EDUCATION
The low summons of the hare drew the leverets to her side, and when she set out they followed close at her heels. Late as she was in starting, she picked her way down the rough foothills very slowly and with extreme caution; indeed, so halting was her advance, so mistrustful was she of every rock and bush, that she might have been Fear herself leading her offspring past ambuscades. But the moment she set foot on the reclaimed land—the field where the linnet was roosting by her empty nest—she quickened her steps and passed rapidly from enclosure to enclosure, the novices wondering at the smoothness of the ground and shrinking from the shadows cast by the gates under which they crept.
Soon the little band entered the grassy lane which led past the magpie’s elder to the farmhouse, and there the leverets got a scare from some fowls packed as close as they could sit on a limb of the solitary sycamore. The birds mistook the hares for foxes, and in their panic dislodged the rooster from his perch. The extraordinary noise he made, as with a great flapping of wings he fell to the ground, frightened the leverets almost out of their lives; in their terror they pressed so close to their mother’s side that the three were for a moment jammed in the gap by which they entered the neighbouring pasture. But the leverets showed no fear of the kine that lay there chewing their cud, or of the ewes and lambs in the next enclosure but one, passing in and out amongst them as unconcernedly as if born and reared in their midst. In the adjoining field the wanderers remained to feed on the abundant crop of clover, which furnished so sumptuous a feast for the leverets after the poor herbage of the green that they would have eaten to excess had not their mother called them off. It was not that, however, which made her lead them away, but her eagerness to show them the country and teach them all she knew. Moreover, she was anxious to acquaint them with their powers, especially with their ability to swim, for it would stand them in good stead when pressed by enemies, as she knew by experience.
So, on leaving the clover, she made in the direction of the moorland pool to which her mother had led her when young, where, owing to the absence of all but the scantiest cover, no enemy could approach unobserved. Annoyed at having to leave the clover, the leverets followed with reluctance, till presently the stillness was broken by the music of running water. At the sound the jack pricked his ears as though he recognised a familiar voice. It was indeed the rill, but swollen now by tributary runnels into a little stream three feet wide at the shallows where the hares crossed. On the bridle-path leading to the hamlet of Crowz-an-Wra the leverets raced up and down, whilst the hare sat on the turfy border by an old cross and watched them. In the profound silence the beating of their pads on the hard surface was loud enough to mask the approach of a stealthy enemy; of this the leverets seemed fully conscious, for they stood motionless at short intervals and listened.
Time after time the only sound that filled the pause was the subdued but solemn roar of the sea about the cliffs of the Land’s End. Presently, however, there broke upon it an ominous “patter, patter, patter.” In an instant the timorous creatures were flying. Near a heap of stones they stopped and listened with ears a-cock, and there again came that “patter, patter, patter,” very faint at first but rapidly growing more and more distinct. Whoever the pursuer, he was coming along at a rapid pace. The rhythm of the footfall fascinated the hares. They stood with eyes fixed on the track to get a view the moment the creature showed. But all at once the noise ceased, to the obvious disquiet of the hare. She snuffled and snorted as when in the presence of the weasel, and set off again at a swinging pace with the leverets, now thoroughly alarmed, obedient to her every movement. Suddenly she bounded from the path to the selvedge of turf. On landing she leapt again and again. The leverets followed as if tied to her, leaping nearly as far as she did, for already they could cover nine feet in a spring. Then they sped over croft and field till, quite a mile from the track, they came to a level waste with the pool in its midst. She was about to lead them into the water when she noticed the jack on his hind legs surveying the moor. Stung by this reminder of her negligence, she leapt to the bank and looked in the direction of the trail. She looked long, but saw no sign of the pursuer, and then, completely satisfied that all was well, rejoined the leverets, who followed her without shrinking towards the middle of the pool.
It seemed as if the long-legged creatures would never get out of their depth, yet they lost their foothold at last, fell to swimming, and soon gained the opposite bank. In their wet coats they looked more leggy than ever, but regained their usual appearance after shaking themselves a time or two. Then the hare again scanned the almost bare surface and, seeing nothing, gave up all thought of the enemy and devoted herself to her young. Her eyes were all for them: she had not another glance for her back trail.
Her lack of vigilance was the opportunity of the dog fox who had struck their line in the clover-field and followed it to the moor, which he was now scrutinising from the only rock that rose above it. He looked everywhere but at the right spot. In his ignorance of a hare’s ways he did not examine the pool, till a slight disturbance of the surface arrested his wandering gaze: even then he thought that the ripples were caused by wildfowl; but the moon emerged from the black cloud that had obscured it, and revealed the three hares frisking in the shallows.
The fox licked his chops at the rare sight, and hopeless though he thought the stalk, resolved to attempt it. Instantly he slipped from the rock and stole forward, taking advantage of the meanest tuft to conceal his approach. Yet for all his cleverness he was a conspicuous object, and had the hare been alert she could not have failed to see him. Once, indeed, she did seem uneasy, as if vaguely conscious of danger; the fox, whose eyes never left her, was quick to see that, and when she looked his way he was rigid in his stride and escaped observation. But immediately she turned he resumed his advance, and soon it seemed he might succeed in his murderous design. Noiseless as a phantom, he drew nearer and nearer till, with ears flat and body crouching to the ground, he reached the stunted rushes on the margin of the pool.
