the path by the furze, the
doe-hare came in sight at the edge of the ditch a little distance away.
She approached for several yards, then disappeared, with two or three
long, graceful bounds, into the corn that waved about her as she leaped.
She appeared once more, and squatted in the ditch on the other side of
the field; hence she jumped high into the air, and alighted on the
hedge; then, by a longer bound than any I had previously seen, she
gained a spot well out into the field, and raced along, till, directly
opposite us, she yet again leaped into the hedge, and from the hedge
into the wheat-field, where she immediately lay down with her little
ones in the "form."

Ianto, Philip, and I at last settled quietly to watch for the badger's
visit to the clearing. Philip told in a whisper of jokes he had played
on the keeper; Ianto capped these stories with reminiscences of younger
days and nights; and I, though hating bitterly the ruffian loiterers of
the village who subsisted on the spoils of the trap, the snare, and the
net, and were guilty of cowardly acts of revenge when checkmated in the
very game they chose to play, felt a certain sympathy with the two old
men by my side, who, as I was convinced, had fairly and squarely entered
into the game, and taken their few reverses without retaliation, only
becoming afterwards keener than ever to avoid all interference.

In the height of my enjoyment of an unusually good story, Philip, with a
slight movement, drew my attention to a faint, crackling noise coming
from the margin of the glade, where moonlight and shadow lay in sharp
contrast at the foot of the trees; he then whispered that the old badger
was standing there. Ianto almost simultaneously drew my attention
thither, but all that I could see at the spot indicated were small,
flickering patches of light and shadow.

I quietly drew close to Philip, and murmured in his ear: "Are you sure
it's the badger?" He nodded; and I continued, "I see a movement in the
leaves, but nothing else." The old man turned his head slightly, and
replied, "What you see is the badger scratching his neck against a tree;
the ticks are evidently tickling him." And he chuckled as he recognised
his unintentional pun.

For some minutes I could hardly believe he was right; then, slowly, I
recognised the shape of the badger's head, and what I had taken to be
flickering lights and shadows on the leaves changed to the black and
white markings of the