Enough. I will think of something else. I
will think of nothing at all -
Stay. There was a sound at last; a light footfall.
A hare races towards us through the ferns, her great bright eyes full
of terror, her ears aloft to catch some sound behind. She sees us,
turns short, and vanishes into the gloom. The mare pricks up her
ears too, listens, and looks: but not the way the hare has gone.
There is something more coming; I can trust the finer sense of the
horse, to which (and no wonder) the Middle Age attributed the power
of seeing ghosts and fairies impalpable to man's gross eyes. Beside,
that hare was not travelling in search of food. She was not loping
along, looking around her right and left; but galloping steadily.
She has been frightened; she has been put up: but what has put her
up? And there, far away among the fir-stems, rings the shriek of a
startled blackbird. What has put him up?
That, old mare, at sight whereof your wise eyes widen till they are
ready to burst, and your ears are first shot forward towards your
nose, and then laid back with vicious intent.
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