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There was a sort of brigand's supper in the old bricked kitchen, with the row of dead rats lying in the moonlight against the hen-runs outside, and after thirty minutes or so of rest, Cossar roused them all to the labours that were still to do. "Obviously," as he said, they had to "wipe the place out. No litter no scandal. See?" He stirred them up to the idea of making destruction complete.
Thenardier had obtained permission to keep a sort of iron bolt which he used to spike his bread into a crack in the wall, "in order to preserve it from the rats," as he said. As Thenardier was kept in sight, no objection had been made to this spike. Still, it was remembered afterwards, that one of the jailers had said: "It would be better to let him have only a wooden spike."
Legend relates that long, long ago, even before the mighty Manitou ruled, this region was peopled by a great race as tall as the tall forest trees. They lived on roots and leaves and hunted the great water rats that dwelt in houses built of mud and sticks in the lake that filled all the country north of the Highlands.
An overwhelming pity for the ignorant, subterranean people, who were content to live like rats in their holes, filled his soul. How could the Omdeh permit it? He seemed kind and he knew that he was intelligent. Probably when the poor were in trouble they instinctively came to him; he administered the affairs of the village, no doubt, with scrupulous impartiality.
He knew no greater pleasure than to break and train a pony for her, to teach her the true knack of clearing a hedge, to explain the habits and nature of those vermin in whose lawless lives she was deeply interested rats, weasels, badgers, and such-like to attend her when she hunted, or flew her peregrine.
Then there were songs, and dialogues, and two compositions, one on "Rats" and one on "Planting Corn," which had been produced by their respective authors after much wear of brain fibre and much blotting of writing-paper. Last of all, Elvira read one of Longfellow's poems, after which she said that the exercises of the school were over, but that remarks from visitors would be gladly received.
This they continued till they had emptied the cask; they must then have got into it and licked up the last drains, for another and less agreeable smell was substituted for that of wine. I may add that this cask, with the side gone, and the marks of the rats' teeth, is still in my possession. From 'Curiosities of Natural History'
Indeed, grain might as well have cost three thousand crowns the bushel, for the prices recorded placed it beyond the reach of all but the extremely wealthy. The flesh of horses, asses, dogs, cats, rats had become rare luxuries. There was nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly, but sermons.
One lesson, too, we have learned, if it be allowable to argue a particulari, that the brute beasts which are to the Count's command are yet themselves not amenable to his spiritual power, for look, these rats that would come to his call, just as from his castle top he summon the wolves to your going and to that poor mother's cry, though they come to him, they run pell-mell from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur.
He knows how to adapt his conversation to the most opposite kind of persons, and I should not be surprised if he becomes a Cardinal before he dies. The arrival of Dr. Ricord was the next event. He was in a basket pony-chaise, driving two ponies not much larger than rats.
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