The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse
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Dorothy Kilner >> The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse
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Here the conversation ended, and I could not help thinking how
foolish it was for people to permit themselves to be terrified for
nothing. Here is a little girl, now, thought I, in a nice clean
room, and covered up warm in bed, with pretty green curtains drawn
round her, to keep the wind from her head, and the light in the
morning from her eyes; and yet she is distressing herself, and
making herself really uncomfortable, and unhappy, only because I,
a poor, little, harmless mouse, with scarcely strength sufficient
to gnaw a nutshell, happened to jump from the table, and throw
down, perhaps, her own box.--Oh! what a pity it is that people
should so destroy their own comfort! How sweetly might this child
have passed the night, if she had but, like her sister, wisely
reflected that a noise could not possibly hurt them; and that,
had any of the family occasioned it, by falling down, or running
against anything in the dark which hurt them, most likely they
would have heard some more stirring about.
And upon this subject the author cannot help, in human form (as
well as in that of a mouse), observing how extremely ridiculous it
is for people to suffer themselves to be terrified upon every
trifling occasion that happens; as if they had no more resolution
than a mouse itself, which is liable to be destroyed every meal it
makes. And, surely, nothing can be more absurd than for children
to be afraid of thieves and house-breakers; since, as little Mary
said, they never want to seek after children. Money is all they
want; and as children have very seldom much of that in their
possession, they may assure themselves they are perfectly safe,
and have therefore no occasion to alarm themselves if they hear a
noise, without being able to make out what it is; unless, indeed,
like the child I have just been writing about, they would be so
silly as to be frightened at a little mouse; for most commonly the
noises we hear, if we lay awake in the night, are caused by mice
running about and playing behind the wainscot: and what
reasonable person would suffer themselves to be alarmed by such
little creatures as those? But it is time I should return to the
history of my little make-believe companion, who went on, saying--
The conversation I have been relating I overheard as I lay
concealed in a shoe that stood close by the bedside, and into
which I ran the moment I jumped off the table, and where I kept
snug till the next morning; when, just as the clock was striking
eight, the same Mrs. Nelly, whom I saw the day before in the
kitchen, entered the apartment, and accosted the young ladies,
saying, 'Good morning to you, ladies, do you know that it is time
to get up?' 'Then, pray, Nelly, lace my stays, will you?' said
Miss Nancy. 'But lace mine first, and give me my other shoes; for
those I wore yesterday must be brushed, because I stepped in the
dirt, and so when you go down you must remember, and take and
brush them, and then let me have them again,' said Mary; 'but come
and dress me now.'
Well, thought I, this is a rude way of speaking, indeed, something
like Miss Nancy Artless, at the house where my poor dear Softdown
was so cruelly massacred; I am sure I hope I shall not meet with
the like fate here, and I wish I was safe out of this shoe; for,
perhaps, presently it will be wanted to be put on Mary's foot; and
I am sure I must not expect to meet any mercy from a child who
shows so bad a disposition as to speak to a servant in so uncivil
a manner, for no good-natured person would do that.
With these kind of reflections I was amusing myself for some
little time, when, all on a sudden, they were put an end to, by my
finding the shoe in which I was concealed, hastily taken up; and
before I had time to recollect what I had best do, I was almost
killed by some violent blows I received, which well nigh broke
every bone in my skin. I crept quite up to the toe of the shoe,
so that I was not at all seen, and the maid, when she took up the
shoes, held one in one hand, and the other in the other, by their
heels, and then slapped them hard together, to beat out of some of
the dust which was in them. This she repeated three or four
times, till I was quite stunned; and how or which way I tumbled or
got out, I know not; but when I came to myself. I was close up
behind the foot of a table, in a large apartment, where were
several children, and a gentleman and a lady, all conversing
together with the greatest good humour and harmony.
The first words I heard distinctly enough to remember, were those
of a little boy, about five years old, who, with eagerness
exclaimed--'I forget you! no that I never shall. If I was to go a
hundred thousand miles off, I am sure I shall never forget you.
