Hugh Lofting: Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary

'"Bother it!" the mouse muttered. "What a distance. Well, it's the only chance. I might as well begin."

'And she turned around, sprang down into the room, shot across the floor and disappeared into her hole. She wasn't gone more than a moment. When she showed up again she had a scrubby little pink baby in her mouth, without any fur on it yet and eyes still closed. It looked like a pig the size of a bean. She came to the edge of the sill and without the least hesitation started out on the face of the wall, scrambling her way along the mortar cracks between the stones. You'd think it would be impossible even for a mouse to make its way down the outside of a high tower like that. But the weather and rain had worn the joints deep in most places; and they have a wonderful way of clinging, have mice.

'I watched her get two–thirds of the way down, and then the heat and smoke of the fire below were too much for her. I saw her looking across at the tree, whose topmost boughs came close to the tower. She measured the distance with her eye. And, still clutching her scrubby youngster in her teeth, she leapt. She just caught the endmost leaves with her claws. And the slender limb swayed gently downwards with her weight. Then she scuttled along the bough, reached the trunk, dumped her child in some crack or crevice and started back to fetch the rest.

'That mouse, to get her five children singly over that long trip, had a terrible lot of hard work ahead of her. As I watched her scrambling laboriously up the tower again, disappearing in and out of the mortar cracks, an idea came to me. And when she regained the window–sill I said to her:

'"You've got four more to carry down. And the fire is creeping higher up the stairs every minute. If I was out of my cage I could fly down with them in a tenth of the time you'd take. Why don't you try to set me free?"

'I saw her glance up at me shrewdly with her little beady eyes.

'"I don't trust canaries," she said after a moment. "And in any case there's no place in that cage that I could bite through."

'And she ran off to her hole for another load.

'She was back even quicker than the first time.

'"It's getting hot under the floor," she said. "And the smoke is already drifting through the joints. I think I'll bring all the children out on to the sill, so that they won't suffocate."

'And she went and fetched the remainder of her precious family and laid them side by side on the stone beside my cage. Then, taking one at a time, she started off to carry them to safety. Four times I saw her descend that giddy zigzag trail of hers into the welter of smoke and sparks that seethed, denser and blacker every minute, about the base of the tower. And four more times she made that leap from the sheer face of the stonework, with a baby in her mouth, across the tips of the tree boughs. The leaves of these were now blackened and scorched with the high–reaching fire. On the third trip I saw that mouse actually jump through tongues of flames. But still she came back for the fourth. As she reached the still for the last load she was staggering and weak and I could see that her fur and whiskers had been singed.

'It was not many minutes after she had gone for good that I heard a tremendous crash inside the tower and a shower of sparks came up into the little round room. The long spiral staircase, or part of it, had fallen down. Its lower supports had been burnt away below. I sometimes think that that was the thing that saved me as much as anything else. Because it cut off my little room at the top from the burning woodwork lower down. If the fire had ever reached that room I would have been gone for sure. For, although my cage was in the open air outside, it was much too close to the edge of the window to be safe. Below me I could now see flames pouring out of the windows, just as though they were furnace chimneys.

'I saw the leader of the workmen shout to his men to keep well back from the walls. They evidently expected the whole tower soon to crumble and fall down. That would mean the end for me, of course, because I would almost certainly fall right into the middle of the fire raging on the lower floors.

'In answer to their leader's orders the men were moving off among the trees, when I noticed that some new excitement had caught their attention. They began talking and calling to one another and pointing down the hill towards the foot of the woods. With the noise of the roaring fire I could hear neither what they said nor what it was they were so concerned about. Soon a sort of general panic broke out among them. For, gathering up what stolen goods they could carry, they scattered away from the castle, looking backwards over their shoulders towards the woods as they ran. In two minutes there wasn't one of them left in sight. The mouse had gone. The men had gone. I was alone with the fire.

'And then suddenly, in a lull in the roaring of the flames, I heard a sound that brought hope back into my despairing heart. It was the rap–rap–rap, rap–a–tap, tap, tap of a drum.

'I sprang to my perch and craned my neck to look out over the woods. And there, winding towards me, up the road, far, far off, like a thin red ribbon, were soldiers marching in fours!

'By the time the soldiers reached the castle the smoke coming up from below was so bad that I could see only occasionally with any clearness at all. I was now gasping and choking for breath and felt very dizzy in the head. I managed to make out, however, that the officer in charge was dividing his men into two parties. One, which he took command of himself, went off in pursuit of the workmen. The other was left behind to put out the fire. But the castle, of course, was entirely ruined. Shortly after they arrived one of the side walls of the main hall fell in with a crash and a large part of the roof came down with it. Yet my tower still stood.

'There was a large fish pond not far from the front door. And the soldiers got a lot of buckets from the stables and formed a chain, handing the water up to some of their companions, who threw it on the fire.

'Almost immediately the heat and smoke rising around my cage began to lessen. But, of course, it took hours of this bucket work to get the fire really under control.

'The officer with the other party returned. He had caught no one. Some of his men held the horses which they had found tied among the trees. These and some provisions in the cellars and a few small outhouses were all of that magnificent property to be saved. And it had been one of the finest castles in the country, famous for its beauty the world over.

'The officer, seeing there was nothing more he could do, now left a sergeant in charge and, taking one of the soldiers with him, went back down the road leading through the woods. The rest continued with the work of fighting the fire and making sure that it did not break out again.

'As soon as my ears had caught the cheerful beating of that drum I had started singing. But on account of the smoke my song had been little more than coughs and splutters. Now, however, with the air cleared, I opened my throat and let go for all I was worth, " Maids, come out, the coach is here ." And the old sergeant, who was superintending the soldiers' work, lifted his head and listened. He couldn't make out where the sound was coming from. But presently he caught sight of my cage, way, way up at the top of the blackened tower.

'"By Jove, boys!" I heard him cry.—"A canary! The sole survivor of the garrison. Let's get him for good luck."

'But getting me was no easy matter. Piles of fallen stonework now covered every entrance. Then they searched the stables for a ladder. They found one long enough to reach the lowest of the tower windows. But the soldier who scaled up it called down to his companions that the staircase inside was one and he could get no higher. Nevertheless, the old sergeant was determined to get me.