COUNTRY PLACES. 177 
of the country, and I wrote to him about it, and he said 
he would come and see them. The day he come was 
rather roughish and cold: he seemed sort of bad when 
he come into the house, and had to have some brandy. 
By-and-by he got better, and out we started ; but just 
as we was going through the yard this old dog nips him 
by the hand—took him right through his hand—made 
him look main straight. However, washed his hand 
and bound it up, and started out again. (Chuckle.) 
Hadn’t gone very far, and was getting through a hedge, 
and dalled if he didn’t fall into the pond, flop! 
(Chuckle) I suppose he didn’t like it, for he never 
said nothing about the mounds in his book when it 
come out—left ’em out altogether,’ 
This pond still exists,and Mr. Nestor Hay had noted 
a curious thing about it. Across the middle of the pond 
a tree had fallen ; it was just on a level with the surface 
of the water. A pair of water-rats always ate their food 
on this tree. They would go out into the grass of the 
meadow, bite off the vegetation that suited their taste, 
and carry it back in their mouths to the tree, and there 
eat it in safety, with water, as it were, all round them 
like a moat. This they did a hundred times—in fact, 
every day. ‘But,’ said Mr. Hay, ‘you can’t watch 
nothing now a minute without some great lout coming 
along with a stale baccy pipe in his mouth, making the 
air stink ; they spoils everything, these here half-towny 
{cllows ; everybody got a neasty stale pipe in their 
mouths, and they gets over the hedges anywhere, and 
disturbs everything.’ It is common on the banks of 
a stream or a pond to see half a dozen of these little 
-beaver-like water-voles out feeding in the grass, and they 
eat it when they find it. At this particular pond the 
two rats diverged from the custom of thcir race, and 
N 
