IN THE RAIN 361 



sulkily bullies his wives from the ditch under the 

 fence where they have made some kind of shelter 

 from the falling rain. He does not take their place, 

 but just compels them to stand out there and be 

 thoroughly miserable with their lord and master. 

 As we turn from this picture of four-footed human 

 nature, a wood-mouse slips from the open, back into 

 the shelter of a hawthorn. He, too, has all the colour 

 of dryness as he passes across the sodden leaves and 

 negotiates the jewelled bush without bringing down 

 a particle of rain. A blackbird passes by with that 

 whistling flirt that thick weather produces from his 

 usually silent wings, and a few birds, known as jack- 

 daws by their voices, though lost to sight in the mist, 

 make a noise with their wings not unlike sawing. 

 Farther off, the carrion-crow hoarsely laments the 

 days when there were plenty of eggs to be sought 

 and eaten, and from almost under our feet flies a 

 speck of avine anatomy that seems too busy to notice 

 that the day is a wet one. It is a gold-crested wren, 

 and in the next bush we have it at arm's length, as 

 it hangs and reaches this way and that, unmindful 

 of the danger of bringing down a torrent of drops 

 that would surely overwhelm it. 



Many of the rabbit-holes are wetted through, if 

 not flooded out owing to a defective arrangement of 

 the main entrance or the bolt-hole. Our dog puts 

 their owners out from the bushes, and even finds them 

 in spare, hare-like forms on the open bank, where 

 some of them seem to prefer the regular drizzle to 

 the annoying, unexpected splashing from the twigs. 

 With all its drenching, the bank is dryer underfoot 

 than the dead leaves at the bottom of the hedge-row. 



