e. 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