The Story of a Hare

by J. C. Tregarthen

Remarkable as was that December for the inrush of common birds, it was scarcely less so for the rarer visitants: a bittern harboured in the reed-bed of the pool, a gaggle of bernicle geese haunted Porthcurnow Cove, five wild swans sought a refuge in the waters of Whitesand Bay, whilst quite a number of Dartford warblers and firecrests found sanctuary in the snug brakes of Golden Valley. There was not a sheltered bottom or bay without its feathered guests. On the other hand, not a bird was to be found on the hills: Sancreed Beacon, Caer Bran, Bartinney, were deserted by every living thing save hibernating adder, slow-worm, and newt; the old toad and the hare were the sole tenants of Chapel Carn Brea.

Protected by his thick winter coat the hare was able to withstand the nipping frosts that blackened all but the hardiest and most unpalatable herbage, to which he was for the most part now driven for support. He fed on furze and lichens and no longer looked forward to the joys of pasturing time. Instead, his thoughts turned to the nights of plenty, to remembered feasts on tender corn and sweet trefoil, to banquets on fragrant thyme and juicy sow-thistles, to titbits like the pinks, above all to the musk, the tastiest morsel that his beats had furnished. He never wearied of dwelling on the appetising list; he would rehearse it again and again, and wonder whether the good things of the honeysuckle time would ever come again. He quite lost himself in these reveries; the hissing of the wind, even the ring of the horse’s hoofs that broke in on his musings as the farmer rode away to market, failed to disturb them.

He was trying to recall the flavour of dandelions as he dreamily watched man and horse cross the lowland which seemed to shrink and cower beneath the low-hanging sky. Clouds, grey and depressing, spread from horizon to horizon save in the south-west, where at close of day after day the red sun emblazoned the heaven, and for a brief while bathed ocean and promontory with its cheery rays. They were especially pleasing to the hare, coming as they did between the dull day and the dark night when he wandered far and wide after pasture. Yet widely as he roamed he never came across the packs of stoats which the host of birds had attracted, nor—a thing that excited his surprise—once encountered Grey Fox.

Nevertheless he often thought of him, wondering what had befallen him: whether he had met his death from the lurcher or been expelled from the earth by the badgers and betaken himself elsewhere. Neither supposition was right. Like the stoat-packs, Grey Fox harboured in the valleys, attracted by the easily captured prey and making the most of his opportunity. It was well for him that he did. In the middle of December snow fell, shutting off food from the birds and causing all but the hardiest to perish of hunger.

It would seem that the wind had delayed the fall, for no sooner did it die away than the flakes began to descend, lightly at first, then close enough to hide all but the nearest objects, so that when at last they ceased, the land was covered to a depth of several inches. Spray and frond did not submit more passively to the fall than did the hare; in the end he was as completely hidden as a sheep in a drift. And like the sheep he had not to bear the weight of his covering, for the heat of his body thawed the snow round it, with the result that, when it froze again, a shell of ice was formed, thin indeed, yet able to sustain its load. For a while the hare was in complete darkness, but his breath presently melted the snow in front of his nostrils, forming a peep-hole through which he looked out on a world he could no longer recognise. His very threshold seemed strange; only the side of the near boulder with its streaks of yellow and grey lichens presented a familiar face.

The heavy fall had cleared the sky, whence a vast array of stars looked down on a world as hushed as the depths they lighted. A wondrous silence reigned over hill and plain, till it was broken in the dead of night by a vixen calling from beyond the farm. The penetrating cry had scarcely died away when from the distance came a faint response. On hearing it the vixen squalled again, and was answered from Bartinney.

Again the awful squall rang out; this time the reply rose from beside the rock near the chantry. The sharp yap, thrice repeated, made the hare tremble, and no wonder, for it seemed to him to proceed from the back of his snow-hut. Then he heard the muffled thud of approaching footfall, and the next instant the form of Grey Fox flashed by as he bounded down the hill straight for the curlew-moor, whence the vixen had called.

Perhaps it was as well for the hare that a vague fear, caused by the new element, had kept him to the seat, for had Grey Fox and his mate chanced on him before he was accustomed to the snow, the countryside might have known him no more.

But staying within his snow-hut was not without its drawbacks; he had to suffer for his inaction; his fore legs ached; his hind legs were gripped by cramp; even worse than that was the itching of his ears, which he was afraid to scratch for fear of bringing his house down.

Luckily these attacks came one at a time, until the hour before sunset, when they fell together and nearly drove him mad. The red sun that had previously been such a comfort to him, now seemed as if it would never go down and set him free to stretch his limbs and scratch his ears. But it sank at last, though a bit of the rim still showed when he burst out and made off like the wind. Beyond the chantry he pulled up; he would at last be rid of the itching in his ears; but the cramp threatened and sent him going again. So down the hill he tore, putting his feet into a blind hole and tumbling head over heels with the impetus of his rush. He was on his feet in a twinkling, and aided by the hairy soles of his pads, scurried over the frozen surface with singular ease towards the linhay field, where he began scraping the snow away to get at the herbage beneath. What little he found he ate ravenously, but there was not enough to stay his hunger, which he appeased with the shoots of the furze.