DEATH AND BROTHER MOUSE

By ALISON McMASTER

WHILE Miss Halse plaited her thinning grey hair for the night, she was still worrying about the mouse-trap. Of course, she should have been firmer, and refused to have had it set, but when Alice brought up the nightly tray of warm milk and biscuits, she had produced the trap so suddenly, and been so—well, almost domineering about it, that Miss Halse had only asked weakly, " But isn't it rather cruel ? "

" Oh, no, Miss Mary, it's the best way, redly it is," Alice had replied with the freedom of an old and trusted servant. " 'E'll be dead before you can say Jack Robinson ! " And to show her mistress how the trap worked, she set the spring and touched it off with a stub of pencil which she produced from her pocket.

" Dear me ! " Miss Halse remembered exclaiming. " Do be careful, Alice, or you'll break your fingers ! " The spring had gone off so suddenly, and with such a loud click —almost like a pistol shot, she thought—that she was still trembling when Alice, who had set the trap again and placed it just inside the door, asked in a final manner, " Is there anything more ? " and Miss Halse had automatically replied, " No, thank you," as she always did, although she was still trying to formulate her reasons for not wanting to have the mouse-trap in her room. " Then, good night, Miss Mary," Alice had said, and she had gone out quickly and shut the door behind her.

As Miss Halse tied the end of her plait with a narrow piece of black ribbon, she noticed that her hand was still trembling. She was tired, that was it. She would have liked to have gone to bed half an hour ago, but One really could not retire before half-past nine unless one were ill, and she wasn't ill, of course, only very tired and shaky after so many nights of broken slumber, owing—her heart fluttered sickeningly at the thought—to that mouse.

She r;ade the ends of the ribbon into a small- bow, pulled the loops out neatly and let her scanty plait slide over her shoulder and into place down the middle of her back. Then she stood for a moment, looking across the room at the mouse-trap, and nervously twisting round and round the pearl and turquoise ring that she wore on her right hand. Once the mouse was dead and she had a good night's rest, she would feel herself again. She had been very silly about the trap ; it had been quite right of Alice to set it.

As she turned to light her bedside candle, Miss Halse wondered whether she should take a sedative. Dr. Leigh had said that she should take one occasionally ; but then he said such odd things, such as telling her to sleep on the ground floor, if stairs tired her ! They had become an effort lately, but how could she sleep downstairs? Such an unnatural thing to do. It was the same with the litde box of sedative pills he had given her ; she was sure that drugs should only be taken when absolutely necessary, and she was so tired tonight that surely sleep would come of its own accord. Nevertheless, when she had turned out the gas and got into bed, she eyed the little box of pills longingly before leaning over the table to blow out the candle.

Perhaps counting sheep would send her off, she thought, but when she was lying on her back in the darkness, with the bedclothes drawn up to her chin, her mind's eye refused to concentrate on the gap in the hedge with the silly sheep coming through one by one, but showed her, instead, the mouse-trap over there by the door. For a full hour she lay awake listening for some sound of the mouse. At last she dozed, but only to awaken suddenly, her heart beating in great, painful throbs at the memory of a dream she had just had. A dream about—what ? The memory was already dim, but it was something to do with that horrid trap, she was sure. A sudden thought struck her, and she began agitatedly twisting her pearl and turquoise ring round and round. Suppose the mouse put its head in the wrong place and was not killed outright ? She had not thought of that before, but now her imagination was at work and she visualised the little creature caught by a paw, and struggling in an agony of pain and fear. If that happened, she would have to touch it, to let it go. Miss Halse shuddered involuntarily at the thought.

But perhaps the mouse had come while she was asleep, and was already dead. She ought to light her candle and look, only that would mean sitting up without the protection of the bedclothes, and leaning over the table in the darkness, and—although she had not heard a sound—it was just possible that the creature was even now climbing up the table leg. She clutched the sheet nervously, and lay straining her ears for any sound, however slight, that would confirm her suspicions.

The silence was absolute, but she had a feeling that the mouse was somewhere there in the room ; that it was alive, too, for if it had been caught in the trap she would certainly have been awakened by the loud click of the spring—the click she might hear at any moment now.

Her mind kept repeating the phrase, " At any moment now . . . at any moment . . . " until she exorcised it by telling herself that first she would hear the secretive, rustling sounds that had spoilt her rest for the last week. Until then, she must think of something else.

She turned on her side, peering into the darkness which was yet not quite so dark as it had been, for she could just make out the gap between the window curtains.

The moon was rising over St. Francis' Hill, to the foot of which she sometimes walked on her good days. There were always so many birds there ; so tame, too, the dear things. She supposed that was why the hill was called after the saint whom she had always admired so much.

A sudden thought made her catch her breath. What if St. Francis was looking down on her now, as she lay there waiting so passively for death to come to Brother Mouse— slow, agonising death, perhaps ? Miss Halse flushed for very shame at the thought. No, no ! She must get up and take the trap away.

" Dear Lord," she prayed silently, " give me strength to do this thing ; " but the strength did not come at once, only the realisation, as she lay there, straining her ears for any sound of Brother Mouse, who was so terrifying, that if she did manage to sit up and light the candle, she would still have to find the courage to walk across the floor in the dim light. The mouse might already be in the room ; it might run over her foot !

Suddenly Miss Halse clutched the sheet convulsively, her heart missing a beat and then beginning to race. A slight sound had disturbed the silence ; a scrabbling of tiny claws on wood. Now ! Now she must make an effort, before it was too late !

Determinedly she sat up and felt for the matches, her hands trembling, her heart beating almost uncontrollably ; wanting to cry out and warn the mouse away, but unable to speak, for her tongue was cleaving to the roof of her mouth. And while she still groped uncertainly about the table, the sound—the dreaded sound for which she had been waiting—came, seeming to her tense nerves as loud as a pistol shot in the darkness and silence of the night.

CLICK !

It might just as well have been. a pistol shot, for Miss Halse fell backward on to her pillow, struggling for breath, her heart throbbing wildly—throbbing in great, agonising hammer-strokes—and then stopping.

And the mouse, that had been sniffing suspiciously at the cheese until a sudden movement in the bed startled it into jumping nervously away, setting off the spring of the trap as it did so, scuttled across the floor and under the door, unharmed.

Death had come, but not to Brother Mouse.