THE HARE
“_When you’ve read through this chapter, I’m sure you’ll declare
That you hate everybody who hunts the poor hare._”
WHAT a beautiful day it was!
How bright the sun shone, and how pleasantly the birds were
singing,—for it was the lovely season of spring. All the air was full
of melody, so that it seemed to Tommy Smith as if he had somehow got
inside a very large musical box, which _would_ keep on playing. And so
he had, _really_, only it was Nature’s great musical box,—the music
was immortal, and the works were alive.
Far up in the sky the lark was doing his very best to please little
Tommy Smith and everybody else, for he made whoever heard him feel
happier than they had felt before. But what was little Tommy Smith
doing to show how grateful he was to the bird that gave him so much
pleasure? Why, I am sorry to say that he was trying to find the
poor lark’s nest, so that he might take away the eggs which were in
it,—those eggs which the mother lark had been taking so much trouble
to keep warm, so that little baby larks might come out of them, which
she meant to feed and take care of till they were grown up, and could
fly and sing like herself. It was the thought of those eggs, and of
the mother bird sitting upon them, which made the lark himself sing so
gladly up in the air, for, when he looked down, he fancied he could
see them; and he knew that there was someone waiting for him there who
would be glad to see him again, when he came down to roost. But Tommy
Smith did not think of this, for nobody had talked to him about it. All
he thought of was how he could get the eggs, so that he could take them
away with him, and show them to other boys.
Ah! what was that? How gracefully the cowslips waved, and up went a
lark into the sky; and as he rose he seemed to shake a song out of his
wings. Tommy Smith thought there was sure to be a nest close to where
he had risen, so he went to look; but before he had got to the place,
away went something—something brown like a lark, but ever so much
larger, and, instead of flying, it galloped along over the ground; so,
you see, it was not a bird at all. What was it? Tommy Smith knew well
enough, for he had often seen such an animal before. “Ha!” he cried.
“Puss! puss! A hare! a hare!” and he sent the stick which he had in his
hand whizzing after it; but, I am glad to say, he did not hit it.
The hare did not seem so very frightened. Perhaps he knew that he could
run away faster than any stick thrown by a little boy could come after
him. At anyrate, before he had gone far, he stopped, and then he turned
round, and raised himself right up, almost on his hind legs, and looked
back at Tommy Smith.
“Well,” he said, as Tommy Smith came up; “you see you cannot catch me.”
“No,” said Tommy Smith—he was getting quite accustomed to having talks
with animals,—“you run too quickly.”
“For my part,” said the hare, “I wonder how any little boy who has a
kind heart can like to tease and frighten a poor, timid animal who is
persecuted in so many ways as I am.”
“What do you mean by ‘persecuted’?” said Tommy Smith. “That is a word
which I don’t understand. It is too long for me.”
“It is a great pity,” the hare went on, “that a little boy should
always be _doing_ something which he does not know the word for. To
‘persecute’ people is to be very cruel to them, and whenever you hurt,
or annoy, or frighten, or ill-treat any of us animals, then you are
persecuting us.”
“If I had known that,” said Tommy Smith, “I would not have done it.”
“Then you mustn’t do it any more,” said the hare; “and especially not
to me, because I have so many enemies who are always trying to injure
me.”
“Why, what enemies have you?” said Tommy Smith.
“Plenty,” the hare said. “First, there is that wicked animal the fox,
who is always ready to kill and eat me whenever he has the chance.
He is very cunning, and, as he knows he cannot run fast enough to
catch me, he tries all sorts of ways to pounce upon me when I am not
expecting it. Sometimes he will wait by a hole in the hedge that he has
seen me go through, and when I come to it again, he springs out and
seizes me with his teeth and kills me, for he is much stronger than I
am. Then sometimes one fox will chase me past a place where another fox
is hiding, and then the fox that was hiding jumps out at me, and they
both eat me together.”
“How wicked!” said Tommy Smith.
“Is it not?” said the hare. “And then there is that horrid little
creature the weasel. He follows me about till he catches me, and then
he bites me in the throat, so that I bleed to death.”
“That _is_ horrid of him,” said Tommy Smith. “But there is one thing
which I cannot understand. The weasel does not go so very fast, and you
can run faster than a horse. I am sure that if you were to run away, he
would never be able to catch you.”
“You don’t know what it is,” said the hare. “That odious little animal
follows me about, and never leaves off. You see, wherever I go I leave
a smell behind me.”
“Do you?” said Tommy Smith. “That seems very funny. Why, I am close to
you, and I don’t smell anything.”
“Little boys cannot smell nearly as well as animals,” said the hare.
