The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, Selma Lagerlöf [best sales books of all time .txt] 📗

were found in every cellar; in every attic; in larders and cowhouses and barns; in breweries and flour-mills; in churches and castles; in every man-constructed building. But now they were banished from all this⁠—and were almost exterminated. Only in one and another old and secluded place could one run across a few of them; and nowhere were they to be found in such large numbers as in Glimminge castle.

When an animal folk die out, it is generally the human kind who are the cause of it; but that was not the case in this instance. The people had certainly struggled with the black rats, but they had not been able to do them any harm worth mentioning. Those who had conquered them were an animal folk of their own kind, who were called gray rats.

These gray rats had not lived in the land since time immemorial, like the black rats, but descended from a couple of poor immigrants who landed in Malmö from a Libyan sloop about a hundred years ago. They were homeless, starved-out wretches who stuck close to the harbour, swam among the piles under the bridges, and ate refuse that was thrown in the water. They never ventured into the city, which was owned by the black rats.

But gradually, as the gray rats increased in number they grew bolder. At first they moved over to some waste places and condemned old houses which the black rats had abandoned. They hunted their food in gutters and dirt heaps, and made the most of all the rubbish that the black rats did not deign to take care of. They were hardy, contented and fearless; and within a few years they had become so powerful that they undertook to drive the black rats out of Malmö. They took from them attics, cellars and storerooms, starved them out or bit them to death, for they were not at all afraid of fighting.

When Malmö was captured, they marched forward in small and large companies to conquer the whole country. It is almost impossible to comprehend why the black rats did not muster themselves into a great, united war-expedition to exterminate the gray rats, while these were still few in numbers. But the black rats were so certain of their power that they could not believe it possible for them to lose it. They sat still on their estates, and in the meantime the gray rats took from them farm after farm, city after city. They were starved out, forced out, rooted out. In Skåne they had not been able to maintain themselves in a single place except Glimminge castle.

The old castle had such secure walls and such few rat passages led through these, that the black rats had managed to protect themselves, and to prevent the gray rats from crowding in. Night after night, year after year, the struggle had continued between the aggressors and the defenders; but the black rats had kept faithful watch, and had fought with the utmost contempt for death, and, thanks to the fine old house, they had always conquered.

It will have to be acknowledged that as long as the black rats were in power they were as much shunned by all other living creatures as the gray rats are in our day⁠—and for just cause; they had thrown themselves upon poor, fettered prisoners, and tortured them; they had ravished the dead; they had stolen the last turnip from the cellars of the poor; bitten off the feet of sleeping geese; robbed eggs and chicks from the hens; and committed a thousand depredations. But since they had come to grief, all this seemed to have been forgotten; and no one could help but marvel at the last of a race that had held out so long against its enemies.

The gray rats that lived in the courtyard at Glimminge and in the vicinity, kept up a continuous warfare and tried to watch out for every possible chance to capture the castle. One would fancy that they should have allowed the little company of black rats to occupy Glimminge castle in peace, since they themselves had acquired all the rest of the country; but you may be sure this thought never occurred to them. They were wont to say that it was a point of honour with them to conquer the black rats at some time or other. But those who were acquainted with the gray rats must have known that it was because the human kind used Glimminge castle as a grain storehouse that the gray ones could not rest before they had taken possession of the place.

The Stork

Monday, March twenty-eighth.

Early one morning the wild geese who stood and slept on the ice in Vomb Lake were awakened by long calls from the air. “Trirop, Trirop!” it sounded, “Trianut, the crane, sends greetings to Akka, the wild goose, and her flock. Tomorrow will be the day of the great crane dance on Kullaberg.”

Akka raised her head and answered at once: “Greetings and thanks! Greetings and thanks!”

With that, the cranes flew farther; and the wild geese heard them for a long while⁠—where they travelled and called out over every field, and every wooded hill: “Trianut sends greetings. Tomorrow will be the day of the great crane dance on Kullaberg.”

The wild geese were very happy over this invitation. “You’re in luck,” they said to the white goosey-gander, “to be permitted to attend the great crane dance on Kullaberg!”

“Is it then so remarkable to see cranes dance?” asked the goosey-gander.

“It is something that you have never even dreamed about!” replied the wild geese.

“Now we must think out what we shall do with Thumbietot tomorrow⁠—so that no harm can come to him, while we run over to Kullaberg,” said Akka.

“Thumbietot shall not be left alone!” said the goosey-gander. “If the cranes won’t let him see their dance, then I’ll stay with him.”

“No human being has ever been permitted to attend the Animal’s Congress, at Kullaberg,” said Akka,