where at
once, they arrived at last--as the converging trails seemed to say they
would--at the towering, smudged blur against the sky, which was the
farm-buildings.

The black rat peered under the lower rung of a gate into a straw-yard,
and heard the rustlings of little folk--field-vole, bank-vole, and
wood-mouse--who 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 kitchen-garden, for which they were making in their
extremity of hunger; and the otter and the fox were, most likely,
keeping each other off the fowlhouse.

Wherefore, plucking up courage, the black rat skipped into the yard,
and made straight for the manger, where, in the inky blackness under
the open-sided roofs, he could hear the long-drawn blowing and sigh of
fat cattle lying down.

A pale moon came out behind him, and showed him tripping lightly over a
bullock's broad back. Then he was up on the manger-edge, had paused to
make sure, and was down in the manger, 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 left even him and his wife a full meal, having blown what was left
of the chaff away, and licked up practically all of the cake-crumbs and
dust. However, it was better than nothing.

The rat's natural curiosity was awakened, and his comparative warmth in
this place, out of the razor-edged wind--oh, what a relief to be out of
that infernal sawing 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 pig-sties. But here he
stopped, and his wife behind him stopped. Some one was coming through
from the opposite side--some one who smelt very much worse than any pig.

Next instant both black rats had gone off together like sparks--if ever
sparks were black--and the brown rat, coming through the hole, wondered
what on earth had happened. Then he sniffed at their trail, tried, but
found it impossible, to follow, and passed on. He would have felt
great pleasure in slaying them if he could, and they knew that.

The black rat now essayed to cross the yard to the stable. He could
not very well stop there--up among the rafters, that is--all night, so
he came down, and, with his wife following him, gingerly rustled out
upon th