e at the village inn. Having escaped a continuance of
his parents' brutalities, and eluded their ill-conducted pursuit, the
young gipsy, in the company of his only friend, soon forgot his miseries
as his thoughts turned to a vagabond's rough sport in the stillness of
the harvest night. Thrusting a long stick here and there into the
briars, he strolled along by the fence, till his dog, diligently beating
in line amid the undergrowth, gave a quick yelp of delight, and, an
instant later, a curled-up hedgehog rolled down into the ditch. The boy
placed the animal in his ragged handkerchief, the corners of which he
was proceeding to tie together when the terrier again attracted
attention with unmistakable signs of a "find." For a few brief minutes
sport was keenly exciting, but at last all the "urchin" family, with the
exception of one member, were captured, and the boy, now thoroughly
happy, his pockets and handkerchief heavy with spoil, turned homewards
through the darkness. Next morning, the slain hedgehogs, baked in clay
among the hot ashes of a fire of rotten twigs, formed the principal item
in the gipsies' bill of fare, and the terrier enjoyed the remnants of
the meal.

The hedgehog surviving the gipsy's raid was a young female, that, while
the terrier beat the fence, remained quietly munching a large lob-worm
at the foot of a mound a dozen yards away, and so knew nothing of the
fate of her kindred.

The last weeks of the year passed uneventfully, as far as her little
life was concerned; then, as the nights grew longer and the cold
increased, she set about preparing in earnest for her long, deep sleep.

In a sheltered spot close to the woodlands, where, a month before, a
badger had unearthed a wild bee's nest, she collected a heap of withered
oak-leaves, hay, and moss, and with these simple materials made a large,
snug nest, a winter house so constructed that the rain might trickle
down to the absorbent soil beneath. For a little while, however, she
did not enter into her unbroken rest. Still, nightly, she roamed abroad,
moving in and out of the dried herbage everywhere strewn in her paths
among the tree-roots, till the sapless leaves impaled on the sharp
points of her spines formed such a cluster that she lost all semblance
of a living creature. Insects were becoming rarer and still rarer as the
year drew to its close, and those surviving the frosts retired to
countless secret chambers at the roots of the moss and un