Now I have done with myself, or rather with my own insignificant
present history, and come to that of the Hare. It impressed me a good
deal at the time, which is not long ago, so much indeed that I
communicated the facts to Jorsen. He ordered me to publish them, and
what Jorsen orders must be done. I don’t know why this should be, but
it is so. He has authority of a sort that I am unable to define.
One night after the usual aspirations and concentration of mind, which
by the way are not always successful, I passed into what occultists
call spirit, and others a state of dream. At any rate I found myself
upon the borders of the Great White Road, as near to the mighty Gates
as I am ever allowed to come. How far that may be away I cannot tell.
Perhaps it is but a few yards and perhaps it is the width of this great
world, for in that place which my spirit visits time and distance do
not exist. There all things are new and strange, not to be reckoned by
our measures. There the sight is not our sight nor the hearing our
hearing. I repeat that all things are different, but that difference I
cannot describe, and if I could it would prove past comprehension.
There I sat by the borders of the Great White Road, my eyes fixed upon
the Gates above which the towers mount for miles on miles, outlined
against an encircling gloom with the radiance of the world beyond the
worlds. Four-square they stand, those towers, and fourfold the gates
that open to the denizens of other earths. But of these I have no
knowledge beyond the fact that it is so in my visions.
I sat upon the borders of the Road, my eyes fixed in hope upon the
Gates, though well I knew that the hope would never be fulfilled, and
watched the dead go by.
They were many that night. Some plague was working in the East and
unchaining thousands. The folk that it loosed were strange to me who in
this particular life have seldom left England, and I studied them with
curiosity; high-featured, dark-hued people with a patient air. The
knowledge which I have told me that one and all they were very ancient
souls who often and often had walked this Road before, and therefore,
although as yet they did not know it, were well accustomed to the
journey. No, I am wrong, for here and there an individual did know.
Indeed one deep-eyed, wistful little woman, who carried a baby in her
arms, stopped for a moment and spoke to me.
“The others cannot see you as I do,” she said. “Priest of the Queen of
queens, I know you well; hand in hand we climbed by the seven stairways
to the altars of the moon.”
“Who is the Queen of queens?” I asked.
“Have you forgotten her of the hundred names whose veils we lifted one
by one; her whose breast was beauty and whose eyes were truth? In a day
to come you will remember. Farewell till we walk this Road no more.”
“Stay—when did we meet?”
“When our souls were young,” she answered, and faded from my ken like a
shadow from the sea.
After the Easterns came many others from all parts of the earth. Then
suddenly appeared a company of about six hundred folk of every age and
English in their looks. They were not so calm as are the majority of
those who make this journey. When I read the papers a few days later I
understood why. A great passenger ship had sunk suddenly in mid ocean
and they were all cut off unprepared.
When, followed by a few stragglers, these had passed and gathered
themselves in the red shadow beneath the gateway towers waiting for the
summons, an unusual thing occurred. For a few moments the Road was left
quite empty. After that last great stroke Death seemed to be resting on
his laurels. When thus unpeopled it looked a very vast place like to a
huge arched causeway, bordered on either side by blackness, but itself
gleaming with a curious phosphorescence such as once or twice I have
seen in the waters of a summer sea at night.
Presently in the very centre of this illuminated desolation, whilst it
was as yet far away, something caught my eye, something so strange to
the place, so utterly unfamiliar that I watched it earnestly, wondering
what it might be. Nearer and nearer it came, with curious, uncertain
hops; yes, a little brown object that hopped.
“Well,” I said to myself, “if I were not where I am I should say that
yonder thing was a hare. Only what would a hare be doing on the Great
White Road? How could a hare tread the pathway of eternal souls? I must
be mistaken.”
So I reflected whilst still the thing hopped on, until I became certain
that either I suffered from delusions, or that it was a hare; indeed a
particularly fine hare, much such a one as a friend of my old landlady,
Mrs. Smithers, had once sent her as a Christmas present from Norfolk,
which hare I ate.
