ring the hunt it was noticed
that about a score of rats took refuge in a narrow chamber under the
eaves. The farmer, directing operations in another part of the yard, was
unaware of what had occurred. The poachers, knowing nothing of the
presence of the owls, pushed a terrier through the opening beneath the
rafters of the loft, and blocked the hole with the rusty blade of a
disused shovel. For a few moments the quick patter of tiny feet
indicated that the terrier was busily engaged with his task; then cries
of rage and terror came from the imprisoned dog, while with these cries
were mingled the sounds of flapping wings. When at last the poachers
unstopped the hole and dragged the terrier out, they found that every
rat had been killed, and that the place was thickly strewn with the
feathers of two dying owls.

During the rest of the summer, Kweek led a strangely peaceful life,
having little to fear beyond an occasional visit from Reynard, or from
an astute old magpie that, evading with apparent ease the keeper's gun
and pole-traps, lived on till the late autumn, when, before a line of
beaters, he broke cover over some sportsmen waiting for their driven
game. As soon as the leaves began to fall and exhausted Nature longed
for winter's rest, the burrow in the pasture became the scene of
feverish activity. Kweek was now the proud sire of five or six healthy
families, and the grand-sire of many more. Even the youngest voles were
growing fat and strong; and, when the numerous members of the colony set
about harvesting their winter stores, ripe, delicious seeds were
plentiful everywhere along the margin of the wood.

The winter was uniformly mild, with exception of one short period of
great cold which brought a thorough, healthful sleep to the voles; and
in the earliest days of spring, when the love-calls of chaffinches and
tits were heard from almost every tree, Kweek and his tribe resumed
their work and throve amazingly. Every circumstance appeared to favour
their well-being. But for the fox, that sometimes crouched beside an
opening to the burrow and snapped up an incautious venturer peeping
above ground, a young sheep-dog, whose greatest pleasure in life seemed
to be found in digging a large round hole in the centre of the burrow,
and an adder, that stung a few of the weaklings to death, but found them
inconveniently big for swallowing, the voles were seldom troubled. Their
numbers, and those of every similar colony in th