but which, fortunately, resulted in nothing more than a passing fright.
In the stalk of the rye occurs a knot, forming a slight bulge known to
the peasantry as the "sweet joint." Rabbits and hares are extremely fond
of this succulent morsel, and, in consequence, the rye-crop, if near a
large warren, is in danger of being totally destroyed. Puss one night
had wandered far to a field, where, some time before, she had discovered
a patch of standing rye. The few remaining stalks were hard and
uninviting, but there were some delicious parsnips among the root-crops.
At dawn she settled down to hide between the rows of swedes close by,
and remained secreted for the day; but towards evening a sportsman came
in at the gate, and, with a low word of command and a wave of the arm,
"threw off" his brace of red setters to range the field. Working
systematically to right and left, the dogs sought eagerly for game. Soon
the hare was scented, and while Juno, with stiffened "stern" and
uplifted paw, stood almost over her, Random, "backing" his companion,
set towards the furrow where Puss, perfectly rigid, and with ears well
over her shoulders, crouched low, prepared for instant flight. Step by
step the sportsman, with gun in readiness, moved towards Juno,
cautioning her against excitement; while Random, sinking on his
haunches, awaited patiently the issue of events. Suddenly, convinced
that in flight lay her surest chance of escape, the hare leaped from her
"seat," and with the utmost speed, though from the ease of her motions
appearing to run slowly, made her way towards the hedgerow. There was a
quick rush behind her as she started from the furrow, and then a loud,
rasping exclamation from the sportsman, but nothing more; no shot was
fired. She owed her life to several circumstances. The dogs were young,
and in strict training; their master, knowing the natural fondness of
"first season" setters for "chasing fur," had purposely refrained from
killing the hare, and had turned his attention to the behaviour of his
dogs. Then, again, he cherished a certain fondness for Puss, believing
her to be the most persecuted, as well as the most innocent and
interesting, of Nature's wildlings in the wind-swept upland fields.
Henceforward, but for one other incident, the life of the hare was
singularly uneventful till the early spring. That incident occurred
within a week of her escape from the setters, and once more her luck was
due to the humanity of him who had found her among the turnips. The
farm-lands frequented by the leveret were a favourite resort of many of
her kind, and when moving about in the darkness of the night she often
found signs of their presence near the gaps and gateways. The sportsman,
knowing well that after harvest the poaching instincts of the peasantry
and of the professional village "mouchers" would receive fresh stimulus,
determined to forestall his enemies, and render futile some, at least,
of their endeavours. So it came about that one night a keeper, assisted
by several of the guests at the "big house" in the valley, and having
previously made every preparation for the event, placed a net near each
gate and before each likely gap within a radius of half a mile from the
heart of the estate.
Unless hard pressed, a hare seldom leaves a field except by certain
well-known openings in the hedgerow. Unlike the rabbit, she will not
readily leap over any obstacle beneath which she can crawl; and whereas
the "creep" of a rabbit through a gateway or a hedgerow is well-nigh
invariably at right angles to the line of that gateway or hedgerow, the
"creep" of a hare tends sideways and is sometimes slightly curved. To
net hares successfully it is necessary to know their habits; and the
keeper, having served a lifelong apprenticeship in field-craft, was
prepared for every emergency. His object at this time was not to kill
the hares, but simply to educate them, to warn them thoroughly once for
all against the wiles of their worst enemy, the poacher.
As Puss was busily feeding in the dewy clover, she heard the quick,
continuous gallop of a dog. This time, however, she had not to deal with
Juno, the setter, but with a trained lurcher, borrowed for the occasion
from a keeper who had captured the animal during a poaching affray. The
leveret, peeping over the grass-tops, saw the dog coming rapidly on. He
was over and past her in an instant. As he turned, she started off
straight towards an opening where some sheep had partly broken down the
hedge. The lurcher closed in, and drove her thither at tremendous speed.
