Greybeard

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Through broken reeds the creature moved. It was not alone; its mate followed, and behind her five youngsters, joining the hunt with eagerness.

The stoats had swum a brook. Now they climbed from the chill water, up the bank and through the reeds, bodies low to the ground, necks outstretched, the young ones in imitation of their father. Father looked out with an impersonal hunger at rabbits frisking for food not many feet away.

This had once been wheat land. Taking advantage of a period of neglect, weeds had risen up and had their day, choking the cereal. Later, a fire spread across the land, burning down the thistles and giant grasses. Rabbits, which prefer low growth, had moved in, nibbling the fresh green shoots that thrust through the ash. The shoots that survived this thinning process found themselves with plenty of space in which to grow, and were now fair-sized young trees. The number of rabbits had consequently declined, for rabbits like open land; so the grass had its chance to return. Now it, in its turn was being thinned beneath the continuing spread of the beeches. The few rabbits that hopped there were thin of flank.

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