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Luckily, in his journeys along the edge of the shallows during the flood, Brighteye had found a sequestered pond, near an old hedgerow dividing the wood, where tender duckweed was plentiful, and, with delicious roots of watercress, promised him abundant food.
Brighteye could not, at any rate, have suffered seriously, else he would have succumbed, either to some enemy ever ready to prey on the young, the aged, the sick, and the wounded of his tribe, or to starvation, the well-nigh inevitable follower of disease in animals.
'Whose name? Henry demanded, reddening in the hot water. 'You know that lady's name, the one that called. 'So it is. 'No, it isn't, dear. It's Flossie Brighteye. Oh, I beg pardon, Henry! I'm sure I beg pardon!
For a time Brighteye sat at the edge of the stream, alert for any sign of danger that might threaten his harmless existence. Then playfully he dropped into the pool, dived, sought the water-entrance to his house, climbed inside his sleeping chamber, and thence to the bank, where again he sat intently listening as he sniffed the cool evening air.
One fact, however, seemed significant: Brighteye parted from his parents as soon as he was sufficiently alert and industrious to manage his own affairs, and, having hollowed out a plain, one-roomed dwelling, with an exit under the surface of the water and another near some primrose-roots above the level of flood, lived there for months, timid and lonely, yet withal, if his singing might be regarded as the sign of a gladsome life, the happiest vole in the shadowed pool above the village gardens.
Late in the autumn, however, Brighteye noticed, with unaccountable misgiving, a distinct change in the appearance of these passing visitors. The silvery sheen had died away from their scales, and had been succeeded by a dark, dull red; and the fish were sluggish and ill-tempered.
Nightly, after supper, Brighteye made a circuit of the pool to find the shrew, and with his companion swam hither and thither, till, startled by some real or imagined danger, each of the playmates hurried to refuge, and was lost awhile to the other amid the darkness and the solitude of the silent hours.
Unable to find security in his former retreat, and effectually deterred by the lingering scent of his pursuers from returning to his woodland haunts, Brighteye, a homeless, hungry little vagabond, at first perplexed, then risking all in search of food and rest, would inevitably have met his fate. But neither stoat nor weasel learned of his new abode.
At last a thaw set in, and Brighteye, awakening on the second day from his noontide sleep, heard the great ice-sheet crack, and groan, and fall into the river. When darkness came he hurried to the water's brink, and, almost reckless with delight, plunged headlong into the pool.
Brighteye, lying on his back, used his powerful hind-claws with such effect that, when he regained his footing, he was able, almost unresisted, to get firm hold of his tired opponent, and to thrust him, screaming with pain and baffled rage, into the pool.
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