"Oh! I have no doubt I was mistaken," I said hurriedly, "and that your
wishes on the point will be respected. I told you that I know nothing."
At these words the Hare became quite visible again.
It sat up and very reflectively began to rub its still shadowy nose with
a shadowy paw. I think that it remembered the sting of the salt water in
the cut made by the glass of the window through which it had sprung.
Believing that its remarkable story was done, and that presently it
would altogether melt away and vanish out of my knowledge, I looked
about me. First I looked above the towering Gates to see whether the
Lights had yet begun to change. Then as they had not I looked down the
Great White Road, following it for miles and miles, until even to my
spirit sight it lost itself in the Nowhere.
Presently coming up this Road towards us I saw a man dressed in a green
coat, riding-breeches and boots and a peaked cap, who held in his hand
a hunting-whip. He was a fine-looking person of middle age, with a
pleasant, open countenance, bright blue eyes, and very red cheeks,
on which he wore light-coloured whiskers. In short a jovial-looking
individual, with whom things had evidently always gone well, one to whom
sorrow and disappointment and mental struggle were utter strangers. He,
at least, had never known what it is to "endure hardness" in all his
life.
Studying his nature as one can do on the Road, I perceived also that in
him there was no guile.
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