Now, I hope that as an Englishman I too have a notion of my rights, and attempt anyhow to enforce them, as a general rule, if they are wantonly threatened. But if a mad bull wishes to prevent my going across a certain field, I do not insist on my rights, but go round instead, since I see no reasonable hope of convincing the bull that according to the constitution of my country I may walk in this field unmolested. And that afternoon, as Madge and I drifted about the loch, while I was not employed in disentangling her flies from each other or her hair or my coat, I pondered over our position with regard to the hares and men of Achnaleish, and thought that the question of the bull and the field represented our standpoint pretty accurately. Jim _had_ the shooting of Achnaleish, and that undoubtedly included the right to shoot hares: so too he might have the right to walk over a field in which was a mad bull. But it seemed to me not more futile to argue with the bull than to hope to convince these folk of Achnaleish that the hares were--as was assuredly the case--only hares, and not the embodiments of their friends and relations. For that, beyond all doubt, was their belief, and it would take, not half an hour’s talk, but perhaps a couple of generations of education to kill that belief, or even to reduce it to the level of a superstition. At present it was no superstition--the terror and incredulous horror on Sandie’s face when Jim raised his gun to fire at the hare told me that--it was a belief as sober and commonplace as our own belief that the hares were not incarnations of living folk in Achnaleish. Also, virulent influenza was raging in the place, and Jim proposed to have a hare-drive to-morrow! What would happen? That evening Jim raved about it in the smoking-room. “But, good gracious, man, what can they _do_?” he cried. “What’s the use of an old gaffer from Achnaleish saying I’ve shot his grand-daughter and, when he is asked to produce the corpse, telling the jury that we’ve eaten it, but that he has got the skin as evidence? What skin? A hare-skin! Oh, folk-lore is all very well in its way, a nice subject for discussion when topics are scarce, but don’t tell me it can enter into practical life. What can they do?” “They can shoot us,” I remarked. “The canny, God-fearing Scotchmen shoot us for shooting hares?” he asked. “Well, it’s a possibility. However, I don’t think you’ll have much of a hare-drive in any case.” “Why not?” “Because you won’t get a single native beater, and you won’t get a keeper to come either. You’ll have to go with Buxton and your man.” “Then I’ll discharge Sandie,” snapped Jim. “That would be a pity: he knows his work.” Jim got up. “Well, his work to-morrow will be to drive hares for you and me,” said Jim. “Or do you funk?” “I funk,” I replied.