HARES AND RABBITS 139 



dictatorial, possibly because, like the centurion of 

 old, they have many men under them. However, I 

 managed, after sticking to my guns, to work with 

 several bailiffs in peace and quietness and pleasure. 

 Here is a story of how a keeper of many rabbits got 

 the better of a bailiff. The bailiff, whose sheep 

 were many but turnips few, had lodged a complaint 

 with the employer. The keeper found out the 

 day appointed for inspecting the turnips. Snow lay 

 on the ground, and there were rabbits' tracks near 

 every turnip. So the keeper went stealthily the 

 night before, after the shepherd had gone home, 

 and let out the sheep. The bailiffs case not 

 only fell to the ground, but he was admonished 

 to see that in the future the sheep were better 

 secured. 



It is a common habit of those who manage farms, 

 when the sowing of corn or roots is going on, to 

 neglect the tillage of a headland adjoining a wood, 

 and after the crop has struggled up thinly to use 

 that part as a road. They then attribute the com- 

 parative failure of the crop in that part of the field 

 to rabbits, which, likely enough, do not exist. In 

 my greener days a farmer tried to make out that 

 the two or three rabbits in my wood had cleared 

 a field of wheat. I told him he knew there never 

 had been a decent plant of wheat, which, as luck 

 would have it, was much thicker along the edge of 

 the wood than anywhere else. This, I suggested, 



