Chapter XX: Killala (3)

"Yes; with the exception of a woman who is minding the premises, and of whom he is an acquaintance under another name. You will be able to secure him without the least risk or difficulty, but not an instant must be lost."

Madame Jaubert perceived my half-hesitation. "Surely," she exclaimed, "you are not afraid of one man! It's useless affecting to suspect _me_ after what has occurred."

"True," I replied. "Lead on."

The house at which we stopped in Greek-street, appeared to be an empty one, from the printed bills in the windows announcing it to be let or sold. Madame Jaubert knocked in a peculiar manner at the door, which was presently opened by a woman. "Is Mr. Brown still within?" Madame Jaubert asked, in a low voice.

"Yes: what do you want with him?"

"I have brought a gentleman who will most likely be a purchaser of some of the goods he has to dispose of."

"Walk in, then, if you please," was the answer. We did so; and found ourselves, as the door closed, in pitch darkness. "This way," said the woman; "you shall have a light in half a minute."

"Let me guide you," said Madame Jaubert, as I groped onward by the wall, and at the same time seizing my right hand. Instantly as she did so, I heard a rustle just behind me--two quick and violent blows descended on the back of my head, there was a flash before my eyes, a suppressed shout of exultation rang in my ears, and I fell insensible to the ground.

It was some time, on partially recovering my senses, before I could realize either what had occurred or the situation in which I found myself. Gradually, however, the incidents attending the artfully-prepared treachery of Madame Jaubert grew into distinctness, and I pretty well comprehended my present position. I was lying at the bottom of a cart, blindfolded, gagged, handcuffed, and covered over by what, from their smell, seemed to be empty corn sacks. The vehicle, was moving at a pretty rapid rate, and judging from the roar and tumult without, through one of the busiest thoroughfares of London. It was Saturday evening; and I thought, from the character of the noises, and the tone of a clock just chiming ten, that we were in Tottenham-court-road. I endeavored to rise, but found, as I might have expected, that it was impossible to do so; my captors having secured me to the floor of the cart by strong cords. There was nothing for it, therefore, but patience and resignation; words easily pronounced, but difficult, under such circumstances, to realize in practice. My thoughts, doubtless in consequence of the blows I had received, soon became hurried and incoherent. A tumultuous throng of images swept confusedly past, of which the most constant and frequent were the faces of my wife and youngest child, whom I had kissed in his sleep just previous to leaving home. Madame Jaubert and James Martin were also there; and ever and anon the menacing countenance of Levasseur stooped over me with a hideous expression, and I felt as if clutched in the fiery grasp of a demon. I have no doubt that the voice which sounded in my ear at the moment I was felled to the ground must have suggested the idea of the Swiss--faintly and imperfectly as I caught it. This tumult of brain only gradually subsided as the discordant uproar of the streets--which no doubt added to the excitement I was suffering under by suggesting the exasperating nearness of abundant help which could not be appealed to--died gradually away into a silence only broken by the rumble of the cart-wheels, and the subdued talk of the driver and his companions, of whom there appeared to be two or three. At length the cart stopped, I heard a door unlocked and thrown open, and a few moments afterward I was dragged from under the corn-sacks, carried up three flights of stairs, and dropped brutally upon the floor till a light could be procured. Directly one was brought, I was raised to my feet, placed upright against a wooden partition, and staples having been driven into the paneling, securely fastened in that position, with cords passed through them, and round my armpits. This effected, an authoritative voice--the now distinct recognition of which thrilled me with dismay--ordered that I should be unblinded. It was done; and when my eyes became somewhat accustomed to the suddenly dazzling light and glare, I saw Levasseur and the clerk Dubarle standing directly in front of me, their faces kindled into flame by fiendish triumph and delight. The report that they had been drowned was then a mistake, and they had incurred the peril of returning to this country for the purpose of avenging themselves upon me; and how could it be doubted that an opportunity, achieved at such fearful risk, would be effectually, remorselessly used? A pang of mortal terror shot through me, and then I strove to awaken in my heart a stern endurance, and resolute contempt of death, with, I may now confess, very indifferent success. The woman Jaubert was, I also saw, present; and a man, whom I afterward ascertained to be Martin, was standing near the doorway, with his back toward me. These two, at a brief intimation from Levasseur, went down stairs; and then the fierce exultation of the two escaped convicts--of Levasseur especially--broke forth with wolfish rage and ferocity. "Ha--ha--ha!" shouted the Swiss, at the same time striking me over the face with his open hand, "you find, then, that others can plot as well as you can--dog, traitor, scoundrel that you are! 'Au revoir--alors!' was it, eh? Well, here we are, and I wish you joy of the meeting. Ha--ha! How dismal the rascal looks, Dubarle!"--(Again the coward struck me)--"He is hardly grateful to me, it seems, for having kept my word. I always do, my fine fellow," he added with a savage chuckle; "and never neglect to pay my debts of honor. Yours especially," he continued, drawing a pistol from his pocket, "shall be prompt payment, and with interest too, scelerat!" He held the muzzle of the pistol to within a yard of my forehead, and placed his finger on the trigger. I instinctively closed my eyes, and tasted in that fearful moment the full bitterness of death; but my hour was not yet come. Instead of the flash and report which I expected would herald me into eternity, a taunting laugh from Levasseur at the terror he excited rang through the room.

