somewhat painful
impression from which I sought relief in the company of the open-souled
Hare.

"Well," I said, "I suppose that you died of exhaustion after your
coursing experience, and came on here."

"Died of exhaustion, Mahatma, not a bit of it! In three days I was as
well as ever, only much more cunning than I had been before. In the
night I fed in the fields upon whatever I could get, but in the daytime
I always lay up in woods. This I did because I found out the shooting
was over, and I knew that greyhounds, which run by sight, would never
come into woods."

The weeks went by and the days began to lengthen. Pretty yellow flowers
that I had not seen before appeared in the woods, and I ate plenty of
them; they have a nice flavour. Then I met another hare and loved her,
because she reminded me of my sister. We used to play about together and
were very happy. "I wonder what she will do now that I am gone."

"Console herself with somebody else," I suggested sarcastically.

"No, she won't do that, Mahatma, because the hounds 'chopped' her just
outside the Round Plantation. I mean they caught and ate her. You think
that I am contradicting myself, but I am not. I mean I wonder what she
will do without me in whatever world she has reached, for I don't see
her here." Well, I went to the little Round Plantation because I found
that Giles seldom came there and I thought it would be safer, but as it
proved I made a great mistake. One day there appeared the Red-faced Man
and Tom and the girl, Ella, and a lot of other people mounted on horses,
some of them dressed in green coats with ridiculous-looking caps on
their heads.

Also with them were I don't know how many spotted dogs whose tails
curled over their backs, not like greyhounds whose tails curl between
their legs. Outside of the Plantation those dogs caught and ate my
future wife, as I have said. It was her own fault, for I had warned her
not to go there, but she was a very self-willed character. As it was
she never even gave them a run, for they were all round her in a minute.
Then they made a kind of cartwheel; their heads were in the centre of
this cartwheel and their tails pointed out. In its exact middle was my
future wife.

When the wheel broke up there was nothing of her left except her scut,
which lay upon the ground.

I had seen so many of such things that I was not so much shocked as
you might suppose. After all a fine hare like myself could always ge