But it is too big a job for “Terror”; he must wake Black—and he touches the slumbering god gingerly with his paw.
“Madness” laboriously raises one sleep-laden eyelid; and at first is inclined to thrash the other for his supposed clumsiness. But upon catching sight of his assistant’s strained expression he understands that something good to eat must be in the neighbourhood.
He jumps up and looks round.
Then, to Tiny’s almost tearful amazement and disappointment, the great man, instead of holding a council of war, curls up again and goes to sleep.
Black is an old hand; he knows that birds are best stalked after dark!
GREY ON THE WARPATH
Over hill and dale as far as the eye can reach stretch line after line of stacked-up corn-sheaves. The golden oats and the light-yellow barley and wheat, have fallen asleep at last—heavy and listless under the clear, blue harvest sky. The spring’s soft call to growth and love, the summer’s vibrant note of lust and passion, have worked their will and ripened every ear. Out here in the fields, in Nature’s sun-baked forcing-house, are none—none who have not found and drunk to its dregs the strong, sweet wine of fruitful life. They have sprung into being, grown up, fructified—now they bring forth their seed and yield themselves to fate....
One sunny afternoon, while the spiders spin their webs and the pimpernels blink their little red flowers, Grey sets out hunting through the rye stubble.
Suddenly she hears the squeak of a mouse from a heap of rakings—and becomes instantly stiff and rigid, her ears forward and tail bent.
The mice are indeed holding a feast in the rakings; the company is joyous and boisterous at the sight of such a good spread.