Do you understand?"
"Yes, Squire, I understand," answered Giles, "and I'll see to the
burying of them this same afternoon, if the pain in my hand will suffer
it."
"Very well," said the Red-faced Man, "that's done with--except the cubs.
As you have killed the vixen you had better stink the cubs out of the
earth. I daresay they are old enough to look after themselves--at any
rate I hope so. And now, Giles, we must shoot some of these hares when
we begin on the partridges next week. There are too many of them, the
tenants are complaining, ungrateful beggars as they are, seeing that I
keep them for their sport."
At this point I thought that I had heard enough, and slipped away when
their backs were turned. For, friend Mahatma, I had just seen a fox
shot, and now I knew what shooting meant.
*****
About a week later I knew better still. It came about thus. By that
time the turnips I have mentioned, those that grew in the big field, had
swelled into fine, large bulbs with leafy tops. We used to eat them at
nights, and in the daytime to lie up among them in our snug forms. You
know, Mahatma, don't you, that a form is a little hollow which a hare
makes in the ground just to fit itself? No hare likes to sleep in
another hare's form. Do you understand?"
"Yes," I answered, "I understand. It would be like a man wearing another
man's boots."
"I don't know anything about boots Mahatma, except that they are hard
things with iron on them which kick one out of one's form if one
sits too close.
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