"Come--come," said Dubarle, over whose face a gleam of commiseration, almost of repentance, had once or twice passed; "you will alarm that fellow down stairs with your noise. We must, you know, wait till he is gone, and he appears to be in no hurry. In the meantime let us have a game of piquet for the first shot at the traitor's carcase."

"Excellent--capital!" shouted Levasseur with savage glee. "A game of piquet; the stake your life, Waters! A glorious game! and mind you see fair-play. In the mean time here's your health, and better luck next time, if you should chance to live to see it." He swallowed a draught of wine which Dubarle, after helping himself, had poured out for him; and then approaching me, with the silver cup he had drained in his hand, said, "Look at the crest! Do you recognize it--fool, idiot that you are!"

I did so readily enough: it was a portion of the plunder carried off from Portman-square.

"Come," again interposed Dubarle, "let us have our game."

The play began, and--But I will dwell no longer upon this terrible passage in my police experience. Frequently even now the incidents of that night revisit me in dreams, and I awake with a start and cry of terror. In addition to the mental torture I endured, I was suffering under an agonizing thirst, caused by the fever of my blood, and the pressure of the absorbing gag, which still remained in my mouth. It was wonderful I did not lose my senses. At last the game was over; the Swiss won, and sprang to his feet with the roar of a wild beast.

At this moment Madame Jaubert entered the apartment somewhat hastily. "This man below," she said, "is getting insolent. He has taken it into his tipsy head that you mean to kill your prisoner, and he won't, he says, be involved in a murder, which would be sure to be found out. I told him he was talking absurdly; but he is still not satisfied, so you had better go down and speak to him yourself."

I afterward found, it may be as well to mention here, that Madame Jaubert and Martin had been induced to assist in entrapping me, in order that I might be out of the way when a friend of Levasseur's, who had been committed to Newgate on a serious charge, came to be tried, I being the chief witness against him; and they were both assured that I had nothing more serious to apprehend than a few days' detention. In addition to a considerable money-present, Levasseur had, moreover, promised Madame Jaubert to pay her expenses to Paris, and assist in placing her in business there.

Levasseur muttered a savage imprecation on hearing the woman's message, and then said, "Come with me, Dubarle; if we can not convince the fellow, we can at least silence him! Marie Duquesne, you will remain here."

As soon as they were gone, the woman eyed me with a compassionate expression, and approaching close to me, said in a low voice, "Do not be alarmed at their tricks and menaces. After Thursday you will be sure to be released."

I shook my head, and as distinctly as I could made a gesture with my fettered arms toward the table on which the wine was standing. She understood me. "If," said she, "you will promise not to call out, I will relieve you of the gag."

I eagerly nodded compliance. The gag was removed, and she held a cup of wine to my fevered lips. It was a draught from the waters of paradise, and hope, energy, life, were renewed within me as I drank.

"You are deceived," I said, in a guarded voice, the instant my burning thirst was satisfied. "They intend to murder me, and you will be involved as an accomplice."

"Nonsense," she replied. "They have been frightening you, that's all."

"I again repeat you are deceived. Release me from these fetters and cords, give me but a chance of at least selling my life as dearly as I can, and the money you told me you stood in need of shall be yours."

"Hark!" she exclaimed. "They are coming!"

"Bring down a couple of bottles of wine," said Levasseur, from the bottom of the stairs. Madame Jaubert obeyed the order and in a few minutes returned.

I renewed my supplications to be released, and was of course extremely liberal of promises.

"It is vain talking," said the woman. "I do not believe they will harm you; but even if it were as you say, it is too late now to retrace my steps. You can not escape. That fool below is already three parts intoxicated: they are both armed, and would hesitate at nothing if they but suspected treachery."

It was vain to urge her. She grew sullen and menacing; and was insisting that the gag should be replaced in my mouth, when a thought struck me.

"Levasseur called you Marie Duquesne just now; but surely your name is Jaubert--is it not?"

"Do not trouble yourself about my name," she replied; "that is my affair, not yours."

"Because if you _are_ the Marie Duquesne who once kept a shop in Cranbourne-alley, and lost a child called Marie-Louise, I could tell you something."

A wild light broke from her dark eyes, and a suppressed scream from her lips. "I am that Marie Duquesne!" she said, in a voice tremulous with emotion.

"Then I have to inform you that the child so long supposed to be lost I discovered nearly three weeks ago."

The woman fairly leapt toward me, clasped me fiercely by the arms, and peering in my face with eyes on fire with insane excitement, hissed out, "You lie--you lie, you dog! You are striving to deceive me! She is in heaven: the angels told me so long since."

I do not know, by the way, whether the falsehood I was endeavoring to palm off upon the woman was strictly justifiable or not; but I am fain to believe that there are few moralists that would not, under the circumstances, have acted pretty much as I did.

"If your child was lost when going on an errand to Coventry-street, and her name is Marie-Louise Duquesne, I tell you she is found. How should I otherwise have become acquainted with these particulars?"

"True--true," she muttered: "how else should he know? Where is she?" added the woman, in tones of agonized entreaty, as she sank down and clasped my knees. "Tell me --tell me, as you hope for life or mercy, where I may find my child?"

