218 THE MIGHTY DREAD. 
under-wings—the only part that showed in 
that gloom—vanish into the hedge. In an 
instant came another silver line drawn straight 
as a ruler, and he only just had time to dodge 
—and it was a lightning dodge, too—as the 
great tit struck at his eye. 
Then that mouse got busy. Indeed, he 
had never before shifted from place to place 
so rapidly and continuously as he did—as he 
had to—during the next long minute, while 
the great tit, his mask off, and full of rage, 
swooped and darted above him, hammering at 
his skull, till the mouse felt it would crack, 
and that this astonishing little ruffian of a 
light-weight feathered champion would make 
a supper of his brains. And who shall say 
that Mr Parus major, the great tit, would 
have shirked doing that either ? 
And all the time the mouse was conscious 
of bells ringing in his head somewhere across 
the snowed-up landscape, and of laughter— 
human laughter—somewhere along a road. 
But his head rang, anyway, and he was not 
interested in the church-bells, however beauti- 
ful they might, and did, sound. 
Then something terrible happened. It 
generally does in the wild, if you are small, 
and so foolish as to attract attention. The 
mouse was aware of being, with great sudden- 
