AUGUST 301 



Common at Bradenham, when I saw and heard a full-grown rabbit 

 run by me and vanish into a dense clump of gorse, shrieking loudly, 

 for no apparent reason. Astonished, I remained still to watch what 

 happened, till presently, from half a minute to a minute after- 

 wards, I caught sight of a white-bellied stoat gliding along the rabbit's 

 spoor to hunt it down by scent. It vanished also into the gorse 

 clump, and there the tragedy completed itself, to the accompani- 

 ment of more piercing screams. But when I first saw the rabbit 

 it was crying out, not with pain, but with nervous apprehension. 

 Instinct doubtless told it that it was doomed, and its screams were 

 an appeal to the deaf heavens for mercy. It was the creature's evi- 

 dent foreknowledge of agony to come that made its fate so dreadful. 

 These are the mercies of Nature 'red in tooth and claw.' 

 What wonder that the vegetarians and others preach and strive 

 against her, although with as much chance of success as has the 

 tortured lobworm between the jaws of Martha ? In the infinite 

 past, in the present, and in the future for so long as time shall 

 endure, the law of our physical universe is a law of death made 

 as terrible as possible to all that breathes by antecedent torment 

 of the frame and the intelligence, for there seems to be no 

 creature so humble that it cannot suffer fear and dread. Such 

 being the heavy yoke of the Natural law, certainly the promised 

 advent of the Spiritual is needed to redress the balance. 



August 8. Yesterday afternoon we had heavy rain, which set 

 in at twelve o'clock and continued till sunset, but as it was 

 Sunday this interfered with nothing. To-day also it has been 

 raining since early morning a real old-fashioned wet day, of 

 which we have seen few for the last three or four years. Not- 

 withstanding the weather, however, we have been hoeing the root 

 on Baker's, which is a work we are most anxious to get done with 

 before harvest. 



Towards evening I walked to one of the root fields, in order 

 to have the pleasure of seeing the much-needed rain fall upon it. 

 How the turnips seemed to rejoice in the moisture as it pattered 



