84 A TERROR TO OTHERS 



He got glimpses of other animals in his 

 wanderings, though so vaguely that he failed to 

 identify them. Moreover in the strange condi- 

 tions the hare himself sometimes proved a 

 terror to creatures he stumbled on, causing a 

 hedgehog to curl up in affright on the Five 

 Acres, and scaring a heron out of its senses 

 on the moor beyond. The fog was as impervious 

 to scent as to sight, and he was on his victims 

 before they heard him, for the fog deadened 

 all sound, of footfall, of bird cry, even of the 

 great foghorn on the Longships, which sounded 

 like a penny trumpet. 



But of all the ills attendant on those cease- 

 less mists, the one which caused the hare most 

 discomfort was the moisture that collected 

 on the herbage and dripped on his back as 

 he sat in the form. Two days he endured the 

 misery ; then he left the comfortable seat for 

 the shelter of the fallen masonry of the chantry, 

 and sat cheek by jowl with an enormous toad 

 who resented his company till he got to under- 

 stand and like him. 



On the fourth day, however, that the hare 

 saw the great bank of fog come moving land- 

 wards from the sea, to the joy of man and 

 beast an easterly wind set in which banished 

 the fog and dried the sodden herbage, render- 



