadows beneath. Down, down into absolute blackness, to land at last with a shock that for the moment completely deprived me of my few remaining senses. Fortunately for us squirrel folk and all other animals except man, we never remain insensible for long. I was all awake again in a very few moments, and found myself lying on a thick bed of damp, decaying leaves. It was almost pitch dark, but a little light which leaked down from somewhere high above showed me that I was at the bottom of a deep hole, with perpendicular sides of mouldering brickwork.
But this was not what set my heart beating again almost as thickly as a moment previously. It was a peculiar, musty, unpleasant odour, which made me instinctively spring up against the side of the hole and struggle hard to climb back to daylight. But rough as the walls of my prison were, my claws could get no grip, and I fell back panting and helpless to the bottom. Again and again I tried. The brickwork was very old, covered with close green moss and riddled with holes, and more than once I succeeded in climbing a good distance up the sides. But I always came at last to some place where I could find no foothold, and went sliding helplessly down to the bottom again.
Soon I was quite exhausted. I had eaten hardly anything since Jack left, and the escape from the cat and the shock of my long fall had taken it out of me badly. At last I was forced to give it up and lay at full length breathing hard upon the sodden leaves.
Presently came a soft rustling sound, then a slight squeak. By this time my eyes were well accustomed to the gloom, and looking upwards, there at the mouth of one of the holes a sharp black nose appeared and a pair of beady, black eyes which stared at me fixedly. A moment later another nose showed from another hole, then a third, and a fourth. More and more came out, until the whole of the slimy old wall seemed alive with them, and all with their keen unwinking eyes fixed upon me as I crouched helpless in the bottom of the old dry well.
THE WHOLE OF THE SLIMY OLD WALL SEEMED ALIVE WITH THEM.
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.
Seemingly the great rat had been unable to squeeze through the narrow aperture in which even my small self had been caught for the moment, but at the time I do not think that I knew that. My one idea was to run, and run I did, plunging blindly on and on through the black dark like a rabbit with a stoat at its scut. I remember very little about that horrible tunnel or how I got through it. I only know that it was wet and slimy in places, and that it seemed as though I could not breathe. If it had not been for the fear of the rat I should never have been able to go on. But I fully believed that the bloodthirsty monster was behind me all the time, and each instant expected to feel the sharp teeth close upon me; so, breathless and suffocating, I kept on, until at last there was a break in the darkness, and next instant I tumbled headlong out of the mouth of a drain-pipe into the muddy bed of a dried-up pool.
I was so absolutely exhausted that there I lay, quite unable to stir brush or claw. If any prowling cat or weasel had happened upon me I could not have lifted a paw to get away. But nothing did molest me, and after a long time I managed to struggle out of the mud and up the bank on to a patch of grass. When I looked round I found that I was in the Hall kitchen-garden.
I knew my way from there to the house, and slowly and wearily dragged myself back. I made for the elm by Jack’s window, climbed up it, and, finding a nook in a fork between two boughs, curled up, and was fast asleep in a moment.
In the morning I saw that the window was wide open, so, jumping in, I climbed upon Jack’s bed and curled my muddy little body up on the pillow.
There Harry found me, and I am bound to say that Jack himself never made as much fuss about me as his brother did on that occasion.
