“His doe?”
“Yes, his wife. Be quiet.”
It was a gentle call, infinitely tender and languishing. Far away we heard another call, like it, but hardly audible. From opposite sides of the forest the duet went on; and I began to understand that animals, like people, love to see and talk to one another. Suddenly, before me, crossing the path, I saw two long ears and a little ball of a brown body which seemed to bound over it. At the very edge the hare stopped, hearkened to the distant, guiding voice, once again uttered his heart-breaking cry, and disappeared in the neighbouring underbrush. He was hastening to join his mate, but I had had time to see him quite plainly.
Another time it was a fox. He must have scented us with his pointed muzzle, for he fled at top speed, his tail between his legs. Being learned in such matters through La Fontaine’s fables, and the “Scenes in Animal Life,” I informed grandfather that this was a plot and it would be well for us to make off.
“How stupid you are!” he exclaimed. “The fox is harmless.”
At which I was somewhat scandalised. But our walks were not always calm to this degree. From our favourite nook we sometimes heard, like a heavy rain, the galloping of a horse, and we would hardly manage to hide behind the trunk of a beech, when the colonel would appear, on horse-back. He had a short nose, a stiff moustache and hollow cheeks. He sat upright, knees out, looking at nothing, and as he passed he seemed to me a fearful man. Grandfather hastened to reassure me.
“He’s an old beast,” he said, “and his mount can’t trot any longer.”
I later learned that both had fought at Reichhoffen.
But on a graver occasion grandfather himself gave the signal for retreat. I saw him cock his ear after the fashion of the hare, then rise hastily from the grass on which we were sitting.
“Dogs,” he murmured, fearfully. “Let’s go.”