Looking up in amazement, I saw my dear master’s face twisted as though in pain; but before I could make up my mind what was the matter, he suddenly pitched me gently back into the hollow where he had put me before, and brushing his sleeve across his face, fairly ran away down the path. Before I well realized what had happened, he was lost to sight among the trees. As soon as I recovered a little from my astonishment, I started a second time for the gate; but before I reached it Jack was half-way across the field, and travelling so fast that I knew I could never catch him; and besides, I had always been terribly afraid of the ground ever since my escape from the terrier. I don’t think that ever in my life have I felt so utterly miserable as when I realized that my master had abandoned me. You see, I could not understand it at all, and my one sensation was an utter and overwhelming loneliness. Gradually, too, I became frightened. I had never been alone out of doors before, and this was all so different to the Hall garden. The field seemed a vast green desert, and behind me the wood an illimitable rustling mystery full of unseen perils. How long I sat there straining my eyes after the vanished form of my master I do not know, but what roused me at last was a sudden rustle behind, which made me start violently. However, it was only Rusty, who had followed me, and was seated on a swinging hazel-bough in the hedge, staring at me in a perplexed fashion. ‘What’s the matter, Scud?’ he asked at last. I told him I felt very forlorn now that my master had left me. My brother could not believe that I wanted to follow him; such a thing was quite beyond his comprehension. When I assured him it was true, Rusty looked as solemn as if he was now certain that I had quite taken leave of my senses. ‘What! You want to go back and live in those burrows when you’ve got all the wood to roam in!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll be shot if I can understand you! Do you mean that you’d rather spend your time all alone in a place you can’t get out of than go foraging round with us all day as free as—as’—Rusty’s imagination failed him, and he paused—‘well—as free as a squirrel, for there’s no other creature in the woods that is as free as we are.’ I reminded him that I was used to being protected, and had never experienced anything but the utmost gentleness from Jack and his family. ‘Yes, I know. I’m sure he is quite different from those red-faced brutes who broke our nest down and killed poor father,’ replied Rusty. ‘And he has left us nuts enough for a month. But all his kind are so big and so dull. They can’t climb trees like us, or jump;’ and my brother made a splendid spring down to my side just to show what he could do. ‘It’s no kind of life for a squirrel. My brush, but I should have taken the first chance to run off and come back home!’