with sticks.

Berus the adder lay still in a hollow. The cutter passed completely over
him. He was always ready, but his earth-colour saved him the necessity of
striking. As the evening shadows lengthened, he stole grimly from his
shelter, crossed the field, climbed the slope, and regained his
furze-bush.

[Illustration: THE HARVEST MOUSE'S NEST.]

And the harvest mice? The mother-mouse dashed to her nest as she saw it
falling, and a wheel of the reaper passed over her. The father-mouse was
saved, but through no merit of his own. Until the reaper was actually upon
him, he clung to his stalk with tail and eighteen toes. Then it was too
late to leave go. The great red arms gathered his stalk in the midst of a
hundred others, swept the whole on to the knives, and dropped them on the
travelling canvas platform. Up he went, and down again. For a moment he
thought that he was being stifled. His eyes started from their sockets.
His ribs seemed to crumple within him--fortunately they were elastic, as
ribs no thicker than a stout hair must be. Then the pressure relaxed. The
automatic binding was complete, and one more sheaf fell with a thud to
earth. In that sheaf was the harvest mouse, bruised but alive, a prisoner
in the dark. The stalks pressed tight against his body; but for the
pitchfork he could never have got out.

The pitchfork shot through the middle of the mass, and missed him by half
an inch. Once more he felt his surroundings flying upwards, but this time
they fell more lightly. They formed the outside of a stitch of ten. As the
fork was withdrawn the binding of the sheaf was loosened. He could breathe
with comfort, and he could also see. He peered out, and found the whole
face of Nature changed. The waving cornfield had gone. In its place was
a razed expanse of stubble. The corn-sheaves stretched in serried piles
across it. The harvesting had been neatly timed. Behind the hedge was the
crimson glow of sunset. After all, that had not changed.

For an hour he waited within the sheaf, dubious and uncertain. Then he
stole from his shelter. Within five yards he found her, gripping the
shattered fragments of the nest. Close by lay a bludgeoned rat, and, five
yards farther on, there sat a living one. It had its back to him, but by
its movements he could see that it was feeding.

The field was flooded with moonlight. On all sides resounded the ominous
hum of beetles' wings. Nature had summoned her burying squad. They h