There was no wind. The young fir-trees stood up straight and tall and
stiffly pointed from the noiseless white levels of the snow. The
blue-white moon of midwinter, sharply glittering like an icicle, hung
high in a heaven clear as tempered steel.
The young fir-trees were a second growth, on lands once well cleared, but
afterward reclaimed by the forest. They rose in serried phalanxes, with
here and there a solitary sentinel of spruce, and here and there a little
huddling group of yellow birches. The snow-spaces between formed
sparkling alleys, and long, mysterious vistas, expanding frequently into
amphitheatres of breathless stillness and flooding radiance. There was no
trace of that most ghostly and elusive winter haze which represents the
fine breathing of the forest. Rather the air seemed like diamonds held in
solution, fluent as by miracle, and not without strange peril to be
jarred by sound or motion.
Yet presently the exaggerated tension of the stillness was broken, and no
disaster followed. Two small, white, furry shapes came leaping, one
behind the other, down a corridor of radiance, as lightly as if a wind
were lifting and drifting them. It was as if some of the gentler spirits
of the winter and the wild had seized the magic hour for an incarnation.
Leaping at gay leisure, their little bodies would lengthen out to a span
of nearly three feet, then round themselves together so that the soft
pads of their hinder paws would touch the snow within a couple of inches
of the prints from which their fore paws were even then starting to rise.
The trail thus drawn down the white aisle consisted of an orderly
succession of close triplicate bunches of footprints, like no other trail
of the wild folk. From time to time the two harmonious shapes would halt,
sit up on their hindquarters, erect their long, attentive ears, glance
about warily with their bulging eyes which, in this position, could see
behind as well as in front of their narrow heads, wrinkle those cleft
nostrils which were cunning to differentiate every scent upon the sharp
air, and then browse hastily but with a cheerful relish at the spicy
shoots of the young yellow birch. Feeding, however, was plainly not their
chief purpose. Always within a few moments they would resume their
leaping progress through the white glitter and the hard, black shadows.
Very soon their path led them out into a wide glade, fenced all about
with the serried and formal ranks of the young firs. It seemed as if the
blue-white moon stared down into this space with a glassiness of
brilliance even more deluding and magical than elsewhere. The snow here
was crossed by a tangle of the fine triplicate tracks. Doubling upon
themselves in all directions and with obvious irresponsibility, they were
evidently the trails of play rather than of business or of flight. Their
pattern was the pattern of mirth; and some half dozen wild white rabbits
were gaily weaving at it when the two newcomers joined them. Long ears
twinkling, round eyes softly shining, they leaped lightly hither and
thither, pausing every now and then to touch each other with their
sensitive noses, or to pound on the snow with their strong hind legs in
mock challenge. It seemed to be the play of care-free children, almost a
kind of confused dance, a spontaneous expression of the joy of life.
Nevertheless, for all the mirth of it, there was never a moment when two
or more of the company were not to be seen sitting erect, with watchful
ears and eyes, close in the shadow of the young fir-trees. For the night
that was so favourable to the wild rabbits was favourable also to the
fox, the wildcat, and the weasel. And death stalks joy forever among the
kindred of the wild.
From time to time one or another of the leaping players would take
himself off through the fir-trees, while others continued to arrive along
the moonlight trails. This went on till the moon had swung perhaps an
hour’s distance on her shining course; then, suddenly it stopped; and
just for a fleeting fraction of a breath all the players were motionless,
with ears one way. From one or another of the watchers there had come
some signal, swift, but to the rabbits instantly clear. No onlooker not
of the cleft-nose, long-ear clan could have told in what the signal
consisted, or what was its full significance. But whatever it was, in a
moment the players were gone, vanishing to the east and west and south,
all at once, as if blown off by a mighty breath. Only toward the north
side of the open there went not one.
[Illustration: “ALL THE PLAYERS WERE MOTIONLESS, WITH EARS ONE WAY.”]
Nevertheless, the moon, peering down with sharp scrutiny into the
unshadowed northern fringes of the open, failed to spy out any lurking
shape of fox, wildcat, or weasel. Whatever the form in which fate had
approached, it chose not to unmask its menace. Thereafter, for an hour or
more, the sparkling glade with its woven devices was empty. Then,
throughout the rest of the night, an occasional rabbit would go bounding
across it hastily, on affairs intent, and paying no heed to its
significant hieroglyphs. And once, just before moon-set, came a large red
fox and sniffed about the tangled trails with an interest not untinged
with scorn.