CHAPTER II
THE GREAT DISASTER
The day on which the great disaster befell us was wet in the early morning, and when the sun rose a thick, soft mist, white like cotton-wool, hung over the country-side. Not a breath of air was stirring, and it was so intensely still that it seemed as though one could hear everything that moved from one end of the wood to the other. The plop of a water-rat diving into a pool in the stream on the far side of the coppice came as clearly to my ears as though the water had been at the bottom of our own tree instead of several hundred yards away, and when the wood-pigeons began to move unseen in the smother, the clatter of their wings was positively startling.
We squirrel folk are not fond of wet, so we lay still and snug in our cosy retreat until the sun began to eat up the mist. Soon the grey smother thinned and sank, leaving the tree-tops bathed in brilliant light, every twig dripping with moisture, and every drop sparkling with intense brilliance. Then we crept out one by one, and, sitting up straight upon our haunches, began our morning toilet. No other woodland creature is so careful and tidy in its habits as a squirrel, and mother had already thoroughly instructed us in the proper methods of using our paws as brushes and our tongues as sponges, and in making ourselves neat and smart as self-respecting, healthy squirrels should be.
Suddenly a peal of distant bells came clanging through the moist, calm air with such a vibrating note that they made us all start. Father sat up sharply, and mother asked him what was the matter.
He explained to us that he had learnt by experience that when those bells rang out it was a dangerous time for us, for all the mischievous boys and rough fellows in the neighbourhood seemed to appear in the woods, and the keeper was never seen. He did not know why this should be, but from long custom he had grown to be uneasy at the sound.
Mother shuddered sympathetically, and rubbed against him caressingly, with a movement that told him not to worry, and she reminded him consolingly that even if our tormentors did take it into their heads to come into the wood they would not be likely to find us, since we had moved.
But father, instead of responding, suddenly pricked up his ears, and, signalling to us to be quiet, listened eagerly to some sound which the rest of us had not yet caught. For a moment he sat up straight, as still as though stuffed; then he turned and spoke sharply, with a warning sound that told us to lie as still as mice, for some danger was approaching.
Sure enough, a minute later we all heard the warning cry of a frightened blackbird, and immediately afterwards the brushing and trampling of a number of heavy boots through the wet grass and fern in the distance. At once we all stretched ourselves out tight as bark along the flat bough which formed the foundation of our nest, and lay there still as so many sleeping dormice.
The steps came rapidly nearer, and soon voices sounded plainly through the hush of the quiet wood. Imagine how I shuddered when I recognized the coarse tones of our former enemies mixed with others equally harsh and unpleasant! They were making straight for our part of the wood.