She strained every nerve, and, gaining the ditch, blundered blindly
through the gap, and fell, helpless and inert, entangled completely
within the treacherous folds of the unseen net. Her piteous cries,
tremulous, wailing, heart-rending--similar to the cries of a suffering
infant--were borne far and wide on the wind. The keeper soon reached the
spot, and, placing his hand over her mouth to stop the cries, tenderly
extricated the frightened creature from the treacherous meshes and
allowed her to go free. For a few seconds, she lay in abject fright,
panting and unable to move. Then, hearing the cries of another hare
entangled in a bag-net some distance away, she bounded to her feet, and
darted off--somewhere, anywhere, so long as she might leave the awful
peril behind. Bewildered, but with every instinct assisting her in the
desire for life, she ran along by the hedgerow, and, unexpectedly
catching sight of a familiar gate, crouched and passed quickly through
the "creep" beneath the lowest bar. But here, again, a net was spread;
again the hare fell screaming and struggling into the meshes; and again
the keeper released her. Exhausted by intense excitement and fear, she
crawled into the "trash" in the ditch, and kept in hiding, not daring
the risk of another capture. Luckily for Puss, the lurcher had already
hunted the field in which she was now secreted, and so the timid
creature remained undisturbed beneath the fern. When her wildly
throbbing heart had been quieted by rest and solitude, she stole from
her hiding place to nibble the clover at the side of the path. Towards
dawn, she journeyed to a wide stretch of moorland on the opposite hills,
and there made a new "form" on a rough bank that separated a reedy
hollow from the undulating wilderness of heather and fern.
The leveret's adventures were destined to effect a considerable change
in her habits. She was being roughly taught that to preserve her life
she must be ever cautious and vigilant. Though danger threatened her by
day and by night, she lived beyond the usual period of a hare's
existence, partly because her early education was thorough and severe.
Thus taught, she would pause for an instant at every gap and gateway
before she passed through, and, if she found a net in her path, would
turn aside, creep along by the hedge, and seek an exit at another place.
The perils to which she had been exposed created a feeling of intense
restlessness, which harassed her throughout the winter months, and
caused her to travel long distances, by the loneliest lanes and fields,
to and from the moorland where now she had made her home. She remembered
the scent of a human being since her experiences with the keeper, and,
her powers of smell being wonderfully acute, was able to detect even the
faintest signs which indicated that her dread enemy--man--had crossed
her path. One night she smelt the touch of a hand on the grass-bents
near her "form," and found also that the herbage had been moved aside.
Though the scent was faint--the intruder having visited the spot soon
after the leveret had set out in quest of food--the cautious creature
forsook her lair, and spent the day in a sheltered retreat beside a heap
of dry and withered leaves near the outskirts of a copse on the slope
overlooking the moor.
Gradually she grew big and strong, becoming unusually fat as the autumn
advanced, so that she would be able, if required, to withstand the
rigour and the waste of a severe winter. Her coat was thick and
beautifully soft, for protection against cold and damp. But while she
increased in weight, she remained in hard condition because of her long
journeys and frequent change of quarters.
It happened, however, that her first winter was helpful to the welfare
of animal life in general. The heavy rains, it is true, greatly
distressed the leveret. The nights were so dark, and the constant patter
of the rain so interfered with even her highly trained powers of
hearing, that, while the wet weather lasted, she seldom dared to leave
the neighbourhood of her favourite resort, but crouched in the grass at
the margin of the copse, and tried to obtain a meal as best she could
from the sodden herbage.
Though on certain occasions Puss might have been discovered in hiding
on the marsh, yet there, whenever possible, she chose a dry spot for her
"seat." She loved, best of all, the undulating hills far above the
river-mists, which, chilled at nightfall by an occasional frost,
descended on the fields like crystal dust, and almost choked her if she
chanced to pass within these wreathing drifts that brought discomfort
and disease to man and beast alike.
