Sending them all three back home out of mischief, their mother had set to work to make a vigorous search, but after half an hour’s hard hunting, had found no sign of her missing son. I joined her; and we began to quarter out the ground systematically, she taking one side of the path, I the other. But not so much as a hair of Walnut’s brush could we see; and when the shadows had nearly reached their shortest, I began to feel almost certain that some prowling weasel had caught our poor son. At last it occurred to me that the adventurous young rascal might have gone through the hedge into the open field, and I myself crossed the hedge and ditch. I think I have mentioned before that near the coppice gate on the meadow side was a strip of sandy ground with patches of hawthorn, blackberry bushes, and gorse, which was riddled with rabbit holes. As I wandered sadly across this, occasionally stopping to give a slight bark or a stamp, I suddenly heard a distinct reply. In great delight I hurried forward to a thick clump of gorse from which the sound seemed to come. But when I reached the spot there was no sign of life. I stamped again, and this time there was no doubt whatever about the answer. But it came from underground! Then I knew what had happened. Walnut had evidently tumbled into a rabbit-earth and was unable to get out. Very soon I found the hole, and there, sure enough, in the darkness some feet below me I saw my son’s eyes. The burrow was a wide and very steep one, and its sides were of extremely soft and loose sand. It was quite plain that Walnut, having once fallen in, could get no footing to jump or scramble out; indeed, so he told me in tones that shook with fatigue and fright. I called up Sable at once, and she, clever creature that she is, suggested that the best thing to do was to throw down pieces of grass and stick in order to give Walnut a footing from which he might jump. It was a long operation, but we finished it at last, and our foolish son once more emerged to the light of day. ‘How, in the name of pine-cones, did you ever come to get into such a place?’ was my first angry question. ‘I saw something white sticking out of it, father,’ he replied very coolly, ‘and I wanted to find out what it was.’ I burst out laughing. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a rabbit’s scut before?’ Walnut looked rather foolish. ‘I suppose I have,’ he answered, ‘but it didn’t strike me at the time.’