The Way of the Wild

by F. St. Mars

She had never heard of hedgehogs, and never, never met a beast that walked through the wild as if he owned it. And, more, he expected her to get out of his way, which she did with feline and concentrated remarks; and he—by the whiskers and talons!—the fool exposed his back—turned his back openly, a thing no wild beast in its senses would do, unless running away. And that, for a cat who had waited close on two hours for baby business that didn't turn up, had got most unfashionably drenched, and had, moreover, in her time, tackled more than one grown-up rabbit, which was considerably larger than any hedgehog—that, I say, was, for the silver tabby, too much.

She sprang. Rather, she executed two bounds, and somewhat unexpectedly found herself on top of the hedgehog. I say "unexpectedly," because she had hitherto bounded upon wild-folk who contrived mostly not to be there. This one contrived nothing, except to stop still. And the cat executed a third bound—off the hedgehog, and rather more violently and more quickly than the first two. Also, she spat.

When she had got over the intense pain—and cats feel pain badly—of sharp spines digging into her soft and tender forefoot-pads, she stopped, about two yards away, and glared at the hedgehog as if he had played off a foul upon her, and she was surprised to see that he was no longer egg-shaped, but rolled up into himself like a ball, so to speak, and utterly quiescent. (I wonder if she remembered the little wood-lice that she had so often amused herself playing with in idle hours. They rolled themselves up just like that. Perhaps she thought she'd come upon the Colossus of all the wood-lice.) Anyway, after she had spat off at him all the vile remarks she could think of for the moment, without producing any more reply than she would get from the average stone, she came back, drawn with curiosity as by strings.

The hedgehog did not move; there was no need. It was for the cat to make the next move—if she chose. He did not care. All things were one to him, and all the views which he presented to the world were points, a cheval-de-frise, a coiled ball of barbed wire, a living Gibraltar, what you will, but, anyway, practically impregnable; and the beggar knew it. "He who believeth doth not make haste"—that seemed to be his motto, and he had, by the same token, a fine facility for withstanding a siege.

He felt the cat, that cat who did not know hedgehogs, pat him tentatively. Then he heard her swearing softly and tensely at the painful result. She did not pat again—at least, only once, and, in spite of care, that hurt her worse than ever. Then she began growling, low and beastily—for all the cat tribe have a horrible growl; you may have noticed it. Perhaps the hedgehog smiled. I don't know. He knew that growl, anyhow; had heard it before—the anger of utter exasperation. He was an exasperating brute, too, for he never said anything, only shut himself up, and let others do the arguing, if they were fools enough to do so.

Suddenly he heard the growl stop. Followed a tense pause, during which he tightened his back-muscles under his spines, and tucked himself in, to meet any coming shock, more tightly than ever. Followed the pause a short warning hiss, jerked out almost in fright, it seemed—that cat's hiss that is only a bluff, and meant to imitate a snake—a sudden explosion of snarls, and a thud. A fractional silence, then a perfect boil-over of snarls, and thud upon thud.

Now, our friend hedgehog was an old hand, and he had heard many and curious sounds take place outside himself, so to speak; but, all the same, he was just tickled to death to know what, in claws and whiskers, was happening out there in the leering moonlight now; so much so, indeed, that at last he risked it, and took a furtive peep out of a chink in himself, as it were. And what he saw might have amazed him, if he had not been a hedgehog and scarcely ever amazed at anything. He just got a snapshot view of the cat's fine ringed tail whirling round and round as she balanced herself on the swerve, vanishing into the ghostly moonlight haze of the night; and in front of him, close beside him, squatting, stare-eyed and phlegmatic, he saw the form of a big, gaunt, old doe-rabbit. And I think he knew what had happened. He seemed to, anyway, and remained rolled up.

Rabbits are thoughtless, headstrong, headlong, hopeless, helpless cowards as a race and a rule. "The heart of a rabbit," they say in France, speaking of a coward. But all races and rules have exceptions. Occasionally the exceptions are old buck-rabbits, who know a thing or two; but more often they are old doe-rabbits with young. And, mark you, from the point of view of those wild-folk, there may be easier rough handfuls to tackle than old doe-rabbits with young. This one had simply streaked out of the night from nowhere—and behind—and knocked the cat flying before she knew. Then, ere ever the feline could gather her wits, the old doe had descended upon her with an avalanche of blows—punches they were with the forefeet, all over the head and the nose, where a cat hates to be hit—and all so swiftly, so irresistibly, that that cat had never been given a chance to consider before she was stampeded into the night. It was the silver tabby's first experience of Mrs. Rabbit doing the devoted-mother act, and, by the look of her—tail only—and the speed at which she was going, it appeared most likely that it would be her last.