ght change, the whisper of mystery, the furtive suggestion of
menace which the daylight lacks. Sitting there in ambush, Mrs. Gammit
felt it all, and her eager face grew still and pale and solemn like a
statue's. The moonlight crept down the roofs of the barn and shed and
house, then down the walls, till only the ground was in shadow. And at
last, through this lower stratum of obscurity, Mrs. Gammit saw two
squat, sturdy shapes approaching leisurely from behind the barn.

She held her breath. Yes, it was undoubtedly the porcupines. Undaunted
by the memory of their previous discomfiture, they came straight
across the yard, and up to the house, and fell at once to their
feasting on the herring-tub. The noise of their enthusiastic gnawing
echoed strangely across the attentive air.

Very gently, with almost imperceptible motion, Mrs. Gammit slid her
right hand, armed with the pepper-pot, over the edge of the
window-sill. The porcupines, enraptured with the flavour of the
herring-tub, never looked up. Mrs. Gammit was just about to turn the
pepper-pot over, when she saw a third dim shape approaching, and
stayed her hand. It was bigger than a porcupine. She kept very still,
breathing noiselessly through parted lips. Then the moonlight reached
the ground, the shadows vanished, and she saw a big wildcat stealing
up to find out what the porcupines were eating.

Seeing the feasters so confident and noisy, yet undisturbed, the
usually cautious wildcat seemed to think there could be no danger
near. Had Mrs. Gammit stirred a muscle, he would have marked her; but
in her movelessness her head and hand passed for some harmless natural
phenomenon. The wildcat crept softly up, and as he drew near, the
porcupines raised their quills threateningly, till nothing could be
seen of their bodies but their blunt snouts still busy on the
herring-tub. At a distance of about six feet the big cat stopped, and
crouched, glaring with wide, pale eyes, and sniffing eagerly. Mrs.
Gammit was amazed that the porcupines did not at once discharge a
volley at him and fill him full of quills for his intrusion.

The wildcat knew too much about porcupines to dream of attacking them.
It was what they were eating that interested him. They seemed to enjoy
it so much. He crept a few inches nearer, and caught a whiff of the
herring-tub. Yes, it was certainly fish. A true cat, he doted on fish,
even salt fish. He made another cautious advance, hoping that the
porcup