36 



THE RAT 



the owls amused, and they both loved us dearly, 

 especially the foxes. It is very nice to be loved 

 for one's own sake, but not, perhaps, quite so 

 much as the foxes loved us. There was one great 

 red fellow, who had given the hounds many a fine 

 run in the winter, and had always managed to keep 

 his splendid brush safe in spite of all their efforts to 

 catch him. He used to come and lie watching our 

 holes, night after night, and got a lot of us to crunch 

 up with his great white teeth. He kept the owls 

 off, however, and he w^as not quite so dangerous as 

 they were, because I soon got to know his smell ; and 

 he was not quite so quick as an owl, nor so deadly 

 quiet. I can hear a hawk a long way off, but an 

 owl comes swooping down without an atom of 

 noise : it has such a lot of silent, fluffy feathers. 



I was out one night in my silly season with one 

 of my sisters, when down came an owl. Luckily, 

 he took my sister, but I give you my word of 

 honour that the first thing that I heard was poor 

 Sal's squeak as the claws went in. So she never 

 lived to be Sally, or Sarah, or Mrs. Sarah. I ran 

 so fast that I was quite out of breath when I got 

 home, but the others guessed pretty easily what 

 had happened without my telling them. I did not 

 think it quite kind of them to say that they wished 



