ANCESTRAL MONITIONS 127 



itching in his ears ; but the cramp threatened 

 and sent him going again. So down the hill 

 he tore, putting his feet into a blind hole and 

 tumbling head over heels with the impetus of 

 his rush. He was on his feet in a twinkling, and 

 aided by the hairy soles of his pads, scurried 

 over the frozen surface with singular ease 

 towards the linhay field, where he began scrap- 

 ing the snow away to get at the herbage be- 

 neath. What little he found he ate ravenously, 

 but there was not enough to stay his hunger, 

 which he appeased with the shoots of the furze. 



The light in the farmhouse window was yet 

 burning when he ceased feeding and began 

 wandering over the moor. He was not happy. 

 The vague misgivings which had harassed him 

 whilst in the form, the disquiet caused by ancestral 

 monitions, became real fears when he recognised 

 that he was leaving a trail easy to follow unless 

 he confused it. Whereupon, coming to the end 

 of the outward journey, he wove a maze of 

 tracks amidst the scattered bushes, and the 

 better to conceal the line by which he returned, 

 crept along an overgrown ditch where only a 

 practised poacher could have traced him. He 

 roamed until day was about to break, and 

 when the sun arose it found him sitting by the 

 spring near the Fairies' Green. 



