"Now, is this true?" said Bevis.
"Yes, that it is; and I killed the mouse's wife also for the best of reasons."
"You horrid wretch!" cried the mouse.
"Oh, you needn't call me a wretch," said the weasel; "I am sure you ought to be grateful to me, for your wife was very jealous because you paid so much attention to the Miss Mouse you want to marry now, and in the night she meant to have gnawn your throat."
"And you frightened my mother," said Bevis, "by running across her bed in the night;" and he began to press on the spring of the gin.
"Yes, that he did," said the weasel, overjoyed; "and he made a hole in the boards of the floor, and it was down that hole that the half-sovereign rolled and was lost, and the poor maid-servant sent away because they thought she had stolen it."
"What do you say to that?" asked Bevis.
But the mouse was quite aghast and dumb-founded and began to think that it was he after all who was in the wrong, so that for the moment he could not speak. Just then Bevis caught sight of the colt that had come up beside his mother, the cart mare, to the fence; and thinking that he would go and try and stroke the pretty creature, Bevis started forward, forgetting all about the weasel and the mouse. As he started, he pressed the spring down, and in an instant the weasel was out, and had hobbled across to the wood pile. When the mouse saw this, he gave a little squeak of terror, and ran back to his hiding-place.
But when Bevis put out his hand to stroke the colt, the colt started back, so he picked up a stick and threw at him. Then he took another stick and hunted the hens round and round the ricks to make them lay their eggs faster, as it is well known that is the best way. For he remembered that last year they had shown him three tiny bantam chicks, such darling little things, all cuddled cosily together in the hollow of a silver table-spoon. The hens clucked and raced, and Bevis raced after and shouted, and the cock, slipping on one side, for it hurt his dignity to run away like the rest, hopped upon the railings, napped his wings, crew, and cried: "You'll be glad when I'm dead". That was how Bevis translated his "hurra-ca-roorah".
In the midst of the noise out came Polly, the dairy-maid, with a bone for Pan, which Bevis no sooner saw, than he asked her to let him give Pan his dinner. "Very well, dear," said Polly, and went in to finish her work. So Bevis took the bone, and Pan, all weary and sore from his thrashing, crept out from his tub to receive it; but Bevis put the bone on the grass (all the grass was worn bare where Pan could reach) just where the spaniel could smell it nicely but could not get it. Pan struggled, and scratched, and howled, and scratched again, and tugged till his collar, buckled tightly now, choked him, and he gasped and panted, while Bevis, taking the remnant of his apple from his pocket, nibbled it and laughed with a face like an angel's for sweetness.