CHAPTER II 
THE SPRING LONGING 
IN the valley at the foot of Knockdane Hill there 
is a great meadow. It is like an island surrounded 
by the sea, for the woods come close up to its hedge 
on all sides except on the east, where the river runs ; 
and just as an island may have a lake in the middle, 
so in the centre of the Big Meadow there is a little 
copse. The trees in the copse are sycamore and 
red-stemmed pine, and in spring the ground is 
carpeted with celandines and anemones. In the 
copse there is a hollow where long ago men used 
to quarry out stones ; but now it is never used, and 
the heaps of flints are draped with bramble and 
cinquefoil trails. 
When the men ceased to dig out gravel and gave 
the copse back to the Fur Folk, an old rabbit made 
his burrow under the roots of a pine tree, and he 
or his descendants lived there ever after. At the 
time of which I write, however, the woods had been 
rigorously trapped during the winter, and one by 
one the inhabitants of the Copse Burrow had 
disappeared until there were only two doe rabbits 
left. One was Mutch, a veteran of four seasons, 
with long yellow teeth and a grey coat, well versed 
in the wiles of the woods ; and the other was Cuni, 
