206 NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



He did not look up ; he had no need to. 

 Only too well he knew what was casting that 

 sinister shadow. Though agility was not 

 supposed to be his strong point, his move- 

 ment, as he shot across the open from the 

 samphire tuft to the mouth of his tunnel, was 

 almost too quick to follow. He gained the 

 root-fringed door just in time. As his frantic, 

 cringing hindquarters disappeared into the 

 hole, the great talons of the pouncing hawk 

 plunged into the root-fringe, closing and 

 clutching so savagely that the mouth of 

 the tunnel was obliterated. Grass-roots, how- 

 ever, were not what those rending talons 

 wanted, and the great hawk, rising angrily, 

 flapped off to the other side of the dyke. 



Within the tunnel the brown mouse ran 

 on desperately, as if he felt those fatal talons 

 still reaching after him. The tunnel was 

 not quite in darkness, for here and there a 

 gleam of light came filtering through the 

 roots which formed its roof, and here and 

 there a round opening gave access to the 

 yellow-green world among the big stiff grass- 

 stalks. The floor was smooth from the feet 

 and teeth of countless other marsh-mice, 

 water-voles, and marsh-shrews. To right and 

 left went branching off innumerable side- 

 tunnels and galleries, an apparently inextric- 



