第24章 ON CATS AND DOGS(3)

Another cat I had used to get drunk regularly every day.She would hang about for hours outside the cellar door for the purpose of sneaking in on the first opportunity and lapping up the drippings from the beer-cask.I do not mention this habit of hers in praise of the species, but merely to show how almost human some of them are.If the transmigration of souls is a fact, this animal was certainly qualifying most rapidly for a Christian, for her vanity was only second to her love of drink.Whenever she caught a particularly big rat, she would bring it up into the room where we were all sitting, lay the corpse down in the midst of us, and wait to be praised.Lord! how the girls used to scream.

Poor rats! They seem only to exist so that cats and dogs may gain credit for killing them and chemists make a fortune by inventing specialties in poison for their destruction.And yet there is something fascinating about them.There is a weirdness and uncanniness attaching to them.They are so cunning and strong, so terrible in their numbers, so cruel, so secret.They swarm in deserted houses, where the broken casements hang rotting to the crumbling walls and the doors swing creaking on their rusty hinges.They know the sinking ship and leave her, no one knows how or whither.They whisper to each other in their hiding- places how a doom will fall upon the hall and the great name die forgotten.They do fearful deeds in ghastly charnel-houses.

No tale of horror is complete without the rats.In stories of ghosts and murderers they scamper through the echoing rooms, and the gnawing of their teeth is heard behind the wainscot, and their gleaming eyes peer through the holes in the worm-eaten tapestry, and they scream in shrill, unearthly notes in the dead of night, while the moaning wind sweeps,sobbing, round the ruined turret towers, and passes wailing like a woman through the chambers bare and tenantless.

And dying prisoners, in their loathsome dungeons, see through the horrid gloom their small red eyes, like glittering coals, hear in the death- like silence the rush of their claw-like feet, and start up shrieking in the darkness and watch through the awful night.

I love to read tales about rats.They make my flesh creep so.I like that tale of Bishop Hatto and the rats.The wicked bishop, you know, had ever so much corn stored in his granaries and would not let the starving people touch it, but when they prayed to him for food gathered them together in his barn, and then shutting the doors on them, set fire to the place and burned them all to death.But next day there came thousands upon thousands of rats, sent to do judgment on him.Then Bishop Hatto fled to his strong tower that stood in the middle of the Rhine, and barred himself in and fancied he was safe.But the rats! they swam the river, they gnawed their way through the thick stone walls, and ate him alive where he sat.

"They have whetted their teeth against the stones, And now they pick the bishop's bones; They gnawed the flesh from every limb, For they were sent to do judgment on him." Oh, it's a lovely tale.

Then there is the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, how first he piped the rats away, and afterward, when the mayor broke faith with him, drew all the children along with him and went into the mountain.What a curious old legend that is! I wonder what it means, or has it any meaning at all? There seems something strange and deep lying hid beneath the rippling rhyme.It haunts me, that picture of the quaint, mysterious old piper piping through Hamelin's narrow streets, and the children following with dancing feet and thoughtful, eager faces.The old folks try to stay them, but the children pay no heed.They hear the weird, witched music and must follow.The games are left unfinished and the playthings drop from their careless hands.They know not whither they are hastening.The mystic music calls to them, and they follow, heedless and unasking where.It stirs and vibrates in their hearts and other sounds grow faint.So they wander through Pied Piper Street away from Hamelin town.

I get thinking sometimes if the Pied Piper is really dead, or if he maynot still be roaming up and down our streets and lanes, but playing now so softly that only the children hear him.Why do the little faces look so grave and solemn when they pause awhile from romping, and stand, deep wrapt, with straining eyes? They only shake their curly heads and dart back laughing to their playmates when we question them.But I fancy myself they have been listening to the magic music of the old Pied Piper, and perhaps with those bright eyes of theirs have even seen his odd, fantastic figure gliding unnoticed through the whirl and throng.

Even we grown-up children hear his piping now and then.But the yearning notes are very far away, and the noisy, blustering world is always bellowing so loud it drowns the dreamlike melody.One day the sweet, sad strains will sound out full and clear, and then we too shall, like the little children, throw our playthings all aside and follow.The loving hands will be stretched out to stay us, and the voices we have learned to listen for will cry to us to stop.But we shall push the fond arms gently back and pass out through the sorrowing house and through the open door.For the wild, strange music will be ringing in our hearts, and we shall know the meaning of its song by then.