Spring on a Hill-stream 25 



dry land ; and so long as he does not make a great 

 disturbance, the birds and animals of the stream- 

 side often overlook him altogether, or feel no fear of 

 his unfamiliarly truncated figure. Now and then, 

 even by daytime, an otter may cross the river in 

 front of him or appear for a moment under the 

 overhanging roots at the stream's edge. On the 

 wooded reaches squirrels often cross the ground from 

 tree to tree, run with their red tails carried sinuously 

 behind them up the grey trunks of the oaks upon 

 the banks, or sit upright and grunt defiance upon 

 an upper bough with their tails erect. Sometimes, 

 where a larch or other tall tree has fallen and bridged 

 the chasm of the stream, a squirrel will run lightly 

 across, hunt for a little while among the leaves of 

 the steep bank beyond, and return as gaily as it 

 went. By the side of the stream, along the beach 

 of sharp sand under the copse-roots, the slenderer 

 and fiercer stoat comes cantering in quest of a nest 

 of young birds or the scent of a rabbit upon the 

 bank. Undulating its head from side to side with 

 the gesture of a snake, the stoat shows in every 

 movement its innate lust for blood. As it hunts 

 along the edge of the spring thicket, it seems like 

 the very spirit of evil, for all its nimble beauty. 

 Yet, deep in animal nature the roots of good and 

 evil are inextricably intertwined. The fierceness 

 which makes the stoat the most insatiable of killers 

 takes another shape as the undaunted courage and 

 comradeship which sometimes impels a family of 

 stoats to make a joint assault upon so formidable a 

 foe as a man, and will even make a single mother 



