[Ill.u.s.tration: A FRANTIC SCRAMBLE LANDED THEM OVER THE EDGE OF THE BIN.]

He awoke with a start this time, for the trap had suddenly turned up on end. The door was standing open, but a shadow hung across it, and the mouse felt the shadow--_and shrieked_.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE STORY OF A FIELD VOLE

His earliest recollections were somewhat confused, nor is this to be wondered at, for he was one of eight, and in the same hole lived another family of seven, fifteen tiny creatures in all, of the same age and outwardly indistinguishable.

Under such circ.u.mstances it is difficult to retain one's individuality, let alone one's impressions. Moreover some little time had elapsed before he really _saw_ his companions. Not that he was long actually blind,--that is the prerogative of the carnivora, but his career commenced some feet below the surface of the earth, at the termination of a long winding burrow, and a full fortnight had elapsed before he eluded his mother's vigilance, and, after a clumsy scrambling ascent, beheld for the first time the tall green gra.s.ses which shrouded the entrance, and the blue of the sky peeping down irregularly between them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HIS FIRST SENSATION WAS ONE OF EXTREME COLD.]

His first sensation was one of extreme cold, for his fur was at this time little better than down; Nature's brilliant colouring only dazzled and frightened him; his tender skin shrank from contact with the sharp-edged herbage, and, after a short blundering excursion, he was glad to scuttle down below once more.

His next effort was more successful. His fur had thickened, and, like all good voles, he had the sense to defer his exit 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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-gra.s.s surrounded the burrow, and the most succulent portion of bog-gra.s.s 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 sh.e.l.l was too much for him. It takes a red vole's training to reduce a nut.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NIBBLING, TO BEGIN WITH, AT THE POINTED END.]

So the weeks pa.s.sed on, and he grew thicker and st.u.r.dier 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 pa.s.sable 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 antic.i.p.ation of what she would bring.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sed, 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 adjoining gra.s.s-tuft. He was sick, and dizzy, and bruised all over.

Scarcely had he recovered sufficient coolness to look about him, when the object of his terror emerged with dripping jaws, and he was enabled, for the first time, to form an opinion of the arch-enemy of vole-kind.

To avoid the bird of prey, a vole need only remain below the surface; to avoid the little gentleman in black, he need only rise above it; but from the grim pursuit of the weasel, bent on meal or murder, there is no escape.

Terror-stricken as he was, he could hardly help admiring the easy supple swagger of the creature's movements. She held her broad browed head erect, the bristles pointed like needles from her blood-streaked muzzle, grit and pluck could be traced in her every movement, and, in her eyes, universal defiance.

Down the dark watercourse she went, twisting her lithe chestnut body S-wise in and out of the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s-clumps. A frog leaped before her. In a flash she had flung herself upon it, her white teeth clicked together in its brain, and she sauntered slowly out of sight, bearing her latest victim in her mouth. It was hideous. To eat vegetables was natural enough, but to eat living, quivering flesh! A sickening faintness crept over him, and it was full an hour before he could leave his shelter.

Very cautiously he retraced his steps to the familiar entrance, and stopped to listen. A flood of moonlight burst through the clouds, and his trembling shadow danced ink-black before him. He was a clear mark for every kind of foe, yet he still paused irresolute. It was too horribly silent below. A clumsy whirring beetle alighted at his feet and stumbled heavily down the hole. Another followed. He turned and fled, blindly, recklessly, anywhere to escape that exhaling reek of murder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE STILL PAUSED IRRESOLUTE.]

Away from the watercourse the gra.s.ses grew shorter and more slender. It was easy, but risky going. Small pyramids of soil dotted the ground in different directions, some ma.s.sed together almost in circles, others at wider intervals. At the edge of one of them he stopped and commenced idly burrowing with his fore feet. For a few inches the light, crumbling earth yielded easily to his efforts. Then the floor seemed to subside beneath him, and he found a shelter ready made. Two narrow rough-hewn tunnels led from beneath the centre of the heap. He rested for a few minutes, then started to explore one of them.

It could hardly be described as a burrow, for, at intervals, it was half choked with earth-falls, and he had to work his way through them. In direction it was fairly straight. After a few yards progress he found its termination. It opened on a larger tunnel running at right angles to itself.

The sides of this latter were smooth and polished, smoother even than those of the approach to the old home. It was wide enough for two voles to run abreast in. The straggling gra.s.s-roots which hung overhead proved it of trifling depth. Indeed, the roof was very thin, in places hardly solid.

Through these the moonlight seemed to filter down, forming dull bluish patches on the floor.

