Now all this while I had lived in the swamp near the sea, but when my strength returned I thought of my old home, to which something seemed to draw me.  Also there were no turnips near the swamp, and as the winter came on I found very little to eat there.  So one day, or rather one night, I travelled back home.

As it happened the first hare that I met near the big wood was my sister.  She was very glad to see me, although she had forgotten how we came to part, and when I spoke of our father and mother these did not seem to interest her.  Still from that time forward we lived together more or less till her end came.

One day—­this was after we had made our home in the big wood, as hares often do in winter—­there was a great disturbance.  When we tried to go out to feed at daylight we found little fires burning everywhere, and near to them boys who beat themselves and shouted.  So we went back into the wood, where the pheasants were running to and fro in a great state of mind.

Some hours later, when the sun was quite high, men began to march about and scores of shots were fired a long way off, also a wounded cock-pheasant fell near to us and fluttered away, making a queer noise in its throat.  It looked very funny stumbling along on one leg with its beak gaping and two of the long feathers in its tail broken.

“I know what this is,” I said to my sister.  “Let’s be gone before they shoot us.  I’ve had enough of being shot.”

So off we went, rushing past a boy by his fire, who yelled and threw a stick at us.  But as it happened, on the borders of the property of the Red-faced Man there were poachers who knew that hares would come out of the wood on this day of the shooting and had made ready for us by setting wire nooses in the gaps of the hedges through which we ran.  I got my foot into one of these but managed to shake it off.  My sister was not so lucky, for her head went into another of them.  She kicked and tore, but the more she struggled the tighter drew the noose.

I watched her for a little while until one of the poachers ran up with a stick.

Then I went away, as I could not bear to see her beaten to death, and that was the end of my sister.  So now I was the only one left alive of our family, except perhaps some younger brothers whom I did not know, though I think it was one of these that afterwards I saw shot quite dead by Giles.  He went over and over and lay as still as though he had never moved in all his life.  Death seems a very wonderful thing, Mahatma, but I won’t ask you what it is because I perceive that you can’t answer.

After this nothing happened to me for a long while.  Indeed I had the best time of my life and grew very strong and big, yes, the strongest and biggest hare of any that I ever saw, also the swiftest of foot.  Twice I was chased by dogs; once by Giles’s black beast, Nigger, and once by that of a shepherd.  Finding that I could run right away from them without exerting myself at all, I grew to despise dogs.  Ah! little did I know then that there are many different breeds of these animals.