For the next few weeks mother kept us very busy, helping her to collect winter stores. These consisted almost entirely of hazel-nuts, acorns, and beech-mast, all of which were very plentiful. We made small hoards in many different places, a very necessary precaution, for if—to use Jack’s expression—we were to put all our eggs in one basket, we should stand a very good chance of starving in hard weather. There are plenty of thieves in the woods. Rats and mice are the worst—absolutely conscienceless, both of them. Then there are the nut-hatches, who have a wonderful trick of ferreting out nuts hidden in holes in timber. Again, snow may cover a ground-hoard too deep to reach it, or even hide it altogether, so that it is impossible to find it at all. People who abuse us, because we occasionally do a little pruning among the tips of the evergreens, should remember that we are the greatest planters in the country. I suppose that quite one in three of the ancient oaks that England is so proud of have sprung from acorns hidden by squirrels in autumn, and either lost or not needed during the winter. So, too, have countless beech-trees and nut-bushes, and not a few pines and firs into the bargain. As we worked at our stores we often met others of our race intent upon similar business. The nuts of our coppice were famous for a long way round, and were so plentiful that there was enough for fifty families if they cared to come for them. We enjoyed seeing these visitors, and had great games with them. And so day by day, as the leaves fell and the night frosts became more frequent and more sharp, we worked and played and generally enjoyed life quite undisturbed by any outside interference. CHAPTER VII THE GREY TERROR Gales and cold rain prevailing, we spent much of our time indoors, while the wind roared through the coppice, and clouds of dead leaves whirled through the air, settling in rustling drifts in every hollow. The bracken was long ago brown and dead, but the blackberry leaves, though purpled by the frost, still clung with their accustomed obstinacy to the stalks, and provided thick cover for the pheasants. The old beech-trees were nearly bare, and, indeed, all the trees except the evergreens, especially those on the west side of the wood, had lost their leaves; only the oaks had foliage still to boast of, and most of this was brown and withered.