beneath the moss.

Again an almost overwhelming fear possessed the hunted vole, his limbs
stiffened, his condition seemed helpless. He crawled slowly hither and
thither, now passing some fellow-creature huddled in the corner of a
blind alley; now lifting himself above ground to seek refuge in another
part of the burrow; now pausing to listen to cries of pain which
indicated how thoroughly the "vears" were fulfilling their gruesome
work. It seemed that the whole colony of voles was being exterminated.

Bewildered, after an hour of unmitigated dread, he quitted the place of
slaughter, where every nook and corner reeked of blood or of the
weasels' scent, and limped through the grass towards the hedge. In a
hollow among the scattered stones he stayed till terror no longer
benumbed him, and he could summon courage to seek an early meal in the
root-field beyond the pasture. Directly the day began to dawn, he
cautiously returned to his burrow. Though numerous traces of the havoc
of the night remained, he knew, from the staleness of the weasels'
scent, that his foes had departed.

At noon his mate came again to her nest, and searched for her missing
offspring. But the taint of blood on the floor of the chamber told her
only too well that henceforth her mothering care would be needed solely
by the young mouse that she had rescued in her flight. The day passed
uneventfully; the weasels did not repeat their visit. At nightfall the
mother mouse, stealing into the wood, found both her enemies caught in
rabbit-traps set beside the "runs" among the hawthorns.

For a while peace reigned in the underground dwellings of the mossy
pasture, and the young field-vole thrived amazingly; from the very
outset fortune favoured him above the rest of his species. After the
wholesale destruction that had taken place, little risk of overcrowding
and its attendant evils remained, and, for the lucky mice surviving the
raid, food was plentiful, even when later, in winter, they were awakened
by some warm, bright day, and hunger, long sustained, had made them
ravenous. Kweek, having no brother or sister to share his birthright,
was fed and trained in a manner that otherwise would have been
impossible, while his parents were particularly strong and healthy.
These circumstances undoubtedly combined to make him what he eventually
became--quick to form an opinion and to act, and able, once he was fully
grown, to meet in fight all rivals for the possessio