'A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS' 211 



wild creatures, and I sometimes think that it was 

 only the knowledge that a tailer always sits tight 

 that sustained me. 



I dug for myself a nice hole in the plantation, 

 where we left me inspecting my poor tail, under 

 a bramble -bush (I had no wife now to raise 

 objections, thank goodness !), and when the winter 

 came on I had much cause to be thankful, for the 

 thick hedge and the trees kept off the snow ; and 

 the plantation belonged to an unscrupulous person, 

 as I gathered from what I heard, who was anxious 

 to entice his neighbour's pheasants to come and be 

 shot, and so he was at pains to keep a good supply 

 of corn and raisins littered about, and also a nice 

 trough of water to drink, which was always refilled 

 after a night's fi'ost. He naturally did not bother 

 his head much about a solitary rat. I do not sup- 

 pose that he even suspected my presence, though 

 he might have noticed my dainty chain of foot- 

 prints on the thin carpet of snow which the wind 

 blew into the cover in spite of the hedge and the 

 trees. I doubt whether he did see them, because 

 he always came along the same path to the little 

 clearing where he sprinkled the food, and when 

 he wanted to shoot, which was pretty nearly every 

 day, he stood outside at the end where the pheasants 



14—2 



