eaped up and swung head downwards, gripping the bars with all
four feet. In this position he could at least nip the cross-piece, and
worry it with his teeth. Every muscle of his small body was strained to
the utmost. The bar rattled in its sockets, slipped round once or twice,
bent the merest trifle, and--jammed immovable as the others. He felt that
he was wasting his strength, and dropped sullenly to the floor. He had
never been so thirsty in his life; yet, true to his instincts, he started
to wash his face and smooth his draggled fur afresh.

This time it was a harder task, for his mouth was parched and tender, and
his fingers ached with exertion. Still, he managed to put his whiskers
into proper trim, and pulled himself together, with every sense alert for
the air-current which should betray some outlet.

He explored every cranny of his prison, slowly and calmly at first, then
with increasing anxiety and speed. By using all his strength, he raised
the door a tail's-breadth. For fully an hour he struggled at this chance
of exit. Five times he forced his nose under the sharp wood edge, and
sobbed as it snapped back, mocking at his failing strength.

It was not until he was sick with weariness, and mad with thirst, that
he lost his head. Then he flung himself recklessly in every direction,
bruising his poor body against the unyielding bars, desperate, grimy,
pitiable.

Nature intervened at length, and lulled him into a semi-conscious,
dream-bound indifference.

* * * * *

There was something to be said for the stack-life, after all. All good
stacks come to an end, but, while they last, it is honey for the
mouse-folk. Picture to yourself the basement of a wheat-stack, occupied
by a flourishing mouse colony--five hundred tiny souls, super-abundance
of food, and no thought for the morrow. The companions of his youth stole
into his dream with all the vividness of early impressions. The
long-tailed wood-mouse--a handsome fellow this, with great black liquid
eyes, and weasel colouring; the harvest-mouse, that Liliputian rustic to
whose deft fingers all good mouse-nests are indiscriminately assigned; the
freaks, white, black, and nondescript; and, finally, the great brown rats.

[Illustration: THE HARVEST MOUSE, THAT LILIPUTIAN RUSTIC.]

In the presence of the latter he had always felt nervous, but he had
recognized their usefulness. Had he not seen four of them combine and rout
a weasel?