130 A TELLING TAIL. 
and Heaven alone knows whether their con- 
science ever lets them sleep ! 
An hour later the creature, which was a 
blindworm (though not blind), which is a 
glass-snake (though neither glass nor snake), 
which is a slow-worm, which is a lizard of the 
skink fraternity, and has only aborted legs 
under the skin, awoke suddenly, and seeming 
to recollect an urgent appointment with some 
evil genius of the lower regions, forthwith 
vanished down a field-mouse tunnel at speed. 
There was a pause of exactly seventy-one 
seconds, while five silvery sea-gulls flew over 
to the sea, which could be heard growling at 
the land barely four hundred yards away ; and 
a partridge—prospecting for ants’ eggs, pre- 
sumably—came and pecked at the very mouth 
of the tunnel. The partridge passed chuck- 
ling ; and a goldfinch, all blazing red and gold 
and black and white and fawn, came and 
balanced on a thistle-head so exactly above 
the hole that its swaying shadow fell directly 
upon it. 
At last—on the seventy-first second—came 
a dainty, little, brown figure, garbed in soft 
fur, and bolted down that hole. It was one of 
the thousands of field-mice who really owned 
the place. She had her young down that 
hole—horrible little creatures to look at, but 