“However, I don’t _quite_ understand it myself, for I am sure I am as
clean as any animal can be, and there is nothing nasty about me; and
yet whenever my feet touch the ground, they leave a smell upon it. That
is my _scent_; but other animals have their scent too as well as I, so
I needn’t mind about it. Now the weasel has a very good nose, so that
he is able to follow the scent that I have left on the ground, until he
comes to where I am; and, besides, when I know that that cruel little
animal is following me, I get so frightened that I cannot run away, as
I would from you, or from a fox, or a dog. And so he comes up and kills
me.”
“Poor hare!” said Tommy Smith. “I feel very sorry for you. I am afraid
that you are not clever like other animals, or else you would escape
and get away more often. The rat would run down a hole, I am sure, and
so would the rabbit. I have often seen him do it.”
“Pray do not compare me to the rabbit,” said the hare. “I have twice
as much sense as he has, and I can tell you that you make a great
mistake if you think I am not clever, for I am very clever indeed, as
I will soon show you. If you will follow me a few steps, I will take
you to the place where I was lying when you frightened me out of it.
See, here it is. Look how nicely the grass is pressed downward and
bent back on each side, so that it makes a pretty little bower for me
to rest in when I am tired of running about. That is better, I think,
than a mere hole in the ground; and, for my part, I look upon burrowing
as a very foolish habit. _I_ prefer fresh air, and I think that it is
much nicer to see all about one than to live in the dark. This little
bower of mine is what people call my _form_, and I am so fond of it
that, however often I am driven away, I always come back to it again.
And now, how do you think I get into this form of mine? I have told you
that wherever I go I leave a scent upon the ground, so if I just came
to my form and walked into it, any animal that crossed my scent would
be able to follow it till he came to where I was. Now, what do you
think I do to prevent this?”
“I don’t know,” said Tommy Smith, after he had thought a little; “I
don’t see how you can prevent it, for you must come to your form on
your feet,—you cannot fly.”
“No,” said the hare; “but I can jump. Look!” And he gave several leaps
into the air, which made Tommy Smith clap his hands and call out,
“Bravo! how well you do it!”
“Now,” said the hare, “when I am coming back to my form, I leap first
to this side and then to that side, and then I make a very big jump
indeed, and down I come in my own house. Of course, by doing this, I
make it much more difficult for a fox or a weasel to smell where I have
been, for it is only where my feet touch the ground that I leave my
scent upon it.”
“Ah, I see,” cried Tommy Smith; “so, when you make long jumps, your
feet will not touch the ground at so many places as they would if you
only just ran along it.”
“Of course not,” said the hare.
“And then there will not be so many places for a dog or a fox to smell
where you have been,” said Tommy Smith.
“Not nearly so many,” said the hare; “that is the reason why I do it.
I hope you think _that_ quite as clever as just running down a hole,
which is what the rat and the rabbit do.”
“I think it very clever, indeed,” said Tommy Smith; “and I see now that
you are a clever animal.”
“I have other ways of escaping when I am chased,” the hare went on;
“and I think, when you have heard them, you will confess they are quite
as clever as anything which that conceited animal, the rat, has shown
you. As to the rabbit, I say nothing. He is a relation of mine, and we
have always been friendly. But the brains are not on _his_ side of the
family.”
“Please go on, Mr. Hare,” said Tommy Smith. “I should like to hear all
you can tell me.”
[Illustration: ALL HAPPY (EXCEPT THE HARE)]
“Well,” the hare said, “I have told you about the fox and the weasel,
but they are not my only enemies. I have others—horses and dogs, and,
worst of all, hard-hearted men and women, who ride the horses, and
teach the dogs to run after me, and to catch me. It is a pretty sight
to see them all meet together in some field or lane. First one rides
up, and then another, until there are quite a number. They laugh and
talk whilst they wait for the huntsman to come with his pack of hounds.
All are merry and light-hearted; even the horses neigh, they are in
such spirits. Does it not seem funny that one creature’s wretchedness
should make so many creatures happy? And there are women—ladies,
some of them quite young, and _so_ pretty—like angels. I have seen
them smile as if they could not hurt any living thing. You would have
thought that they had come to stroke me, instead of to hunt me to
death. But I know better. They are not to be trusted. They have soft
cheeks, and soft eyes, and soft looks, but their hearts are hard.