But the want of exercise so affected her, that, when again the weather
was fine and she ventured from her lair, she found herself unable to
cover the usual distance of her nightly rambles. As the first cold
glimmer of the dawn appeared in the south-eastern sky, she started back,
in alarm at her fatigue, to complete the remaining mile of her journey
home. Her weakness soon became apparent. Then, finding herself powerless
to proceed, she turned reluctantly aside, and crouched, with Nature's
mimicry for her protection, on the brown ploughland where the winter
wheat was thrusting up its first green sprouts above the soil. But after
a few days she was well and strong again. She suffered far less from
the short, sharp frost that bound the countryside with its icy fetters,
than from the rains. The frost scarcely interfered with her movements;
indeed, it made exercise more than ever necessary. Forced to seek
diligently for her food, she found it in a deserted stubble; there, when
the sheep lay sleeping in the bright winter moonlight, she would squat
beside them, nibbling the turnips scattered over the field as provender
for the flock.
II.
MARCH MADNESS.
March came in "like a lion." The wind whistled round the farmstead on
the hill, and through the doorway of the great kitchen, and down the
open chimney. It woke up the old, grey-haired farmer who dozed on the
"skew" in the ingle-nook by the crackling wood-fire; it almost made him
feel young again with the vigour of the boisterous spring. It sang in
the key-hole of the door between the passage and the best parlour; the
mat at the threshold flapped with a sound as of pattering feet; and the
gaudy calendars on the wall flew up like banners streaming in the
breeze. The old man turned, and eagerly watched the hailstones, as they
dropped tinkling on the roofs of the outhouses, or, driven aslant by
the wind, crashed hissing against the ground, and, rebounding, rolled
across the pebbled yard. The labourers came home to the mid-day meal,
and, pausing at the door, shook the hail from their garments.
"Lads," said the farmer, "I've been spared to hear the whisper of
another spring."
"God be thanked!" said the hind, "for seasonable weather at last. Every
man to his trencher! the broth is in the bowls."
Out on the marsh the reeds beat in the wind. Every grass-fibre twisted
and swung; the matted tussocks, drooping over stagnant pools near which
the snipe, with ruffled feathers, probed the soil in search of food,
were shaken and disentangled, so that the bleached blades of last year's
growth fell apart, and exposed the fresh young sprouts rising from the
bed of winter's death. Over the wide waste the March wind drove
furiously, with blessing in the guise of chastisement, while, far above,
the grey-blue clouds whirled fast across a steely sky, till the ashen
moon gazed coldly on the waning day, as one by one the stars flashed
overhead, the clouds rolled down into the pink and silver west, and the
song of the wind became only a murmur in the leafless willows by the
brook.
With the advent of March, a great change passed over the wild life of
the uplands. The jack-hares threw aside their timidity, and wandered,
reckless of danger, over the marsh, across the stubbles, and through the
woods. Even in broad daylight, they frisked and quarrelled, in courtship
and rivalry.
The leveret was now full-grown, and Nature's mothering instincts were
strong within her. One evening, as she louped along her accustomed trail
towards the turnip-field, she discovered a suitor following in her wake.
Half in misgiving, half in wantonness, she turned aside and hid in the
ditch. Presently she felt a soft touch on her neck: the jack-hare was
pushing his way through the undergrowth. For a moment she stopped to
admire him as the moonlight gleamed on a white star in the centre of his
forehead. Then away she jumped, dodging round the bushes and hither and
thither among the grassy tangles, while her admirer followed, frisking
and leaping in sportive gaiety. Another jack-hare now came along the
hedgerow. In utter mischief, Puss called "leek, leek, leek," as if
pretending to be in distress and in need of help. "Leek, leek," came the
low response, as, quickening his pace, the second hare sprang into the
fern. But his audacity was not to go unchallenged. The first suitor
immediately showed himself, and, making a great pretence of reckless
bravery, prepared to give the second a warm reception. The doe-leveret,
apparently indifferent, but nevertheless keenly interested in the
combat, crouched on a little knoll by the path, while the jack-hares,
sitting on their haunches, boxed and scratched, and rolled over each
other in a singularly harmless conflict, neither suffering more than the
loss of a few tufts of fur. The comedy might, however, have had a tragic
ending. Presently one of the combatants--the hare that had come late on
the scene--became slightly exhausted, and, ignominiously yielding to his
rival's superior dexterity, ran back towards the distant hedge. Almost
at once a fox crept out from the furze at the corner of the field, and
trotted away on the scent of the fleeing hare, while Puss and her mate
made off in the direction of a more secluded pasture.
