220 THE MIGHTY DREAD. 
spot; but he kept his head somehow, though 
he seemed half-hypnotised, and still backing 
slowly—oh, so carefully and slowly—at last felt 
—ah, the joy of it !—icy-cold air on his body. 
Next instant his head was out, all of him was 
out, and he found himself at the back of a 
white or barn owl, spread-eagled on the ‘ table,’ 
with wings stretched wide and flattened— 
feeling for Aim underneath. If he had not 
been a house mouse, but a field mouse, he 
would have known at the first touch that that 
was one of the barn owl’s patented hunting 
tricks. He did not, however, and fell back- 
wards off the ‘table,’ and darted into the 
hedge. 
He spent fifteen minutes under a root of 
the hedge, apparently listening for the owl to 
go—as if owls did not fly without sound—and 
then, by moonlight now, continued on his 
way in the snow. 
The world was strangely quiet, that ghostly 
quiet which comes with snow, except for the 
church-bells, and the mouse did not know 
what they meant. But there was no lack of 
business in the wild-world. All the hunters 
of the night, the prowlers of the fields, the 
searchers of the hedges, the things you never 
see by day, and most of us never even guess 
at, were awake and on the warpath. Also, 
