We chatted for a while, and my new friend was good enough to show me a nice lot of fir-cones, on which I made a much-needed meal. Then I told him that I meant to go back up-stream to the river wood, and I suppose I must have dilated on its attractiveness, for suddenly he proposed accompanying me. ‘Like you,’ he said sadly, ‘I have lost my wife and all my family. I don’t know what became of them. I was out one day feeding, and when I came home they were all gone. There were footsteps below the tree, so no doubt I have some ruffianly man to thank for stealing them.’ I was anxious to start at once, but the pale squirrel, who told me that his name was Crab, begged me to share his quarters for the night and put off my departure till the morning. Oddly enough, though very tired, I was singularly unwilling to defer my start. However, he over-persuaded me. And for him the delay proved sad indeed, though fortunate enough for me. Crab’s quarters were in a very odd place—in the hollow head of a large pollard willow not far from the water’s edge. I told him that I had never before seen a squirrel live in a willow, and he explained that he had adopted this refuge because the ground beneath was so wet and swampy that it choked off human intruders. By degrees I found out that this wood was simply at the mercy of tramps and other vagabonds who camped there in numbers. Crab showed me the ashes of their fires alongside of the rough cart-track which ran through the coppice, and the places where they had cut wood to burn; evidently here was the other extreme from the Hall grounds—a country utterly neglected by its owners. Not a rabbit was to be seen, and Crab told me that, except for wood-pigeons and small birds, there was hardly a living thing in the wood. ‘The gipsies even catch the hedgehogs, roast them in clay, and eat them,’ he said with a shudder. ‘And who are gipsies?’ I inquired, puzzled. I had never heard the word before. Crab shuddered. ‘Brown men with traps and snares, and black-haired women with red handkerchiefs and shining earrings. Terrible people! Cleverer than keepers, and much more greedy. Pray you may not see any,’ he ended. What Crab told me made me the more anxious to clear out of this ill-omened spot, and next morning, as soon as the dew was a little off the grass, we started. Crab did not know much about the way we had to travel, but the river was our guide. What we both were chiefly afraid of were open meadows over which we knew that we had to pass. However, I was by now such a hardened wanderer that the risks of such a journey did not trouble me greatly.