What! do you think I should ever, as long as I live, if it is a
million of years, forget my own dear papa and mamma? No; that I
should not, I am very, very sure I never should.' 'Well, but
Tom,' interrupted the gentleman, 'if in a million of years you
should not forget us, I dare say, in less than two months you will
forget our advice, and before you have been at school half that
time, you will get to squabbling with and tricking the other boys,
just as they do with one another; and instead of playing at all
times with the strictest openness and honour, you will, I sadly
fear, learn to cheat, and deceive, and pay no attention to what
your mother and I have been telling you.' 'No', that I am sure I
sha'n't!' replied the boy. 'What! do you think I shall be so
wicked as to turn a thief, and cheat people?' 'I dare say, my
dear,' resumed the father, 'you will not do what we call thieving;
but as I know there are many naughty boys in all schools, I am
afraid they will teach you to commit dishonourable actions, and to
tell you there is no harm in them, and that they are signs of
cleverness and spirit, and qualifications very necessary for every
boy to possess.' 'Aye, that's sure enough,' said the boy, who
appeared about ten years old, 'for they almost all declare, that
if a boy is not sharp and cunning, he might almost as well be out
of the world as in it. But, as you say, papa, I hate such
behaviour, I am sure there is one of our boys, who is so
wonderfully clever and acute, as they call him, that I detest ever
having any thing to do with him; for unless one watches him as a
cat would watch a mouse, he is sure to cheat or play one some
trick or other.' 'What sort of tricks do you mean?' inquired the
little boy. 'Why, I will tell you,' replied the other. 'You know
nothing of the games we have at school, so if I was to tell you
how he plays at them, you would not understand what I meant. But
you know what walking about blindfold is, don't you? Well! one
day, about a dozen boys agreed to have a blind race, and the boy
who got nearest the goal, which was a stick driven in the ground
with a shilling upon the top of it, was to win the shilling,
provided he did it fairly without seeing.' 'I suppose,'
interrupted Tom, 'you mean the boy who got to the stick first.'
'No, I do not,' replied his brother, 'I mean what I say, the boy
who got nearest it, no matter whether he came first or last; the
fun was to see them try to keep in a straight path, with their
eyes tied up, whilst they wander quite in the wrong, and not to
try who could run fastest. Well! when they, were all blinded, and
twisted round three or four times before they were suffered to set
off, they directed their steps the way they thought would directly
conduct them to the goal; and some of them had almost reached it,
when Sharply (the boy I mentioned) who had placed a shilling upon
the stick, for they drew lots who should do that, and he who
furnished the money was to stand by it, to observe who won it by
coming nearest; well, Sharply, I say, just as they came close to
it, moved away softly to another place, above three yards distant
from any of them (for I should have told you, that if none of them
got within three yards, the shilling was to remain his, and they
were each to give him a penny.) So then he untied their eyes, and
insisted upon it they had all of them lost. But two or three of
us happened to be by, and so we said he had cheated them, and
ought not to keep the money, as it had fairly been won by Smyth.
But he would not give it up, so it made a quarrel between him and
Smyth, and at last they fought, and Mr. Chiron confined them both
in the school all the rest of the afternoon, and when he heard
what the quarrel was about, he took the shilling from Sharply, and
called him a mean-spirited cheat; but he would not let Smyth have
it, because he said he deserved to lose it for fighting about such
a trifle, and so it was put into the forfeit-money.'
'But pray do not you think Sharply behaved extremely wrong?'
'Shamefully so, indeed,' said the gentleman. 'I never could have
any opinion of a boy 'who could act so dishonourably,' said the
lady, 'let his cleverness be what it would.' 'Pray, Frank, tell
me some more,' said the little boy. 'More!' replied Frank, 'I
could tell you an hundred such kind of things. One time, as Peter
Light was walking up the yard, with some damsons in his hat,
Sharply ran by, and as he passed, knocked his hat out of his hand,
for the sake of scrambling for as many as he could get himself.
And sometimes, after the pie-woman has been there, he gets such
heaps of tarts you cannot think, by his different tricks: perhaps
he will buy a currant tart himself; then he would go about,
calling out, "Who'll change a cheesecake for a currant tart?" and
now-and-then he will add, "and half a bun into the bargain!" Then
two or three of the boys call out, "I will, I will!" and when they
go to hold out their cheesecakes to him, he snatches them out of
their hands before they are aware, and runs away in an instant;
and whilst they stand for a moment in astonishment, he gets so
much ahead of them that he eats them up before they can again
overtake him. At other times, when he sees a boy beginning to eat
his cake, he will come and talk carelessly to him for a few
moments, and then all of a sudden call out, "Look! look!
look!-there!" pointing his finger as if to show him something
wonderful; and when the other, without suspecting any mischief,
turns his head to see what has so surprised him, away he snatches
the cake, and runs off with it, cramming it into his mouth in a
moment.
