DEAD LOW 289 



Down among the roots of the big trees the 

 sovereignty of the frost is not acknowledged. 

 The moles are running deep now after the worms. 

 At distances of a yard or six feet they bring up 

 the rich brown earth, soft and even warm to the 

 touch by comparison with the metal of the field. 

 The freshest of the hills are actually moving, if 

 we approach them quietly enough. We can count 

 the jerks of the mole's nose with which he thrusts 

 out the long sausage from the last section of his 

 ' tube ' highway. Then is the opportunity of the 

 man who wants to get rid of the * wunts ' from 

 some favourite piece of earth. The catching of 

 moles is not by any means an easy thing to the 

 amateur trapper, but with an ordinary fowling- 

 piece at rather close range we can shoot the little 

 engineer just at the moment when he is ejecting 

 his core through the top of the hillock. It is 

 more to the purpose now to notice how quickly 

 the live earth of the fresh hillock becomes hairy 

 with hoar frost, and then so hard that it rings 

 like iron when we kick it. I think that if I 

 were a thrush, one of the themes of my mid- 

 winter song would be the evidence that these 

 fresh hillocks give that the power of frost is only 

 skin deep. 



It is not enough that the survivors of frost and 

 winter rot should be ready to sprout quickly when 

 the sun comes back at Easter. They must begin 

 to grow without waiting for the message. As 

 sharer in a Pan-experience, each plant has a 