"Release me, give me a chance of escape, and to-morrow your child shall be in your arms. Refuse, and the secret dies with me."

She sprang quickly to her feet, unclasped the handcuffs, snatched a knife from the table, and cut the cords which bound me with eager haste. "Another draught of wine," she said, still in the same hurried, almost insane manner. "You have work to do! Now, while I secure the door, do you rub and chafe your stiffened joints." The door was soon fastened, and then she assisted in restoring the circulation to my partially benumbed limbs. This was at last accomplished, and Marie Duquesne drew me toward a window, which she softly opened. "It is useless," she whispered, "to attempt a struggle with the men below. You must descend by this," and she placed her hand upon a lead water-pipe, which reached from the roof to within a few feet of the ground.

"And you," I said; "how are you to escape?"

"I will tell you. Do you hasten on toward Hampstead, from which we are distant in a northerly direction about a mile. There is a house at about half the distance. Procure help, and return as quickly as possible. The doorfastenings will resist some time, even should your flight be discovered. You will not fail me?"

"Be assured I will not." The descent was a difficult and somewhat perilous one, but it was safely accomplished, and I set off at the top of my speed toward Hampstead.

I had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile, when the distant sound of a horse's feet, coming at a slow trot toward me, caught my ear. I paused, to make sure I was not deceived, and as I did so, a wild scream from the direction I had left, followed by another and another, broke upon the stillness of the night. The scoundrels had no doubt discovered my escape, and were about to wreak their vengeance upon the unfortunate creature in their power. The trot of the horse which I had heard was, simultaneously with the breaking out of those wild outcries, increased to a rapid gallop. "Hallo!" exclaimed the horseman, as he came swiftly up. "Do you know where these screams come from?" It was the horse-patrol who thus providentially came up! I briefly stated that the life of a woman was at the mercy of two escaped convicts. "Then for God's sake jump up behind me!" exclaimed the patrol. "We shall be there in a couple of minutes." I did so: the horse--a powerful animal, and not entirely unused to carry double--started off, as if it comprehended the necessity for speed, and in a very brief space of time we were at the door of the house from which I had so lately escaped. Marie Duquesne, with her body half out of the window, was still wildly screaming as we rushed into the room below. There was no one there, and we swiftly ascended the stairs, at the top of which we could hear Levasseur and Dubarle thundering at the door, which they had unexpectedly found fastened, and hurling a storm of imprecations at the woman within, the noise of which enabled us to approach them pretty nearly before we were heard or perceived. Martin saw us first, and his sudden exclamation alarmed the others. Dubarle and Martin made a desperate rush to pass us, by which I was momently thrown on one side against the wall; and very fortunately, as the bullet leveled at me from a pistol Levasseur held in his hand would probably have finished me. Martin escaped, which I was not very sorry for; but the patrol pinned Dubarle safely, and I griped Levasseur with a strength and ferocity against which he was powerless as an infant. Our victory was complete; and two hours afterward, the recaptured convicts were safely lodged in a station-house.

I caused Madame Duquesne to be as gently undeceived the next morning as possible with respect to her child; but the reaction and disappointment proved too much for her wavering intellect. She relapsed into positive insanity, and was placed in Bedlam, where she remained two years. At the end of that period she was pronounced convalescent. A sufficient sum of money was raised by myself and others, not only to send her to Paris, but to enable her to set up as a milliner in a small but respectable way. As lately as last May, when I saw her there, she was in health both of mind and body, and doing comfortably.

With the concurrence of the police authorities, very little was said publicly respecting my entrapment. It might perhaps have excited a monomania among liberated convicts--colored and exaggerated as every incident would have been for the amusement of the public--to attempt similar exploits. I was also anxious to conceal the peril I had encountered from my wife; and it was not till I had left the police force that she was informed of it. Levasseur and Dubarle were convicted of returning from transportation before the term for which they had been sentenced had expired, and were this time sent across the seas for life. The reporters of the morning papers, or rather the reporter for the "Times," "Herald," "Chronicle," "Post," and "Advertiser," gave precisely the same account, even to the misspelling of Levasseur's name, dismissing the brief trial in the following paragraph, under the head of "Old Bailey Sessions:"--"Alphonse Dubarle (24), and Sebastian Levasson (49), were identified as unlawfully-returned convicts, and sentenced to transportation for life. The prisoners, it was understood, were connected with the late plate-robbery in Portman-square; but as a conviction could not have increased their punishment, the indictment was not pressed."

Levasseur, I had almost forgotten to state, admitted that it was he who wounded me in Ryder's-court, Leicester-square.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 16: See New Monthly Magazine for November.]

WORDSWORTH AND CARLYLE.

For well nigh thirty-four years the public curiosity has been excited by the knowledge that there existed in MS. an unfinished poem of very high pretensions, and extraordinary magnitude, from the pen of the late--is he to be the last?--poet-laureate of Britain. At the tidings, Lord Jeffrey made himself very merry, and sought for a powerful calculus to compute the supposed magnitude of the poem. De Quincey, on the other hand, had read it, and both in his writings and conversation, was in the habit of alluding to, quoting, and panegyrizing it as more than equal to Wordsworth's other achievements. All of it that is publishable, or shall ever be published, now lies before us; and we approach it with curiously-mingled emotions--mingled, because although a fragment, it is so vast, and in parts so finished, and because it may be regarded as at once an early production of his genius, and its latest legacy to the world. It seems a large fossil relic--imperfect and magnificent--newly dug up, and with the fresh earth and the old dim subsoil meeting and mingling around it.