'And when he plays at Handy-dandy, Jack-a-dandy, which will you
have, upper hand or lower? if you happen to guess right, he slips
whatever you are playing with into his other hand; and that you
know is not playing fair; and so many of the boys tell him; but he
does not mind any of us. And as he is clever at his learning, and
always does his exercise quite right, Mr. Chiron (who indeed does
not know of his tricks) is very fond of him, and is for ever
saying what a clever fellow he is, and proposing him as an example
to the rest of the boys; and I do believe many of them imitate his
deceitful, cheating tricks, only for the sake of being thought
like him.'
'Aye! it is a sad thing,' interrupted the gentleman, 'that people
who are blessed with sense and abilities to behave well, should so
misuse them as to set a bad, instead of a good example to others,
and by that means draw many into sin, who otherwise, perhaps,
might never have acted wrong. Was this Sharply, you have been
speaking of, a dunce and blockhead at his book, he would never
gain the commendations that Mr. Chiron now bestows upon him; and,
consequently, no boy would wish to be thought like him; his bad
example, therefore, would not be of half the importance it now is.
'Only think, then, my dear children, how extremely wicked it is,
for those who are blessed with understandings capable of acting as
they should do, and making people admire them, at the same time to
be guilty of such real and great sin. For, however children at
play may like to trick and deceive each other, and call it only
play or fun, still, let me tell you, they are much mistaken if
they flatter themselves there is no harm in it. It is a very
wrong way of behaviour; it is mean, it is dishonorable, and it is
wicked; and the boy or girl who would ever permit themselves to
act in so unjustifiable a manner, however they may excel in their
learning, or exterior accomplishments, can never be deserving of
esteem, confidence, or regard. What esteem or respect could I
ever entertain of a person's sense or learning, who made no better
use of it than to practise wickedness with more dexterity and
grace than he otherwise would be enabled to do? Or, what
confidence could I ever place in the person who, I knew, only
wanted a convenient opportunity to defraud, trick, and deceive me?
Or, what regard and love could I possibly entertain for such a
one, who, unless I kept a constant watch over, as I must over a
wild beast, would, like a wild beast, be sure to do me some
injury? Would it be possible, I say, to love such a character,
whatever shining abilities or depth of learning he might possess?
Ask your own hearts, my dears, whether you think you could?'
To this they all answered at once, 'No, that I could not,' and 'I
am sure I could not.' 'Well, then,' resumed the father, 'only
think how odious that conduct must be, which robs us of the
esteem, confidence, and love of our fellow-creatures; and that
too, notwithstanding we may at the same time be very clever, and
have a great deal of sense and learning. But, for my part, I
confess I know not the least advantage of our understanding or our
learning, unless we make a proper use of them. Knowing a great
deal, and having read a great many books, will be of no service to
us, unless we are careful to make a proper use of that knowledge,
and to improve by what we read, otherwise the time we so bestow is
but lost, and we might as well spend the whole of our lives in
idleness.
'Always remember, therefore, my loves, that the whole end of our
taking the trouble to instruct you, or putting ourselves to the
expense of sending you to school, or your attending to what is
taught you, is, that you may grow better men and women than you
otherwise would be; and unless, therefore, you do improve, we
might as well spare ourselves the pains and expense, and you need
not take the trouble of learning; since, if you will act wickedly,
all our labour is but thrown away to no manner of purpose.
'Mr. and Mrs. Sharply, how I pity them! What sorrow must they
endure, to behold their son acting in the manner you have
described; for nothing can give so much concern to a fond parent's
heart, as to see their children, for whom they have taken so much
pains, turn out naughty; and to deceive and cheat! What can be
worse than that? I hope, my dear children, you will never, any of
you, give us that dreadful misery! I hope, my dear Tom, I hope
you will never learn any of those detestable ways your brother has
been telling you of. And if it was not that you will often be
obliged to see such things when you mix with other children, I
should be sorry you should even hear of such bad actions, as I
could wish you to pass through life without so much as knowing
such wickedness ever existed; hut that is impossible. There are
so many naughty people in the world, that you will often be
obliged to see and hear of crimes which I hope you will shudder to
think of committing yourselves; and being warned of them
beforehand, I hope it will put you more upon your guard, not to be
tempted, upon any consideration, to give the least encouragement
to them, much less to practise them yourselves.
