208 NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



Just about this time there came a succes- 

 sion of heavy south-west gales, which piled 

 up the water into the funnel-like head of the 

 bay, dammed back the rivers, and brought 

 a series of high tides. Tides as high were 

 quite unseasonable, and caught the swarming 

 little tunnel runners of the salt-marsh un- 

 prepared. As the first flood came lapping 

 up over the sun-baked flats, covering the 

 samphire tufts, setting all awash the root- 

 fringes of the grass, and sliding noiselessly 

 into the tunnels, there was a wild scurrying, 

 and a faint elusive clamour of squeaks 

 came murmuring thinly up through the grass. 

 Myriads of brown-and-orange grasshoppers, 

 beetles black and green and blue and red, 

 with here and there a sleek grub, here and 

 there a furry caterpillar, began to climb the 

 long stiff grass-stalks. The battalions of 

 the mice and voles and shrews, popping up 

 indignantly through the skylight of the 

 tunnels, swept unanimously toward the barrier 

 of the dyke. Every one of them knew 

 quite well that to the sweet meadows beyond 

 the dyke the peril of the tide could not 

 pursue them. 



The big brown marsh-mouse, as it chanced, 

 was asleep at the bottom of his burrow. 

 Stealing up between the grass-stems, a chill 