The "Prelude" is the first _regular versified_ autobiography we remember in our language. Passages, indeed, and parts of the lives of celebrated men, have been at times represented in verse, but in general a vail of fiction has been dropped over the real facts, as in the case of Don Juan; and in all the revelation made has resembled rather an escapade or a partial confession than a systematic and slowly-consolidated life. The mere circumstances, too, of life have been more regarded than the inner current of life itself. We class the 'Prelude' at once with Sartor Resartus--although the latter wants the poetic _form_--as the two most interesting and faithful records of the individual experience of men of genius which exist.

And yet, how different the two men, and the two sets of experience. Sartor resembles the unfilled and yawning crescent moon, Wordsworth the rounded harvest orb: Sartor's cry is, "Give, give!" Wordsworth's "I have found it, I have found it!" Sartor can not, amid a universe of work, find a task fit for him to do, and yet can much less be utterly idle; while to Wordsworth, basking in the sun, or loitering near an evening stream, is sufficient and satisfactory work. To Sartor, Nature is a divine tormentor--her works at once inspire and agonize him; Wordsworth loves her with the passion of a perpetual honeymoon. Both are intensely self-conscious; but Sartor's is the consciousness of disease, Wordsworth's of high health standing before a mirror. Both have a "demon," but Sartor's is exceedingly fierce, dwelling among the tombs--Wordsworth's a mild eremite, loving the rocks and the woods. Sartor's experience has been frightfully peculiar, and Wordsworth's peculiarly felicitous. Both have passed through the valley of the shadow of death; but the one has found it as Christian found it, dark and noisy--the other has passed it with Faithful, by daylight. Sartor is more of a representative man than Wordsworth, for many have had part at least of his sad experiences, whereas Wordsworth's soul dwells apart: his joys and sorrows, his virtues and his sins, are alike his own, and he can circulate his being as soon as them. Sartor is a brother man in fury and fever--Wordsworth seems a cherub, almost chillingly pure, and whose very warmth is borrowed from another sun than ours. We love and fear Sartor with almost equal intensity--Wordsworth we respect and wonder at with a great admiration.

Compare their different biographies. Sartor's is brief and abrupt as a confession; the author seems hurrying away from the memory of his woe--Wordsworth lingers over his past self, like a lover over the history of his courtship. Sartor is a reminiscence of Prometheus--the "Prelude" an account of the education of Pan. The agonies of Sartor are connected chiefly with his own individual history, shadowing that of innumerable individuals besides--those of Wordsworth with the fate of nations, and the world at large. Sartor craves, but can not find a creed--belief seems to flow in Wordsworth's blood; to see is to believe with him. The lives of both are fragments, but Sartor seems to shut his so abruptly, because he dare not disclose all his struggles; and Wordsworth, because he dares not reveal all his peculiar and incommunicable joys. To use Sartor's own words, applied to the poet before as, we may inscribe upon Wordsworth's grave, "Here lies a man who did what he intended;" while over Sartor's, disappointed ages may say, "Here lies a man whose intentions were noble, and his powers gigantic, but who from lack of proper correspondence between them did little or nothing, said much, but only told the world his own sad story."

MILTON AND WORDSWORTH.

The points of resemblance between Milton and Wordsworth are numerous--both were proud in spirit, and pure in life--both were intensely self-conscious--both essayed the loftiest things in poetry--both looked with considerable contempt on their contemporaries, and appealed to the coming age--both preferred fame to reputation--both during their life-time met with obloquy, which crushed them not--both combined intellect with imagination, in equal proportions--both were persevering and elaborate artists, as well as inspired men--both were unwieldy in their treatment of commonplace subjects. Neither possessed a particle of humor; nor much, if any, genuine wit. Both were friends of liberty and of religion--their genius was "baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

But there were differences and disparities as manifold. Milton was a scholar of the first magnitude; Wordsworth no more than respectable in point of learning; Milton may be called a glorious book-worm; Wordsworth an insect feeding on trees; Milton was London born and London bred; Wordsworth from the provinces; Milton had a world more sympathy with chivalry and arms--with the power and the glory of this earth--with human and female beauty--with man and with woman, than Wordsworth. Wordsworth loved inanimate nature better than Milton, or at least, he was more intimately conversant with her features; and has depicted them with more minute accuracy, and careful finish. Milton's love for liberty was a wiser and firmer passion, and underwent little change; Wordsworth's veered and fluctuated; Milton's creed was more definite and fixed than Wordsworth's, and, perhaps, lay nearer to his heart; Wordsworth shaded away into a vague mistiness, in which the Cross at times was lost; Milton had more devotion in his absence from church than Wordsworth in his presence there; Wordsworth was an "idler in the land;" Milton an incessant and heroic struggler.

