64 Redruff 



after the loss of Brownie, but drumming is to 

 the partridge what singing is to the lark ; while 

 it is his love-song, it is also an expression of 

 exuberance born of health, and when the molt 

 was over and September food and weather had 

 renewed his splendid plumes and braced him 

 up again, his spirits revived, and finding him- 

 self one day near the old log he mounted im- 

 pulsively, and drummed again and again. 



From that time he often drummed, while his 

 children sat around, or one who showed his 

 father's blood would mount some nearby stump 

 or stone, and beat the air in the loud tattoo. 



The black grapes and the Mad Moon now 

 came on. But Redruff's brood were of a vigor- 

 ous stock ; their robust health meant robust 

 wits, and though they got the craze, it passed 

 within a week, and only three had flown away 

 for good. 



Redruff, with his remaining three, was living 

 in the glen when the snow came. It was light, 

 flaky snow, and as the weather was not very 

 cold, the family squatted for the night under 

 <he low, flat boughs of a cedar-tree. But next 

 day the storm continued, it grew colder, and 

 the drifts piled up all day. At night the snow- 

 fall ceased, but the frost grew harder still, so 

 Redruff, leading the family to a birch-tree above 