Now he was so near the hares that when they shook themselves the spray all but reached him. Again and again with his cruel eyes he measured the distance, and as often refrained from launching himself: he would not spoil the stalk by a rash step, for at any moment the hares might approach within reach of his spring, or they might re-enter the pool and be at his mercy. And it looked as if his patience would be rewarded, for in a second or two, seconds which seemed hours, the jack moved towards him. Another yard and his fate would be sealed. But he stopped to scratch one of his ears; and when he was about to advance again there came from out the stillness a breath of wind laden with the foul scent of the marauder. Quicker than thought the affrighted creature whipped round and followed his mother and sister, who were already in full retreat. As the leveret turned, the fox made a tremendous spring, but he landed four feet short and could only make a frantic effort to overtake it. For a score yards or so the chase was most exciting, neither gained nor lost; but the terrific pace was beyond the power of the fox to maintain, and as he fell behind the jack drew farther and farther away, increasing his lead so much that presently reynard desisted from pursuit. Panting he stood and watched, craning his neck to get a last view as the conspicuous scuts disappeared from sight. Then, after a glance at the sky, the disappointed hunter made back over the moor, slowly at first but quickening his pace as he went, his neat footprints commingling here and there in the soft ground with the nail-pricks of the hares.
The hares, on discovering that the fox had given up pursuit, slackened speed, and when they reached Brea Farm lingered awhile to feed before withdrawing for the day. In the grey dawn they crossed the wall and made their way towards the old chantry. Half-way to the summit the leverets, apparently without a hint, separated first from the hare and then from each other, and secreted themselves in seats where the sun would find them early and where, weary after their long round, they soon passed from drowsiness into a sound sleep.
The week that followed was singularly void of disquieting incidents; nevertheless it was a period of great importance in the life of the jack, because of the signs of independence that manifested themselves in his conduct. Hitherto he had been tractable enough considering his sex; under the influence of fear he had been a model of good behaviour; now all was changed, suddenly changed. The night following his escape from the fox, he stayed behind in the clover-field long after his mother had gone on, and—a thing he had never done before—took no notice of her repeated calls except to twitch his ears as if annoyed at her persistency. Then the very next night he obstinately refused to leave the wheatfield, though his mother shook with fright as she told him that she had just seen a polecat looking out of a rabbit-hole in the hedge, and that to stay might cost him his life. But she might as well have besought the granite rubbing-post near them for all the heed the self-willed creature gave; he simply went on nibbling. On both occasions she had to come back and fetch him, and thoroughly did he deserve the drumming he got.
He disliked being punished, but did not mend his ways. Indeed he grew worse. A few nights later—it was Tuesday, because the Sennen men were at bell-practice—his mother all at once missed him and, going back, found him standing on his hind legs gazing at a scarecrow. The beaver-hatted object had excited his curiosity, and he was waiting to see it move. That was no great offence: before two hours had passed, however, the incorrigible fellow gave her the slip, and by making use of the “leaping” ruse she had taught him, prevented her from tracing him. She gave him up for lost; but the truant was happy enough, roaming amidst the barley or playing among the shadows cast by a stone-circle, confident in his knowledge of the country and his ability to find his way back to the hill. Yet he must have had misgivings or got scared, for he returned to the Carn at a very early hour; and there his mother found him looking sheepish enough after his spell of freedom. She had not sought him in order to rebuke him, for she had given up both complaining and correction; she had come solely to satisfy herself that he was safe. In a way she rejoiced in his independence, knowing that the time was fast approaching when he would have to fend for himself.
And because the moment of separation was imminent, she led him and his sister that very night to the spot beloved above all others by the hares of the Land’s End, the dunes of Sennen and the long strand of Whitesand Bay. She took a bee-line from the Carn and, leading at a good pace, soon reached her destination, where the leverets, pleased by the feel of the sand under their pads, hopped and skipped like lambs, or like runners in an arena with dunes for spectators and waves to applaud, galloped after their fleet-footed mother with the speed of the wind. Their disappearance into the gloom and sudden reappearance made them seem quite uncanny on that uncanny foreshore, haunted, if tradition be true, by drowned sailors who hail one another across the beach. The surge beat on the shore, the swell boomed in the near caves, the breeze stirred the rushes tufting the dunes: except for these the hares were alone; but the light gleamed across the waters from the Longships, and near midnight the faint sweep of muffled oars told where the Preventive Patrol crossed the bay. The unusual noise caused the hares to cease their scamperings and look seaward. Yet danger was not there but at the foot of the dunes, where a half-wild cat crouched near the path by which they came and eagerly awaited their return. All unconscious of her presence the hares left the beach to play on the rocks at Genvor Head, now uncovered by the tide; there the jack, prompted by the adventurous spirit that was ever urging him to do “something grand,” made along the ledge towards the point over which the sea was dashing dangerously. Luckily his mother observed him and drove him back, despite the efforts he made to get past her. So he turned sulky and lagged behind her and his sister when presently they crossed the dunes for the feeding-ground. The cat, who had been a close observer of the scene on the rocks, and was not a little chagrined when two of the hares passed wide of her station, now fixed her attention on the jack, as his slow movements made her think he was wounded and might fall an easy prey. But again she was doomed to disappointment; for while she debated whether to rush at the leveret or stay where she was, the jack recovered his temper and went off at full speed over the dunes.
