THE WOODCOCK 
the snow immediately round him until he lay 
enclosed in a crust of snow. He awoke at dusk to 
find that the mice were scuttling over his head, 
and that one had broken through upon him 
where the surface was thin. Scattering mice 
and snow, he burst 
out of his prison 
into a frigid world. 
Scar abeg was 
white ; the low- 
lands were whiter, 
parcelled out into 
blank fields by the 
dark hedges. It 
was a gloomy pros- 
pect for the Fea- 
ther Folk. Even the need for food was 
second to that of water, but there was none to 
be had. Creaman tried last night's drinking- 
place : it was choked with snow and half- 
frozen. A duck alighting on the sludge 
might have broken it in, but a woodcock's 
weight was insufficient. A few weary plover 
stood near, patiently waiting for the thaw 
which might be many days away. There was 
no hope here. Even the water-trickles among 
the heather were all choked with snow. The 
lift, from Scarabeg to Slieve Corrig, hummed 
with anxious birds fore-wandered bunches of 
