THE HAND OF TIME 209 



other parts, arid for years we have not seen a single 

 specimen. The nest of the harvest-mouse cunningly 

 woven amid the corn-stalks used to be one of the 

 prettiest of things seen in the cornfields, especially 

 when the mouse was seen also, nibbling in his dainty 

 way at the grain. To go round an oat-stack and 

 poke it with a stick was to disturb these gregarious 

 little creatures by the score. The common mouse 

 remains as plentiful as ever, and thousands are seen 

 during the threshing of a single stack ; but the 

 harvest-mouse has gone. So much the better, no 

 doubt, for the stacks. Their population of furred 

 foes is always too large as some idea may be gained 

 from the fact that in one season, and from a group 

 of three ricks, no fewer than 1300 rats were taken. 

 It is a proof of the barn-owls' value to farmers that 

 they are often caught in rat-traps set by holes at 

 the base of stacks. The stack is a favourite if some- 

 times a fatal hunting-place. 



The keeper looks his best in autumn. To many the 

 sight of him then is most welcome, especially if the 



prospect of sport be fair, and the day of fine 

 The promise. People who go to shoot season 



Time after season on one estate are greeted year 



by year by the same friendly faces, nearly 

 all of them a little the worse for time's passage. 

 The host is seen to have aged between this October 

 and last, with his butlers and his beaters and bailiffs. 



