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An' last night I heard the screech-owl give the death-cry, and there were something white as run across the yard yesterday; 'tweren't a cat nor a stoat, 'twere something. The fowls knew 'twere something; they all drew off to one side. Ay, there's been warnings. I knew it were a-coming." The young woman's eyes clouded with pity.
"Lead her on to the turf, Stoat," he said. The groom obeyed, all followed, and Malcolm mounted. The same instant he lay on his back on the grass, amidst a general laugh, loud on the part of marquis and lady, and subdued on that of the servants.
The deer need keep no watch, there are no wolves to pull them down; and it is quite probable that the absence of any danger of that kind is the reason of their tameness even more than the fact that they are not chased by man. Nothing comes creeping stealthily through the fern, or hunts them through the night. They can slumber in peace. There is no larger beast of prey than a stoat, or a stray cat.
Her russet hair was plaited in a thick flat braid, and brought round her head like a broad coronet of red gold, and a point lace veil, pinned upon it with stoat gold pins, hang down behind and was brought forward carelessly upon one shoulder. Beside her, Angelo Beroviero was splendid in dark red cloth and purple silk.
Nearer and nearer drew the hoarse rattle of the reaper. More and more crowded were the few yards round the harvest mice. A large brown rat limped through, bleeding about the head. He had come in from the firing-line, and had incompletely dodged a stone. The stoat flung its head up as it scented him, but let him pass. He had never let a rat pass in his life before.
The little group broke up. Blob came through them, calm as the moon, and as unconscious. "Who is the lad?" whispered Nelson, as the boy lolloped up in laceless boots, hands deep in his waistband. "One of the garrison," replied the Parson. "Simple Sussex with the face of a cherub and the soul of a stoat." "Ah," said Nelson, "another of the heroes." He took a step towards the advancing boy.
It lasted but a moment, however, for the old man, spurred by torture as well as hate, gathered what survived of a most sinewy strength into one huge heave, threw her back into the room, and rose, with the blood streaming from his eyes just as the marquis came round the near end of the passage, followed by Mrs Courthope, the butler, Stoat, and two of the footmen.
The little English stoat, which is destroyed by the gamekeepers, becomes the beautiful snow-white ermine in Russia and other cold countries."
Cloctaw, the jackdaw, who had flown to the council with him, upon arrival, left his side, and perched rather in the rear. Reynard, the fox, and Sec, the stoat, his friend, waited the approach of the king by some fern near the foot of the pollard.
Stoat saddled a horse for him while he changed his dress, and once more he set out for Kirkbyres. Had Malcolm been at the time capable of attempting an analysis of his feeling towards Mrs Stewart, he would have found it very difficult to effect.
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