It was at night, for a great, round, shining thing
which I now know was the moon, hung in the sky above us. We gambolled
together and were very happy, till presently my mother came--I remember
how big she looked--and cuffed me with her paw because I had led the
others away from the place where she had told us to stop, and given her
a great hunt to find us. That is the first thing I remember about my
mother. Afterwards she seemed sorry because she had hurt me, and nursed
us all three, letting me have the most milk. My mother always loved me
the best of us, because I was such a fine leveret, with a pretty grey
patch on my left ear. Just as I had finished drinking another hare came
who was my father. He was very large, with a glossy coat and big shining
eyes that always seemed to see everything, even when it was behind him.
He was frightened about something, and hustled my mother and us little
ones out of the wheat-field into the big wood by which it is bordered.
As we left the field I saw two tall creatures that afterwards I came to
know were men. They were placing wire-netting round the field--you see I
understand now what all these things were, although of course I did not
at the time. The two ends of the wire netting had nearly come together.
There was only a little gap left through which we could run. Another
young hare, or it may have been a rabbit, had got entangled in it, and
one of the men was beating it to death with a stick.
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