Graymalkin naturally thought she had seen the last of him. Leaving her hiding-place, she went and sat by the mouth of a rabbit-hole, to try to secure one of the occupants when it came out. She might have been there a quarter of an hour when to her surprise she saw the jack pass on his way to the beach. He was making straight for the rocks. Without a moment’s hesitation she followed, so quickly that when he reached the point of the rocks, she had gained the shore end and cut off his retreat. Yellow though she was, it is a wonder that he did not see her as she crossed the sand, but he did not; what first drew his attention was the mewing noise she made whilst creeping panther-like to the spot where the rocks contract to a narrow waist which the hare must pass. There she stopped. At sight of the hideous creature he realised the straits he was in, and in his terror backed involuntarily nearer and nearer to the edge; the sea as it surged over the rock reached half-way up his legs, the spray drenched him, but he seemed indifferent to it all. He looked thoroughly woebegone; he was surely doomed; if the sea did not get him, the cat would. Presently he stopped backing when only six inches from the edge and, pulling himself together, tried to think of a way of escape. But he found it difficult to think under the eyes of the brute crouching there. His best chance was to swim to Genvor Beach, but this never entered his head; the bewildered fellow was debating as best he could whether it was better to spring over the cat or dodge her. Had it not been for the bunch of seaweed at the very spot on which he would alight he would have tried the spring; but in the circumstances he decided to risk all on the zigzag ruse, at which he was an adept, having played it with his sister on the green. Like an arrow from a bow he shot forward as if he meant to pass to the right of the cat; as soon as his pads touched the rock, like lightning he swerved to the left; then he shot ahead again and so got away without a scratch. The cat, thoroughly outwitted, had sprung for the place where she had supposed the hare would be; but she sprang at the air and fell into the sea. Almost immediately a wave washed her on the rocks, and there she stood silent while, with eyes like living coals, she watched the jack disappear over the dunes.
The terrified fellow ran for two miles along his mother’s trail without halting; then coming to some briers he stopped to nibble the shoots, for he was very hungry. He would have stayed longer than he did had not the rosy foreglow in the sky warned him to be off. So again he took to the trail and hurried along at his best pace, scaring the boy at Brea Farm, who took him for a pixie, as he whisked past the gap on his way to the Fairies’ Green, where for an hour or more his mother and sister had been sitting in their forms. The magpies saw him coming, but chattered no reproach to the belated creature; though to a fox cub they would have shown no mercy. After he had made his toilet, enjoying the taste of the salt water, he sat moving his jaws as if he were chewing the cud. He was really crushing some grains of sand, of which he had picked up a mouthful on the beach, and the curious noise completely puzzled the magpies, who tried in vain to locate it. The dew was being fast dried up by the sun before it ceased: then the slow regular rise and fall of his flank told he was asleep.
That night the hare took the jack and his sister a way they had not been before. It led over Caer Bran to Boswarthen, where all three gambolled like mad things in the corn before going down the hill to Tregonebris. There, after feasting on the pinks in which the farmer’s wife took special pride, they passed to the field of mowing-grass before the house and played on the heap of earth in the far corner, the hare joining in the frolics with a zest she had not shown since she led them up Bartinney. By this time the air, which had been oppressively close, had become more sultry than ever, till towards midnight the impending storm broke, zigzagging the inky sky with fierce lightning. Immediately the silence was rent by claps of thunder, and a torrent of rain followed which drenched the hares before they could gain the shelter of the hedge. When at length it ceased they galloped up and down the path leading to the house and dried themselves; but they were drenched again before dawn. They looked a forlorn little band as they ambled over the fields in a downpour. Yet, miserable though their plight seemed, they passed a clump of brambles which at least offered a partial refuge; farther up the hill they passed another, more inviting still; indeed they kept on as if regardless of all cover till they reached the summit of Caer Bran, where they sought seats under the furze mantling the slope of the outer of the earthworks that crown it. The wind blew, the rain pelted, but the high bank and domed roof protected them from all discomfort save that caused by the drippings of the sodden bushes. This the creatures endured through the long day without once stirring in their forms.
The hare rose at her usual time, but instead of setting out forthwith as was her custom she went to where the jack lay and licked his face again and again, which she had not done since he was weaned. What was the meaning of this extraordinary display of affection? Was it to solace him for the severity of her schooling and growing coldness? Not at all. It was to mark the moment of separation; it was her last office to him; it was her farewell greeting. The jack understood; his behaviour showed it. For when presently his mother and sister set out, he, hitherto always the second afoot, remained in the form and watched them pass from sight. As the bushes hid them, he was on the point of rising to follow, but restrained himself and sat listening as if in expectation of the call. The low bleat for which he hearkened did not come; there was no sound but the moan of the wind about the old earthworks. Then the seriousness of the position came home to him: his mother and sister had gone out of his life; the freedom for which he had been yearning was at last his. Was he elated? Far from it. A sense of forlornness possessed him, but this was soon to be banished by the high spirits that surged through him and thrilled his whole being. Whilst he sat addressing himself to the struggle before him the sky suddenly cleared, and where all had been black, stars shone in the steadfast blue.
