One day there appeared the Red-faced Man
and Tom and the girl, Ella, and a lot of other people mounted on horses,
some of them dressed in green coats with ridiculous-looking caps on
their heads.
Also with them were I don't know how many spotted dogs whose tails
curled over their backs, not like greyhounds whose tails curl between
their legs. Outside of the Plantation those dogs caught and ate my
future wife, as I have said. It was her own fault, for I had warned her
not to go there, but she was a very self-willed character. As it was
she never even gave them a run, for they were all round her in a minute.
Then they made a kind of cartwheel; their heads were in the centre of
this cartwheel and their tails pointed out. In its exact middle was my
future wife.
When the wheel broke up there was nothing of her left except her scut,
which lay upon the ground.
I had seen so many of such things that I was not so much shocked as
you might suppose. After all a fine hare like myself could always get
another wife, and as I have told you she was very self-willed.
So I lay still, thinking that those men and dogs would go away.
But what do you think Mahatma? Just as they were going the boy Tom
called out--
"I say, Dad, I think we might as well knock through the Round
Plantation. Giles tells me that the old speckle-backed buck lies up
here."
"Does he?" said Grampus. "Well, if so, that's the hare I want to
see, for I know he'd give us a good run.
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