CARDINAL 23 



become of him. Had he too flown north to a warmer 

 country with the swallows and other migrants ? It 

 could not be believed. But he was no longer in the 

 plantation — that little sheltering island of trees in 

 the level grassy sea-like plain; and I should never 

 see him more or know what his fate had been. 



One day, in August, the men employed about the 

 place were engaged in a grand annual campaign 

 against the rats — a sort of spring-cleaning in and 

 out of doors. The shelter of the huge old foss, and 

 of the trees and thickets, wood-piles, many out- 

 buildings and barns full of raw or untanned hides, 

 attracted numbers of these unpleasant little beasts 

 and made it a sort of rats' metropolis; and it was 

 usual to clear them out in early spring before the 

 new grass and herbage sprang up and covered the 

 ground. They were suffocated with smoke, made 

 deadly with brimstone and tobacco, pumped into 

 their holes. I was standing by one of the men who 

 was opening one of the runs after the smoking process, 

 when I caught sight of a gleam of scarlet colour in a 

 heap of straw and rubbish he was turning over with 

 his spade, and, jumping down, I picked up the shining 

 red object. It was my lost cardinal's crest! And 

 there too were his grey wing and tail feathers, white 

 feathers from his breast, and even some of his bones. 

 Alas! he had found it too cold to roost in the naked 

 trees in the cold wind and rain, and, seeking a more 

 sheltered roosting-place on the ground, had been 

 caught and carried into its den and devoured by a rat. 



I experienced a second and greater grief at his 