“At last, up comes the huntsman, in his green coat and black velvet
cap. He cracks his whip, and the dogs leap and bark around him—_such_
a noise! I hear it all as I lie crouched in my form, and my heart beats
with terror. But I cannot lie there long, for now they are coming
towards me. I start up, and run for my life. Away I go, one poor, timid
animal, who never hurt anyone, and after me come men and women, boys
and girls, horses and dogs, all happy, and all thinking it the finest
thing in the world to hunt and to kill—a hare.”
“Are the dogs greyhounds?” said Tommy Smith.
“No,” answered the hare; “the dogs I am talking about now are not
greyhounds, but beagles. They hunt me by scent, but the greyhound hunts
me by sight, for he runs so fast that he can always see me.”
“Does he run as fast as you do?” asked Tommy Smith.
“Yes, indeed,” said the hare; “he runs much faster, but he does not
always catch me, for all that. When he is close behind me, I stop all
of a sudden, and crouch flat on the ground. The greyhound cannot stop
himself so quickly, for he is not so clever as I am. He runs right over
me, and it is several seconds before he can turn round again. But _I_
turn round as soon as he has passed me, and then I run as fast as I can
the other way, so that, when he starts after me again, he is a good
way behind. When he catches up to me, I do the same thing again. This
clever trick of mine is called _doubling_, and I AM so proud of it,
for if it was not for that, the greyhound would catch me directly.”
“Then does he never catch you?” said Tommy Smith.
“He never has yet,” said the hare. “But I have other ways of getting
away from him, as well as from other dogs, and I will tell you some of
them. Sometimes I run under a gate. The dogs are too big to do this, so
they are obliged to jump over it. Then, when they are near me, on the
other side I double, in the way I told you, run as fast as I can back
to the gate, and go under it again. Of course they have to jump over it
a second time, and in this way I keep running under the gate and making
them jump over it until they are quite tired, for, of course, it is
more tiring to jump over anything than only to run under it. At last,
when they are too tired to run any more, I slip quietly through a hedge
and gallop away.”
“Bravo!” cried Tommy Smith.
The hare looked very pleased, and said, “I see that you are not at all
a stupid boy, so I will tell you something else. Now, supposing you
were being chased across the fields by a lot of dogs, and you were to
come to a flock of sheep, what would you do?”
Tommy Smith thought a little, and then he said, “I think I should call
out to the shepherd and ask him to help me.”
“Yes, and I daresay he _would_ help _you_,” said the hare, “for he
would remember the time when _he_ was a little boy, and he would feel
sorry for you. But he would not feel sorry for _me_, who am only a
little hare (he was never _that_, you know). He would throw his stick
at me, as you did, and then he would do all he could to help the dogs
to catch me. No, it is not the shepherd that I should ask to help me,
but the sheep—_they_ are so gentle,—and when I came to them I should
run right into the middle of them, and then the dogs would not be able
to find me.”
“But would not the dogs follow you in amongst the sheep and catch you
there?” said Tommy Smith.
“No,” said the hare, “they would not be able to; for the flock would
keep together, so that the dogs could only run round the outside of it.
But _I_ should keep right in the middle, and wherever the sheep went,
I should go with them; _I_ could run between their feet, you know.
Besides, the dogs would not be able to see me amongst so many sheep.”
“No,” said Tommy Smith. “But could not they still follow you by your
scent?”
“No, indeed, they could not,” said the hare; “for, you see, sheep have
a stronger scent than I have, and they would put down their feet just
in the very place where I had put down mine, and then their scent would
hide mine. So, you see, by hiding amongst a flock of sheep I should
save my life, for the dogs would not be able either to see me, or smell
me, or to follow me, even if they could.”
“Have you ever done it?” said Tommy Smith.
“Oh yes!” said the hare; “and there is something else which I have
done. Sometimes when the dogs were chasing me, I have run to where I
knew another hare was sitting, and I have pushed that hare out of his
place, so that the dogs have followed _him_ instead of _me_. _I_ sat
down where _he_ had been sitting, and they all went by without finding
it out.”
“Well,” said Tommy Smith, “that may have been very clever, but I don’t
think it was at all kind to the other hare.”
The hare looked a little surprised at this, as if he had not thought
of it before. “One hare should help another, you know,” he said; “and,
besides, I daresay the dogs did not catch him after all. _He_ may have
found _another_ hare.”
Tommy Smith was just beginning with “Oh, but”—when the hare said,
“Never mind!” rather impatiently, and then he continued, “And now I am
going to tell you something which will show you that, although I am not
a large or a fierce animal, I can sometimes be revenged on those who
injure me, though they are larger and fiercer than myself.”
“Oh, do tell me,” said Tommy Smith, for the hare had paused a little,
and seemed to be thinking.