From the main road pa.s.sages branched out at intervals. He turned into one of them. The sides were rough and crumbling, and it came abruptly to an end. He soon retraced his steps, but paused when he had regained the meeting of the ways. Something was approaching along the main tunnel. He took the wisest course, and crouched within the shelter of the side gallery. A crimson pointed snout, a huge paddling foot, and a dark shapeless ma.s.s pa.s.sed in quick succession before his eyes, and vanished in the darkness.

As it swept by, the foot caught the crumbling edge of his retreat, covering him with a shower of light mould. For the second time he experienced the sickening, paralyzing agony of fear. This was succeeded by an irresistible impulse to break cover. He sprang into the main shaft once more, determined to take advantage of the first outlet. A shadowy blue glimmer shone before him, and he quickened his pace towards it. Suddenly the light was extinguished, the walls of the tunnel seemed to cave in around him, in front of him he heard a dull, choking gasp, and he found his nose in contact with a warm, palpitating velvet body.

This time his nerve failed him completely, and he lay absolutely motionless, conscious, with only a dull indifference, that death stared him in the face. But death seemed slow in coming, and, as he lay, his indifference changed to a fierce longing, first for a speedy end of it all, then for life at any price. Slowly and with difficulty he lifted his head; the dark ma.s.s lay silent alongside of him, and the faint movements had ceased. He could trace the creature's hind foot, it was rigid and cold. Then the truth burst upon him. He had nothing to fear--the owner of the foot was dead.

Still, he could scarcely move his limbs, for the soil lay thick and heavy around him. After a prolonged effort he disengaged his fore feet, and started to scratch himself free. On one side of him lay the dead body; he worked vigorously along it. He was checked, however, by an obstacle beyond his strength. The body was enclosed by a tight-fitting ring, and on this he could make no impression.

Fastening his tiny fingers in the fur on one side, and sc.r.a.ping with his free fore-paw on the other, he forced his way upwards. The soil grew lighter above him, and in a few minutes he had reached the upper air, and lay panting on the surface.

He then tried to pick up his position. The mole-run had brought him some two hundred yards, nearly to the edge of the marshland. Across the boundary rose a small plantation. Here he determined to seek shelter. He had but fifty yards to go, and started to glide stealthily from tuft to tuft.

On all sides the ground was alive with tiny insects. The larger kinds seemed mostly to be sleeping. He ran full tilt against a drowsy b.u.t.terfly, sweeping its close-folded wings through half a circle, as he pa.s.sed. They sprang back with a jerk, but the insect itself remained motionless.

Gra.s.shoppers clung to every other gra.s.s-stem; their eyes were dead and staring. Here and there he saw a spider gripping its support and waiting for the sunrise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE TRIED TO PICK UP HIS POSITION.]

Once he found himself confronted by a bloated toad. The amphibian surveyed him solemnly, but never moved. A low hiss whistled through the gra.s.s. He crouched in terror while four feet of gra.s.s-snake undulated by. A shrewmouse broke cover in front of him, followed by its mate. The air resounded with shrill defiant squeaks as the two bunchy velvet b.a.l.l.s rolled over one another out of sight.

So he worked his way along towards the boundary; pausing at intervals to gnaw at the growing plant-stems, or to sit on his haunches and nibble some fallen seed which took his fancy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VOLE-LIKE THIS LATTER WAS, YET HE WAS NO ORDINARY VOLE.]

It was close to the plantation that a familiar movement in the gra.s.s seemed to betray the presence of a near relation. Hastening towards it he found himself confronted by a total stranger. Vole-like this latter undoubtedly was, yet he was no ordinary vole. Delicate chestnut fur, brilliant white feet, a whitish waistcoat, and a paste-coloured two-inch tail proclaimed the red vole at once.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY SAT GAZING AT ONE ANOTHER.]

In size there was little to choose between them, and they sat gazing at each other for some moments stolid and undismayed. Yet, despite the equality of fighting weight, he felt himself somehow the inferior creature. His thoughts ran on the old legend of the field-vole who mated with a wood-mouse of high degree, and whose descendants to this day bear the marks of their n.o.ble origin. So, when the stranger turned and leapt lightly into the undergrowth that fringed the wood, he humbly tried to follow.

That was no easy matter, for, where the other jumped, he could only scramble, and on the flat he felt himself hopelessly outcla.s.sed. Still, once beyond the outskirts of the wood, the tangled thickets gave way to something less luxuriant, and he could sight his leader more frequently.

All at once he checked himself, and, with a sudden access of natural caution, flattened himself to earth. He had blundered into the red-vole community.