As writers, while Wordsworth attains to lofty heights, with an appearance of effort; Milton is great inevitably, and inhales with pleasure the proud and rare atmosphere of the sublime; Wordsworth _comes up_ to the great--Milton _descends_ on it; Wordsworth has little ratiocinative, or rhetorical power; Milton discovers much of both--besides being able to grind his adversaries to powder by the hoof of invective, or to toss them into the air on the tusks of a terrible scorn; Wordsworth has produced many sublime lines, but no character approaching the sublime; Milton has reared up Satan to the sky--the most magnificent structure in the intellectual world; Wordsworth's philosophic vein is more subtle, and Milton's more masculine and strong; Wordsworth has written much in the shape of poetry that is despicably mean; mistaking it all the while for the excellent; Milton trifles seldom, and knows full well when he is trifling; Wordsworth has sometimes entangled himself with a poetic system; Milton no more than Samson will permit withes, however green, or a cart-rope, however new, to imprison his giant arms; Wordsworth has borrowed nothing, but timidly and jealously saved himself from theft by flight; Milton has maintained his originality, even while he borrows--he has dared to snatch the Urim and Thummim from the high-priest's breast, and inserted them among his own native ornaments, where they shine in keeping--unbedimming and unbedimmed; Wordsworth's prose is but a feeble counterpoise to his poetry; whereas Milton's were itself sufficient to perpetuate his name; Wordsworth's sonnets are, perhaps, equal to Milton's, some of his "Minor Poems" may approach "Lycidas," and "Il Penseroso," but where a whole like "Paradise Lost?"

Thus while Wordsworth has left a name, the memory of a character and many works, which shall illustrate the age when he lived, and exalt him, on the whole, above all Britain's bards of that period, Milton is identified with the glory, not of an age, but of all ages; with the progress of liberty in the world--with the truth and grandeur of the Christian faith and with the honor and dignity of the human species itself. Wordsworth burns like the bright star Arcturus, outshining the fainter orbs of the constellation to which it belongs. Milton is one of those solitary oceans of flame, which seem to own but a dim and far-off relationship to aught else but the Great Being, who called them into existence. So truly did the one appreciate the other when he sung

"Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart."

RATS AND RAT-KILLERS IN ENGLAND

A rat! a rat! dead for a ducat.--_Hamlet_.

There is nothing like being in earnest when one begins a good work. So, evidently, thinks the author of a blue-covered pamphlet just issued, with a title page headed by three words and nine notes of exclamation--Rat!!! Rat!!! Rat!!! The object of the writer is no less than to alarm the whole nation by showing what we lose every year by the animals against whom he has made such a dead set. Not content with dilating on this fact in the body of his work, he puts what he calls "a startling fact," upon the blue wrapper. "One pair of rats," he says, "with their progeny, will produce in three years no less a number than six hundred and forty-six thousand eight hundred and eight rats! which will consume, day by day, as much food as sixty-four thousand six hundred and eighty men; leaving eight rats to starve." This, it must be admitted, is startling enough, but any one who has a cellar, or a corn-bin, will be inclined to believe almost any tale, however strong, or to applaud any abuse, however severe, which may be heaped upon that convicted thief, Rat. Midnight burglaries, undetected by the new police, sink into insignificance compared with the ravages of rats of the London sewers, which steal and destroy more in one week, than the value of all the robberies of plate that blaze away in the newspapers from year's end to year's end. And yet the plunderers go on almost unmolested. They are too knowing for traps, and arsenic seems to be more fatal to human, than to quadrupedal victims. The French journals, the other day, described a grand battue in the sewers of Paris, when thousands of rats were captured and killed, and we heard of large sums cleared by the sale of their skins--for these thieves go about like swell mobsmen--very well clad. But the example of our French brethren was not imitated in the modern Babylon. We neither spill blood on barricades above ground, nor in sewers beneath it. So Mr. Rat still carries on his plunder with impunity, to the great horror and indignation of good housewives in general, and of the writer we have just referred to in particular. Protection is with him no explanation of national distress. _He_ says it is all owing to rats: "The farmers have been eaten out of house and home; bread kept up to a starvation price, to the misery, poverty, and crime of our manufacturing and agricultural population. Men seldom think of rats, because they seldom see them; but are they less destructive because they carry on their ravages in the dark? Certainly not."

In another place he declares "there is not a farmer in the British dominions but would, if he at present had all the rats have deprived him of within the last ten years, this moment declare himself a wealthy man." If the real truth could be found out, it would be a safe speculation to back the statements of the rat-hater against the statistics of the Protectionists.

