Every rat voted for this proposal except old Chair Squeaker. He was a rat of many winters, renowned for extracting cheese from every known make of rat-trap without setting off the spring. “Why don’t you vote? What’s your objection, old Chair Squeaker?” inquired Ratson Nailer, pertly. “No objection,” replied old Chair Squeaker, “none whatever! But tell me – who is going to bell the cat?” No one answered.

Cheesebox reached up, standing on her hind legs in the hay-rack; she applied her green eyes to a crack between the boards of the loft floor.Instantly there was a rush, a scurry, and the assembly of rats dispersed.

Cheesebox jumped down into the stall; her tail was thick, her fur stood on end. Mary Ellen very unwisely was still shaking with laughter. Cheesebox walked up to Mary Ellen. She boxed Mary Ellen’s ears with her claws out. Mary Ellen, with a howl, jumped into the hay-rack; Cheesebox followed her. They sat in the hay, making horrible cat noises and cuffing each other, to the intense annoyance of the mare in the stall below.

As for Paddy Pig – who had really been enjoying a good sleep at last – Paddy Pig screamed with rage and yelled for Sandy.

While the uproar was at its height, the stable door opened, and Sandy came in carrying a lantern, and followed by the veterinary retriever and Pony Billy. The retriever was a large, important dog with a hurrying, professional manner, copied from his master. He came rapidly into the stall, wearing a long blue overcoat, and examined the patient through a pair of large horn spectacles. The cats glared down at him from the hayrack.

POOR PADDY PIG!

“Put your tongue out and say R.”  “What, what, what? It’s bad manners?” objected Paddy Pig. “Put your tongue out, or I’ll bite you!”  “What, what, what?”

“The patient does not appear to be amenable to treatment; but I can perceive no rash; nothing which would justify me in diagnosing measles”(dognosing, he pronounced it). “I am inclined to dog-nose iracundia, arising from tormenta ventris, complicated by feline incompatibility. But, in order to make certain, I will proceed to feel the patient’s pulse. Where is the likeliest spot to find the pulse of a pig, I wonder?”  “Try feeling his tail,” suggested Pony William. “I have no watch,” said the retriever, “but the thermometer will do just as well. Hold it to the lantern, Sandy, while I count.”  “It does not seem to go up,” said Sandy, much mystified. “That settles it,” said the retriever,“I felt sure I was not justified in dog-nosing measles. We will now proceed to administer an emetic – I mean to say an aperient. Has anybody got a medicine glass?”  “There is a drenching horn in that little wall cupboard behind the door,” said Maggret, who was watching the proceedings with much interest over the side of her stall. “Capital!”said the retriever, “hold the bottle please, Sandy, while I dust the horn. It’s chock-full of cobwebs.” Sandy shook the bottle; “I partly seem to know the smell,” said he. He held it beside the lantern and spelled out the label – “Appodyldock. What may that be?”

The retriever displayed some anxiety to get the bottle away from him. “Be careful; the remedy is extremely powerful.”

“Excuse me,” purred a cat’s voice from the hay-rack overhead, “excuse me – appodyldock is not for insides. My poor dear Granny-ma, Puss Cat Mew, had appodyldock rubbed on her back where she got burnt by a hot cinder while she was sitting in the fender. Appodyldock is poison.”  “In spite of our differing I agree with you,” said another cat’s voice in the hay-rack, “appodyldock is for outward application only.”  “Stuff and nonsense!” said the veterinary retriever, drawing the cork out of the bottle with his teeth. “Stuff and nonsense! Here goes—”  “What! what! what! if you poison me again, I’ll scream!” remonstrated the patient. “I seem to remember the smell,” said Sandy. “Quite likely,” said the retriever; “since there is going to be all this fuss I may as well tell you it’s castor oil that I have in the bottle.”  “What, what? Castor – ugh! ugh! ugh!” choked Paddy Pig, as they poked the drenching horn into the corner of his mouth and dosed him.

“A good, safe, old-fashioned remedy, Paddy Pig,” said Pony William. “Now go to sleep, and you will wake up quite well in the morning. As a matter of fact, I don’t think there is much wrong with you now.”  “I think one dose will cure me. But, Pony Billy, come here, I want to whisper. For goodness sake – send away those cats!” Pony Billy took the hint, and acted with tact; “Mary Ellen, we are extremely obliged to you for your invaluable attention to the invalid. I shall be pleased to trot you home to Stott Farm, provided you can go at once, before the moon sets. Cheesebox, we are equally indebted to you for your self-sacrificing devotion. I may tell you there are four rats quarreling in the granary, and one of them sounds like Ratson Nailer.” Cheesebox jumped out of the stable window without another word.

Mary Ellen – after making sure that the veterinary retriever had left – Mary Ellen climbed down into the stall and tucked up the patient for the last time. “Was it a poor leetle sick piggy then—”  “What, what, what! Here, I say! Sandy, Sandy!”  “Lie still then. I’m only seeking my fur-lined boots, they are somewhere in poor piggy’s beddee beddee.”  “Come, Mary Ellen; the moon is setting. Good-night, Paddy Pig, and pleasant dreams.”

“Now we shall have some peace! Those two are worse than the rats,” said Maggret, lying down heavily in her stall. Paddy Pig was already snoring.

The sun rose next day upon a glorious May morning. Paddy Pig, a little thinner than usual, sat by the camp fire, displaying a hearty appetite for breakfast.

“No more toadstool tartlets for me! Give me another plateful of porridge, Jenny Ferret!”

CHAPTER XXII

Cuckoo Brow Lane

It is never quite dark during spring nights in the north. All through the twilight night Charles kept crowing. He was calling the circus company to breakfast, strike camp, and away, before the sun came up. Jenny Ferret’s fire still smouldered; she heaped on sticks to boil the kettle. There was hustling, and packing up, and clucking of hens, and barking of dogs. “Is all taken back that we borrowed?” asked Sandy, “I am answerable to honest old Bobs. What about that meal-bagful of mice, Xarifa?”  “Please, Sandy, the Codlin Croft mice are tied up ready.”  “Why only the mice of Codlin Croft? where are the other nine?”  “Please, please, Sandy, might they ride to the top of Cuckoo Brow? Then they could run home all the way inside the fence. They were afraid of owls. And besides, I did so want them to meet Belinda Woodmouse, we are sure to see her.”  “In short, they have remained; and they must be pulled,”said Pony Billy, good-humouredly. “Here’s a worse difficulty! Who is going to pull the tilt-cart? Paddy Pig is not fit for it,” said Jenny Ferret, hurrying up with an armful of circus trappings. “That’s all arranged,” said Pony Billy, “come along, Cuddy Simpson!”

The gypsies’ donkey walked into the orchard, on Mettle’s four new shoes. “Here come I, fit and ready to pull a dozen pigs! Good friends, I’ll go with you to the hills for a summer’s run on the grass. Fetch me a straw rope, Sandy; I’m too big for Paddy Pig’s breast-straps.”

“Sandy! Sandy!” cried Jenny Ferret, “the tent-pole has been forgotten, and our little bucket at the well. Bother that crowing cock! Where is Iky Shepster?” The starling laughed and whistled; but he refused to leave the chimney stack.

PADDY PIG WAS INSTALLED IN THE CART.

Paddy Pig was installed in the cart, to ride in state; he was wrapped in a shawl and treated like an invalid; but he was in the highest possible spirits. He played the fiddle, and squealed and joked. Sandy marched in front of the procession with his tail tightly curled. The cavalcade set off up the lane amidst the acclamations of the poultry and dogs.