A few more hops brought it opposite to my post of observation. Here it
halted as though it seemed to see me. At any rate it sat up in the
alert fashion that hares have, its forepaws hanging absurdly in front
of it, with one ear, on which there was a grey blotch, cocked and one
dragging, and sniffed with its funny little nostrils. Then it began to
talk to me. I do not mean that it really talked, but the thoughts which
were in its mind were flashed on to my mind so that I understood
perfectly, yes, and could answer them in the same fashion. It said, or
thought, thus:—
“You are real. You are a man who yet lives beneath the sun, though how
you came here I do not know. I hate men, all hares do, for men are
cruel to them. Still it is a comfort in this strange place to see
something one has seen before and to be able to talk even to a man,
which I could never do until the change came, the dreadful change—I
mean because of the way of it,” and it seemed to shiver. “May I ask you
some questions?”
“Certainly,” I said or rather thought back.
“You are sure that they won’t make you angry so that you hurt me?”
“I can’t hurt you, even if I wished to do so. You are not a hare any
longer, if you ever were one, but only the shadow of a hare.”
“Ah! I thought as much, and that’s a good thing anyhow. Tell me, Man,
have you ever been torn to pieces by dogs?”
“Good gracious! no.”
“Or coursed, or hunted, or caught in a trap, or shot all over your
back, or twisted up in nets and choked in snares? Or have you swum out
to sea to die more easily, or seen your mate and mother and father
killed?”
“No, no. Please stop, Hare; your questions are very unpleasant.”
“Not half so unpleasant as the things are themselves, I can assure you,
Man. I will tell you my story if you like; then you can judge for
yourself. But first, if you will, do you tell me why I am here. Have
you seen more hares about this place?”
“Never, nor any other animals. No, I am wrong, once I saw a dog.”
The Hare looked about it anxiously.
“A dog. How horrible! What was it doing? Hunting? If there are no hares
here what could it be hunting? A rabbit, or a pheasant with a broken
wing, or perhaps a fox? I should not mind so much if it were a fox. I
hate foxes; they catch young hares when they are asleep and eat them.”
“None of these things. I was told that it belonged to a little girl who
died. That broke its heart, so that it died also when they shut her up
in a box. Therefore it was allowed to accompany her here because it had
loved so much. Indeed I saw them together, both very happy, and
together they went through those gates.”
“If dogs love little girls why don’t they love hares, at least as
anything likes to be loved, for the dog didn’t want to eat the little
girl, did it? I see you can’t answer me. Now would you like me to tell
you my story? Something inside of me is saying that I am to do so if
you will listen; also that there is plenty of time, for I am not wanted
at present, and when I am I can run to those gates much quicker than
you could.”
“I should like it very much, Hare. Once a prophet heard an ass speak in
order to warn him. But since then, except very, very rarely in dreams,
no creature has talked to a man, so far as I know. Perhaps you wish to
warn me about something, or others through me, as the ass warned
Balaam.”
“Who is Balaam? I never heard of Balaam. He wasn’t the man who fetches
dead pheasants in the donkey-cart, was he? If so, I’ve seen him make
the ass talk—with a thick stick. No? Well, never mind, I daresay I
should not understand about him if you told me. Now for my story.”
Then the Hare sat itself down, planting its forepaws firmly in front of
it, as these animals do when they are on the watch, looked up at me and
began to pour the contents of its mind into mine.
I was born, it said, or rather told me by thought transference, in a
field of growing corn near to a big wood. At least I suppose I was born
there, though the first thing I remember is playing about in the wheat
with two other little ones of my own size, a brother and a sister that
were born with me. It was at night, for a great, round, shining thing
which I now know was the moon, hung in the sky above us. We gambolled
together and were very happy, till presently my mother came—I remember
how big she looked—and cuffed me with her paw because I had led the
others away from the place where she had told us to stop, and given her
a great hunt to find us. That is the first thing I remember about my
mother. Afterwards she seemed sorry because she had hurt me, and nursed
us all three, letting me have the most milk. My mother always loved me
the best of us, because I was such a fine leveret, with a pretty grey
patch on my left ear. Just as I had finished drinking another hare came
who was my father. He was very large, with a glossy coat and big
shining eyes that always seemed to see everything, even when it was
behind him.
