CHAPTER III 
' THE COLLARED BUCK ' 
ON the northern slope of Knockdane there is a little 
glen whose sides are hung with ivy and aromatic 
ale-hoof, and which is so deep that even on the 
longest day of the year the sun can never climb high 
enough to shine upon its southern wall. The glen 
is strewn with limestone rocks, and at its head 
stands a twisted crab-apple tree. Beneath the roots 
of the latter there is a dry roomy chamber into 
which dead leaves have either drifted or been 
carried ; for the Crab Tree burrow has been beloved 
of the Fur Folk ever since the tree itself began to 
bear a yearly load of wizened fruit. Some have 
used it as a den, some as a nursery, and many more 
as a sanctuary. Grimalkin adapted it to the first 
of these uses, and took up his abode there at the end 
of November. 
Frost and snow seldom come to Knockdane 
before January. During the close of the year 
the weather is damp and mild ; rain drips relent- 
lessly upon the sodden ground ; and the scarlet and 
orange agarics in the moss are the only things which 
flourish. One morning in mid-December Grimalkin 
went hunting among the bramble thickets of upper 
Knockdane. The whole place was traversed by an 
