May 18th

1872

Saturday, 18 May
Hay Fair still going on. To get out of the sight and sound of it I went up the unfrequented path from Penllan to the Wern below Gwernfydden to look for bog beans to give to Mrs. Venables on Whitsun Day. The marshy ground was thick with the trefoil bean leaves, but not a blossom had yet opened. I found a gate beside a sheltered hedge, in a sunny nook convenient for reading, and returning to the village I climbed Penllan again with that charming book Lettice Lisle* and established myself in my sunny corner on the gate sheltered from the East wind by the high green hedge and secure from intrusion on a path that led to nowhere and therefore sacred from the folks returning from the fair. It was a quiet peaceful beautiful place. There was no sound to be heard but the singing of the birds, and nothing to be seen but the blue mountains rising over the sunny golden green oaks of Penllan Wood and the blue sky above all. No living thing seemed to be moving except a rising lark and a small blue butterfly which fluttered along the sunny side of the hedge. Presently as I sat perfectly still upon the gate reading I heard a sharp little rustling in the hedge close by me as if some small fourfooted animal were bustling busily about. In a minute or two afterwards came out of the bank on to the open path before the gate a beautiful little creature coloured a deep rich chestnut red except its throat and belly which were pure white. It carried in its mouth a mouse or a young rat. Apparently it did not see me. At all events he took no notice and was not the least startled. He passed under the gate carrying the mouse and went into the hedge on the opposite side of the path. But he did not seem to know what to do with the mouse and soon came out again, still carrying it in his mouth. I made a slight noise on purpose and the weasel dropped his prey on the path and retreated into the hedge. I got down off the gate, picked up the mouse and placed it a few feet further off in front of the gate and then resumed my seat to watch the result. The weasel was not at all abashed. He came to the mouth of the hole in the hedge, rested his little forepaws upon a bit of stick, stood up, and looked round him with his quick brilliant watchful eyes to see what had become of his mouse. Then the beautiful slender creature came out upon the path and began darting about like lightning trying to discover his prey by scent. I never saw any living thing move with such extraordinary swiftness.
The mouse was only 3 or 4 feet from him, but the weasel could not see it, and as I had lifted the mouse from the ground he could not follow it along the earth by scent. So he was completely at fault. He must have been extraordinarily blind or shortsighted. After darting about on the path close by the gate for a few minutes the weasel gave up the search and went back into the original hedge to hunt another mouse and I heard him rustling and bustling about in the bank for some time after.

Rev. Francis Kilvert
Robert Francis Kilvert (3 December 1840–23 September 1879), diarist and Rcetor, was born near Chippenham, Wiltshire, His diaries, reflecting rural life in the 1870s, were first published over fifty years after his death.