Yet, fearful as he was of man’s gaze, he was able to disregard sounds that would have made fox, marten, and stoat cower and slink to cover; he was quite unmoved by the shrill voice of the farmer’s wife when she called after her husband, “Mind, John, whatever you do, don’t forget the saffron[4] and a penn’orth of Christmas[5]”; he never even started when the man wrenched the faggots from the furze-rick, though he sang the Flora[6] tune to words of his own composition, as he pulled at the stems. Three loads of faggots the man bore to the house, the low sun which caught the ridge of the barn and cote bathing his face as he went past the farmyard gate. In the quiet that reigned when at last the kitchen door closed for the night behind him the hare dropped to the yard, where he picked up every blade of hay he could find before leaving for his round. Rarely had he been at a greater loss to know where to go; it was of no use seeking the moor, nothing but the unpalatable bark of withy and alder awaited him there, the fields with their scant herbage were out of his reach, High Down was inaccessible since the last snowfall; so without a goal to make for, he loped along the bridle-track, where at least the going was easy, and food, such as it was, to be had in the furze that bordered it. He was in hard case, yet not so hard as that of the predatory creatures who nightly ravaged the country and often returned supperless to their lairs. The hare knew of their forays from the trails. He had crossed two on his way back from the Down; this very night he leapt the burning line of a stoat-pack just before turning aside whilst the farmer rode past. Close to Crowz-an-Wra he stopped to browse on the bushes, standing on his hind legs and reaching as high as he could to get at the tender shoots. Eager, however, as he was to satisfy his hunger, he was alive to everything around, and kept pricking his ears at the noise of the merriment from the cottages with windows all aglow from turnip lantern, rushlight, and the blaze of furze fire. For Crowz-an-Wra was keeping Christmas Eve with its customary cheer, little dreaming of the lonely stranger at their doors. At his slowest pace the hare passed through the village; he was no more alarmed by the illumination of the cottages than by the splendour of the heaven.