ioo IN A CHESHIRE GARDEN 



morning when I took the top one off out 

 jumped the mouse. I cannot imagine how 

 it got in. It certainly couldn't make its way 

 out again, which one should have thought a 

 far easier thing to do. The plates seemed 

 to be exactly as I had left them the night 

 before, and I could not see that any of the 

 bread and butter had been eaten. 



I remember what seems to me an extra- 

 ordinary instance of a mouse's power of 

 smelling out food. In the new parish church 

 here (consecrated in 1885) the vestry is in 

 the tower, and its ceiling, which is the floor 

 of the bellringing-room, must be nearly 20 ft. 

 from the ground. Just under this ceiling 

 were suspended at one time three very long 

 texts; they were drawn up by pulleys with a 

 rope that was fastened off about six feet 

 from the floor. One of these texts was used 

 at harvest festivals, and a fringe of corn had 

 been left round the border, but all three were 

 elaborately done up together in brown paper, 

 so that none of the corn could be seen. 

 Happening to be at the church one day I 

 found the caretaker had brought out these 

 texts into the churchyard, because he had 

 seen, he said, a mouse running up to them 

 by the suspending cord. Sure enough, when 

 he undid the wrapping the poor little thing 

 was there, and I am sorry to say was promptly 

 killed. I thought its wonderful cleverness 

 deserved a better fate. The church was 