A month passed--a month of general hilarity and indiscriminate fighting
among all the hares in the district--and then, within a neat, dry
"form," that Puss, with a mother's solicitude, had made in a carefully
selected spot on a mound where the grass was tall and thick, her little
leveret was "kittled." The doe-hare tended her offspring as carefully as
she herself had been tended a year before. Her faithless lover had gone
his own way. But Puss cared little for his desertion: she wished to live
alone, under no monopoly as far as her affections were concerned, though
for the time her leveret wholly engaged her mothering love.
So strong was her strange new passion that she was ready, if needs be,
to brave death in defence of her young. And, not long after the
leveret's birth, the mother's courage was tested to the utmost. A
peregrine falcon, from the wild, rocky coast to the west, came sailing
on wide-reaching wings across the April sky. Puss was resting in a clump
of brambles not far from her "form," and saw the big hawk flying swiftly
above. Any movement on her part would have instantly attracted the
attention of her foe, so she squatted motionless, while her leveret
also instinctively lay still in its "form." But the keen eyes of the
falcon detected the young hare, and the bird descended like a stone on
his helpless victim. Instantly, the doe rushed to the rescue, and,
effectually warding the attack, received the full force of the "stoop"
on her shoulders. As the hawk rose into the air, the doe felt a sharp
pain in one of her ears--the big talons, closing in their grasp, had
ripped it as with the edge of a knife. She screamed, then, grunting
savagely, leaped hither and thither around the leveret, meanwhile urging
it to escape into the adjacent thicket. The bird, aloft in the air,
seemed perplexed, and eventually prepared to "stoop" again. In the nick
of time, Puss vanished with her little one beneath an impenetrable
tangle of friendly thorns, while the baffled peregrine proceeded on his
way.
For some weeks, the hare languished under the effects of the falcon's
blow. When her leveret was old enough to find food for itself, she
rested, forced by the wound to live quietly in hiding, till the scar
healed and life once more became enjoyable. But she always bore the
marks of the talons, and so was spoken of by the country folk as "the
slit-eared hare."
The superstitious recalled the tales of a bygone century, and half
believed the hare to be a witch in disguise, for she seemed to bear a
charmed life, and, though known everywhere in the parish, successfully
eluded to the end all the devices that threatened her. No matter how
artfully the wire noose was set above the level of the ground in her
"run," she brushed it by and never blundered into the treacherous loop.
A net failed even to alarm her: it might almost be imagined that she
became an experienced judge of any such contrivance, and knew every
individual poacher by the method with which his toils were spread across
her path.
Not having bred during the year in which she was born, Puss had thrived,
and weighed about nine pounds in the late autumn of her second season.
But according to popular opinion she was much heavier. Will, the
cobbler, who was fond of coursing, stoutly maintained, to a group of
interested listeners in the bar-parlour of the village inn, that she
seemed like a donkey when she escaped from his greyhound into the wood.
Family cares again claimed the hare's attention in July; and, having
taken to heart her experience with the peregrine, she left the uplands
and made her home in the thickets of a river-island. At that time the
river was low, and, on one side of the island, the bed of the stream had
become a dry, pebbly hollow, save for a large pool fed by the backwater
at the lower end, where the minnows played, and whither the big trout
wandered from the rapids to feed during the hot summer nights.
Late one afternoon, when long shadows lay across the mossy bank of the
river beyond the tall beeches standing at the entrance to the island
thickets, Puss was waiting for the dusk, and dozing meanwhile, but with
wide-open eyes, beside her leveret. Since there was another little mouth
besides her own requiring food, she generally felt hungry long before
nightfall, and so, when the afterglow began to fade in the west, was
wont to steal away to the clover above the woods that fringed the long,
still pool up-stream.
