spurned to the middle of the green, where it lay on its back kicking as though its last hour was come. Whereupon the magpie, who, considering the weasel too insignificant for his intervention, had hitherto held its tongue, chattered loudly as if to applaud the deed; whilst the hare, whose blood was up, remained within a yard of the weasel, ready to renew the battle should it again show fight. Braver still, the linnet whose eggs the weasel had been sucking, as was evident from the stain on its muzzle, stood within a few inches and upbraided it for the wrong done her, and, frail thing though she was, scarcely deigned to move when shortly it regained its feet and made for the hill. It was not allowed to sneak away unattended; birds and hare—strange allies—accompanied the discomfited little wretch past the spring to the heather, where it wormed its way amongst the stems and hid itself from view. Then the linnets and finches, having avenged their friend, flew back to their thickets; and the hare, crouching low as if frightened now by her own shadow, stole to her form. The magpie still perched on the spray from which he had witnessed the scene. The arch-rogue had thoroughly enjoyed every phase of it, and now that it was over he was all alive, quizzing the spots where the hare and the leverets lay, as if trying to get a view of them amidst the cover. At last he too flew away; then no trace remained of the participators in the drama but a tiny feather that lay where the linnet had stood. The visit of the weasel had its consequences, for the hare, fearing that the creature would return when she was away foraging, resolved to take the leverets with her at setting-out time, and after she had regained her composure she sat planning the round she would lead them. ----- [1] The doe hare leaves little scent whilst her young are helpless. CHAPTER II EDUCATION The low summons of the hare drew the leverets to her side, and when she set out they followed close at her heels. Late as she was in starting, she picked her way down the rough foothills very slowly and with extreme caution; indeed, so halting was her advance, so mistrustful was she of every rock and bush, that she might have been Fear herself leading her offspring past ambuscades. But the moment she set foot on the reclaimed land—the field where the linnet was roosting by her empty nest—she quickened her steps and passed rapidly from enclosure to enclosure, the novices wondering at the smoothness of the ground and shrinking from the shadows cast by the gates under which they crept.