Saturday 10th September 1811

Dear Diary,

Imagine my horror when the hour came for me to tickle your crisp ivory pages with my quill yester-eve only to discover 'that' rodent sat upon you as you rested upon my escritoire.

I retreated for the assistance of Willow but upon our return the infernal creature had vanished once again.

We shut the door tight in the hope of containing it and slept in one of the guest bedrooms.
I have spent much of the day today crouched outside my room, peering through the half open door with an empty tea caddy waiting for the creature to reveal its whereabouts so that I might trap it.
A number of times I espied its snout twitching from behind the linen chest but the effrontery it has shown in times past appears to have waned.
Finally, I could take no more and calling upon Willow we entered the room and shut the door behind us sealing all possible exits with fresh linen. My dander was up and I was determined to regain control over mine own house.
We pulled back the linen chest and it scurried under the bed. Upon moving the bed it dashed under the wardrobe. Such a merry dance of back and forth it lead us until at last in a flurry a frantic activity I brought down the caddy and we had it!
We set the room to rights once more and then reaching for a book from my bedside cabinet carefully slipped the hard flat cover beneath the upturned caddy and lifted it and its contents.
Though my hands shook I kept a tight grip upon book and caddy and we ventured out. I was keen to put as much distance as possible between the creature and Knob End when the time came to release it. 
Passing the Grange we encountered Cain as he was making his way to the stables.
"Precious cargo?" he smirked.
"If you must know," I snapped, "it is the beastly rodent that has made my house its own these past months and I am to be rid of it at last."
Cain laughed.
"There was a time in India, dear brother, when I came across a tiger on our path. How would you have fared then if your nerves quiver at a tiny mouse?"
He disappeared into the stables with his amusement and my hands shook now with anger.
We walked on through the woods and past the Chapel before I realised we were fast approaching Cobbler's End and so we decided we had gone far enough. I could not release it near the home of those good ladies.
I stopped and carefully laid the book and caddy upon the ground and taking a deep breath snatched the caddy away.
Nothing!
I could not comprehend it. I was certain we had it caught. The infernal beast was still at large in Knob End!
I snatched up the book and only then noticed it to be a volume of the poetry of Robert Burns. I opened it and can you believe it? There was his poem....
'To a Mouse.'