To be precise, Prickles, who did more business with his nose than all the rest of his organs put together, was following a love-trail.  A lady hedgehog, a flapper undoubtedly, and beautiful—­all loves are beautiful in imagination—­had passed that way.  Why that unhealthful way, Heaven knew; but, allowing for the capriciousness of the sex, and mad because in love, Prickles followed, slowly, deliberately, heavily, as befitted one descended from one of the oldest races on earth.

The air was heavy with the scent of may and of honeysuckle, and his way was a green-gold—­silver where the moon cascaded down the hedge—­and blue-black bridal-path, arched with scented swords, strewn with pink and rose and cream and white confetti of blossom.  But he only saw and smelt one thing, and that, those who have known hedgehogs intimately will agree, is not like unto the scent of any blossom.

Prickles was ruminating anciently upon these things, possibly, and others, as he came down the trench—­ditch, I mean—­when the cry smote him.  It smote everything—­the filtered silence of the wonderful, tranquil night, the pale moon half-light, the furtive rustling shadows that stopped rustling, the wonderful breathing pulse of growing vegetation.  And Prickles stopped as abruptly as if it had smitten him on his nose, too.  He heard that, at any rate, whatever might have been hinted about the value of his ears elsewhere.

There was no doubt about that cry, no possible shadow of doubt whatever—­it was a cry of extreme distress, a final, despairing S.O.S., flung out to the night in the frantic hope that one of the same species would hear and help.

Several night-foraging wild-folk have S.O.S. signals of their own, but none like this.  It was not a rabbit’s cry, for bunny’s signal is thin and child-like; nor a hare’s, for puss’s last scream is like bunny’s, only more so; nor a stoat’s, for that is instinct with anger as well as pain; nor a cat’s, for that thrills with hate; nor an owl’s, for that is ghostly; nor a fox’s, for Reynard is dumb then; nor a rat’s, for that is gibbering and devilish; nor a mouse’s, for that is weak and helpless.  Then what?  And why had it touched up Prickles as if with a live wire?  It was perhaps the rarest S.O.S. signal of all heard in the wild, or one of the rarest, the peculiar, high, chattering, pig-like, savage tremolo of a hedgehog booked for some extra deathly form of death.  And Prickles—­naturally he knew it.

It came from straightaway down the ditch; from ahead, where Prickles had been heading for; from the farm, and Heaven know what it portended!  Perhaps, too, Prickles could tell a lady hedgehog’s S.O.S. from that of a gentleman of the same breed; or, perhaps—­but how do I know?  He certainly acted that way.