I walked fast, but the lad was a shrewd walker, and though
encumbered with his greatcoat contrived to keep tolerably up with
me. The road went over hill and dale, but upon the whole more
upward than downward. After proceeding about an hour and a half we
left the lake, to the southern extremity of which we had nearly
come, somewhat behind, and bore away to the south-east, gradually
ascending. At length the lad, pointing to a small farm-house on
the side of a hill, told me he was bound thither, and presently
bidding me farewell, turned aside up a footpath which led towards
it.
About a minute afterwards a small delicate furred creature with a
white mark round its neck and with a little tail trailing on the
ground ran swiftly across the road. It was a weasel or something
of that genus; on observing it I was glad that the lad and the dog
were gone, as between them they would probably have killed it. I
hate to see poor wild animals persecuted and murdered, lose my
appetite for dinner at hearing the screams of a hare pursued by
greyhounds, and am silly enough to feel disgust and horror at the
squeals of a rat in the fangs of a terrier, which one of the
sporting tribe once told me were the sweetest sounds in "natur."
I crossed a bridge over a deep gulley which discharged its waters
into a river in a valley on the right.
