JOY IN HARVEST 263 



stackyard, find the stubble a very happy playing-ground 

 when cleared of its encumbrances. Rats and mice both frolic 

 about in the moonlight, especially in the Fen country. They 

 come out from the dikes after sunset, and pick up food or 

 even make burrows in the new stubble. It is a richer field 

 for the partridges than was the standing wheat. Indeed 

 sometimes the birds do not begin to flourish as they should 

 till the corn is cut. If any one wished a post of observation 

 there is none comparable with shelter in one of the last of 

 the stooks in a stubble-field when the moon is full, and the 

 night animals are playing and feeding, and the night birds 

 hunting. How quiet are the owls till they split the silence 

 of their flight with a hunting shriek, and how mysterious the 

 rustle of the stubble stems beneath scampering feet. The 

 foxes desert the hedgerow for the open field, and the utter 

 tenuity of the bat's cry is heard far from buildings and 

 trees. 



