In the midst of the great croft by Boscawen-Un stone-circle he became a prey to misgivings which caused him to stop and consider. “Is it safe,” he asked himself, “to entrust myself so near to man?” Instantly from that mysterious second self of his came the answer, “Why not? Man has never injured you, never even sought you, though you have battened on his crops and taken of his best.” Reassured by this thought he held on his course across the moors till abreast of Chapel Carn Brea, where he again paused. Dark though it was, thickly as fell the snow, he could discern the form of the great hill that had been to him like a second mother. If it be possible for beast to love a spot on earth, the hare loved the hill where he had been born and suckled, the hill which had sheltered him, the hill to which, in his trouble, he had always turned. He had never passed it by unregarded, he could not even now. But it looked ghastly and cold, it repelled him, Chapel Carn Brea repelled him as a dead thing once loved repels the living; so he averted his gaze and moved on towards the homestead. He followed the bridle-path all the way, but just before reaching the house he passed under the third bar of the gate of the rickyard, made his way between the turf and the furze-stack, and jumped on to the wall in their lee. There he sat between the stems of two elders, with his face to the farmyard, wondering what the coming day had in store for him. His heart was beating faster than its wont. CHAPTER IX PERIL OF DEATH For some time the hare seemed to be the only living thing within the homestead: not a cry broke the silence till the finches and linnets roosting in the furze-rick, in the eaves and crannies of the buildings, and even in the buildings themselves, began to twitter, heralding with their low, sweet chorus the wintry dawn. Presently too there was a sign of stir within the house: smoke rose from the chimney, now and again a spark with it, quenched immediately by the snowflakes which fell as close as ever, thickening the covering that lay like a robe of ermine on the yard, on the roofs of the house, sheds, barn, and the derelict pigeon-cote springing from its ridge.