Then he arose, stretched his perfect limbs, and, after a glance along the trail, set his face for the farm-lands to which his mother had the previous night introduced him.
INDEPENDENCE
The leveret’s wonderful memory for country he had once been over enabled him to find his way straight back to the farm, where with timid steps he passed from enclosure to enclosure, exploring his domain. In his round he came on a field of clover, another of turnips, two of corn, pastures with sheep and cattle, and a pound with a donkey in it, familiar objects which served to make him forget his solitary condition till he came to the scene of the previous night’s frolics; then the thought of his mother and sister flashed across his mind: he became alive to his loneliness. But a voice within whispered, “Courage, courage, all will soon be well”; at this he took heart and strove to forget the past as he resumed his way, observant of everything and alert to the many dangers of the night.
In a field of mowing-grass and again in the oats he caught the rank scent of an enemy—luckily in time to avoid it and withdraw without being discovered. Now and again he stopped to nibble a bit of tempting herbage; but he did not settle down to feed until the small hours, when he returned to the clover. Here he remained till the first flush in the sky warned him he must seek a retreat in which to pass the day. Twice he made towards the gate as if he were leaving the field, as often retraced his steps, presently repaired to the spot where the clover was most luxuriant, and lay there. No sooner, however, had he sat down than he realised that the stems which shut out the sight of everything prevented him from seeing an enemy, should one approach. The lack of outlook troubled him: soon he imagined that he could hear the faint sound of a stealthy footfall. To satisfy himself that he was mistaken he kept raising his head and looking round until, unable to endure the misery any longer, he stole from the seat and hurried back to the highest part of the farm, where a hedge had taken his fancy as he had crossed from the barley to the oats.
There, amongst the coarse grasses, beneath the fronds of a solitary brake-fern, he sat with his face to the dawn-wind, which played with his whiskers, swayed the ears of the barley, and buffeted the smoke rising from the chimney of the homestead. The light was still grey, but beyond the low roof of the byre the hills stood expectant of the sun, whose fiery disc soon bathed summit and slope with its richest rays. The conspicuous heights attracted the eyes of the leveret till the orb rose higher and made a glory of the dew on the leaves of the tree amidst the barley; then the sparkling beads won and held his gaze; later the tree itself so absorbed his attention that he seemed to be wondering what it did there. It certainly was a strange place for a tree, especially for a fruit-tree, though it was not strange to the people familiar with its story. The field, or rather a part of it, had formerly been a garden—it is still called Johanna’s Garden; and sentiment had caused the tree to be spared, though it interfered with the plough and attracted badgers who trod down the crop.
The leveret had not been long in his form before one of these animals crossed the opposite bank, shaking the dew from the wild roses that festooned the creep, and made its way through the barley and the oats to the sett at the foot of the steep slope. Here a colony of badgers lived. The lane in the corn was their highway, and the tree a convenient stretching-post, so that next to the crowing of the cocks, the scratching noise made by powerful claws was the most familiar noise of the grey dawn. Luckily the leveret had no fear of the badgers, no more fear of them indeed than of the long-tailed tit whom he watched coming and going with food for a brood of insatiable nestlings in the near furze-bush. The cries of the young tits, all eager for the food she brought, were at times the only sound that broke the silence of the sequestered spot; there were days when scarcely a breath stirred, when the stalks of the barley were as motionless as the stem of the tree, and the shadow of the frond looked like a stain on the leveret’s coat.
He enjoyed the slumbrous peace, and revelled in the noonday heat that shimmered above the array of barley ears and veiled with a pearly haze valley and hills and all the land between. It was a delightful time, which in his innocence he thought would last for ever. He knew nothing of the ways of husbandry, of the harvesting of crops by the dwellers of the homestead, whence by day came shout and song, and where the strange light glowed in the early hours of foraging time. He did not know that man was lord of the earth; as little did he realise that he himself was man’s guest. His own view was quite different. He thought that the clover, the corn, and the pinks grew for him, that fern and heather flourished to afford him cover, that hedge and hill rose above the level merely to furnish him with outlook. He even thought that the sun rose to warm him, that moon and stars shone to light his steps; and he found the world a most delectable place, despite the number of his enemies.
A somewhat rude awakening befell him on the thirteenth day of his independence, when the field was invaded by the farm folk. Their coming, or rather their inrush, had nothing to do with the harvesting of the barley, which was yet green; they were drawn thither by an incident of farm life that is attended with as much noise as human beings are capable of making. The hubbub broke out near the house some two furlongs away. Even at that distance the din was disquieting, but it grew louder and louder and caused the leveret more and more perturbation. Whilst he wondered what it all meant, a swarm of bees came flying over the hedge and settled on the tree. In less than a minute three boys, two men, and a woman came tumbling pell-mell over the hedge, shouting “Brownie, Brownie,” and beating frying-pans and milk-pails. The boy who led soon espied the cluster of bees hanging to the branch, and cried, “Here they are, faither, fastened on the old medlar-tree.”