He was frightened about something, and hustled my mother and us little
ones out of the wheat-field into the big wood by which it is bordered.
As we left the field I saw two tall creatures that afterwards I came to
know were men. They were placing wire-netting round the field—you see I
understand now what all these things were, although of course I did not
at the time. The two ends of the wire netting had nearly come together.
There was only a little gap left through which we could run. Another
young hare, or it may have been a rabbit, had got entangled in it, and
one of the men was beating it to death with a stick. I remember that
the sound of its screams made me feel cold down the back, for I had
never heard anything like that before, and this was the first that I
had seen of pain and death.
The other man saw us slipping through and ran at us with his stick. My
mother went first and escaped him. Then came my sister, then I, then my
brother. My father was last of all. The man hit with his stick and it
came down thud along side of me, just touching my fur. He hit again and
broke the foreleg of my brother. Still we all managed to get through
into the wood, except my father who was behind.
“There’s the old buck!” cried one of the men (I understand what he said
now, though at the time it meant nothing to me). “Knock him on the
head!”
So leaving us alone they ran at him. But my father was much too quick
for them. He rushed back into the corn and afterwards joined us in the
wood, for he had seen wire before and knew how to escape it. Still he
was terribly frightened and made us keep in the wood till the following
evening, not even allowing my mother to go to her form in the rough
pasture on its other side and lie up there.
Also we were in trouble because my brother’s forepaw was broken. It
gave him a great deal of pain, so that he could not rest or sleep.
After a while, however, it mended up in a fashion, but he was never
able to run as fast as we could, nor did he grow so big. In the end the
mother fox killed him, as I shall tell.
My mother asked my father what the men with the sticks were doing—for,
you know, many animals can talk to each other in their own way, even if
they are of different kinds. He told her that they were protecting the
wheat to prevent us from eating it, to which she answered angrily that
hares must live somehow, especially when they had young ones to nurse.
My father replied that men did not seem to think so, and perhaps they
had young ones also. I see now that my father was a philosophic hare.
But are you tired of my story?
“Not at all,” I answered; “go on, please. It is very interesting to
hear things described from the animal’s point of view, especially when
that animal has grown wise and learned to understand.”
“Ah,” answered the Hare. “I see what you mean. And it is odd, but I do
understand. All has become clear to me. I don’t know what happened when
I died, but there came a change, and I knew that I who was but a beast
always have been and still am a necessary part of everything as much as
you are, though more helpless and humble. Yes, I am as ancient and as
far-reaching as yourself, but how I began and how I shall end is dark
to me. Well, I will go on with my story.”
It must have been a moon or so later, after my mother had given up
nursing me, that I went to lie out by myself. There was a big house on
the hillside overlooking the sea, and near to it were gardens
surrounded by a wall. Also outside of this wall was another patch of
garden where cabbages grew. I found a way to those cabbages and kept it
secret, for I was greedy and wanted them all for myself. I used to
creep in at night and eat them, also some flowers with spiky leaves
that grew round them which had a very fine flavour. Then after the dawn
came I went to a form which I had made under a furze bush on the slope
that ran down to the sea, and slept there.
One day I was awakened by something white, hard, and round which rolled
gently and stopped still quite close to me. It was not alive, although
it had a queer smell, and I wondered why it moved at all. Presently I
heard voices and there appeared a little man, and with him somebody who
was not a man because it was differently dressed and spoke in a higher
voice. I saw that they had sticks in their hands and thought of running
away, then that it would be safer to lie quite close. They came up to
me and the little man said—
“There’s the ball; pick it up, Ella, the lie is too bad.”
She, for now I know it was what is called a girl, stooped to obey and
saw my back.
“Tom,” she said in a whisper, “here’s a young hare on its form.”
“Get out of the light,” he answered, “and I’ll kill it,” and he lifted
the stick he held, which had a twisted iron end.
