night, and
frightened Bevis's mother."

"But I did not mean to," said the mouse; "and you did mean to kill my
wife, and you ate the partridge's eggs."

"And a very good thing I did," said the weasel. "Do you know what would
have happened, if I had not taken them? I did it all for good, and with
the best intentions. For if I had left the eggs one more day, there was
a man who meant to have stolen them all but one, which he meant to have
left to deceive the keeper. If he had stolen them, he would have been
caught, for the keeper was watching for him all the time, and he would
have been put to prison, and his children would have been hungry. So I
ate the eggs, and especially I ate every bit of the one the man meant to
have left."

"And why were you so particular about eating that egg?" asked Bevis.

"Because," said the weasel, "if that egg had come to a partridge chick,
and the chick had lived till the shooting-time came, then the sportsman
and his brother, when they came round, would have started it out of the
stubble, and the shot from the gun of the younger would have
accidentally killed the elder, and people would have thought it was done
to murder him for the sake of the inheritance."

"Now, is this true?" said Bevis.

"Yes, that it is; and I killed the mouse's wife also for the best of
reasons."

"You horrid wretch!" cried the mouse.

"Oh, you needn't call me a wretch," said the weasel; "I am sure you
ought to be grateful to me, for your wife was very jealous because you
paid so much attention to the Miss Mouse you want to marry now, and in
the night she meant to have gnawn your throat."

"And you frightened my mother," said Bevis, "by running across her bed
in the night;" and he began to press on the spring of the gin.

"Yes, that he did," said the weasel, overjoyed; "and he made a hole in
the boards of the floor, and it was down that hole that the
half-sovereign rolled and was lost, and the poor maid-servant sent away
because they thought she had stolen it."

"What do you say to that?" asked Bevis.

But the mouse was quite aghast and dumb-founded and began to think that
it was he after all who was in the wrong, so that for the moment he
could not speak. Just then Bevis caught sight of the colt that had come
up beside his mother, the cart mare, to the fence; and thinking that he
would go and try and stroke the pretty creature, Bevis started forward,
forgetting all about the weasel and the mouse. As h