“Th—that’s lucky, lad,” replied the father breathlessly as his face showed above the hedge, “I feared we’d seed the laist of ’em. Go and fetch a skep and my hat, and don’t forget the bellows, for I’ve hardly a brith left in me. But, dang me,” he added angrily, on sighting the lane in the barley, “what a mess they badgers have made of the corn. It’s all through that theer tree, and down it shall come.”
“What, Johanna’s tree? Cut down Johanna’s tree? You’ll do nawthin’ of the kind, maister. ’Twas her pride, good soul, so I’ve heered granny say. Cut it down? Why, ’twould be enough to make her turn in her grave, and perhaps visit ’ee, who do knaw? And only think a minit, you’d have lost that swarm of bees, and a handsome swarm it is. Iss fay, and worth a bra bit; ‘a swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon,’ and you’d have lost it if the tree hadn’t been theere.”
“Well, well, Betty, most likely you’re right. I never looked at it that way.”
“Ah, maister, it don’t take much to make people forget their obligations.”
“Now, now, Betty, have done, theere’s a good woman; I spoke in haste. I’ll never lay hands on Johanna’s tree. And here comes our Jesse already. The lad’s as fast as a hare, and if he’s forgotten the bellows he’s remembered the cloth to ground the hive on.”
Taking the skep, the farmer shook the bees into it and laid it on the cloth which Jesse had spread at the foot of the tree. “They’ll do all right theere till the sun is gone, when I’ll come myself and fetch ’em. Now let’s make haste back and finish our fish and taties, or they’ll be too cold to be worth eating. What do you say, Dick?”
“You’re right, maister, a cold pilcher ed’n much account, nor a cold tatie nother. I’d as soon sit down to a basin of sky blue and sinker,[2] and that ed’n sayin’ much.” With that, man and master, Betty and the boys quitted the field, leaving the hare to his reflections.
The whole proceeding was a mystery to the timid wildling, who had kept to his seat notwithstanding Betty’s shrill voice and gesticulations. Some hares would have slipped away, but it was instinctive in him to lie close until found; a trait of his strain which went far to explain the survival of his forbears amidst the gradual disappearance of their kind. But though satisfied that he was not the object of the visit as he had at first feared, he was glad when the party went away and left him to solitude. The rest of the day was without incident, save that the farmer, true to his word, came and fetched the bees at sundown.
The swarming of the bees and their capture was followed a week later by a further disquieting incident, the cutting of the clover. It quite took his breath away one morning when he reached the gate, to find the crop levelled and the look of the enclosure changed almost beyond recognition: the hedges too had grown so much taller. The timid fellow shrank from entering the field; indeed the presence of three rabbits feeding there would alone have sufficed to prevent it. On several occasions these very rabbits had shown themselves hostile and driven him off. Rabbits were by no means plentiful on his beats; he had not seen more than a score; and as for hares, he had not only not met with one, he had not crossed a single trail. He was the solitary survivor of his kind, with enemies on every hand. Nevertheless, confident in the protection which his wiles and speed afforded him, he enjoyed life to the full, roaming over the farms in the highest of spirits.
But though he exulted in his powers he ran no risks; even the buck his father had not been so wary as he. Whilst feeding he kept to the middle of the field, where at frequent intervals he sat up and looked about him, first to leeward, then to windward, his nostrils working all the time, to assure himself that no enemy was near. Then he always slowed down when approaching a gate or creep, in order to learn by sight or smell whether a fox or one of the farm cats was lying in wait for him; once he winded a fox and withdrew noiselessly as a shadow, leaving the fox none the wiser. He was quick in distinguishing marauders by their footfall and by the rustling they made in threading the ripe corn.
With the arrival of harvest, however, he was completely puzzled by the loud outcry that arose on the farm-lands. It was always the same, and caused by the reapers hailing the cutting of the last sheaf.[3] Sometimes while he was in the form, sometimes when he was afoot, the silence would be broken by a voice proclaiming aloud, “I haben, I haben,” followed by many voices asking, “What have ’ee? What have ’ee?” and the instant response, “A neck, a neck,” welcomed by loud hurrahs. Save for these acclamations of farmer and farm-hands, he was wise in the lore of the countryside; and with knowledge came confidence, which led to his wandering farther and farther afield. He roamed as far as three miles from the seat, to which he nevertheless continued to return, until he happened on a wild bottom which the country folk have named Golden Valley.
It was a beautiful starlight night when he came to the brow overlooking it, and sat down to gaze at the mill, the pool above it, and the glimpses of stream showing in the gorse like silver stitched on black velvet. A will o’ the wisp was flitting to and fro near the bend of the valley, and a white owl was searching the stubble before the miller’s cottage; otherwise nothing stirred; so presently the leveret made his way down and down the rugged hillside to the stream. This he followed as far as the mill-pool; then, after glancing round the rushy margin, he retraced his steps and crossed the stream below the mill. Sometimes along the bank, sometimes within a stone’s throw as the bushes allowed, he held on to the swampy ground where the weird light still floated hither and thither and, passing between patches of iris and watermint, came to some mounds carpeted with thyme, on which he remained to feed. From there he overlooked a sheet of water, half-circled with alders, a fowler’s hut peeping from beneath a cluster of them. No bird rested on the water, which was marked only by the rings made by trout rising at the white moths that came within their reach. It was a very peaceful scene, with no breath of wind to diffuse the scent given out by meadow-sweet and camomile.