“No,” she said, “catch it alive; I want a hare to be a friend to my
rabbit, which has lost all its little ones.”
“Lost them? Eaten them, you mean, because you would always go and stare
at it,” said Tom. “Where’s the leveret? Oh! I see. Now, look out!”
A moment later and I was in darkness. Tom had thrown himself upon the
top of me and was grabbing at me with his hands. I nearly got away, but
as my head poked up under his arm the girl caught hold of it.
“Oh! it’s scratching,” she cried, as indeed I was with all my might.
“Hold it, Tom, hold it!”
“Hold it yourself,” said Tom, “my face is full of furze prickles.” So
she held and presently he helped her, till in the end I was tied up in
a pocket-handkerchief and carried I knew not whither. Indeed I was
almost mad with fear.
When I came to myself I found that I was within a kind of wire run
which smelt foully, as though hundreds of things had lived in it for
years. There was a hutch at the end of the run in which sat an enormous
she-rabbit, quite as big as my mother, a fierce-looking brute with long
yellow teeth. I was afraid of that rabbit and got as far from it as I
could. Presently it hopped out and looked at me.
“What are you doing here?” it asked. “Can’t you talk? Well, it doesn’t
matter. If I get hungry I’ll eat you! Do you hear that? I’ll eat you,
as I did all the others,” and it showed its big yellow teeth and hopped
back into the hutch.
After that Tom and the girl came and gave us plenty of food which the
big rabbit ate, for I could touch nothing. For two days they came, and
then I think they forgot all about us. I grew very hungry, and at night
filled myself with some of the remaining food, such as stale cabbage
leaves. By next morning all was gone, and the big rabbit grew hungry
also. All that day it hopped about sniffing at me and showing its
yellow teeth.
“I shall eat you to-night,” it said.
I ran round and round the pen in terror, till at last I found a place
where rats had been working under the wire, almost big enough for me to
squeeze through, but not quite.
The sun went down and the big she-rabbit came out.
“Now I am going to eat you,” it said, “as I ate all the others. I am
hungry, very hungry,” and it prodded me about with its nose and rolled
me over.
At last with a little squeal it drove its big yellow teeth into me
behind. Oh! how they hurt! I was near the rat-hole. I rushed at it,
scrabbling and wriggling. The big rabbit pounced on me with its
fore-feet, trying to hold me, but too late, for I was through, leaving
some of my fur behind me. I ran, how I ran! without stopping, till at
length I found my mother in the rough pasture by the wood and told her
everything.
“Ah!” she said, “that’s what comes of greediness and of trying to be
too clever. Now, perhaps, you will learn to stop at home.”
So I did for a long while.
The summer went by without anything particular happening, except that
my brother with the lame foot was eaten by the mother fox. That great
red beast was always prowling about, and at night surprised us in a
field near the wood where we were feeding on some beautiful turnips.
The rest of us got away, but my brother being lame, was not quick
enough. The fox caught him, and I heard her sharp white teeth crunch
into his bones. The sound made me quite sick, and my mother was very
sad afterwards. She complained to my father of the cruelty of foxes,
but he, who, as I have said, was a philosopher, answered her almost in
her own words.
“Foxes must live, and this one has young to feed, and therefore is
always hungry. There are three of them in a hole at the top of the
wood,” he remarked. “Also our son was lame and would certainly have
been caught when the hunting begins.”
“What’s the hunting?” I asked.
“Never mind,” said my father sharply. “No doubt you’ll find out in
time, that is if you live through the shooting.”
“What’s the shooting?” I began, but my father cuffed me over the head
and I was silent.
I may tell you that my mother soon got over the loss of my brother, for
just about that time she had four new little ones, after which neither
she nor my father seemed to think any more about us. My sister and I
hated those little ones. We two alone remembered my brother, and
sometimes wondered whether he was quite gone or would one day come
back. The fox, I am glad to say, got caught in a trap. At least I am
not glad now—I was glad because, you see, I was so much afraid of her.