WOODLAND TWILIGHT: TRAITORS ON THE GIBBET


In a hedge that joined a wood, and about a hundred yards from it, there
was a pleasant hiding-place beside a pollard ash. The bank was hollow
with rabbit-buries: the summer heat had hardened the clay of the mound
and caused it to crack and crumble wherever their excavations left a
precipitous edge. Some way up the trunk of the tree an immense flat
fungus projected, roughly resembling the protruding lip of a savage
enlarged by the insertion of a piece of wood. If formed a black ledge
standing out seven or eight inches, two or three inches thick, and
extending for a foot or more round the bark. The pollard, indeed, was
dead inside, and near the ground the black touch-wood showed. Ash timber
must become rarer year by year: for, being so useful, it is constantly
cut down, while few new saplings are planted or encouraged to become
trees.

In front a tangled mass of bramble arched over the dry ditch; it was
possible to see some distance down the bank, for nothing grew on the top
itself, the bushes all rising from either side--a peculiarity of clay
mounds. This narrow space was a favourite promenade of the rabbits; they
usually came out there for a few minutes first, looking about before
venturing forth into the meadows. Except a little moss, scarcely any
vegetation other than underwood clothed the bare hard soil of the mound;
and for this reason every tiny aperture that suited their purpose was
occupied by wasps.

They much prefer a clear space about the entrance to their nests,
affording an unencumbered passage: there were two nests within a few