Dann flicked drops of it from his nose. “You greedy savage, you’ll never grow any taller, just rounder an’ fatter. Don’t you Guosim have any table manners?”

Dippler shrugged as he crammed cheese into his mouth. “Mm mm. Course we don’t, ’cos Guosim never use tables. How’d y’get a table on a logboat? We got shrew manners, though.”

Song wiped her lips daintily on a dockleaf. “And what, pray are shrew manners?”

Dippler glugged down cordial to clear his voice. “Simple, ’tis one o’ the first things a shrewbabe learns. Listen.

“If you eat too much you’ll sink the boat,

Burst yore boots an’ split yore coat,

Just scoff enough so you stay afloat,

’Tis manners, good manners!

If you pinch the vittles from another’s plate,

Wait till he’s lookin’ the other way, mate,

An’ when fish are bitin’, don’t eat the bait,

’Tis manners, good manners!

If yore a shrew o’ the Guosim clan,

You must be sure to think of a plan,

To share yore matey’s pudden or flan,

’Tis manners, good manners!

Remember to chew everythin’ in sight,

If it don’t bite back, then get first bite,

An’ always take a basinful to bed each night,

’Tis manners, good manners!”

Song was chuckling so hard she nearly choked on a bite of scone. Dann sent Dippler sprawling with a playful shove. “Away, you rogue, your mother never taught you that lot!”

Dippler stole a piece of Song’s cheese as he patted her back to restore her breath. He winked cheekily at Dann. “I don’t dispute that, mate, I made it up meself!”

“Ssshh! What’s that? Get down!”

At Dann’s urgent whisper the three friends dropped down behind the fallen oak trunk. There they stayed, silent and motionless, for several moments, after which Song stood up slowly. “What was it you heard, Dann?”

The young squirrel rose, turning his head this way and that as he tried to pick up a trace of the sound he had heard. “I don’t know, I heard something, but ’tis gone now.”

Not much farther out from where the three were sitting, Gelltor, Predak, Ascrod and Vannan passed with the army of water rats, traveling in the opposite direction, toward Redwall Abbey, to begin their assault.

Dippler finished up the remains of any food his friends had not eaten. Dann shouldered his pack and sword, weighing up the woodland surrounding them. “Which way now, Song?”

The young squirrelmaid walked to the east end of the glade where they had camped. Using the knowledge her father had passed on during their wanderings, she cast about carefully. “This way, I think. The ferns have been disturbed, see, one or two are broken—grass looks flattened too. Ha! Look at this.”