The Keeper's Hopes
Numbers of hares live all the summer in the cornfields. But while many rabbits are born in the corn, when there is a wood at hand most of them retire by day, returning to the corn to feed at night. No rabbit, in sleekness of fur, is comparable to the rabbit that has lived for a few fine weeks among the corn-stems, for the constant brushing of the stems grooms his coat to a state of wonderful fineness. At any moment rabbits in the corn may meet death from the teeth of stoats or weasels; which in turn run a risk, if a slight one, from the fox's teeth; there are plenty of mole-runs into which they may dive in times of danger. In dry weather, the hedgehogs leave the ditches for the corn; and the cornfield, in real summer weather, when there are no foxes about, is a paradise for pheasants and partridges. The gamekeeper, whatever the weather, clings to the faith that the corn hides most of his birds from his sight. There is comfort in the thought that if the birds live he will see them, but if they are killed, nothing will ever tell him the story of his losses.
Man ploughs and sows, but for every man who eats the bread of the fields a million other mouths have been fed. There is no such perfect sanctuary to wild life as a field of corn. What the corn hides nobody knows; though many would gladly know, and seek eagerly to find. The gamekeeper guesses shrewdly what the corn may hide; later he will find what has been hidden, and it is as well for his peace of mind that he can only speculate, at this season, on the game in the field, for he is powerless to interfere. The community of the cornfield is almost safe from man, while the corn stands. If any creature moves in the corn, the stems, bowing to the breeze, cover its progress.
