as befitted one descended from one of the oldest races on earth.

The air was heavy with the scent of may and of honeysuckle, and his way
was a green-gold--silver where the moon cascaded down the hedge--and
blue-black bridal-path, arched with scented swords, strewn with pink
and rose and cream and white confetti of blossom. But he only saw and
smelt one thing, and that, those who have known hedgehogs intimately
will agree, is not like unto the scent of any blossom.

Prickles was ruminating anciently upon these things, possibly, and
others, as he came down the trench--ditch, I mean--when the cry smote
him. It smote everything--the filtered silence of the wonderful,
tranquil night, the pale moon half-light, the furtive rustling shadows
that stopped rustling, the wonderful breathing pulse of growing
vegetation. And Prickles stopped as abruptly as if it had smitten him
on his nose, too. He heard _that_, at any rate, whatever might have
been hinted about the value of his ears elsewhere.

There was no doubt about that cry, no possible shadow of doubt
whatever--it was a cry of extreme distress, a final, despairing S.O.S.,
flung out to the night in the frantic hope that one of the same species
would hear and help.

Several night-foraging wild-folk have S.O.S. signals of their own, but
none like this. It was not a rabbit's cry, for bunny's signal is thin
and child-like; nor a hare's, for puss's last scream is like bunny's,
only more so; nor a stoat's, for that is instinct with anger as well as
pain; nor a cat's, for that thrills with hate; nor an owl's, for that
is ghostly; nor a fox's, for Reynard is dumb then; nor a rat's, for
that is gibbering and devilish; nor a mouse's, for that is weak and
helpless. Then what? And why had it touched up Prickles as if with a
live wire? It was perhaps the rarest S.O.S. signal of all heard in the
wild, or one of the rarest, the peculiar, high, chattering, pig-like,
savage tremolo of a hedgehog booked for some extra deathly form of
death. And Prickles--naturally he knew it.

It came from straightaway down the ditch; from ahead, where Prickles
had been heading for; from the farm, and Heaven know what it portended!
Perhaps, too, Prickles could tell a lady hedgehog's S.O.S. from that of
a gentleman of the same breed; or, perhaps--but how do I know? He
certainly acted that way.

Prickles waited the one-fifth part of an instant, to listen and locate.
Then he got going, and provide