“As you like,” said the Hare. “Certainly it was very dreadful. It
seemed to last a long time. But I don’t mind it so much now, for I feel
that it can never happen to me again. At least I hope it can’t, for I
don’t know what I have done to deserve such a fate, any more than I
know why it should have happened to me once.”
“Something you did in a previous existence, perhaps,” I answered. “You
see then you may have hunted other creatures so cruelly that at last
your turn came to suffer what you had made them suffer. I often think
that because of what we have done before we men are also really being
hunted by something we cannot see.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the Hare, “I never thought of that. I hope it is true,
for it makes things seem juster and less wicked. But I say, friend
Mahatma, what am I doing here now, where you tell me poor creatures
with four feet never, or hardly ever come?”
“I don’t know, Hare. I am not wise, to whom it is only granted to visit
the Road occasionally to search for some one.”
“I understand, Mahatma, but still you must know a great deal or you
would not be allowed in such a place before your time, or at any rate
you must be able to guess a great deal. So tell me, why do you think
that I am here?”
“I can’t say, Hare, I can’t indeed. Perhaps after the Gates are open
and your Guardian has given you to drink of the Cup, you will go to
sleep and wake up again as something else.”
“To drink of the cup, Mahatma? I don’t drink; at least I didn’t, though
I can’t tell what may happen here. But what do you mean about waking up
as something else? Please be more plain. As what else?”
“Oh! who can know? Possibly as you are on the human Road you might even
become a man some day, though I should not advise you to build on such
a hope as that.”
“What do you say, Mahatma? A man! One of those two-legged beasts that
hunt hares; a thing like Giles and Tom—yes, Tom? Oh! not that—not that!
I’d almost rather go through everything again than become a cruel,
torturing man.”
As it spoke thus the Hare grew so disturbed that it nearly vanished;
literally it seemed to melt away till I could only perceive its
outline. With a kind of shock I comprehended all the horror that it
must feel at such a prospect as I had suggested to it, and really this
grasping of the truth hurt my human pride. It had never come home to me
before that the circumstances of their lives—and deaths—must cause some
creatures to see us in strange lights.
“Oh! I have no doubt I was mistaken,” I said hurriedly, “and that your
wishes on the point will be respected. I told you that I know nothing.”
At these words the Hare became quite visible again.
It sat up and very reflectively began to rub its still shadowy nose
with a shadowy paw. I think that it remembered the sting of the salt
water in the cut made by the glass of the window through which it had
sprung.
Believing that its remarkable story was done, and that presently it
would altogether melt away and vanish out of my knowledge, I looked
about me. First I looked above the towering Gates to see whether the
Lights had yet begun to change. Then as they had not I looked down the
Great White Road, following it for miles and miles, until even to my
spirit sight it lost itself in the Nowhere.
Presently coming up this Road towards us I saw a man dressed in a green
coat, riding-breeches and boots and a peaked cap, who held in his hand
a hunting-whip. He was a fine-looking person of middle age, with a
pleasant, open countenance, bright blue eyes, and very red cheeks, on
which he wore light-coloured whiskers. In short a jovial-looking
individual, with whom things had evidently always gone well, one to
whom sorrow and disappointment and mental struggle were utter
strangers. He, at least, had never known what it is to “endure
hardness” in all his life.
Studying his nature as one can do on the Road, I perceived also that in
him there was no guile. He was a good-minded, God-fearing man according
to his simple lights, who had done many kindnesses and contributed
liberally towards the wants of the poor, though as he had been very
rich, it had cost him little thus to gratify the natural promptings of
his heart.
Moreover he was what Jorsen calls a “young soul,” quite young indeed,
by which I mean that he had not often walked the Road in previous
states of life, as for instance that Eastern woman had done who
accosted me before the arrival of the Hare. So to speak his crude
nature had scarcely outgrown the primitive human condition in which
necessity as well as taste make it customary and pleasant to men to
kill; that condition through which almost every boy passes on his way
to manhood, I suppose by the working of some secret law of
reminiscence.
It was this thought that first led me to connect the new-comer with the
Red-faced Man of the Hare’s story. It may seem strange that I should
have been so dense, but the truth is that it never occurred to me, any
more than it had done to the Hare, that such a person would be at all
likely to tread the Road for many years to come. I had gathered that he
was comparatively young, and although I had argued otherwise with the
Hare, had concluded therefore that he would continue to live his happy
earth life until old age brought him to a natural end. Hence my
obtuseness.
The man was drifting towards me thoughtfully, evidently much bewildered
by his new surroundings but not in the least afraid. Indeed there none
are afraid; when they glide from their death-beds to the Road they
leave fear behind them with the other terrors of our mortal lot.
Presently he became conscious of the presence of the Hare, and thoughts
passed through his mind which of course I could read.
“My word!” he said to himself, “things are better than I hoped. There’s
a hare, and where there are hares there must be hunting and shooting.
Oh! if only I had a gun, or the ghost of a gun!”
Then an idea struck him. He lifted his hunting-crop and hurled it at
the Hare.
As it was only the shadow of a crop of course it could hurt nothing.
Still it went through the shadow of the Hare and caused it to twist
round like lightning.
“That was a good shot anyway,” he reflected, with a satisfied smile.
By now the Hare had seen him.
“_The Red-faced Man!_” it exclaimed, “Grampus himself!” and it turned
to flee away.
“Don’t be frightened,” I cried, “he can’t hurt you; nothing can hurt
you here.”
The Hare halted and sat up. “No,” it said, “I forgot. But you saw, he
tried to. Now, Mahatma, you will understand what a bloodthirsty brute
he is. Even after I am dead he has tried to kill me again.”