'Perhaps, Tom, if your brother had not, by telling us of Sharply's
tricks, given me an opportunity of warning you how extremely wrong
and wicked they are, you might when you were at school, have
thought them very clever, and marks of genius; and therefore, like
others of the boys, have tried to imitate them, and by that means
have become as wicked, mean, and dishonourable yourself. And only
think how it would have grieved your mamma and me, to find the
next holidays, our dear little Tom, instead of being that honest,
open, generous-hearted boy he now is, changed into a deceiver, a
cheat, a liar, one whom we could place no trust or confidence in;
for, depend upon it, the person who will, when at play, behave
unfair, would not scruple to do so in even other action of his
life. And the boy who will deceive for the sake of a marble, or
the girl who would act ungenerously, for the sake of a doll's cap
or a pin, will, when grown up, be ready to cheat and over-reach in
their trades, or any affairs they may have to transact. And you
may assure yourselves that numbers of people who are every year
hanged, began at first to be wicked by practising those little
dishonourable mean actions, which so many children are too apt to
do at play, without thinking of their evil consequences.
'I think, my dear,' said he, turning to his wife, 'I have heard
you mention a person who you were acquainted with when a girl, who
at last was hanged for stealing, I think, was not she?' 'No,'
replied the lady, 'she was not hanged, she was transported for
one-and-twenty years.' 'Pray, madam, how transported? what is
that?' inquired one of the children. 'People, my dear,' resumed
the lady, 'are transported when they have committed crimes, which,
according to the laws of our land, are not thought quite wicked
enough to be hanged for; but still too bad to suffer them to
continue amongst other people. So, instead of hanging them, the
judge orders that they shall be sent on board a ship, built on
purpose to hold naughty people, and carried away from all their
friends, a great many miles distant, commonly to America, where
they are sold as slaves, to work very hard for as many years as
they are transported for. And the person your papa mentioned was
sold for twenty-one years; but she died before that time was out,
as most of them do: they are generally used very cruelly, and
work very hard; and besides, the heat of the climate seldom agrees
with anybody who has been used to live in England, and so they
generally die before their time is expired, and never have an
opportunity of seeing their friends any more, after they are once
sent away. How should any of you, my dears, like to be sent away
from your papa and me, and your brothers and sisters, and uncles
and aunts, and all your friends, and never) never see us any more;
and only keep company with naughty, cross, wicked people, and
labour very hard, and suffer a great deal of sickness, and such a
number of different hardships, you cannot imagine? Only think how
shocking it must be! How should you like it?' 'Oh', not at all,
not at all,' was echoed from everyone in the room.
'But such,' rejoined their mother, 'is the punishment naughty
people have; and such was the punishment the person your papa
spoke of had; who, when she was young, no more expected to come to
such an end than any of you do. I was very well acquainted with
her, and often used to play with her, and she (like the boy Frank
has been talking of) used to think it a mark of cleverness to be
able to deceive; and for the sake of winning the game she was
engaged in, would not scruple committing any little unfair action,
which would give her the advantage.
'I remember one time, at such a trifling game as pushpin, she gave
me a very bad opinion of her; for I observed, instead of pushing
the pin as she ought to do, she would try to lift it up with her
finger a little, to make it cross over the other.
'And when we were all at cards, she would peep, to find out the
pictured ones, that she might have them in her own hand.
'And when we played at any game which had forfeits, she would try,
by different little artifices, to steal back her own before the
time of crying them came; or, if she was the person who was to cry
them, as you call it, she would endeavour to see whose came next,
that she might order the penalty accordingly.
'Or if we were playing at hide and seek, she would put what we had
to hide either in her own pocket, or throw it into the fire, so
that it would be impossible to find it; and then, after making her
companions hunt for it for an hour, till their patience was quite
tired, and they gave out; she would burst out in a loud laugh! and
say she only did it for fun. But, for my part, I never could see
any joke in such kind of things: the meanness, the baseness, the
dish on our, which attended it always, in my opinion, took off all
degree of cleverness, or pleasure from such actions.
