It began with a pair of feet. They had come very far that night, they were tired and they ached. Hard leathery feet they were, but they ached. If they hadn’t the sequence of events that followed might never have happened, or if events have to be used up like ice-cream (before it melts), they would have happened to someone else, somewhere else, some other time. The owner of the feet, a thick-set rustic looking fellow, peered down at them in the dark, wiggled them a little to test how they were getting on, sniffed, rested and thought. He sat beside the new by-pass being built round the town of Notting Cross. This had been his territory. He had worked it. It had supported him until the coming of the bull-dozers, the pile-drivers, cement mixers and the rest, had driven him farther out into alien country. Who would have thought of a road coming through here? Always a hitch! That made him chuckle for he was H I T C H. Hitch Hog. The name suited him, hitch being another name for a hedge, and because he hitched about the countryside a great deal, hitching himself together as he went.
Following the chuckle he drew in his breath as he lifted his gaze to the sky. The blinds of darkness that protected the little creatures going about their affairs, were lifting. A new day was beginning as every feathered throat gave voice in song, bursting forth in the dawn chorus.
It would not be long before light would be everywhere. People would be getting up and their business beginning. Smaller folk would be seeking a resting place, a hidey-hole, until it was safe to venture forth again under the cover of friendly darkness.
Hitch stirred on the strip of gritty, hard beaten earth. He felt annoyed with his feet. They ought to be more considerate than to make themselves felt at this time. He needed all his concentration at the other end of him. There was so much on his mind. The decision he had to make was a difficult one. Should he go on, or go back and take his chance among the difficulties and dangers he had hoped to leave behind? The pine forests that men had planted were cold and dark places. He couldn’t scratch a living there! Many hedges had been dug out to make bigger fields, so numbers of homes were no more. Finding food might not be difficult, but it was so likely to be poisoned. Who could know what sprays the farmers used?
Now if he went forward he would find shelter more easily in the many back-gardens, hedges, verges, homely scrub, park and golf-course rough. There was still some risk of poison, but it was a smaller risk. Why hesitate then? One very good reason. The WAY to