Wee Timrous Beasties | Page 6

until the evening. Still,
even when he had reached the mature age of three weeks, the murky,
warm atmosphere below ground proved more seductive than any other,
and he spent the greater portion of his existence there, sleeping,
nest-making, or fighting with a companion over food.
The making and re-making of the nest was learnt on kindergarten
principles. At first he was employed in softening slender grass
filaments, by dragging them through his teeth; then he learnt to
intertwine them, and sat in the middle of an ever-growing sphere of
delicate network; finally, like his mother, he tackled large, stiff grass
stems, biting them into short lengths, and splitting them, or letting them
split themselves, lengthways. By the time he was a month old, he was
an expert nest-builder, and, given the material, could build a complete
nest for two inside the hour.
On the score of meat and drink he had no anxieties. A marshy meadow
had been selected by his forbears for colonization. The burrow
terminated outwardly on the bank of a half-dried watercourse, and,
within its recesses, was all manner of vegetable store--seeds, bulbs,
leaves, clover, and herbs in fascinating variety and profusion. Nor was
there any lack of greener food. Bog-grass surrounded the burrow, and
the most succulent portion of bog-grass is the most easily attained.
He soon learned to reach up on his hind legs and gnaw the standing
plant. The management of a dry and slippery corn-ear at first presented
some difficulty, but, as his muscles strengthened, he found himself able
to sit up on his haunches and hold it squirrel-fashion in his fore-paws,
nibbling, to begin with, at the pointed end, which is the best way into
most things. Once, as the family were grubbing together, a nut turned
up at the back of the pile. After a desperate conflict, he secured it, but,

the tough shell was too much for him. It takes a red vole's training to
reduce a nut.
[Illustration: NIBBLING, TO BEGIN WITH, AT THE POINTED
END.]
So the weeks passed on, and he grew thicker and sturdier and more
furry. He was never graceful, like his cousin the red vole, for his face
was blunted, his eyes small, and his tail ridiculously insignificant. Nor
could he cover the ground with the easy swinging jump that makes one
suspect relationship between the red vole and the wood-mouse. Still for
a common, vulgar, agrarian vole, he was passable enough, and could
hold his own, tooth and nail, with his nest-fellows.
He was five weeks old before he commenced to go out foraging on his
own account. He never ventured far, but contented himself with
timorous excursions along the banks of the watercourse, crouching
amid the undergrowth, and ready, at the first scent of danger, to glide
with flattened body back to cover. Sometimes he accompanied his
mother on her visits to distant portions of the colony, but the old vole
more often left her octet behind, and then he would lie huddled up with
his companions, waiting for the squelching sound of her footsteps, as
she returned across the mud, and quarrelling in anticipation of what she
would bring.
[Illustration: READY, AT THE FIRST SCENT OF DANGER, TO
GLIDE BACK TO COVER.]
Now and again a different sound would reach the hollow--the dragging
tail swish of the water-vole, or the fussy scramble of some belated
moorhen. These he soon learned to distinguish from the stealthy,
broken, hanging footfall of the beast of prey. When that was heard,
both he and his companions would crouch together in the darkest
corner of the burrow and hold their breath.
Once such a sound stopped abruptly and close at hand; a faint foetid
odour permeated from without, and he felt instinctively that the enemy
was at the gate. The danger passed, but that night the old vole failed to

return.
The night following the same sound came, and ceased. This time,
however, the silence was succeeded by a fierce scratching, and he soon
realized that the entrance to the nest was blocked, and that something,
bigger and stronger than he yet knew of, was working its way nearer
and nearer. There was a clatter of falling stones and earth, and the
"something" was whirling in their midst. Wild confusion followed. The
whole interior of the nest seemed occupied by a swift-circling, curling,
sinuous form.
Small as he was, and crouching as only a vole can crouch, there was no
escape from contact with it. Three times the hot loathsome breath
hissed over him, as he lay flattened to the ground. Then, as the lithe
body swept round, he was flung aside, and, by a lucky chance, found
himself opposite the outlet. In an agony of terror he scrambled up the
shaft, and concealed himself in an