“Ah!” he began again; “how well I remember it. I was very nearly
caught that time. How fast the greyhounds ran, and how close behind
me they were! What could I do to get away? I had gone up steep hills
to tire them; and I _had_ tired them, but then I had tired myself
still more. I had run up one side of a hedge and down the other, so
that they should not see me, and then I had gone through the roughest
and thorniest part of that hedge, in hopes that they would not be
able to follow. But they had kept close after me all the time, and
now they were just at my heels. Then I doubled. Oh, how close I lay
on the ground as the greyhounds leaped over me! I saw their white
teeth, and their glaring eyes, and their red tongues lolling out of
their great open mouths. But they had missed me, and I was saved for
a little while. But where was I to run to next? There were no hedges
now; no woods, or hills, or rocky ground, nothing but smooth level
grass, which is just what greyhounds love to race over. Was there no
escape? Yes. What was that long line far away where the green grass
ended and the blue sky began? White birds were wheeling above it,
and, from beneath, came a sound as though a giant were whispering.
That was the sound of the sea, and the long line meeting the sky was
the line of the cliffs. Oh, if I could reach it! But, first, I had to
double—once—twice—three times; over me they flew, and off I darted
again. And now the line grew nearer, the white birds looked larger as
they sailed in the air, and the whispering sound was changing to a
moan—to a roar. Yes, I was close to it now, but the greyhounds were
just behind me, and their hot breath blew upon my fur. They had caught
me! No. On the very edge of the cliffs I doubled once more, and _once_
more they went over me.”
“And over the cliffs?” said Tommy Smith.
“Yes,” said the hare; “over me, and over the cliffs as well. Something
hid the sky for a moment,—a dark cloud passed above me. Then the sky
was clear again; and there were no greyhounds now. Over and over, down,
down, down they went, and were dashed to pieces on the black rocks, and
drowned in the white waves. I know they were, for I peeped over the
edge and saw it. You may ask the seagulls, if you like. They saw it
too.”
“Were they all drowned?” said Tommy Smith.
“Yes, all,” said the hare.
“And were you glad?” he asked, for it seemed to him very dreadful.
“Well,” the hare said, “I was glad to escape, of course, and so would
you have been. But yet I could not help feeling sorry for the poor
dogs, because they had been _taught_ to chase me, and it was not their
fault. Do you know who I should have liked to see fall over the cliffs
instead of them?”
“Who?” said Tommy Smith.
“The cruel, hard-hearted men who taught them,” said the hare. “It is
they who ought to have been drowned, and I am very sorry that they were
not.”
“You poor hare!” said Tommy Smith, as he stroked its soft fur, and
played with its long, pretty ears. “It is very hard that you should
always be hunted, and I do think that you are very badly treated. But
what clever ways you have of escaping! Do you know, I think you are the
cleverest animal I have had a talk with yet, and I like you very much.”
“Ah! it is all very well to say that now,” said the hare. “But who was
it that threw a stick at me?”
“I never will again,” said Tommy Smith. “You know you jumped up all of
a sudden, so that I had no time to think. But I did not come out on
purpose to throw it at you. I only wanted to find a lark’s nest, so as
to get the eggs.”
When the hare heard that, I cannot tell you how sad and grieved he
looked. “What!” he said. “Would you take the poor lark’s eggs away, and
make it unhappy? No, no; if you really like me, as you say you do, you
must promise me not to do anything so cruel as that. The lark is the
best friend I have. He sings to me as I lie in my form, and consoles me
for all my troubles. His voice cheers me too, when I am being chased by
the dogs, for he always seems to be saying, ‘You will get away; I know
you will get away.’ Then sometimes he comes down to roost quite close
to me, and we talk to each other. _He_ tells _me_ what it is like up
above the clouds, and _I_ tell _him_ all that has been going on down
here. He has _his_ trials too, for there are hawks that try to catch
_him_, just as there are greyhounds that try to catch _me_; so we sit
and comfort each other. Promise me never to be unkind to my friend the
lark.”
“I won’t hurt him,” said Tommy Smith. “And if ever I find his nest with
eggs in it, I will only just look at them and leave them there.”
“Oh, thank you,” the hare said; “and you won’t hurt me either?”
“No, indeed, I won’t,” said Tommy Smith. “Do you know, I begin to think
that it would be better not to hurt any animal.”
“Oh, much better!” said the hare, as he skipped gladly away. “Except
the fox,—and the weasel, you may hurt _him_—if you can catch him.”
He said that, of course, because he _was_ a hare, and felt prejudiced.
You must not think _I_ agree with him. Only a critic or a silly person
would think _that_.