the next day—it was ten o'clock in the morning: they remembered it many years after at the forester's—the young lady and the odd man came across to the barn to unpack the case. the man rolled it across the threshing-floor; and, as soon as it was outside, they saw what had happened. everything rolled out helter-skelter and higgledy-piggledy: coffee, tea, cinnamon, spices, sugar-candy, all without end and all mixed up together and spoilt. there was not a bag but had a hole in it.
they thought, at first, that it was the grocer's fault for packing the things badly; and the young lady was so angry with him that he would have been very much hurt if he had heard all the things that she said. but then they discovered the hole in one of the corners and soon saw that some one had been there and wrought havoc.
"there must have been rats here," said the forester's daughter. "there's no question about it: there have been rats here."
"there are no rats left in the place," said the man. "we killed the last a fortnight ago. and all their holes are stopped with broken glass; and we laid poison among their tracks; and every bit of poison is eaten up; so you can be easy in your mind, miss, about the rats. they are done with. but some one has been here, that is sure enough. and i am certain it's that artful mouse whom you spoil by giving her sugar every evening."
"never!" said the young lady. "my little mouse could not possibly be such an ungrateful wretch as that."
the odd man stuck to his opinion and she stuck to hers. the forester came and, of course, sided with the man. they were all three angry and most of all the forester. for a new case had to be written for and he would have to pay for it. and so he resolved that, this time, the rat-catcher should be sent for in earnest. the odd man suggested a new cat, but that the forester would not hear about, so long as the old one lived.
in the meantime, they rescued what they could and the young lady carried the things into the larder, right past the nose of the mouse, who was sitting in her hole:
"they are speaking harm of you, my dear little mouse," she said. "and now there's a horrid rat-catcher coming, who will try to hurt you, if he can. but i'm sure it was not you who did it and i will see if i can help you."
as she spoke, she saw a piece of cinnamon which the mouse had left lying outside her hole. she took it up and examined it and, as they had not a scrap of cinnamon in the house, she knew at once that the mouse had been at the case after all. she was so much upset that she cried. for she felt that life was not worth living if she could not even trust her own dear little mouse to whom she had been so kind:
"for shame, for shame!" she cried. "see how deceitful you are. but you shall have no more sugar from me, you can be sure of that."
but the mouse sat in her hole and cried also. first because of the sugar which she was not to get any longer. next because of the rat-catcher who was to come. and then because of the kind young lady, who was so unjust to her. for, though she had taken the cinnamon, it was not she who had gnawed a hole in the packing-case. and it was too much to expect of an ordinary, plain little mouse that she should say no when a rat invited her to such a feast. but she couldn't talk to her young lady and explain it to her; and so, of course, she would never get any more sugar in future.
over in the barn, the rat lay snug and warm in her nest. her young ones grew from day to day. by the time that they had been a month in the world, they were big, greedy rats who did credit to their mamma and scooted about in every direction.
"you were right, miss, there are rats here," said the odd man. "but they are brown ones, who are much worse than the black ones that were here before. i am half-inclined to believe that they came in the packing-case from copenhagen. i have never been there, but my cousin, who is in service in the town, tells me that there are an awful lot of them."
"it's quite possible," said the forester's daughter. "but i know that my little mouse had something to do with it; so i don't defend her any longer and i don't give her any sugar either."
"that's right," said the odd man. "for rats and mice are one and the same thing; and they are noxious vermin, the whole lot of them. if we let them get the upper hand of us, they would soon eat us out of house and home."
"the rat-catcher is coming on thursday," said the forester. "jens must drive to the station to fetch him. and the young man from the school of forestry, who is to be my assistant, is coming by the same train. i am too old now and can't look after the wood as i ought to."
