I was sitting in front, finding the speed and the darkness extraordinarily exhilarating. A bright circle of light was cast by our lamps, fading into darkness in front, while at the sides, cut off by the casing of the lamps, the transition into blackness was sharp and sudden. Every now and then, across this circle of illumination some wild thing would pass: now a bird, with hurried flutter of wings when it saw the speed of the luminous monster, would just save itself from being knocked over; now a rabbit feeding by the side of the road would dash onto it and then bounce back again; but more frequently it would be a hare that sprang up from its feeding and raced in front of us. They seemed dazed and scared by the light, unable to wheel into the darkness again, until time and again I thought we must run over one, so narrowly, in giving a sort of desperate sideways leap, did it miss our wheels. Then it seemed that one started up almost from under us, and I saw, to my surprise, it was enormous in size, and in colour apparently quite black. For some hundred yards it raced in front of us, fascinated by the bright light pursuing it, then, like the rest, it dashed for the darkness. But it was too late, and with a horrid jolt we ran over it. At once Sefton slowed down and stopped, for Jim’s rule is to go back always and make sure that any poor run-over is dead. So, when we stopped, the chauffeur jumped down and ran back. “What was it?” Jim asked me, as we waited. “A hare.” Sefton came running back. “Yes, sir, quite dead,” he said. “I picked it up, sir.” “What for?” “Thought you might like to see it, sir. It’s the biggest hare I ever see, and it’s quite black.” It was immediately after this that we came to the track up to the house, and in a few minutes we were within doors. There we found that if “shooting-lodge” was a term unsuitable, so also was “farmhouse,” so roomy, excellently proportioned, and well furnished was our dwelling, while the contentment that beamed from Buxton’s face was sufficient testimonial for the offices. In the hall, too, with its big open fireplace, were a couple of big solemn bookcases, full of serious works, such as some educated minister might have left, and, coming down dressed for dinner before the others, I dipped into the shelves. Then--something must long have been vaguely simmering in my brain, for I pounced on the book as soon as I saw it--I came upon Elwes’s “Folklore of the North West Highlands,” and looked out “Hare” in the index. Then I read: “Nor is it only witches that are believed to have the power of changing themselves into animals.... Men and women on whom no suspicion of the sort lies are thought to be able to do this, and to don the bodies of certain animals, notably hares.... Such, according to local superstition, are easily distinguishable by their size and colour, which approaches jet black.”