“Well, and why not?” interrupted the Man. “What are hares for except to
be killed?”
“There, Mahatma, you hear him. Look at me, Man, who am I?”
So he looked at the Hare and the Hare looked at him. Presently his face
grew puzzled.
“By Jingo!” he said slowly, “you are uncommonly like—you _are_ that
accursed witch of a hare which cost me my life. There are the white
marks on your back, and there is the grey splotch on your ear. Oh! if
only I had a gun—a real gun!”
“You would shoot me, wouldn’t you, or try to?” said the Hare. “Well,
you haven’t and you can’t. You say I cost you your life. What do you
mean? It was my life that was sacrificed, not yours.”
“Indeed,” answered the Man, “I thought you got away. Never saw any more
of you after you jumped through the French window. Never had time. The
last thing I remember is her Ladyship screaming like a mad cockatoo,
yes, and abusing me as though I were a pickpocket, with the
drawing-room all on fire. Then something happened, and down I went
among the broken china and hit my head against the leg of a table. Next
came a kind of whirling blackness and I woke up here.”
“A fit or a stroke,” I suggested.
“Both, I think, sir. The fit first—I have had ‘em before, and the
stroke afterwards—against the leg of the table. Anyway they finished me
between them, thanks to that little beast.”
Then it was that I saw a very strange thing, a hare in a rage. It
seemed to go mad, of course I mean spiritually mad. Its eyes flashed
fire; it opened its mouth and shut it after the fashion of a
suffocating fish. At last it spoke in its own way—I cannot stop to
explain in further detail the exact manner of speech or rather of its
equivalent upon the Road.
“Man, Man,” it exclaimed, “you say that I finished you. But what did
you do to me? You shot me. Look at the marks upon my back. You coursed
me with your running dogs. You hunted me with your hounds. You dragged
me out of the sea into which I swam to escape you by death, and threw
me living to the pack,” and the Hare stopped exhausted by its own fury.
“Well,” replied the Man coolly, “and suppose I, or my people, did, what
of it? Why shouldn’t I? You were a beast, I was a man with dominion
over you. You can read all about that in the Book of Genesis.”
“I never heard of the Book of Genesis,” said the Hare, “but what does
dominion mean? Does this Book of Genesis say that it means the right to
torment that which is weaker than the tormentor?”
“All you animals were made for us to eat,” commented the Man, avoiding
an answer to the direct question.
“Very good,” answered the Hare, “let us suppose that we _were_ given
you to eat. Was it in order to eat me that you came out against me with
guns, then with dogs that run by sight, and then with dogs that run by
smell?”
“If you were to be killed and eaten, why should you not be killed in
one of these ways, Hare?”
“Why should I be killed in those ways, Man, when others more merciful
were to your hand? Indeed, why should I be killed at all? Moreover, if
you wished to satisfy your hunger with my body, why at the last was I
thrown to the dogs to devour?”
“I don’t quite know, Hare. Never looked at the matter in that light
before. But—ah! I’ve got you now,” he added triumphantly. “If it hadn’t
been for me you never would have lived. You see _I_ gave you the gift
of life. Therefore, instead of grumbling, you should be very much
obliged to me. Don’t you understand? I preserved hares, so that without
me you would never have been a hare. Isn’t that right, Mr.— Mr.—I am
sorry I have forgotten your name,” he added, turning towards me.
“Mahatma,” I said.
“Oh! yes, I remember it now—Mr.—ah—Mr. Hatter.”
“There is something in the argument,” I replied cautiously, “but let us
hear our friend’s answer.”
“Answer—my answer! Well, here it is. What are you, Man, who dare to say
that you give life or withhold it? You a Lord of life, _you!_ I tell
you that I know little, yet I am sure that you or those like you have
no more power to create life than the world we have left has to bid the
stars to shine. If the life must come, it will come, and if it cannot
fulfil itself as a hare, then it will appear as something else. If you
say that you create life, I, the poor beast which you tortured, tell
you that you are a presumptuous liar.”
“You dare to lecture me,” said the Man, “me, the heir of all the ages,
as the poet called me. Why, you nasty little animal, do you know that I
have killed hundreds like you, and,” he added, with a sudden afflatus
of pride, “thousands of other creatures, such as pheasants, to say
nothing of deer and larger game? That has been my principal occupation
since I was a boy. I may say that I have lived for sport; got very
little else to show for my life, so to speak.”
“Oh!” said the Hare, “have you? Well, if I were you, I shouldn’t boast
about it just now. You see, we are still outside of those Gates. Who
knows but that you will find every one of the living things you have
amused yourself by slaughtering waiting for you within them, each
praying for justice to its Maker and your own?”
“My word!” said the Man, “what a horrible notion; it’s like a bad
dream.”
He reflected a little, then added, “Well, if they do, I’ve got my
answer. I killed them for food; man must live. Millions of pheasants
are sold to be eaten every year at a much smaller price than they cost
to breed. What do you say to that, Mr. Hatter? Finishes him, I think.”
“I’m not arguing,” I replied. “Ask the Hare.”
“Yes, ask me, Man, and although you are repeating yourself, I’ll answer
with another question, knowing that here you must tell the truth. Did
you really rear us all for food? Was it for this that you kept your
keepers, your running dogs and your hunting dogs, that you might kill
poor defenceless beasts and birds to fill men’s stomachs? If this was
so, I have nothing more to say. Indeed, if our deaths or sufferings at
their hands really help men in any way, I have nothing more to say. I
admit that you are higher and stronger than we are, and have a right to
use us for your own advantage, or even to destroy us altogether if we
harm you.”