'There was another of her sly tricks which I forgot to mention,
and that was, if at tea, or any other time, she got first to the
plate of cake or bread, she would place the piece she liked best
where she thought it would come to her turn to have it: or if at
breakfast she saw her sisters' basin have the under crust in it,
and they happened not to be by, or to see her, she would take it
out, and put her own, which she happened not to like so well, in
the stead.
'Only think, my dears, what frightful, sly, naughty tricks to be
guilty of! And from practising these, which she said there was no
harm in, and she only did them in play, and for a bit of fun, at
last she came, by degrees, to be guilty of greater. She two or
three different times, when she was not seen, stole things out of
shops; and one day, when she was upon a visit, and thought she
could do it cleverly, without being discovered, put a couple of
table spoons into her pocket. The footman who was waiting
happened to see her; but fearing to give offence, he took no
notice of it till after she was gone home, when he told his
master, who, justly provoked at being so ill-treated, by a person
to whom he had shown every civility, went after her, called in her
own two maids, and his footman, as witnesses, and then insisted
upon examining her pockets, where he indeed found his own two
spoons. He then sent for proper officers to secure her, had her
taken into custody, and for that offence it was that she was
transported.
'Thus, my dear children, you see the shocking consequence of ever
suffering such vile habits to grow upon us; and I hope the example
of this unhappy woman (which I assure you is a true story) will be
sufficient to warn you for ever, for a single time, being guilty
of so detestable a crime, lest you should, like her, by degrees
come to experience her fatal punishment.'
Just as the lady said these words a bell rang, and all getting up
together, they went out of the room, the young one calling out,
'To dinner! to dinner! to dinner! here we all go to dinner!'
And I will seek for one too, said I to myself, (creeping out as
soon as I found I was alone) for I feel very faint and hungry. I
looked and looked about a long while, for I could move but slow,
on account of the bruises I had received in the shoe. At last
under the table, round which the family had been sitting, I found
a pincushion, which, being stuffed with bran, afforded me enough
to satisfy my hunger, but was excessively dry and unsavoury; yet,
bad as it was, I was obliged to be content at that time with it;
and had nearly done eating when the door opened, and in ran two or
three of the children. Frightened out of my senses almost, I had
just time to escape down a little hole in the floor, made by one
of the knots in the wood slipping out, and there I heard one of
the girls exclaim--
'O dear! who now has cut my pincushion? it was you did it, Tom.'
'No, indeed I did not,' replied he. 'Then it was you, Mary.'
'No, I know nothing of it,' answered she. 'Then it was you,
Hetty.' 'That I am sure it was not,' said she; 'I am sure, I am
certain it was not me; I am positive it was not.' 'Ah,' replied
the other, 'I dare say it was.' 'Yes, I think it is most likely,'
said Mary. 'And so do I too,' said Tom. 'And pray why do you all
think so?' inquired Hetty, in an angry tone. 'Because,' said the
owner of the pincushion, 'you are the only one who ever tells
fibs; you told a story, you know, about the fruit; you told a
story too about the currant jelly; and about putting your fingers
in the butter, at breakfast; and therefore there is a very great
reason why we should suspect you more than anybody else.' 'But I
am sure,' said she, bursting into tears, 'I am very sure I have
not meddled with it.' 'I do not at all know that,' replied the
other, 'and I do think it was you; for I am certain if any one
else had done it they would not deny it; and it could not come
into this condition by itself, somebody must have done it; and I
dare say it was you; so say no more about it.'
Here the dispute was interrupted by somebody calling them out of
the room; and I could not help making some reflections on what had
passed. How dreadful a crime, thought I, is lying and falsity; to
what sad mortifications does it subject the person who is ever
wicked enough to commit it; and how does it expose them to the
contempt of everyone, and make them to be suspected of faults they
are even perfectly free from. Little Hetty now is innocent, with
respect to the pincushion with which her sister charges her, as
any of the others; yet, because she has before forfeited her
honour, she can gain no credit: no one believes what she says,
she is thought to be guilty of the double fault of spoiling the
pincushion, and what is still worse, of lying to conceal it;
whilst the other children are at once believed, and their words
depended upon.
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