FLUFF-BUTTON THE RABBIT 99 
painfully in the daylight, crawled on to the grass ; 
but when the fourth appeared, Brownie sat up, and 
her nose worked as fast as the ' quaking grass ' round, 
for the last little rabbit was as white as the haw- 
thorns in the hedgerows. There were legends 
in Knockdane that, in the days when the beeches 
round the Great White House were saplings, there 
had been a race of white rabbits in the woods ; but 
for many many years none had been seen there. 
Perhaps some long-gone ancestor had transmitted 
his singular colouring to Brownie's nestling, or else 
some trifling detail in Nature's machinery had 
been out of gear, for she had not a brown hair upon 
her, and out on the open slope was as conspicuous 
as a crow on a snowdrift. However, the Fur Folk 
live and work only in the present. They are guided 
by mysterious laws the accumulated wisdom of 
past generations written in the blood of those who 
went before and neglected to obey the code and 
Brownie knew that her babies must lie out on the 
hillside, for to take them to the warren was to court 
disaster. She hid the first one in a tussock six 
feet away in one direction, and the second a few 
paces from him,while the third was left in some clover. 
The fourth the white one had to put up with a 
meagre root of rushes. When each little rabbit lay 
stone-still, the mother went away herself, for she 
