side--a dark, low, long form, like
himself; and, like himself, you could easily become aware of it without
seeing it, even with your handkerchief to your nose.

It was his wife, smaller, but no less dangerous, than he. She was
carrying an old hen-redshank in her jaws, its long beak and one of its
wings clearly silhouetted against the moon. And apparently she would
be very pleased if her husband would come out of the hole and make room
for her to stuff the redshank into it.

Then, together, they moved at their indescribable, undulating
gait--they looked like a snake between them in the moonlight--along the
sea-bank, till they came, with caution and many clever tricks of
vanishing, in case anybody might be watching, to yet another burrow,
screened completely and very neatly guarded by the splayed leaves of a
bunch of frosted sea-holly.

Both beasts went into the burrow, at the end of which was a nest
containing live things, which squirmed and made little, tiny, infant
noises in the darkness. They were the polecats' children, four of
them, all quite young, and all very hungry and very lively indeed; and
they explained a good deal of the reason for the stores of food set by
in other burrows in the "sea-wall."

But they did not explain quite all, for, unless Mrs. Polecat liked her
dinner high--and there was nothing I could find in her methods to show
that she did--or unless Mr. Polecat had got a craze for collecting
specimens and eggs, or forgot where half of his trophies were hidden as
a natural habit of absent-mindedness, one cannot quite see the reason
for hiding so much so soon, before the young could feed upon the
"specimens."

However, I suppose the two beasts knew their own business best. The
old male polecat seemed to, anyway, for just as the first flicker of
dawn was paling the eastern sky he went off down to the mist-hidden
dike, and, in no more than ten short minutes, returned with an eel,
protesting violently in that horrible way eels have, which he promptly
proceeded to decapitate and eat.

The afternoon had still some little time to run, when the waving grass
down the side of the sea-bank and the half of a glimpse of dull tawny
gave away the male polecat leaving his "earth" for the war-path once
more. Was he ever anything else than on the war-path if he moved
abroad at all?

That, even from above, was, I swear, all the indication he gave of his
exit. Now, although it is a rule in the wild that se