as Punch of their first brow-antlers, and
Prickets, ever prouder of their first spires than the Two-year-olds,
and a score or more of Hinds, nearly all of them with Calves at foot;
and standing sentry over all was old Aunt Yeld.

"Come along, my dears," she said patronisingly, "the more the merrier.
You'll find a few dry beds still empty in the wet ground, where Ruddy
and her Calf are lying; but I warn you that you will have to move
before nightfall."

So they went, and found Ruddy and her Calf and lay down by them, for
you may be sure that mothers and Calves had a great deal to say to
each other. But as the evening began to close they heard a faint, low,
continuous hum from the westward, and all the hinds with one accord
left the bog, and went down into a deep, snug, sheltered combe,
clothed thick with dwarf oak-coppice, while the stags went to their
own chosen hiding-places. Soon the hum grew louder and louder, and
presently the rain began to fall in heavy drops, as the little Salmon
had foretold (though how they could foretell it, I know no more than
you); and then the hum changed to a roar as the Westerly Gale came up
in all his might and swept across the moor. And presently an old
Dog-Fox came in and shook himself and lay down not far from them on
one side, and a Hare came in and crouched close to them on the other,
and little birds driven from their own roosting-places flew trembling
into the branches above them; but not one dared to speak except in a
whisper, and then only to say, "What a terrible night!" For all night
long the gale roared furiously over their heads and the rain and scud
flew screaming before it; and once they heard something whistle over
their heads, crying wildly in a voice not unlike a sea-gull's, "Mercy,
mercy, mercy!" Then the little stream below them in the combe began to
swell and pour down fuller and fuller; and all round the hill a score
of other little streams swelled likewise, and came tearing down the
hill, adding their roar to the roar of the gale; so you may be sure
that the Salmon had a fine flood to carry them down to the sea.

When the Deer moved out in the morning they found the rain and wind
raging as furiously as ever, and the air full of salt from the spray
of the sea; and a few hundred yards to leeward of the combe they came
upon a little sooty Sea-bird, quite a stranger to them, lying gasping
on the ground. The poor little fellow could only say, "Mercy, mercy,
where is