"Sure enough! Here is where she lived; for the house is empty, and
there's living prey in the snares."
"What a weird old thing!" said Polly. "Can you tell us more about
her?"
"Well, every summer," said Trove, "a great city grows up in the
field. There are shady streets in it, no wider than a cricket's
back, and millions living in nest and tower and cave and cavern.
Among its people are toilers and idlers, laws and lawbreakers,
thieves and highwaymen, grand folk and plain folk. Here is the
home of the greatest criminal in the city of the field. See! it is
between two leaves,--one serving as roof, the other as floor and
portico. Here is a long cable that comes out of her sitting room
and slopes away to the big snare below. Look at her sheets of silk
in the grass. It's like a washing that's been hung out to dry.
From each a slender cord of silk runs to the main cable. Even a
fly's kick or a stroke of his tiny wing must have gone up the tower
and shaken the floor of the old lady, maybe, with a sort of
thunder. Then she ran out and down the cable to rush upon her
helpless prey. She was an arrant highwayman,--this old lady,--a
creature of craft and violence.
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