The question then suggests itself, what should be done to save this waste--to stop the plunder--to banish the thieves? and we turn to the little blue book for information. The naturalists are said to give a very clear notion of what the rat _is_, but what he _does_ they describe very imperfectly. Rats are modest creatures; they live and labor in the dark; they shun the approach of man. Go into a barn or granary, where hundreds are living, and you shall not see one; go to a rick that may be one living mass within (a thing very common, adds our writer), and there shall not be one visible; or dive into a cellar, that may be perfectly infested with them, rats you shall not see, so much as a tip of a tail, unless it be that of a stray one "popping across for a more safe retreat." As men seldom see them, they seldom think of them. "But this I say," goes on our author, "that if rats could by any means be made to live on the surface of the earth, instead of holes and corners, and feed and run about the streets and fields in the open day, like dogs and sheep, the whole nation would be horror-stricken, and, ultimately, there would not be a man, woman, or child able to brandish a stick, but would have a dog, stick, or gun for their destruction wherever they met with them. And are we to suppose, because they carry on their ravages in the dark, that they are less destructive? Certainly not; and my object in making this appeal to the nation, and supplying it with calculations from the most experienced individuals and naturalists, is for the purpose of rousing it up to one universal warfare against these midnight marauders and common enemies of mankind, insomuch as they devour the food, to the starvation of our fellow-creatures." He does not altogether ignore the argument of the friends of the rat--for even the rat has found friends among naturalists, ready to argue in his favor, and in print, too--that these vermin destroy, in the sewers, much matter that would otherwise give out poisonous gases. Sewer rats, he admits, are not the very worst of the race, but even they should be slain wherever they may be caught. But the rats of the cellar, the warehouse, the barn, the rick-yard, the granary, and the corn-field, are the grand destroyers against whom war to the terrier, the trap, and the ferret is proclaimed.

Do not let any reader suppose that the Ratsbane, put forth in the guise of a blue pamphlet, is a mere tasteless dose of useful knowledge on the rat genus. It is no such thing. The author gives a passage or two of politics, and then a page or so of rats. He is an honest hater, such as Dr. Johnson would have admired; nor is his hatred confined to four-legged adversaries. He evidently dislikes Communists and Socialists, as sincerely as he does rats. "Communism, Socialism, and Ratism," he says, "are terms synonymous;" but this is not the part of his book we have to deal with, so let us pass on from what he hates to what he admires. "Now," he says, "for the prolific disposition of rats;" and here takes an opportunity of saying the best word he can for his friends, the rat-catchers--the rat-killers--the Napoleons of the vermin war--the exterminators of the catchable rats--the Nimrods of the hunting-grounds to be found in sewers and cellars, and under barn floors. The passage looks very like an advertisement; but since it is characteristic, and as the statements are curious, and really not without importance, they shall be here quoted:

"Now for their prolific disposition! In this respect I have been most ably assisted by the renowned James Shaw, of rat-killing celebrity, landlord of the Blue Anchor Tavern, Bunhill-row, St. Luke's, and of whom I can not speak too highly, for the civil, straightforward, and animated way in which he communicated every information I desired. Curiosity prompted me to make inquiries respecting him, and I find him to be a man universally respected for his manly bearing and refined sentiments of honor, consequently, a man whose testimony can be relied upon. I have also been supplied with similar information from Mr. Sabin, of rat-killing renown, residing in Broad-street, St. Giles's. These men destroy between eight and nine thousand each annually, averaging seventeen thousand between them. We will now proceed with the calculations. In the first place, my informants tell me that rats will have six, seven, and eight nests of young in the year, and that for three and four years together; secondly, that they will have from twelve to twenty-three at a litter, and that the young ones will breed at three months old; thirdly, that there are more females than males, at an average of about ten to six. Now, I propose to lay down my calculations at something less than one half. In the first place, I say four litters in the year, beginning and ending with a litter, so making thirteen litters in three years; secondly, to have eight young ones at a birth, half male, and half female; thirdly, the young ones to have a litter at six months old. At this calculation, I will take one pair of rats; and, at the expiration of three years, what do you suppose will be the amount of living rats? Why, no less a number than SIX HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHT! Mr. Shaw's little dog 'Tiny,' under six pounds weight, has destroyed TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE pairs of rats, which, had they been permitted to live, would, at the same calculation, and in the same time, have produced ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE MILLIONS, ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED, living rats! And the rats destroyed by Messrs. Shaw and Sabin in two years, amounting to SEVENTEEN THOUSAND pairs, would, had they been permitted to live, have produced, at the above calculation, and in the same time, no less a number than TEN THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIVE MILLIONS, SEVEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIX THOUSAND, living rats! Now, let us calculate the amount of human food that they would destroy. In the first place, my informants tell me, that six rats will consume day by day, as much food as a man; secondly, that the thing has been tested, and that the estimate given was, that eight rats would consume more than an ordinary man. Now, I--to place the thing beyond the smallest shadow of a doubt--will set down ten rats to eat as much as a man, not a child; nor will I say any thing about what rats waste. And what shall we find to be the alarming result? Why, that, the first pair of rats, with their three years' progeny, would consume in the night more food than SIXTY-FOUR THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND EIGHTY men the year round, and leaving eight rats to spare! And the rats destroyed by the little wonder 'Tiny,' had they been permitted to live, would, at the same calculation, with their three years' progeny, have consumed as much food as ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREE MILLIONS, THREE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN THOUSAND AND TWENTY men: above two-thirds of the population of Europe!!"

Here we come to the great glory of our author's thoughts. After its master, the rat-catcher of "manly bearing and refined sentiments of honor," "Tiny" is his true hero. Eclipse might lord it at Epsom or Newmarket; Tom Thumb might trot to renown at sixteen miles an hour, but what was that compared with the triumphs of Tiny? the killer of rats who might have had a family capable of eating (if they had found it) as much victuals or more than one hundred and sixty millions of men? Our writer proposes a solid gold collar testimonial for the "good" dog Tiny, to be raised by public subscription. But that would be a paltry return for such great services. Tiny's renown lifts him above such mercenary rewards.