The hungry fellow nibbled unceasingly at the aromatic herb, avoiding the glow-worms which dotted the mounds. On the furze they were even more numerous, so that their golden-green lamps lit up the beads of dew on the spiders’ webs. But the leveret rarely interrupted his feast to look about him; only once did he scratch his ears, and whilst so engaged had his attention attracted by a shrill whistle from the stream below the pool. Turning his head, he saw an otter and two cubs come over the bank which dammed the pool, and enter the water with so little disturbance as to make them seem uncanny. When they dived, their progress would have been most difficult to follow had it not been for the leaping of the trout, for the waves they raised were hardly noticeable even where the water was shallowest. The otters rose at different parts of the pool, each with a trout in its mouth, swam to the bank, and there lay at full length to devour their take. After fishing for nearly half an hour the animals fell to playing, now in the water, now on the bank, at times even in the open spaces among the bushes. From one of these the cubs espied the leveret. At once ceasing their gambols, they watched him nibble the herbage, their nostrils working all the time. The leveret, who showed no fear of the strange, short-legged creatures, was still feeding when the otter recalled her cubs and led them up the stream, but he was nearly satisfied, and shortly made his way along the dam and up the opposite hill to the downs, over which he kept wandering and wandering as if in search of a seat. Yet this was not his object. He had already made up his mind where he would pass the coming day, took the hint from a homing badger that it was time to be ensconced, returned to the valley, and hid amongst the rushes bordering the mill-pool, at a spot almost midway between the inflow and the hatch.
He had hardly settled down when the otter and her cubs hurried by along the opposite bank, on their way to a reedy marsh a mile above. Then all was quiet till, at peep of day, a kingfisher came and fished from a branch of the alder overhanging the inflow; the tinkle of the water as she struck it made a pretty sound in the silent dawn. Later, just as the smoke rose from the miller’s chimney, a moorhen led out her brood as if to teach them the geography of the pool, for she kept taking them from creeklet to creeklet till the miller came to raise the hatch and drove them all away. The hum of the water-wheel brought back to the leveret’s memory the swarm of bees and the unforgettable din of the reapers; but if he looked for the invasion of his new quarters by a posse of men and boys he must have been agreeably disappointed when, early in the forenoon, there came only a solitary angler, whose entry was so noiseless as scarcely to disturb the peace of the quiet spot. Indeed the newcomer stood for a second or two surveying the pool from the opening between the withies before the leveret was aware of his presence. On the discovery the timid creature thought, naturally enough, that the pair of restless black eyes were scanning the bank in search of him; he did not know they were drawn now here, now there, by the rising trout. The angler was a tall, spare man of aquiline features, attired in grey tweed suit and wearing a dove-coloured top-hat, about which some fly-casts were neatly wound. His upright figure, thick black curly hair, in which the few grey hairs seemed out of place, above all the comeliness of face, marked him as a man between thirty and forty years of age. So one would have judged as he stood, though the ease with which he leapt the ditch to the sedges spoke rather of twenty-five.
He took his position on the turfy bank over against the leveret, and at once began whipping together the three pieces of the rod he had removed from the cloth case, working with extreme haste as if he feared that the fish would cease to rise before he was ready. When the joints were securely tied, he fixed the reel, ran the line through the rings, and attached the cast with coch-y-bondhu for end fly, and red palmer for dropper. Surely he is too impatient to soak the gut before casting; no, he flings it into the little creek at his side and, to kill the time of waiting, paces nervously up and down the bank. After four turns he took up the rod and began casting, the flies falling lightly on the rippled surface. At the third throw he was fast in a fish, but just failed to steer it clear of a bed of weeds for which it made, and consequently lost it. At the very next cast, when the flies fell close to the hatch, he rose and hooked a bigger fish. This leapt out of the water and broke its hold. He was much vexed, as the suddenly compressed lips showed, but as he was about to give vent to his feelings a still larger fish rose under the bank, close to the leveret. This sight checked the word on the very tip of his tongue. The cast, a long one even from the edge of the bank to which he now moved up, was rendered difficult if not impossible by the withies, which twice caught the tail-fly at the beginning of the forward cast and as often caused the Squire to give utterance to a monosyllable delivered with staccato sharpness. At length he succeeded in clearing the withies and getting the line out to its full length. It was a good, clean cast, and would have been perfect had the pool been a yard wider; as it was, the coch-y-bondhu caught in the rushes and, despite the coaxing treatment to which the Squire subjected it, refused to come away, the only result being to alarm the hare and raise the ire of the angler. Worse was to come; for presently the trout, which kept rising with irritating persistence, seized the dropper, hooked itself, and in the violent struggle that followed broke the tackle and got away with the red palmer in its jaw.
