Sable was the best of mothers, and took the greatest care of her young family, keeping them beautifully neat and clean. Before long they grew big enough to be taken out of the nest, and then began a very busy time for their mother and myself. Jumping and climbing lessons were the order of the day. Remembering how well my mother had instructed me, I took the greatest pains to show them how to spring from one branch to another, how to swing by one hand or foot, to fall without hurting themselves, and how to hide instantly when any danger approached. Sometimes we took them down on to the turf below, which was always kept close cropped by the rabbits, and the children enjoyed nothing better than rolling about there, tumbling head over heels, and indulging in all kinds of wild antics. It amused me to see how inquisitive they all were. Curiosity is, of course, the besetting sin of the whole of our tribe, and many a one of us has it brought to grief. Anything the least bit out of the way had to be examined at once, and no amount of reproof ever seemed to restrain them. Curiosity very nearly cost Walnut—for so I called the little dark chap, who was my special favourite—his life. One morning I had been over to the other end of the coppice, to a horse-chestnut tree which I knew of. Young horse-chestnut buds, I may remark, make as good a breakfast as almost anything I know of. When I came back I found Sable running about on the ground in a most distracted fashion. So soon as she caught sight of me she came flying to tell me that Walnut was missing. She was so excited that I had some difficulty at first in making out the facts of the case. It appeared that she had had the whole family out for a game on the grassy sward which bordered the wood path when, all of a sudden, she became conscious that only three of them were in sight. Walnut had completely disappeared. The others explained that they had been playing hide and seek, and that Walnut had been hiding. They had looked everywhere for him, but could neither find nor hear him.