a proximity.

A few evenings after this foolhardy challenge Ralph had been
scrambling away, far up the dingle, for a supply of firewood. The same
keen tinkling air was abroad, but the sky, where the sun had thrown
his long coronal of rays, was streaked across with a mottled and hazy
light, probably the forerunner of a change. Ralph was labouring down
the steep with his load, crashing through the boughs, and shaking off
their hoary burdens in his progress. Suddenly he heard the shrill and
well-known shriek of a hare struggling in the toils. At this joyful
and refreshing sound the miller's appetite was wonderfully stimulated;
his darling propensities were immediately called forth; he threw down
his burden, and, rushing through the brake, he saw, or thought he saw,
in the soft twilight, an unfortunate puss in the noose. He threw
himself hastily forward expecting to grasp the prize, when lo! up
started the timid animal, and limping away, as if hurt, kept the
liquorish poacher at her heels, every minute supposing he was sure of
his prey. Rueful was the pilgrimage of the unfortunate hunter. The
hare doubled, and sprang aside whenever he came within striking
distance, then hirpling onward as before. Ralph made a full pause
where a wide gap displayed the scanty waterfall, just glimmering
through the mist below him. The moon, then riding out brightly in the
opposite direction, sparkled on the restless current, tipped with
foam. It was the nearest cut to the "Fairies' Chapel," which lies
behind, and higher towards the source of the waterfall. The unlucky
hare paused too for a moment, as though afraid to leap; but she looked
back at her pursuer so bewitchingly that his heart was in his mouth,
and, fearless of consequences, he rushed towards her; but he slipped,
and fell down the crumbling bank. When sufficiently recovered from the
shock, he saw the animal stealing off, between the edge of the stream
and the low copsewood by the brink, towards the Fairies' Chapel. He
made one desperate effort to lay hold of her before she set foot upon
enchanted ground.

He seized her, luckily as he thought, by the scut; when lo! up started
something black and "uncanny," with glaring eyes, making mouths, and
grinning at him, as though in mockery. He felt stupefied and
bewildered. Fascinated by terror, he could not refrain from following
this horrible appearance, which, as if delighted to have ensnared him,
frisked away with uncouth and fiendish