As the day wore on, the hare heard the unmistakable tread of human feet
approaching through the woods. The sounds became increasingly distinct;
then a pebble rattled and splashed into the water as the intruder walked
across the river-bed. He passed close to the "form," and, turning
down-stream, was lost to sight amid the bushes. At intervals, the hare
imagined that the faint, muffled sounds of footsteps came from the
distance; but again the sounds drew near, ceasing, however, when the man
was a few yards from the nest.
I can complete the story. Since spring I had been studying the wild life
of this lonely island below the rocky gorge extending hither from the
village bridge. The wood-wren, the willow-wren, and the garden-warbler
had nested in the thickets, and every evening I had visited the place to
pry on their doings, and to note how the flowers in glad succession
blossomed and faded--their presence in this lonely sanctuary known only
to myself, and to the birds, bees, and butterflies, and to the little
shrews that rustled over the dry leaves beneath. But now the
garden-warblers had left for the copse on the far side of the river, and
the wood-wrens and the willow-wrens had retreated to the inner recesses
of the thickets, where, amid the luxuriant verdure of midsummer, their
movements baffled my observation.
On the July evening, as I lay in the matted grass at the edge of the
copse by the pebbles, watching a whitethroat among the bushes opposite,
my eye happened to rest for an instant on a patch of bare mud
immediately before me. There, to my surprise, I discovered the
footprints of the hare. The five toes of the fore-feet, and the four
toes of the hind-feet, were as clearly outlined as if each impression
had been taken in plaster. And yet, when I stood up to look at the spot,
the marks seemed to have wholly disappeared. On nearer examination I
found that the track of the hare was in the direction of the island.
From their shape, and the distance between each, the footprints
indicated that the movements of the hare had not been hurried. Similar
footprints were visible in a straight line between the bank and the
island. Only one conclusion seemed possible--the hare had crossed to the
island early that morning, after the heavy shower that had fallen just
before dawn. It would have been contrary to her habits had she crossed
later; and, had she passed the place at any time before, the rain would
have washed away the marks in such an open spot, or, at any rate, would
have blurred them beyond recognition.
After placing a white stone by the footprints to indicate their
whereabouts, I searched along the river-bed for signs that would show a
track towards the bank; but not a single mark could be found pointing in
that direction. It was obvious that the hare had not left the island
till, at any rate, some hours after the rain. Then, however, the sun
would have been so high that Puss would have been loath to leave her
lair. Faintly discernible beside a large pebble, one other footprint
appeared, leading like the rest towards the island. The mark was old,
and had been saved from obliteration by the sheltering stone; but it
suggested that the hare had made her home not far away. Taught by
experience, I decided not to penetrate the copse and risk disturbing its
probable tenant. I approached it only so far as to examine another bare
place in a line with the footprints on the mud, where, to my delight, I
found fresh footprints similar to those at the dried-up ford, together
with other and much smaller marks undoubtedly made by a tiny leveret.
I now re-crossed the ford and went home. But before nightfall I
returned, and, hiding behind the hedgerow on the bank, watched, unseen,
the approach to the island. My patience was soon rewarded. Just as the
dusk was deepening over the woodlands, "the slit-eared hare" left her
"form" and stood in full view by the ford. There, having lazily
stretched her long, supple limbs, she played awhile with her leveret,
sometimes pausing to nibble a few clover-leaves as if to direct the
little one's attention towards its suitable food. Then she ambled
leisurely across the river-bed, and, with graceful, swinging gait,
passed through the meadow beyond--while her offspring disappeared within
the thickets of the island.
The hot weather broke up in July, and henceforth, till late September,
rain descended almost every day. The shower that had revealed the
whereabouts of the hare was the first sign of the change. On the
following night, a thunderstorm broke over the countryside, washed down
the soil from the pastures, and sent the river roaring in flood through
the gorge. While on the far side of the island the main torrent raged
past beneath the willows, the divided stream under the near bank formed
salmon-pools and trout-reaches, where, before, the pebbles had been bare
and dry.