SHELTERING HARE At the gate, where I took my breath
and looked over the field, a crumbling haystack sags towards the hedge. The top of the old stack was being combed by the unusually high wind, and every second strands of hay went hurtling away across the field, but in the lee of the stack I thought I saw movement and then detected a fully-grown hare. It was quite unaware of my presence. The wind had evidently carried away any sound of my approach. A hare shelters as many small creatures do, hunched up, biding the time until the storm abates. I was about to move off when a motor-cycle came up the road towards me. The hare, if it heard the sound, made no move, but when the machine came to the gate it backfired with a sound like a gunshot and the hare jumped, cocked its ears, and saw me. Immediately it raced out across the field, cut- ting the wind and heading for a group of small trees and a patch of reeds that might prove poorer shelter, but, from the hare's point of view, was a safer place in which to be.
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