And as he spoke two faint reports came echoing up the valley; "pop!
pop!" and then a pause and again "pop! pop!" a sound which was strange
to the Deer.

"That's the men with their guns," said the cunning old Bird, "they are
beating my wood, and that's why I am here. To-morrow they will be
there again, but the next day I shall return, and I hope to have the
pleasure of receiving you there very shortly after." And he ran up
into the covert and hid himself under a bramble bush on a heap of dead
leaves, so that you could hardly tell his neck from the live leaves or
his body from the dead.

The Deer would not have thought of accepting his invitation, for they
were very comfortable where they were, but that a few evenings later
the air grew warmer and the South-West wind began to scream through
the bare branches over their heads. Then the rain came down and the
wind blew harder and harder in furious gusts, till far away from them
at the head of the covert they just heard the sound of a crash; and
not long after a score of terrified bullocks came plunging into the
covert. For a beech-tree on the covert fence had come down, smashing
the linhay in which the bullocks were lying, and tearing a great gap
in the fence itself; which had not only scared them out of their
senses but had driven them to seek shelter in the wood. And the Deer
got up at once and moved away; for they do not like bullocks for
companions, and guessed that, when the day came, there would be men
and dogs wandering all over the covert to drive the bullocks back.

So they went down the valley and into Bremridge Wood. The old
Cock-Pheasant was fast asleep high up on a larch-tree when they came,
but when the day broke he came fluttering down in spite of the rain,
and begged them to make themselves at home. For the pompous old Bird
was so full of his own importance that he still considered himself to
be master of the whole wood and the Deer to be merely his guests. Of
course they humoured him, though their ancestors had been lords of
Bremridge Wood long before his; so the Stag complimented him on the
beauty of his back, and the Hind told him that she had never seen so
lovely a neck as his in her life. But still he seemed to want more
compliments, though they could not think what more to say, until one
day he turned the subject to dew-claws; and then he asked the Hind why
her dew-claws were so much sharper than the Stag's and why they
pointed straight downward, w