He then undid the mouth of the ferret-bag, holding it between his knees—­the ferrets immediately attempted to struggle out:  he selected two and then tied it up again.  With both these in his own hands, for he would trust nothing to another, he slipped quietly back to Orion’s side, and so soon as he saw I was standing well back placed them in different holes.

Almost the next instant one came out my side disarranging a net.  I got into the ditch, hastily reset the net, and put the ferret to an adjacent hole, lifting up the corner of the net there for it to creep in.  Unlike the weasel, a ferret once outside a hole seems at a loss, and wanders slowly about, till chance brings him to a second.  The weasel used to hunting is no sooner out of one hole than he darts away to the next.  But this power the ferret has partially lost from confinement.

For a moment the ferret hesitated inside the hole, as if undecided which of two passages to take:  then he started, and I lost sight of his tail.  Hardly had I got back to my stand than I heard Little John leap into the ditch his side:  the next minute I saw the body of the rabbit which he had killed thrown out into the field.

I stood behind a somewhat advanced bush that came out into the meadow like a buttress, and kept an eye on the holes along the bank.  It is essential to stand well back from the holes, and, if possible, out of sight.  In a few moments something moved, and I saw the head of a rabbit at the mouth of a hole just behind the net.  He looked through the meshes as through a lattice, and I could see his nostrils work, as he considered within himself how to pass this thing.  It was but for a moment; the ferret came behind, and wild with hereditary fear, the rabbit leaped into the net.

The force of the spring not only drew the net together, but dragged out the peg, and rabbit and net inextricably entangled rolled down the bank to the bottom of the ditch.  I jumped into the ditch and seized the net; when there came a hoarse whisper:  ’Look sharp you, measter:  put up another net fust—­he can’t get out; hould un under your arm, or in your teeth.’

I looked up, and saw Little John’s face peering over the mound.  He had thrust himself up under the bushes; his hat was off; his weather-beaten face bleeding from a briar, but he could not feel the scratch so anxious was he that nothing should escape.  I pulled another net from my pocket, and spread it roughly over the hole; then more slowly took the rabbit from the other net.

You should never hold a rabbit up till you have got fast hold of his hind legs; he will so twist and work himself as to get free from any other grasp.  But when held by the hind legs and lifted from the ground he can do nothing.  I now returned to my buttress of bushes and waited.  The rabbits did not bolt my side again for a while.  Every now and then I saw, or heard, Orion or Little John leap into their ditch, and well knew what it meant before the dead rabbit was cast out to fall with a helpless thud upon the sward.