row disappeared beneath the surface of a raging
flood.

Gifted with a mysterious knowledge of Nature's moods--which all wild
animals in some degree possess--the vole had made ready for the sudden
change. On the night preceding the storm, when in the mist even the
faintest sounds seemed to gain in clearness and intensity, he had
hollowed out for himself a temporary dwelling among the roots of a
moss-grown tree on the steep slope of the wood behind the river-path,
and had carried thither all his winter supplies from the granary where
first they had been stored.

Brighteye was exposed to exceptional danger by his compulsory retirement
from the old burrow in the river-bank. Stoats and weasels were ever on
the prowl; no water-entrance afforded him immediate escape from their
relentless hostilities, and he was almost as liable to panic, if pursued
for any considerable distance on land, as were the rabbits living on the
fringe of the gravel-pit within the heart of the silent wood. If a
weasel or a stoat had entered the vole's new burrow during the period
when the flood was at its highest, only the most fortunate circumstances
could have saved its occupant. Even had he managed to flee to the river,
his plight would still have been pitiful. Unable to find security in his
former retreat, and effectually deterred by the lingering scent of his
pursuers from returning to his woodland haunts, Brighteye, a homeless,
hungry little vagabond, at first perplexed, then risking all in search
of food and rest, would inevitably have met his fate.

But neither stoat nor weasel learned of his new abode. His burrow was
high and dry in the gravelly soil under the tree-trunk; and before his
doorway, as far as a hollow at the river's verge, stretched a natural
path of rain-washed stones on which the line of his scent could never
with certainty be followed. While many of his kindred perished,
Brighteye survived this period of flood; and when the waters, having
cleansed each riverside dwelling, abated to their ordinary winter level,
he returned to his burrow in the buttress by the stakes, and once more
felt the joy of living in safety among familiar scenes.

Since the leaves had fallen, the brown rats had become fewer and still
fewer along the river, and, when the flood subsided, it might have been
found that none of these creatures remained in their summer haunts. They
had emigrated to the rick-yard near the village inn; many of the stoats
and w