The situation was beyond the power of words, and it was strange to see how the Squire met it. He dashed the rod to the ground, he paced up and down the bank like a man demented, he shook his fist at the withies, he shook it at the rushes, and kept shaking it till at length, after having beaten a path on the turf, he had worked off his rage. Then he sat down on the bank, filled his pipe and blew clouds of smoke. The tobacco had a soothing effect: soon he was debating with himself whether to break the cast or go and release the hook. He resolved to go round, but first he would try to free it where he sat. So he took up the rod, flicked the line, and then, as bad luck would have it, the fly came away. Yes, it was bad luck, for few things would have surprised and delighted the Squire more than the sight of a hare, whom he must have disturbed had he been compelled to go round. He would have been thrilled by the discovery that the hare was not, as he believed, extinct on his land. But it was a joy postponed; he was to see the hare before the year was out, in circumstances as different from those as imagination can conceive.
And meanwhile the hare, whose immunity from molestation had been remarkable, was destined to undergo a series of terrible trials, the first of which, strangely enough, befell it that very night.
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Barley-bread and skimmed milk. |
CHASED BY POLECATS
The sun had sunk below the hill, and Golden Valley lay in shadow and repose. Zekiah, the miller, his work done at last, sat smoking his pipe on the bench by the door; the mill-wheel was at rest, and the stream was slowly refilling the nearly emptied pond where, from time to time, a wave in the shallows betrayed the movement of a trout. Overhead a few swifts yet wheeled: but yellow-hammer, whinchat, blackcap, whitethroat, and long-tailed tit had sought roosting-places in the furze, and the magpie that haunted the mill had withdrawn to his perch in the hawthorn. For them the hour for rest had come; the moment when nocturnal creatures quit their retreat drew near. The bat was on the point of leaving the crevice under the eaves; the owl in the ivied scarp, the vixen in the earth overlooking the fowling-pool watched the shadows deepen, and still more impatient was the leveret, who already after a two nights’ absence was longing for a feast of clover. With the peeping of the stars he sprang from the form, leapt the stream at the inflow, and gaining the crest of the hill, made over the upland almost straight as a crow flies for his destination.
He was in the highest of spirits; the nearer he came to the field the more determined he was to show fight to the rabbits should they combine to drive him from it. The thought never entered his head that any other creatures would intervene between him and his feast, much less that before he could reach the feeding-ground he would be turned into a terror-stricken fugitive; yet so it proved.
On, on he sped until he reached the pasture adjoining the clover; he was within a stone’s throw of the gate when he heard the patter of feet on the other side of the hedge; his curiosity was aroused, and he stood still to see the creatures pass the gap a dozen yards to his rear. He expected to view a troop of rats, of which he had met many in the standing corn; to his horror it proved to be a family of polecats, moving so slowly in single file that, though there were only six in all, he thought the procession would never come to an end. All peered through the gap; the last actually stopped and scrutinised the leveret, but concluding that he was one of the many stones that littered the ground, galloped off after the others. It was a narrow escape, for had the leveret raised head or ears he must have been recognised and have drawn the bloodthirsty crew upon him.
The sight of the polecats had so frightened him that he was incapable of movement; it was some minutes before he had sufficiently recovered to continue on his way. Near the gate he stopped and looked back, and once more after entering the field, but without seeing a sign of the enemy. Then he cast his eyes vaguely over the field, the goal of his longing. Not a rabbit was to be seen; the patch of uncut clover looked most tempting. Did he hasten to nibble the succulent leaves? Not at all: he never went near them; he moved away, urged by the impulse to put as great a distance as possible between himself and the polecats, for he felt sure they would follow his trail. All at once he broke into a panic-stricken flight, and kept it up as far as the barley-field, which had been cut in his absence. On the hedge by the tit’s deserted nest he stood and listened with ears erect. He expected to hear the whimpering chorus that he had once heard in the valley below, the cry that would confirm his fears. But there was no sound, not even a slight rustling of the medlar leaves. The silence, however, brought him no comfort. It could not dispel the dread which kept him wandering aimlessly about the oatfield like a thing awaiting its doom; so that he must have wasted half an hour before leaving by the gate at the lower corner and galloping across the long meadow where some bullocks glared at him as he sped past. In the small enclosure beyond he stopped to nibble one of the turnips growing there, but so nervous was he that the pigeon drinking at the woodland pool does not raise its head more often than he. His eyes are directed to the spot on the hedge where he had passed; for he is sure that the polecats before now have struck his trail.
His apprehension proved correct. The polecats had happened on his line amongst the furze above the mill-pool, and run it in the right direction from the first. More than once the mother, conscious of the wide circuit made by a hare, was on the point of abandoning the trail; but the sight of her kittens revelling in the scent got the better of her judgment and induced her to keep on. She led her young at the utmost speed they were capable of maintaining, arresting her steps only to scan each field she came to, in the hope of seeing and being seen by the hare, who she knew would be paralysed at the sight of her. She never dreamt that the hare had already seen her and was under the spell of her influence; though the knowledge could not have hastened the pursuit, inasmuch as the kittens were hurrying on as fast as their legs could carry them.
The distance that separated the hunters from the quarry was not great. When they entered the clover the leveret was only just leaving the oats; when they were crossing the barley stubble he was still nibbling the turnips; but he gained after that. For while the polecats were busy working out the tortuous line in the oats he forged ahead and gained High Down, where he busied himself in laying a most intricate maze. He moved hither and thither criss-crossing the trail incessantly, knowing that his life depended on its intricacy. It was well that he was thoroughly absorbed in his task, for had he stopped and listened he could hardly have failed to hear the shrill cry of his pursuers as they bounded across the long meadow. On gaining the hedge-top they stood scrutinising the rows of turnips as if they expected to see the game there; and very odd they looked standing side by side on their hind legs, their eyes shining like glow-worms. But the quarry was nowhere to be seen, so presently mother and kittens leapt to the ground and resumed the full cry, which they kept up over the undulating field beyond, round the edge of the swamp, and below the pair of haggard thorns between which the pack passed.
