Her visit was most welcome to the jack, who was very sorry when she withdrew. He listened to her retreating steps, and as they died away tried to combat the feeling of loneliness that beset him. In the weary watch that followed he sorely missed the companion of his waking hours. He felt forlorn without her soft, warm side to nestle against; but in a night or two he found something to occupy him. He took to grooming himself, and off and on spent hours brushing his ears and licking his coat, especially the snow-white fur on his belly, which had looked so ghostly as his mother bore him through the dusk. He made himself as clean as a pink, and when the feeling of isolation wore off, as it soon did, he felt as happy as a strong, healthy leveret could feel. Soon, however, his muscles began to ache for want of exercise: they kept urging him to throw aside his fears and break his narrow bounds; but night after night he resisted the impulse. At last inaction became unendurable. Regardless of his mother’s monitions and the whispers of instinct, he leapt the rill and raced about the moonlit green like a thing possessed. Instantly he was joined by his sister, and never perhaps did two leverets enjoy their stolen freedom more. They bounded over each other’s back; they leapt the rock by the thorn, clearing it by a good foot; they galloped round and round like performers in a circus. Tiring of this, they rose on their hind legs and sparred with their pads, moving about the fairy ring and patting each other’s face like boxers. But whilst they were thus engaged the snapping of a brier disturbed the night and sent them to their seats. With wildly beating hearts they sat till the clumsy badger who had trodden on the spray passed out of hearing; then out they came again and renewed their frolics, which lasted without further interruption till the moon began to pale. Their mother found them in their seats looking as innocent as could be; but she knew of their escapade from the scent on the green and, recognising in this bid for liberty a token that the time was come for leading them out, she resolved to devote herself to this duty without further delay. So the following night, instead of returning at early dawn, she hurried back in the small hours and surprised the culprits, not, as she expected, in the midst of their games, but nibbling the grass of the green. At the sight of their mother the guilty creatures scurried to their forms, only to bound out at her summons and follow frisking at her heels as she led past the spring to the hill. She breasted the slope at a slow canter, but soon quickened her steps. Half-way up she began doubling, the leverets imitating her twists and turns in a surprising way and with astonishing exactness. Towards daybreak, however, they flagged, and by the time they got back to the green they were so tired that they were content to remain in the form till the hour for exercise came round again.