“Good child,” I said, while I patted his cheek with my wing, “go your grandfather’s errands, but do not run so fast, else you will come to an untimely end.”
“Ah!” he replied, sadly, “love feels no fatigue. But come to one who needs your counsel. My grandfather is ill, bitten by the keeper’s dog.”
Repairing at once to the scene of the disaster, I found my old friend suffering intense pain from a wound in his right foot, which he carried slung in a willow-band. His head was also bandaged with soothing leaves brought by a neighbourly Deer.
Blood still flowed, affording fresh testimony of man’s tyranny.
“My dear Magpie,” said the venerable sufferer, whose face, although grave even to sadness, had lost nothing of its original simplicity, “our lot in this world is, at best, an unhappy one.”
“Alas!” I replied, “we encounter fresh tokens of our misery every day.”
“I know,” he continued, “that one ought always to be on one’s guard, and that the Hare is never certain to die peacefully in his form. The campaign begins badly. Here am I, perhaps blind of an eye, and certainly lamed so that a Spaniel might easily outrun me. Worse than all, I am told the shooting begins in a fortnight. I must therefore put my affairs in order, and leave the history of a short, but not uneventful life, to posterity to profit by. When mingling in the society of the world, one is constrained to observe a polite and prudent silence, and to disguise one’s true sentiments. But in prospect of death, brought face to face with the last enemy, one can never hope to win his clemency by polished lying and hypocrisy. My tale will therefore be unreserved and true. Besides, in bequeathing a valuable history to posterity there is a satisfaction in feeling that one’s influence will live, and prove a real power in the world long after the author’s death.”
I had the greatest difficulty in making him understand that I was quite of his opinion, for during his imprisonment he had become very deaf, and what rendered it still more disagreeable was that he obstinately denied being so. How many times have I not cursed the unnatural life which bereft him of hearing! I said in a loud tone, “It is a noble ambition to live one’s life over again in one’s works, and the history you are about to give to the world should enable you to face death calmly, as immortal fame may take the place of life. In any case, the book ought to see the light; it can do no harm.” He then told me that his troubles had been great. The wound in his right foot had prevented his using the pen. He tried to dictate to his grandchildren, but they, poor little ones, had only learned how to eat and sleep. It had occurred to him to teach his eldest child to commit the story to memory, and thus hand it down from father to son. “But,” he added, “oral traditions are never trustworthy; and as I have no desire to become a myth like the Great Buddha, or Saint Simon, I beg you will act as my amanuensis. My history would then, sir, reflect the lustre of your genius.”
Wishing to invest this, the most important and perhaps the last act of his life, with due solemnity, he retired for a few seconds. Being a learned Hare, he thought it necessary to commence with a quotation.
“Approchez, mes enfants, enfin l’heure est venue