der the tough
bark of the trees. The lizards sought shelter in warm hollows deep below
the piles of stones left here and there by the labourers, when, every
spring, they cleared the freshening fields. And the big round snails,
the luscious tit-bits of the hedgehog's provender, crept into the holes
of the red mice and into the chinks of walls and banks, where, protected
by their shells, each being fastened to its resting place by a neat rim
of hardened glue, they lived unconscious of decay and gloom. Then the
hedgehog, having become drowsier and still drowsier with privation and
cold, ceased to wander from her nest at dark, and began that slumber
which was to last till the sweet, warm breath of spring awoke her, and
other wildlings of the night, to a life among the early primroses and
violets.

II.

AN EXPERIENCE IN SNAKE-KILLING.

The many changes of winter passed over the countryside; tempests raged,
rain beat down in slanting sheets or enveloped the fields in mist, snow
fell heavily and then vanished before the breath of a westerly breeze,
black frost held the fields for days in an iron clutch, and sometimes,
from late dawn to early dusk, the sun shone clearly in the southern sky.
The sportsman with his spaniels wandered by the hedge, the huntsman with
his beagles chased the hare across the sodden meadows, and the report of
a gun or the note of a horn echoed among the surrounding hills. But in
spite of changing weather and dangers from unresting foes, the hedgehog
slept peacefully within her nest of withered leaves till awakened by
the whisper of the warm south-western wind.

It was a calm day towards the end of March when the hedgehog awoke.
Gradually, since the winter solstice, the shadows of noon, cast from the
wooded slope across the meadows in the glen, had become shorter; and
now, when the sun reached its meridian, its beams fell directly on the
spot where the hedgehog rested among the littered leaves. She felt the
strange and subtle influence of spring, and crawled feebly from her
retreat. The light above her nest was far too brilliant for her eyes,
which had been closed for three long months, and were at best only
accustomed to the gloom of night, so she sought the shadow of a
tree-trunk near, and there, for a while, remained quite motionless. With
the leaves of last autumn still clinging thickly to her spines, she
seemed an oddly fashioned creature belonging to a distant age, a little
Rip Van Win