Chapter 22

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!]