ny harm. Bevis, stop--listen to me!"

Now if the thrush had flown away she might have escaped, but she was
very fond of talking, and while she was talking Bevis was busy getting
his gun ready.

"It is straight now," said the weasel; "it is pointed quite straight.
Hold it still there, and I will sit so that I shall die quick;--here is
my bosom. Tell the hare to forgive me."

"Oh," said the thrush, "don't shoot!"

"Shoot!" cried the weasel.

Bevis dropped his match on the touch-hole, puff went the priming, and
bang went the cannon. Directly the smoke had cleared away, Bevis looked
in the ditch, to see the dead weasel and the thrush. There was the
thrush right enough, quite dead, and fallen out of the nest; the nest,
too, was knocked to pieces, and the eggs had fallen out (two were
broken), but there was one not a bit smashed, lying on the dead leaves
at the bottom of the ditch. But the weasel was nowhere to be seen.

"Weasel," cried Bevis, "where are you?" But the weasel did not answer.
Bevis looked everywhere, over the bank and round about, but could not
find him. At last he saw that under some grass on the bank there was a
small rabbit's-hole. Now the weasel had sat up for Bevis to shoot him
right over this hole, and when he saw him move the match, just as the
priming went puff, the weasel dropped down into the hole, and the shot
went over his head.

Bevis was very angry when he saw how the weasel had deceived him, and
felt so sorry for the poor thrush, whose speckled breast was all
pierced by the shot, and who would never sing any more. He did not know
what to do, he was so cross; but presently he ran home to fetch Pan, to
see if Pan could hunt out the weasel.

When he had gone a little way the weasel came out of the hole, and went
down into the ditch and feasted on the thrush's egg, which he could not
have got had not the shot knocked the nest to pieces, just as he had
contrived. He never tasted so sweet an egg as that one, and as he sucked
it up he laughed as he thought how cleverly he had deceived them all.
When he heard Pan bark he went back into the hole, and so along the
hedge till he reached the copse; and then creeping into another hole, a
very small one, where no dog could get at him, he curled himself up very
comfortably and went to sleep.

CHAPTER IV.

BROOK-FOLK.

Some time afterwards it happened one morning that Bevis was sitting on a
haycock in the Home Field, eating a very large pie