The Story of a Hare

by J. C. Tregarthen

The light in the farmhouse window was yet burning when he ceased feeding and began wandering over the moor. He was not happy. The vague misgivings which had harassed him whilst in the form, the disquiet caused by ancestral monitions, became real fears when he recognised that he was leaving a trail easy to follow unless he confused it. Whereupon, coming to the end of the outward journey, he wove a maze of tracks amidst the scattered bushes, and the better to conceal the line by which he returned, crept along an overgrown ditch where only a practised poacher could have traced him. He roamed until day was about to break, and when the sun arose it found him sitting by the spring near the Fairies’ Green.

He was very tired, but afraid to drowse. Every moment he expected to see some enemy coming along his trail, and for hours he kept watch on the white plain till sleep claimed him, leaving his sentinel senses on guard. No moving objects, however, fell on his sight, nothing save the waste of snow and the vapour over the spring: no sound smote his ears except the purl of the rill and the faint tinkle of the ice-crystals on the sedge, so that—a most unusual occurrence—he did not awake till the sun was about to go down and it was time to think of leaving the form. After an uneventful night’s wandering he returned to the seat, and would have continued to use it had not the wind risen again, rendering the situation so inclement that he had no choice but to go.

His intention was disclosed by his carelessness on quitting the form. Instead of bounding from it, as was his usual practice, he simply stepped out, leaving tracks that a child might have traced home, and leaping across the runnel he rolled on the green, a thing he would never have done had he meant to come back. Very different was his conduct at dawn in the field by Johanna’s Garden. He crossed and criss-crossed his tracks before springing on to the hedge, and from that into the garden, where, after two of his longest leaps, he squatted some dozen yards from the medlar.

Yet, carefully as he had concealed his approach, he could not conceal his person. Indeed, he looked very conspicuous on the surface, which, if not quite flat, was only slightly wavy from the ridge and furrow beneath. Perhaps he knew that snow threatened, and relied on it to hide him. However that may be, the flakes began to fall thickly soon after he had settled down, and when they ceased he was as effectually covered as he had been on the hill. Then the sun came out, turning countryside and garden into a glittering fairyland.

The resplendent enclosure seemed to be crying out for some creature to enjoy its delights, when suddenly, without a sound to announce their approach, two full-grown stoats appeared on the wall by the badgers’ creep and stood looking down at the snow. They were not seeking the tracks of the hare, they were not hunting, they were abroad simply for the snow, and the next instant they sprang to the ground and began rolling over one another, uttering a happy chuckling noise the while. On separating they wallowed in the snow, as if they could not get enough of the joy of it. But all at once they rose to their feet, raised their long necks and listened; an unusual sound had alarmed them. It was only the noise made by the snow that fell from the overladen branches, and the instant they discovered the cause, they resumed their romps, twisting and turning like snakes and time after time leaping into the air. The height they jumped was quite surprising; almost eerie was their speed as they galloped over the snow.

The hare watched them at their games without serious alarm, he was almost interested in their movements, when presently they fell to “hide and seek,” but the moment they gave over playing and began searching the furrows for mice he was in dread lest in their tunnellings they should bump against and discover him. Hence he kept an anxious look-out, and when a long interval passed without a sign of them he suffered agonies of fear. Even when they did show, it was not much he saw, just their heads, and that only for a moment or two. As they approached, however, he could discern the slight heave of the snow that attended their progress. Presently up popped the head of the nearest, within a few yards, and when it was withdrawn up popped the head of the other in the adjacent furrow, only to disappear again as the two made their way towards the gate. The hare, more and more terrified, awaited their return, and before long saw the snow lift along the furrow next the one in which he sat. Then the head of the stoat appeared, but was instantly drawn back as a dark shadow fell on the snow.

It was a kite who, in her station high overhead, had espied the stoats, and carrion-feeder though she usually was, had come after them. For the bird, ravenous with hunger, was forced to get anything she could secure, and from the medlar-tree on which she alighted watched the snow eagerly for sign of the prey. The stoats, aware of her presence, lay as still as death. An hour, two hours passed, then the bigger stoat cautiously raised his head to reconnoitre, and on seeing that the kite was still there, as cautiously withdrew it, hoping thus to escape her attention. But in vain: nothing could escape the bird’s fierce, searching eyes. She instantly glided to the spot, and with the outstretched talons of her great yellow feet kept grabbing at the heaving snow, yet always too far back to secure the retreating stoat, for he moved with amazing rapidity and never once stopped nor showed his head. Of course the kite could move as fast as he, and ought to have caught him; indeed she would have done, had she not been so stupid as to keep striking just behind him. A more exciting chase could hardly be witnessed; again and again the kite seemed to have learned wisdom and to be about to close her talons on the stoat, but as often failed, and when at last she struck directly above the stoat he had gained the drift by the hedge and was too deep for her to reach. Thus the pursuit came to an end, but not the incident, for from his vantage ground the stoat chattered insults at the bird as she flew back to the tree to await the appearance of the other stoat.

The second stoat, however, had peeped out during the chase and, seeing the way clear, ran to the near hedge, where she lay safe amongst the stones that once formed the walls of the cottage. Her tracks on the snow told of her withdrawal; but they had no message for the kite who, after watching in vain till the day was nearly gone, at last spread her wide wings and sailed away in the direction of the Kites’ Carn. Lucky creature, thought the hare, whose eyes followed the bird’s flight as far as the narrow peep-hole allowed, lucky creature to be able to glide through the air and avoid the drifts. The reflection came into his mind that night as he struggled through deep snow near High Down, whither he was attracted by the hawthorn bushes.

On reaching the bleak spot, he went from tree to tree gnawing the bark on the windward side, so that while he fed, his back was to the gale and his face in a measure protected from the driven snow. He seemed to prefer the rind on the upper part of the stem, for at each of the three bushes he stood on his hind feet and reached as high as he could, despite the swaying of the bushes under the gusts that shook them. The creaking noise they made formed a weird harmony with the moan of the wind, which was quite in keeping with the spirit of the haggard upland.

Soon the hare, unable to endure the bitter cold, forsook the down for the lowland and made for home. Home! Can it be said that he had ever had a home? The hill had perhaps the best claim, then there was the Fairies’ Green, and the moor, but all of them too exposed for him now, hardiest of earth’s children though he was. Privation, besides, had begun to tell on him, and in his weakened condition he turned from the wild to seek the protection afforded by man; so he was making for the homestead of whose daily life he had been so close an observer, striking through the blinding storm over field and waste as unfalteringly as though guided by some visible beacon.