But the vermin were gone, whizzing away through the woodlands like minnows with a pike on their tails.

Sollertree sat down on the path, placing a paw across his eyes and shaking his head woefully. “Oh dearie me, grapevines’n’gravel! Dearie goodness gracious me!”

Song hurried forward and held his paw sympathetically. “Mister Soll, whatever’s wrong with you?”

The giant hedgehog waved her away. “Leave me a moment, my pretty maid. I’ve gone an’ upset meself with all that temper an’ shoutin’. It had t’be done, though I don’t like meself when I must resort to anger. Leave me, I beg you.”

Song went with her friends to sit a short distance from Soll. Dann’s eyes were shining with wonder. “Did you see him? Whew! Imagine what he’d ’ave done if the vermin’d stayed! I shudder t’think!”

Dippler had enjoyed the encounter immensely, once he was over the first fright of Soll’s roaring tirade. “Heheehee! Did you see their faces? I thought they was gonna break all their teeth, they was chatterin’ so ’ard, eh, Burb?”

“Oh yiss yiss. Meself, I was hopin’ that good ole mister Soll’d skin ’em an’ roast the rotten toads, like ’e said ’e would. Yiss!”

Song tweaked the watervole’s ear. “You bloodthirsty little maggot, mister Soll wouldn’t have done any such thing. He knew they were only bullies, so he outbullied them. Look at him, poor creature, he’s quite upset.”

However, Soll’s depressed state did not last too long. He sniffed quite a bit, wiped his eyes and stood up smiling broadly. “Well, that’s enough o’ that, my liddle dearies. There’s plenty o’ creatures in this land to upset me, without my upsettin’ meself. Life is given t’be lived happily, that’s true enough!” Picking up the mace and chain that the stoat had dropped, Soll twirled it above his head until it was a humming blur, then he flung it up and out. They watched in awe as it sailed out of sight over the treetops.

About midafternoon Soll changed course slightly, veering off into an area where the trees were less thick, and small clearings and rocks dotted the land.

“I ’opes you don’t mind, my dearies, but I got a liddle visitin’ t’do. ’Twon’t take up much of yore time.”

Dippler sniffed the air appreciatively. “Ooh, lovely, scones! Somebeast’s bakin’ scones, I can smell ’em.”

Sure enough, a wonderful aroma of fresh-baked scones hovered elusively on the hot afternoon air. Soll halted and called out in a gentle singsong tone,

“Goodwife Brimm, are you at ’ome?

If’n you are ’tis only me,

Now you won’t sit all alone,

’Cos I’ve brought some friends to tea!”

A voice, old and cracked through long seasons, answered him.

“If’n that’s who I think it be,

Wot a din yore makin’,

Seems to me I only see,