There was no deceiving Kenneth or Archie, nor Kooran and Shot, for the matter of that. But the wild creatures knew the boys, and often objected to have their nests examined, and even tried to deceive them. For example, the hedgehog one evening in the gloaming was caught in the very act of hauling away an immensely long earthworm. The hoggie didn't curl up, but sat down and made pretence to eat it. But Archie knew the nest was not far away. The fox had a home in the middle of the pine wood and had young there, and do what she would, the old mother fox could not get the puppies to keep to the hole and lie in bed all day. They would come out and play and tumble in the clearing, in such a funny ridiculous way. Once Archie was coming up towards this clearing, and the puppies were all out, for father fox was from home looking after chickens, and as soon as mother fox carried one into the hole in her mouth and went back for another, it came laughing and frolicking out again. So half distracted the mother went slily to meet Archie, and pretended she was nearly dead, and went away in a different direction from the clearing, and dragged one leg behind her in a way that made Archie certain he could catch her. Of course when mother fox had Archie far enough away she disappeared. But Archie came back next night, and the same trick did not succeed again, so he found the puppy foxes and used to play with them for hours at a time in the clearing. The lapwings have a trick in spring-time of pretending they have a broken wing when you go near the nest. They fall down in front of you, and pretend they can't get away fast, and you run to catch them and forget all about the nest. This is a very clever trick, and has deceived many, but Archie used to shake his yellow hair and laugh at the lapwing. "It is too thin," Archie would say. "I'm not a town's boy." And he would go straight away and find the nest, with the buff and black speckled eggs, on the top of the bare sunny hillock where in a hole--not worth the name of nest--lappie had laid them. It was too late in the season now to look for birds' nests, but they saw to-day a lot of old nests that they had not found the summer before, for the trees were now getting bare and thin in foliage. When tired roaming about in the wilds, the two boys sat down and had dinner. Then they crossed the wide moorland to Nancy's lonely cottage. Nancy was delighted to see them. She said they must be hungry. But the boys assured her that they were not, because they had had plenty of bread and cheese. But Nancy put down her knitting and warmed some heather ale for them, and sweetened it, and switched two new-laid eggs, and mixed those in it, and made the boys drink the harmless and delicious beverage. Then she took up her knitting again, and click, click, clickety-click, went the wires the while she told them strange old-world stories and tales of fairies and kelpies.