koo!" and it was no use to chase him.

When Bevis stopped and looked about he was in a hollow, like a big salad
bowl, only all grass, and he could see nothing but the grass and
cowslips all round him--no hedges--and the sky overhead. He began to
dance and sing with delight at such a curious place, and when he paused
the lark was on again, and not very far this time. There he was, rising
gradually, singing as he went. Bevis ran up the side of the hollow
towards the lark, and saw a hedge cut and cropped low, and over it a
wheat-field. He watched the lark sing, sing, sing, up into the sky, and
then he thought he would go and find his nest, as he remembered the
ploughboy had told him larks made their nests on the ground among the
corn.

He ran to the low hedge, but though it was low it was very thorny, and
while he was trying to find a place to get through, he looked over and
spied a hare crouched in the rough grass, just under the hedge between
it and the wheat. The hare was lying on the ground; she did not move,
though she saw Bevis, and when he looked closer he saw that her big eyes
were full of tears. She was crying very bitterly, all by herself, while
the sun was shining so brightly, and the wind blowing so sweetly, and
the flowers smelling so pleasantly, and the lark sing, sing, singing
overhead.

"Oh! dear," said Bevis, so eager and so sorry, that he pushed against
the hedge, and did not notice that a thorn was pricking his arm:
"Whatever is the matter?" But the hare was so miserable she would not
answer him at first, till he coaxed her nicely. Then she said: "Bevis,
Bevis, little Sir Bevis, do you know what you have done?"

"No," said Bevis, "I can't think: was it me?"

"Yes, it was you; you let the weasel loose, when he was caught in the
gin."

"Did I?" said Bevis, "I have quite forgotten it."

"But you did it," said the hare, "and now the weasel has killed my son,
the leveret, while he was sleeping, and sucked his blood, and I am so
miserable; I do not care to run away any more." Then the hare began to
weep bitterly again, till Bevis did not know what to do to comfort her.

"Perhaps the weasel only killed the leveret for your good," he said
presently.

"What!" cried the hare, putting her fore-feet down hard, and stamping
with indignation. "That is what the wicked old wretch told you, did he
not, about the mouse and the partridge's eggs. Cannot you see that it is
all a pack of lies? But I do not wonder t