216 NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



meadow, began to grow loud again, and the 

 brown mouse whisked back into his burrow. 



All through the time of the haying the 

 meadow-folk lived in a turmoil of alarm and 

 change. At first, under the heavy pros- 

 trate ranks of the slain grass, they ran be- 

 wildered but secure, for their foes could 

 not easily detect them. For another day 

 they were comparatively safe under the long 

 scented lines of the dying " wind-rows," 

 full of grasshoppers and wilted clover-heads. 

 When the wind-rows were tossed together 

 into innumerable pointed hay-cocks, they 

 crowded beneath the ephemeral shelter, to 

 be rudely bared next day to the blinding 

 sun as the cocks were pitched into the rumb- 

 ling hay-carts. It was a day of horrors, 

 this, to the meadow kindreds, for a yel- 

 low Irish terrier, following the hay-makers, 

 would run with wild yelpings under the lifted 

 cocks, and slay the little people by the hun- 

 dred. But as for the brown mouse, all this 

 time he and his temporary mate dwelt secure, 

 keeping to their burrow and to the barren but 

 safe tunnels which they had driven amid the 

 roots of the rose-thicket. 



When the hay was gone part of it 

 carted away to upland barns, part built 

 cunningly into high conical stacks the 



