118 
HARE. 
toe very gently a posteriori : puss took no notice ; and 
my friend pounced on her, seized her, and held her up by 
the ears singing out the who-oop " at the top of his voice, 
she kicking with all her might, and crying the same plain- 
tive and piteous '^aunt, aunt, aunt," which has often 
moved my compassion for these harmless creatures when 
the hounds have once taken their fatal hold of them. 
However, I sued for her liberty, and he put her down : 
away she went, scampering up the hill like a mad thing. 
Hares never run down hill if they can help it; and if 
there is no possibility of running up, they take the hill-side 
at a slant. When at the top^ we turned round to gaze on 
that lovely valley ; yes ! lovely, even in the bleak dreari- 
ness of February. The clumps of gloomy pines, the ne- 
ver-ending twinings and twistings of the silvery Wey, and 
the thousand hills, small but beautiful, peeping one over 
the other till overtopped by the blue undulating outline of 
Hindhead, all tend to make this a view, to me at least, of 
unceasing interest. Talking of the affairs of the nation, 
we reached Northbrook. 
While seated on a stile there a very large rat came 
bustling down the hedge just before us, bringing with him 
a lot of loose earth : my friend was just jumping down for 
a stone to whirl at him, when a little bit of a Weasel fol- 
lowed the rat down the bank, holding his head well up, 
like a fox-hound running breast-high. The rat had cross- 
ed the path, and got into a little, low bank on the other 
side of the foot-path, over which he scrambled, and came 
out among some swede turnips in the adjoining field, at 
the very moment the weasel went into the low bank hunt- 
ing him. The turnips were so small, and so far apart, that 
we did not once lose sight of the rat. He ran in and out 
