been broken, and it was
therefore tied in this manner. The rat easily gnawed through the
tar-cord, and then slipped back to his hole to await events. About the
middle of the night, when the weasel had rested and began to stir out,
Pan woke up, and seeing that it was light, stepped out to bay at the
moon. He immediately found that his chain was undone, and rushed about
to try and find some water, being very thirsty. He had not gone very far
before he smelt the weasel, and instantly began to chase him. The
weasel, however, slipped under a faggot, and so across and under the
wood-pile, where he was safe; but he was so alarmed that presently he
crept out the other side, and round by the pig-sty, and so past the
stable to the rick-yard, and then into the hedge, and he never stopped
running, stiff as he was, till he was half-a-mile away in the ash copse
and had crept into a rabbit's hole. He could not have got away from the
wood-pile, only Pan, being so thirsty, gave up looking for him, and went
down to the brook.

"In the morning, as they thought Pan had broken his chain, they kicked
the spaniel howling into his tub again. And now comes the sad part of
it, Bevis, dear. You must know that when the weasel was in the trap we
all thought it was quite safe, and that our enemy was done for at last,
and so we went off to a dancing-party, on the short grass of the downs
by moonlight, leaving our leverets to nibble near the wheat. We stayed
at the dancing-party so late that the dawn came and we were afraid to go
home in the daylight, and next night we all felt so merry we had another
dance, and again danced till it was morning.

"While we were sleeping in the day, the weasel, having now recovered a
good deal, crept out from the rabbit-hole in the copse. We were so far
off, you see, the mice could not send us word that he had escaped from
the gin in time, and, indeed, none of them knew exactly where to find
us; they told the swallows, and the swallows searched, but missed us.
The wind, too, blew as many ways as he could to try and reach us, but he
had to blow east that day, and could not manage it. If we had only been
at home we should have been on the watch; but my poor leveret, and my
two friends' poor leverets, were sleeping so comfortably when the wicked
weasel stole on them one by one, and bit their necks and killed them. He
could not eat them, nor half of them, he only killed them for revenge,
and oh! dear little Sir Bevis, wha