A MOORLAND FIRE. 



his way painfully over the smoking ground. 

 Beneath his paws the loose black peat still 

 smouldered sullenly. With dazed and 

 doubtful steps, like a stupefied thing, he 

 picked his way among the burning tufts. 

 He had lost his mate, no doubt his mate, 

 and his little ones. The whole world he 

 knew had been blotted out and effaced in 

 one wild half-hour of indescribable terrors. 

 Now he walked gingerly on tip-toe over the 

 burning soil, as you and I might walk over 

 the ashes of Mayfair if a fissure eruption 

 had spread hot sheets of lava above the site 

 of London. Just such a catastrophe to my 

 squirrel was that awful night's work. He 

 was stunned and mazed by it. I thought, 

 indeed, for a time, he was half dead and 

 roasted, till a dog ran after him ; then, quick 

 as lightning, he darted up a charred tree, 

 and looked down from the bare boughs upon 

 his baffled pursuer. But none of the usual 

 sly triumph was there in his look ; the mani- 

 fold experiences of that deadly night had 

 143 



