The Way of the Wild

by F. St. Mars

[Illustration: "This one had simply streaked out of the night from nowhere">[

Meanwhile the old doe-rabbit sat there in the moonlight as immovable and impassive as a Buddha, and the hedgehog, peering at her, guessed that the time to unroll was not yet. He knew that it would hurt any one to attack him; the cat knew it; all rabbits in their senses knew it; but was that mother-rabbit in her senses? He concluded to lie low and remain a fortress, therefore.

Then, after waiting about five minutes, as if she knew that cats sometimes steal back, the old doe-rabbit came to a "stop" quite close to the hedgehog, and went in. She remained there some time, during which a fox came by and sniffed at the hedgehog, but was quite wise as to the foolishness of doing more; and a deadly, curved-backed, flat-headed little murderer of a stoat galloped by, and sniffed too, but was no bigger fool than the fox, and went his way.

Both missed the "stop" by about two yards, though I don't know what would have happened if they had found it. Digging and death in the former case, and battle and blood in the latter, perhaps. But no matter, they passed on their unlawful occasions; and half-an-hour after the going of the stoat the old doe-rabbit came out, and dissolved into the moon-haze.

Then the hedgehog came out, too—of himself, and—well, dissolved into the "stop."

What happened in there it was too dark to see, but not to hear; and what one could hear was—pitiful. He was there some time, for your hedgehog rarely hurries; and when he came out again, his little pig's eyes gleaming red under their spined cowl, it was with the same snuffling, softly grunting deliberation with which he had gone in; but the pale moon, that showed the gleam in his eyes, showed also blood on his snout, and on the bristles of his forefeet, blood.

Then, slowly, snorting, sniffing very audibly—as loud as a big dog often does—grunting softly in an undertone, as if talking to himself, he departed, rustling through the grass, leaving an irregular winding track behind in the dew and the gossamer, as he searched, eternally searched, for food.

The hedgehog moved through the night as if he owned it and had no fear of anything on earth; but many, it would seem, had cause to fear him. He turned and snorted, and snatched up a slug. Three very quick and suggestive—quite audible—scrunches, and it was gone. He described a half-circle, sniffing very loudly, and chopped up a grub. He paused for a fraction to nose out a beetle, and disposed of it with the same quick three or four chopping scrunches. (It sounded rather like a child eating toast-crusts.) He continued, always wandering devious, always very busy and ant-like, always snorting loudly; grabbed another beetle, and then a worm—all by scent, apparently—and reached the hedge-ditch, where, in the pitch-darkness, he could still be heard snorting and scrunching hapless insects, slugs, and worms at scarcely more than one-minute intervals. And he never stopped. He seemed to have been appointed by Nature as a sort of machine, a spiked "tank," to sniff tirelessly about, reducing the surplus population of pests, as if he were under a curse—as, indeed, the whole of the great order of little beasts to which he belonged, the Insectivora, are—which, afflicting him with an insatiable hunger, drove him everlastingly to hunt blindly through the night for gastronomic horrors, and to eat 'em. Anyway, he did it, and in doing it seemed to make himself worthy of the everlasting thanks and protection of the people who owned that land—thanks which to date he had never received.

Strange to say, he never stopped of his own free-will, though he was stopped: once when he walked up to a man kneeling—and he was a poacher—and did not see him till, if I may so put it, the man coughed, when he ran like winkle into the hedge, and promptly became a ball for ten minutes; and once when he came upon a low, long, sinister, big, and grunting shadow, which again, if I be allowed the term, he did not see, though quite close, till he heard it grunt, when he instantly jerked himself into a ball on the spot and in the open. In both cases it seemed, on the face of it, more as if he had scented, rather than had either seen or heard, the dangers, and in both cases he had come within two yards of them—though they were not hidden—before scenting, seeing, or hearing them, whichever he did do.

Now, books and men have said that friend hedgehog fears only two things: gypsies and badgers—who eat him. I should not be surprised at anything the "gyp" did; nor, to this day, can we stake much on our knowledge of the secret badger; but this badger, at any rate, seemed to know nothing of books and men. He was delving for roots when the hedgehog cast up out of the night and jumped him to "attention" by his loud sniffs—much like a big dog's, I said. Thereafter, however, when our prickly friend was represented as a ball only, and was as silent as the grave, the badger took no further notice of him, beyond keeping one eye—the weather eye—upon him, and treating him to a low growl, or curse, truly, from time to time.