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The water-rat of Europe is smaller, but of similar nature and habits. The muskrat does not hibernate like some rodents, but is pretty active all winter. In December I noticed in my walk where they had made excursions of a few yards to an orchard for frozen apples.
At that moment Sir Isaac peered through the brambles, and restored to his original whiteness, and relieved from his false, horned ears, marched gravely towards the water, sniffed at the scholar, slightly wagged his tail, and buried himself amongst the reeds in search of a water-rat he had therein disturbed a week before, and always expected to find again.
Tiers upon tiers of vessels, scores of masts, labyrinths of tackle, idle sails, splashing oars, gliding row-boats, lumbering barges, sunken piles, with ugly lodgings for the water-rat within their mud-discoloured nooks; church steeples, warehouses, house-roofs, arches, bridges, men and women, children, casks, cranes, boxes horses, coaches, idlers, and hard-labourers; there they were, all jumbled up together, any summer morning, far beyond Tom's power of separation.
It was delightful not to hear for an hour or so the sullen thrashing of the rain; but to listen to the leaping of the fishes, the soft swirl raised by some water-rat, swimming stealthily among the rushes, the restless twitterings of the few still wakeful birds. An old corncrake lived near to us, and the way he used to disturb all the other birds, and keep them from going to sleep, was shameful.
Just at that instant she heard, or fancied she heard, a splash behind her in the water. There was nothing for it now but to go forward. She resolved not to be terrified. Perhaps it was a water-rat; perhaps it was the Banshee. Her heart beat high; still she had no fear. She was going to plead for her father. What girl would be terrified with such a cause in view?
It is the more remarkable because we find a somewhat similar structure in the molar teeth of the elephants, which, like the rodents, have the incisor teeth largely developed and widely separated from the molars. There is nothing in the appearance of the water-rat which gives any indication of its aquatic habits.
It is very much in my way at home, and it is in such bad repair that I could not get anything for it if I sold it. I will certainly take care not to give away anything again. One always suffers for being generous." "Well?" said the Water-rat, after a long pause. "Well, that is the end," said the Linnet. "But what became of the Miller?" asked the Water-rat. "Oh!
A moor-hen stole out from the rushes farther up, seeing that Bevis was still enchanted with the singing, and began to feed among the green weeds by the shore. A water-rat came out of his hole and fed in the grass close by. A blue dragon-fly settled on a water-plantain. Up in the ash-tree a dove perched and looked down at Bevis.
And this, in spite of a universal inference that he was dead, and that his body was flavouring whitebait below bridge. This did not interfere with a belief on the part of the crew of the patrolling boat known to Michael owing to a popular chant of boys of his own age as "two blackbeetles and one water-rat," that his corpse would float up one day near the place of his disappearance.
The land appeared to be rushing at them, when Dominick's oar snapped suddenly, and he went overboard. A shriek from Pauline and a shout from Otto rose high above the din of raging water, as the boat broached-to and hurled its remaining occupants into the sea. Even in that trying moment Dominick did not lose presence of mind. He could swim and dive like a water-rat.
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