They were starved out, forced out,
rooted out. In Skane 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.
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