CHAPTER V 
UNDER THE MOON 
A LITTLE band of forewandered plover flapped 
southwards drearily. To the east the mountains 
were still encumbered with the great snowclouds 
which had driven over Knockdane an hour before, 
and converted Garry's Hill into a white sugar loaf. 
Now it was evening, and as the red sun sank, he 
flushed the fields with a dream-pink, while the 
moon struggled over the stormy hills. 
Cuni hopped out into the cold air and shook 
each paw delicately, for the snow clung to them. 
Her eyes looked bigger and her ears longer than 
when we saw her last, for the cruel February 
weather, which spared neither the Fur nor the 
Feather Folk, had pressed the rabbits sorely. For 
weeks frost and thaw had alternated night by night, 
and slowly killed every green leaf and blade of 
grass. Sometimes cold rain fell and soaked the 
woods, at others snow came and covered them. 
Within five hundred yards of the warren there 
was not a tuft of grass large enough to make a 
' form ' ; and the rabbits lay below ground in their 
damp burrows, and tried to deaden the hunger pain 
with sleep. 
Although it was scarcely an hour since the snow- 