Meanwhile the leveret, his task well done, was on the point of leaving the downs. He was perhaps a score yards from the gate when the cry he had been so long expecting fell on his ears and rendered him all but helpless. Some hares would have lain down and awaited their fate; others would have squealed and hastened it; but the leveret’s courage was high, and, stifling the cry which sought for utterance, he battled as best he could against the paralysing weakness that assailed him, and dragged himself yard by yard towards the gate. Suddenly the cry ceased: the polecats had come on the maze, and in silence devoted themselves to the business of unravelling it. With the cessation of the blood-curdling chorus the leveret’s power gradually returned; he drew farther and farther away, seemingly all uncertain as to his goal. At one moment he headed for the form on the hedge; at another for the mound where he had sat once or twice when the wind was northerly; but in the end he set his face for the form by the pool, and to this direction he kept. The polecats, maddened by the delay, had been displaying a feverish energy in their attempt to discover the true line. Each worked independently of the other, and not a kitten looked to the mother for guidance. Theirs was indeed a difficult task: no pack of harriers would have accomplished it without aid of man; yet the wildlings, with a persistence that would not be denied, after two hours’ search succeeded in recovering the line by which the leveret had left the field.
Strangely enough the discovery was made by the smallest of the litter, who, after raising the cry of “found,” sat on his haunches and gazed about him, as if he expected to view the game. He continued to sit even after his mother had taken up the trail, but presently fell into his place at the end of the long file and joined in the full-tongued chorus. Increased speed now marked the pursuit. The pack was running for blood, and running as they knew against time, for night was yielding to the grey dawn. Already the cocks were crowing, and soon a farm boy was heard calling the cows. At other times the polecats would have stopped, perhaps slunk away to cover; now they gave no heed, no more indeed than to the ruddy sky that told of the coming sun. True that, save for the occasional cry of a kitten, they had ceased their whimperings; otherwise they behaved as if it were the dead of night, going from corner to corner of even the biggest fields, and when at last they came to the mill-lane, following it with a daring that wild creatures rarely display.
The miller’s wife caught sight of the polecat as it leapt from the wall, and then watched the spring of kitten after kitten till she was almost tongue-tied with amazement. At last she screamed out: “Zekiah, Zekiah, there’s a passel of fitchers under the window; they’re running something, I’m sure they are. Wust ’ee, jump out and mob them, thee lie-abed, they’ll take no notice of a woman.” Whereupon the miller sprang out of bed, thrust his head through the open window, and shouted: “Ah, you bold, imprent varmints, ah! . . . you stinking old night-trade. Be off wi’ ’ee. Ah! ah! ah!”
Heedless of the rating, the pack made for the bank of the pool and found another maze awaiting them there. This discouraged the kittens, as their movements showed. But their mother knew that this maze was the hare’s last ruse, that he was squatting near; and surely she must have communicated this knowledge to her young, or why should they have suddenly thrown off their lethargy and displayed the almost fiendish activity they did? In an instant the bank was alive with their undulating forms. They darted in and out amongst the sedge; they swam the ditch and twisted about amongst the stems of the withies; again and again they gathered at the spot where the Squire had first stood to fish; for from there the leveret, by a long leap, had gained the pool and swum to the opposite bank. It was the sheet of water that had decided him to make for the form amidst the rushes, and there he was sitting, motionless and helpless.
Luckily he could see nothing of the black, restless creatures, not even their arched backs or raised heads; but the smell of their rank bodies polluted the air, so he knew they were there defiling with their presence the sweet tranquillity of the scene. The absence of all trace of scent near the water, however, baffled the polecats. They could not trace the hare beyond the take-off place, and the clouded water where he had stirred the mud in the shallows contained no message for them.
The growing light was beginning to cause uneasiness to the band; nevertheless one of them proceeded to draw the farther bank; it was the tiny fellow who had recovered the line on High Down. Twice he approached the edge of the pool as if he intended to swim to the other side, but withdrew, made along the bank, crossed at the inflow and at once began questing amongst the rushes. Nearer and nearer he came to the helpless prey, was indeed close on it when the magpie, returning to the thorn by the withies, espied him and forthwith set up the most irritating and persistent chatter. The polecat was greatly disconcerted by the mobbing of the bird, and presently, unable to endure the insults longer, leapt at it where it fluttered just beyond his reach. Maddened by failure he kept on springing at the black-and-white pest till he came to the hatch, up which he climbed to the cross-piece and, careless of both hare and bird, sat there listening to the miller, who was now abroad.
The footfall of the miller and the noise he made in pulling the faggots out of the furze-rick caused the polecat little disquietude; but the moment Zekiah began whistling “Pop goes the Weasel,” he leapt to the sward and bounded after his mother, already in full retreat with the rest of the litter, towards a deserted quarry where she had decided to pass the rest of the day.