The poor little biter, as the gipsies call the mouse,
had a stronghold wherein to shelter himself, and close by there was a
corn-rick from which he drew free supplies of food. A few minutes
afterwards I was interested in the movements of a pair of wrens that were
playing round the great trunk of an elm, flying from one to another of
the little twigs standing out from the rough bark. First one said
something in wren language, and then the other answered; they were
husband and wife, and after a long consultation they flew to the
corn-rick and crept into a warm hole under the thatch. So both these, the
least of animals and the least of birds, have a resource, and man is the
only creature that punishes his fellow for daring to lie down and sleep.
Up in the plain there were some mounds, or _tumuli_, about which nothing
seemed to be known, though they had evidently been cut into and explored.
At last, however, a farmer--Mr. Nestor Hay, who knew everything--told me
something about them. He cut them open. He had an old county history and
several other volumes which had somehow accumulated in the Manor-house
Farm, and, like many country people, he was extremely fond of studying
the past. He fancied there might have been a battle in that locality, and
hence these mounds, but could find no reference to them anywhere, so he
dug through one or two of them himself, without success; the soil did not
seem to have ever been disturbed, consequently they might have been
natural.
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