The Story of a Hare

by J. C. Tregarthen

Just beyond the milestone he frisked and frolicked, and in the same high spirits galloped along the track as far as the granite cross, where, in his leverethood, he had scampered up and down the then dusty way under the eyes of his mother. At the cross he stood and listened as he had listened then, but there was not a sound; even the little stream had been frozen into silence. So he fell to rolling on the crisp surface, which crackled under him; then jumping to his feet, he scratched a pit in the snow simply to get rid of the energy which the nip in the air had excited. About midnight he galloped off through the deep snow at a pace that was surprisingly rapid, considering the weight of the snow that clung to his fur. Soon he was out of sight.

Four hours later he repassed the cross on his way home. The heavens were as resplendent as ever; Orion showed no sign of fading, the Milky Way was still a path of splendour, but the hamlet lay in gloom, and save for the rocking of a cradle, was as silent as the hills. In the homestead there was not a sound, and as if afraid to disturb the quiet, the hare stole noiselessly as a ghost to the form, where he sat watching for the dawn without a thought of sinister intrusion on the yard.

Yet he had not been there long when the cruel head of a polecat showed at the far corner by the pigsty, whence it surveyed the enclosure. She had not come for prey, she had come for shelter, and her keen eyes were peering here, there, and everywhere to see that the coast was clear before she tried to reach the retreat that had taken her fancy. Presently she galloped past the door of the cattle-house and made her way to the top of the barn steps. There she stood looking for a way in, and descrying a hole in the shutter, she scrambled up and aslant the mud wall till she gained it and squeezed through. She had not long disappeared, however, when to the amazement of the hare, her head was suddenly thrust through the snow covering the thatch, and the next instant she was hurrying over the white surface to enter the pigeon-cote. Now the cote was the home of an owl. Scarcely had the polecat curled up in it when the bird alighted on the sill, discovered the intruder, and made such a to-do that the polecat at once came out lest man’s notice should be attracted, her presence revealed, and—the dread of her life—hue and cry raised. In the circumstances she was for peace at any price. Dashing past the owl she made down the roof to the hole in the thatch, where she struggled for some time to get through. At last as the result of a desperate effort she forced a passage to the barn, and so reached the yard by the way she came. From the foot of the steps she headed for the narrow passage by which she had entered, but, instead of following it, she skirted the pigsty, the poultry-houses and the open shed, with the intention of crossing the wall to the turf-rick which she had noticed from the roof. She reached the wall and was about to climb it when the latch of the kitchen door lifted. At the sound she abandoned her purpose, and that very unwisely, because she was in quite as much danger of being seen as if she had crossed the wall. For where was she to hide? There was the open shed, it is true, but she could hardly hope to gain it before the man reached the yard. “Crunch, crunch, crunch,” sounded the snow under his feet; he was already close to the gate, discovery was imminent. In desperation, the bewildered creature dived into a hole in the snow made by a hoof of one of the yearlings. Even then her tail was exposed for some seconds before she succeeded in worming a way out of sight, but it did not catch the eye of the man, and for the time at least she was safe.

The hare, who had observed every movement of the polecat, kept a close watch on the spot, for he greatly feared that the creature would cross the wall at the first opportunity and perhaps discover him.

Meanwhile the hind busied himself about his ordinary duties until near noon, when he began to remove the snow from the front door, a sure sign that guests were expected. As he shovelled, he sang:

“I saw dree ships come sailing in,

Sailing in, come sailing in,

I saw dree ships come sailing in,

On Christmas Day in the morning”—

shovelling and singing till the steps and the path all the way to the gate were clear. No sooner had he finished than the farmer’s three sons arrived, with their wives and families, the women riding pillion behind their husbands, and the children in panniers borne by donkeys. There was quite a string of donkeys; the headgear of each and of the little foal which closed the procession, was decked with holly; the merry voices of the laughing, chattering children rang out most musically. Last of all came the fiddler, a long, lean man, shivering in his thin garments as he ran, his nose blue with cold, his violin in a green baize bag under his arm. He threw a snowball at Andrew, then skipped up the steps like a lamplighter, and as the door closed on the heels of his cloth boots, it shut in the welcome with which the children greeted his arrival.