the rabbit a wrong, as he never for a moment to the end of his life
doubted he had, he who is at the head of all heads and the heart of
all hearts, would contrive to let him tell the rabbit he was sorry,
and would give him something to do for the rabbit that would make up
for his cruelty to him. He did once say to his mother, and neither of
them again alluded to the matter, that he was sure the rabbit had
forgiven him.

"Little ones are _so_ forgiving, you know, mother!" he added.

Is it any wonder that my friend Clare Skymer should have been no
sportsman?



Chapter VIII.

Clare and his human brothers


Another anecdote of him, that has no furtherance of the story in it, I
must yet tell.

One cold day in a stormy March, the wind was wildly blowing broken
clouds across the heavens, and now rain, now sleet, over the shivering
blades of the young corn, whose tender green was just tinging the dark
brown earth. The fields were now dark and wintry, heartless and cold;
now shining all over as with repentant tears; one moment refusing to
be comforted, and the next reviving with hope and a sense of new
life. Clare was hovering about the plough. Suddenly he spied, from a