That night we two spent amid the dripping ruins in the larch. After the great heat the night breeze struck bitter cold, and we lay chilled and shivering, though too miserable to care much one way or the other. As soon as ever it grew light we left that part of the coppice for ever. I took my son to the extreme opposite end of the wood, and there had the good luck to stumble almost immediately upon possible quarters. These were in a vast oak, the boughs of which were beginning to decay from sheer old age. In the end of one branch, broken short off by some long past gale, was a deep hole which had evidently been formerly the habitation of a pair of stock-doves, for the remains of their nest were mouldering just inside the entrance. I had no spirit to build new quarters, so with sore hearts we took possession of this shelter. Later, when I recovered my energies a little, I collected moss to line it, and made a dry and fairly comfortable residence. Of the time that followed I will not speak. But for Walnut I should not have cared to live. As it was, I hardly took the trouble to eat, but sat and moped from day to day, until I grew thin and bony; my coat stared, and I looked like an old squirrel. But time cures all sorrows, and happily for us, just as a squirrel’s life is shorter than a man’s, so much the more rapidly do his griefs pass away. Walnut grew from day to day, and became a strong, handsome fellow, well able to take care of himself. I was very proud and fond of him, and gradually his bright companionship did me good, and amid new scenes I began slowly to take a fresh interest in life. Our new home was very near to the far end of the wood path, close to the other gate, which opened on to the road; the same road which ran past the Hall, across the brook, to the village beyond. As I have, I think, mentioned before, the new people at the Hall had closed this path, padlocked the gates, and posted notices forbidding anyone from using the short cut. This course caused intense dissatisfaction among the villagers, and more than once I saw a passing labourer shake his fist in silent anger as he tramped along the dusty road past the locked, iron-spiked gate. It was not long before we began to realize the reason of this proceeding. One day the ginger-whiskered keeper appeared outside the gate with a cart loaded with coops. Unlocking the gate, he and another man carried in the coops one by one. All our curiosity aroused, Walnut and I followed cautiously, and watched them lay the coops down in an open glade, not far from our oak tree, open them, and let loose dozens of young pheasants, which scuttled about without attempting to fly, tame as so many barn-door fowls. Next came a proceeding which interested me far more. Taking two bags from the cart, the keeper proceeded to scatter a quantity of Indian corn and other food about in the grass, then, picking up the coops, he departed.