16 THE WEASELS OF HOLM-WOOD.

Any fine morning you might have seen the mother of this
family carrying her infant in her arms, and followed by her other
children, a girl and two boys, who would amuse themselves by
dragging little wooden horses, playing at soldiers with mock mus-
kets, running against the wind with little whirligig mills, or fro-
licking about with a thousand of the antics of children. Their
father, known every where as Old Weasel, was of a most resolute
and unbending disposition; he made many enemies, and was ever
at war with one or other of his neighbours. The Partridges of
Clover-field asserted that he sucked their eggs and stole their
young ones; the Rabbits of the Warren held Old Weasel and all
his family in the deepest abhorrence, and accused them of the
greatest cruelties; but no one complained of them more bitterly
than Dame Partlett of the Farm, who accused the whole tribe of
being born enemies of her race, and said, that were it not that
Old Weasel himself was dreadfully afraid of her neighbour and
friend, young Mastiff of Kennel-wood, she verily believed that she

should never know any peace on earth.

All the world will understand how, with such a character, the
Weasels had but few friends, and that when Miss Weasel grew to
be of age, she should have but few admirers; nevertheless two or
three families who were related to them by blood kept up an occa-
sional acquaintance, and among them the Ferrets of Hollow-oak

were the most intimate. Now it so happened that one evening,