More wonders are in store:

"Now for the vermin destroyed by Messrs. Shaw and Sabin. Taken at the same calculation, with their three years' progeny--can you believe it?--they would consume more food than the whole population of the earth. Yes, if Omnipotence would raise up ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE MILLIONS FIVE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED more people, these rats would consume as much food as they all!! You may wonder, but I will prove it to you."

A calculation--like that which has made Tiny immortal--is given, and then the reflection, succeeds, "Is it not a most appalling thing to think that there are at the present time in the British empire, thousands, nay millions, in a state of starvation, while rats are consuming that which would place them and their families in a state of affluence and comfort? I ask this simple question" (emphatically continues our Rat Hater), "Has not Parliament, ere now, been summoned upon matters of far less importance to the Empire? _I think it has_."

A fine opening this for an oratorical patriot, whose themes are worn out. An agitation for protection against rats would inevitably secure the hearty support of the agricultural interest.

Enough has surely been said to show the great importance of rats, but it would be wrong to leave the little book which has suggested this article, without gleaning from it a few rat-catching statistics, and without pointing out the moral of the whole, by giving the writer's proposition for relieving us from the scourge he describes. It seems that one rat-catcher has frequently from one thousand five hundred to two thousand rats in his cages at one time--it is not stated, but we suppose--ready to be killed by "Tiny." It is averred that these are all brought up from the country--all "fair barn rats"--and that "it would not pay to breed them"--a question probably open to doubt. The natural enemies of the rat are thus mustered, the ferret, polecat, stoat, weasel, cat, dog, and man. The ferret's powers of destruction are estimated very lightly; the polecats are very rare, prefer game when it can be had, and do little against the rat; the weasel also prefers a chicken or a duckling "to fighting with a rat for a meal." Hence the farmers destroy them, and they do little against the rats. Cats, as a rule, prefer hearth-rugs; and traps, _unless quite new_, and consequently sweet and free from the smell of rats, are useless. No! There is nothing in Nature capable of saving the nation from rats, but "Tinies."

"I do not know of any quadruped equal to a well-bred London terrier for sagacity, courage fidelity, color, symmetry, general beauty, and economy: in a word, he seems in every respect formed by nature for man's companion and protector."

With a fine burst of eloquence, the author asks,

"Are rats a calamity to be deplored, or are they not? The voices of religion and patriotism cry, with stentorian lungs, 'Yes!' the voice of philanthropy cries, 'Down with them! down with every barrier, and annihilate them!' the fainting stomachs of thousands of our starving fellow-creatures at home and in the sister country, with the agonized bowels of their withered offspring writhing beneath the ruthless fangs of hunger, shriek forth, with horrid yells, for their extermination!!"

Our friend then takes a higher flight, and discusses, with equal fervor and more notes of admiration, the question whether--on theological grounds--man has a right to kill these creatures, even though they be rats. But he soars into such altitudes of rhetorical theology, that we dare not follow him. He dismisses, in the same paragraph, several remedies for rats, with a brevity almost savoring of contempt; gliding gracefully from theology to arsenic and other poisons, he returns, with a gush of enthusiasm, to his old refrain, "Tiny."

The breed of small terriers of the Tiny breed must be increased. "I do not mean," he says, "the little pigmy dwarf terrier; they are tantamount to useless, even where they are well-bred, not having strength enough for hunting. A dog, to be of sound service, ought to be from six to sixteen pounds weight; I would not recommend them over that, as they become too large and unwieldy for the purpose, and too expensive keeping: besides, little dogs will kill mice as well as rats, and that is a great recommendation. I would also recommend, above all others, the London rat-killing terrier; he is as hard as steel, courageous as a lion, and as handsome as a racehorse: the village dogs, on the other hand, are, generally speaking, too large, too coarse, and too soft. You ought to be as particular about breeding terriers as they are with racehorses."

The writer suggests the abolition of the duty upon rat-catching terriers of the "Tiny" family; that associations should be encouraged in the rural parts of England for the promotion of rat-catching in all its branches; that the bodies of the vermin be sold for manure; and lastly, that rewards be given to the greatest killers.

Literature has, from first to last, been strengthened by recruits from nearly every class; but till now we know of no volunteer who has enlisted under her banner from the ranks of rat-catching. We know not if the publication that has afforded a text for this article will effectually augment the exterminators of the rat-tribe; but this is certain, that, rat-killer though its writer be, he has produced between forty and fifty pages, in which, though there may be much comical exaggeration, there are, nevertheless, many curious facts and suggestions for abating one of the greatest animal nuisances that have infested our homes and fields, since the days when an English king levied tribute of wolves' heads upon our brethren of Wales.

THE BROKEN HEART; OR, THE WELL OF PEN-MORFA.

A WELSH TALE.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.--CHAPTER I.

