tems--he had no
wish to go down now, for he could hear the river talking to itself
directly underneath him, and a false step meant a clean drop into the
swirling black depths thirty feet or so below--the bank-vole, with his
companion in close and trusting attendance, presently came out on top
of the cliff. He found himself upon a space all clothed with
vegetation, bushes, and stunted trees, some hundred yards long.
Beneath him, as he peered over, he could see the roof of the wood, all
laid out like a green tablecloth, and here and there, through gaps, the
river, now shrunk to no more than a stream, by reason of the fact that
men, for their own purposes, had dammed its waters about a mile farther
up the valley, and constructed a reservoir there.

The voles knew nothing about any dam--then. They were satisfied to
explore the cliff-top and the crevices, to discover the tiny eggs of a
coal-tit, and remark on their flavor; to nose into every crook and
corner that came in their way; to learn the excellent facilities the
place offered for setting up housekeeping; and to discover that no
other bank-voles appeared to have found their way up there.

This took time, for they naturally had to flirt in between, and so it
happened that the sun had been up some while before they finally set to
improvising a home, in a partially earth-filled rocky cleft, with their
own sturdy forepaws. They had got so far as to dig in out of sight,
turning every few seconds to push out the loose earth, when the dam up
above broke, and a few hundred, or thousand, for all I know, tons of
water dropped into the valley--crash!

And thus it happened that, when the sun set, those two little,
big-headed, blunt-nosed bank-voles, looking out upon an endless sea of
water, above which the top halves of the trees in the wood rose like
mangroves, were, save for a few that had climbed into trees and would
starve, the only bank-voles left alive, to repopulate that valley with
bank-voles, out of all the teeming thousands whose burrows had
honeycombed every bank in the vicinity. Verily, how strange is Fate,
"who makes, who mars, who ends!"

XVI

THE EAGLES OF LOCH ROYAL

He makes a solitude, and calls it--peace.--BYRON.

He comes, the false disturber of my quiet.
Now, vengeance, do thy worst.--SHERIDAN.

The rising sun came striding over the edge of the world, and presented
the mountain with a golden crown; later it turned the rolling, heaving