midday
There was no need to ask his meaning . The wild gourd would grow where they had worshiped their God , and the sooner they saved themselves the better . But it is hard to tear a village from its moorings . They stayed on as long as any summer food was left to them , and they tried to gather nuts in the Jungle , but shadows with glaring eyes watched them , and rolled before them even at midday ; and when they ran back afraid to their walls , on the tree trunks they had passed not five minutes before the bark would be stripped and chiseled with the stroke of some great taloned paw . The more they kept to their village , the bolder grew the wild things that gamboled and bellowed on the grazing-grounds by the Waingunga . They had no time to patch and plaster the rear walls of the empty byres that backed on to the Jungle ; the wild pig trampled them down , and the knotty-rooted vines hurried after and threw their elbows over the new-won ground , and the coarse grass bristled behind the vines like the lances of a goblin army following a retreat . The unmarried men ran away first , and carried the news far and near that the village was doomed .