Of a hundred travelers who spend a night at Tre-Madoc, in North Wales, there is not one, perhaps, who goes to the neighboring village of Pen-Morfa. The new town, built by Mr. Maddocks, Shelley's friend, has taken away all the importance of the ancient village--formerly, as its name imports, "the head of the marsh;" that marsh which Mr. Maddocks drained and dyked, and reclaimed from the Traeth Mawr, till Pen-Morfa, against the walls of whose cottages the winter tides lashed in former days, has come to stand high and dry, three miles from the sea, on a disused road to Caernarvon. I do not think there has been a new cottage built in Pen-Morfa this hundred years; and many an old one has dates in some obscure corner which tell of the fifteenth century. The joists of timber, where they meet overhead, are blackened with the smoke of centuries. There is one large room, round which the beds are built like cupboards, with wooden doors to open and shut; somewhat in the old Scotch fashion, I imagine: and below the bed (at least, in one instance I can testify that this was the case, and I was told it was not uncommon), is a great wide wooden drawer, which contained the oat-cake baked for some months' consumption by the family. They call the promontory of Llyn (the point at the end of Caernarvonshire), _Welsh_ Wales; I think they might call Pen-Morfa a Welsh Welsh village; it is so national in its ways, and buildings, and inhabitants, and so different from the towns and hamlets into which the English throng in summer. How these said inhabitants of Pen-Morfa ever are distinguished by their names, I, uninitiated, can not tell. I only know for a fact, that in a family there with which I am acquainted, the eldest son's name is John Jones, because his father's was John Thomas; that the second son is called David Williams, because his grandfather was William Wynn, and that the girls are called indiscriminately by the names of Thomas and Jones. I have heard some of the Welsh chuckle over the way in which they have baffled the barristers at Caernarvon Assizes, denying the name under which they had been subpoenaed to give evidence, if they were unwilling witnesses. I could tell you of a great deal which is peculiar and wild in these true Welsh people, who are what I suppose we English were a century ago; but I must hasten on to my tale.

I have received great, true, beautiful kindness from one of the members of the family of whom I just now spoke as living at Pen-Morfa; and when I found that they wished me to drink tea with them, I gladly did so, though my friend was the only one in the house, who could speak English at all fluently. After tea, I went with them to see some of their friends; and it was then I saw the interiors of the houses of which I have spoken. It was an autumn evening; we left mellow sunset-light in the open air when we entered the houses, in which all seemed dark save in the ruddy sphere of the firelight, for the windows were very small, and deep set in the thick walls. Here were an old couple, who welcomed me in Welsh, and brought forth milk and oat-cake with patriarchal hospitality. Sons and daughters had married away from them; they lived alone; he was blind, or nearly so; and they sat one on each side of the fire, so old and so still (till we went in and broke the silence), that they seemed to be listening for Death. At another house, lived a woman stern and severe-looking. She was busy hiving a swarm of bees, alone and unassisted. I do not think my companion would have chosen to speak to her, but seeing her out in her hill-side garden, she made some inquiry in Welsh, which was answered in the most mournful tone I ever heard in my life; a voice of which the freshness and "timbre" had been choked up by tears long years ago. I asked who she was. I dare say the story is common enough, but the sight of the woman, and her few words had impressed me. She had been the beauty of Pen-Morfa; had been in service; had been taken to London by the family whom she served; had come down in a year or so, back to Pen-Morfa; her beauty gone into that sad, wild, despairing look which I saw; and she about to become a mother. Her father had died during her absence, and left her a very little money; and after her child was born she took the little cottage where I saw her, and made a scanty living by the produce of her bees. She associated with no one. One event had made her savage and distrustful to her kind. She kept so much aloof that it was some time before it became known that her child was deformed, and had lost the use of its lower limbs. Poor thing! when I saw the mother, it had been for fifteen years bedridden; but go past when you would, in the night, you saw a light burning; it was often that of the watching mother, solitary and friendless, soothing the moaning child; or you might hear her crooning some old Welsh air, in hopes to still the pain with the loud, monotonous music. Her sorrow was so dignified, and her mute endurance and her patient love won her such respect, that the neighbors would fain have been friends; but she kept alone and solitary. This is a most true story. I hope that woman and her child are dead now, and their souls above.

Another story which I heard of these old primitive dwellings I mean to tell at somewhat greater length:

There are rocks high above Pen-Morfa; they are the same that hang over Tre-Madoc, but near Pen-Morfa they sweep away, and are lost in the plain. Every where they are beautiful. The great sharp ledges which would otherwise look hard and cold, are adorned with the brightest-colored moss, and the golden lichen. Close to, you see the scarlet leaves of the crane's-bill, and the tufts of purple heather, which fill up every cleft and cranny; but in the distance you see only the general effect of infinite richness of color, broken here and there by great masses of ivy. At the foot of these rocks come a rich verdant meadow or two; and then you are at Pen-Morfa. The village well is sharp down under the rocks. There are one or two large, sloping pieces of stone in that last field, on the road leading to the well, which are always slippery; slippery in the summer's heat, almost as much as in the frost of winter, when some little glassy stream that runs over them is turned into a thin sheet of ice. Many, many years back--a lifetime ago--there lived in Pen-Morfa a widow and her daughter. Very little is required in those out-of-the-way Welsh villages. The wants of the people are very simple. Shelter, fire, a little oat-cake and buttermilk, and garden produce; perhaps some pork and bacon from the pig in winter; clothing, which is principally of home manufacture, and of the most enduring kind: these take very little money to purchase, especially in a district into which the large capitalists have not yet come, to buy up two or three acres of the peasants; and nearly every man about Pen-Morfa owned, at the time of which I speak, his dwelling and some land besides.