The Way of the Wild

le of dried twigs and tamarisk "leaves" between the crawling, snake-l

brown wren-a little ball of feathers, dainty as you please, and all alone there, and out of place down by the terrible, snow-cover

he art of one of them in concealing his front-door from the curious, and down the bank of the sea-wall, over and over and over,

ee-and they would apparently have gone on for goodness knows how long if a gray-white, thin, worn

. The other fighter, the black one, could not rightly be said to have turned into anything very much-at least, not anything that any one could swear to. It just seemed as if a dark blur whizzed about-more bird-like than beast-like-around the aston

ld follow-stopped so suddenly and completely that its change from almost lightning motion to stony motionlessness in t

e and their fathers' Kismet has cursed them all with a name of shame, they are not all the kind of people that made it so. There is the foreigner, the invader, the common brown rat, who is accursed; ther

n or sewer rats were there. They were anathema to him, and they were worse-death in many horrible forms. He had been there all the summer, all the autumn, and all the-- No, by whiskers! he was not going to remain there all the winter. He had hi

om herring-gulls; one nip from a crab who ought to have been dead; two winkles under big stones that took half-an-hour to shift; one dead pigmy shrew-length two inches-with a hole in its skull, no brains, and a horrible smell; nearly his life removed by the swoop of a kestrel falcon and the javelin-stab of a heron's beak; and twenty minutes' hard cleaning to remove the mud-stains that were not properly off-to his nice liking-yet. And, to add to that, he had no sooner finished than he found that some clumsy fool of a water-r

even in shelter, was greater than the cold in any other spot-and the unchecked wind cut like swords of ice-he realized that one must be an eider-duck or an Iceland gull, a northern diver or an Arctic owl, to stand it, and he was none of the

didn't, and couldn't tell whether there was his wife only, or he only, or both. Really there were both, but our black friend with the embarrassingly, the abnormally, long tail and the genteel head-Mr. Mus rattus on Sundays, if you please, and in nowise to be confuse

se go by high over, clamoring like hounds, he went out like a blown candle. Did a party of teal-for it was the magic hour of "flight," when all wildfowl shift th

pper-built, swift, and in fighting trim. As a matter of fact, it was neither gull nor hawk nor owl, but a harrier, a hen-harrier-that's its name, not its sex, for it was a cock-and the same is a half-way house, so to speak, between hawk and owl. Possibly because they are crepuscu

n the harrier made his cat-like pounce-yes, he was something cat-like, too-and had the pleasure of seeing the harrie

feet aloft on his long narrow vans, and, flapping owl-like, or almost butterfly-like, began to beat, and the bea

he was, he presumed, p

d be fool enough to move and give herself away first; whilst she, on her part, was c

g up and down, was probing the dusk with the other eye. And presently he thought he saw his chance. He would have had to move, anyway, I fancy, for t

nly an idea, quite an uncertain idea, that something, most like a swift bird, had passed up the ditch, and on

a merry-go-round dance with death-the harrier was pouncing savagely-round a tuft of grass, at such a speed

the first to burst. And then? Oh, and then he-cleaned himself, naturally and of course. What else di

d out, when the night had come and the harrier was gone, and together, starting like antelope at ever

called T.N.T. under their dainty feet. Once, just as they were lapping like dogs at the edge of the ice that was conspiring to span the brook, an otter shot up his head-jaws wide and dripping-almost under thei

t tied to her tail. She had not, of course. She was hunting black rats. I suppose she saw them. If so, she was the only person who did, and I feel sure that, instant as she was, when she was up the bank or the holly-bush they were

night, hiding everything. Rats, too, are creatures of warmth. They hate cold as much as the writer, and these two black rats became very miserable. They had no home, and did not know whe

pany-and was not over-pleased, on his return, to find that he had company at home. A short two-round contest ensued, during which the water-vole must have felt as if he had taken on a bit of black lightning. Then the water-vole went away, somewhat bewildered, to turn some smaller water-vole out of

which was a wonder, for all the wild was hun

her dawn, begin

starry-eyed stare, from their fast

orn-berries, dropped by the wasteful fieldfares; but they drank, and cleaned, and proceeded

it. They were desperate, and their eyes burnt in their sharp heads like gimlet-holes of light. Desperate they were, as the poor, little, brilliantly resplendent, and tropic-looking kingfisher ha

er-voles or the chain-pattern impression of a moorhen-nor had seen a living thing but the square-ended, squat, little, black form of a water-vole out upon an alder-branch, gnawi

y with the others, and anon the little fairy imprints of two field-voles-short-tailed field-mice, if you prefer. They crossed the track of another rabbit going, at right-angles, down to the water to drink, and then the little, busy tattoo of bank-voles. Another hare's trail, and more rabbits' tracks, began to meander about, but all heading more or less one way-the way they were going. And then they stopped dead a

ho had gone before him. There was no sign of the others; but that was not strange, for the hares and the rabbits had probably gone round to the kitch

straight for the manger, where, in the inky blackness under the open-sided r

r, picking up crumbs and dust of linseed-cake and chaff. Three mice were doing the same thing, but fled at his approach; but he did not trouble about that, for the cattle had not

g blast!-made him explore. And he ran along the edge of the manger to a hole in the wall, which led-the peculiar and indescribable smell said so-through to the pi

through the hole, wondered what on earth had happened. Then he sniffed at their trail, tried, but found it imposs

stop there-up among the rafters, that is-all night, so he came down, and, with h

turned him into a winking

ll your life. You never would have believed that any living beast could have so frantically and so furiously got itself abo

rat cunning, came hopping out instantly-nay, charging-on the black rat's t

uffled screaming of rage and fear under the quilt; you could see the quilt-but they saw that it looked pale brown on top-lifting about, and feeling for that murder-child of a rat underneath. Then the quilt got him-you c

ce? If so, you don't know the cruel dev

the back of one great twenty-inch, glitter-eyed brown ghoul, called by the death-scream of his colleague-other rats usually answer it-coming ou

rly hunted black couple. Nothing but their miraculous agility saved those two from being eaten alive, but they came out of the barn on to the spo

long this-here they lost six inches of the precious twelve by which they led-looking for a hole. T

ot follow it. But the end seemed positive, anyway. It was only a question of tiring the black sparks out, for the four brown rats in the place, engaged upon lowering the weight of the flour in the sacks-one of those rats a dreaded cannibal of twenty-one and a ha

er, they got a spring off the tail-and legs, too-and had an agility in hanging on to knots and crannies above that possessed by the brown ghouls. Be that as i

rush, shot up through a hole in the boards, out into the

son had the five brown rats, excited with bl

furnished mainly with a few sacks, and flooded with a dazzling, bli

ogs stood there seeing them. They, those men and dogs, had just come quietly for their evening rat-hunt, turning

kes to gasp. Then the dogs sprang in, and one of the men jumped

the others were killed. Even then all four men aver that they could never rightly swear that they saw them. They saw lines, and streaks, and flashes, and whirls, and halos of black, which might have been rats-and the dogs said they were-but no one could swear to it. At times these giddy phenomena were among the rafters, at ot

their foreheads, even in that cold, gasped

to the sacks of flour, and the dogs, panting, on to the floor-done. And the

floor were having the time of their lives. So were the two black rats, but a different sort of time. They were feasting upon meal and gra