THE STORY OF A HARE
[Illustration: _C. Reid._, _Frontispiece._,
“HE SAT AND LISTENED.”]
THE
STORY OF A HARE
BY J. C. TREGARTHEN, F.Z.S.
AUTHOR OF “WILD LIFE AT THE LANDS END,” “THE LIFE STORY OF A FOX,”
“THE STORY OF AN OTTER.”
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
HEARST’S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CO.
1915
FIRST EDITION _November 1912_
_Reprinted_ _June 1915_
TO
MARIE CORELLI
IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION
OF A VALUED AND LASTING
FRIENDSHIP
* * * * *
PREFACE
Whilst few, if any, animals have more enemies than the hare, none
perhaps is better endowed with instincts to outwit them.
As that great mediæval hunter, the Master of Game, said in 1402: “There
is no man in this world that would say that any hound can unravel that
which a hare has done, or that could find her. For she will go the
length of a bowshot or more by one way, and ruse again by another and
then she will take her way by another side and the same she shall do
ten, twelve or twenty times, then she will come into some hedge or
thicket and shall make semblance to abide there and then will make
crosswards ten or twelve times and will make her ruses and then she will
take some false path and shall go thence a great way, and such semblance
she will make many times before she goes to her seat.”
Shifts such as these, probably unrivalled in their subtlety, are
embodied in the incidents, based on observation or record, which make up
the present story of the hare, a story for the first time told at
length.
Imagination has of necessity supplied much of the description of a life
spent under the stars; but nothing alien to the hare’s habits and
character has been wittingly introduced, though what the outlook on the
world, what the thoughts of this and the predatory creatures entering
into the drama are, must ever remain a matter for speculation.
The narrative has been placed a century back, chiefly because the more
primitive days of a bygone Cornwall allowed the inclusion of more
numerous fauna, and permitted the use of a wilder setting.
For my aim has been to present a picture instinct with the spirit of the
wild, of the upland, moor, and cliff of the Land’s End at a time when
the prey and the beast of prey roamed the night fearless of snare and
gin—and man rarely intruded by day—under conditions, rapidly fading
into oblivion, which seem worthy of record before they disappear for
ever.
J. C. T.
ROSMORRAN, NEWQUAY,
CORNWALL, _Aug. 28, 1912_.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. EARLY TROUBLES 1
II. EDUCATION 23
III. INDEPENDENCE 40
IV. CHASED BY POLECATS 56
V. A DELUSIVE REFUGE 66
VI. BACK ON CARN BREA 78
VII. FROM PILLAR TO POST 95
VIII. THE GREAT WINTER 118
IX. PERIL OF DEATH 136
X. THE FIENDS OF THE WILD 160
XI. _L’HOMME S’AMUSE_ 180
INDEX 195
* * * * *
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
“HE SAT AND LISTENED” _Frontispiece_
“THEY NESTLED CLOSE” _Face page_ 4
AUTHOR’S SKETCH-MAP OF THE SCENE OF THE STORY 32
“GREY FOX” 84
MOUNT’S BAY FROM THE BEACON 100
THE REMAINS OF THE BEACON WOOD 152
A STOAT 162
SENNEN CHURCH TOWER 170
THE STORY OF A HARE
CHAPTER I
EARLY TROUBLES
The Cornish Heights terminate near the Land’s End in four wild hills of
singular charm, though of very modest altitude. Springing as they do
from a treeless tableland, they look quite like a miniature mountain
range, especially when seen through rolling mists or capped by the
rain-laden clouds which, like birds coming weary from the Atlantic,
settle on their summits. Man seldom intrudes there, though they offer a
peerless prospect over promontory and ocean. The faint paths amongst
ling and furze are not his: they have been traced by the foxes that
kennel on this silent retreat, or by badgers going to and from the deep
sett on the northern slope; for the desolate upland has long been given
over to the outlawed creature, and furnished sanctuary to any wildling
that sought it.
To these hills, in the late winter of a year long ago, there came a hare
in search of a spot to which she might safely commit her young. She was
hard to satisfy, rejecting for this reason or for that a score of
harbourages that competed for her favour. One night she all but decided
on a bramble-patch near the top of Caer Bran; the next she fancied first
a heathery knoll on Bartinney, then an abandoned mine-heap on Sancreed
Beacon; and at the last moment rejected both for the western slope of
Chapel Carn Brea, partly on account of its uninterrupted outlook, but
more because it was less overrun than the sister hills by the predatory
creatures that infested the countryside. All through the month of March
she had not seen a polecat or even a stoat upon the hillside; only once
had she detected on it the trail of an enemy; so with a feeling of
security the timorous mother entrusted her young to its keeping, laying
them in a tussock of coarse grass near a ruined chantry.
They were pretty little things with wide-open eyes, distinguishable by
only the white star in the forehead of the male and the greater
restlessness that he displayed. The tiny fellow, as if eager to explore
the world into which he had just been born, was all agog to be out and
about in the afterglow, and had not his mother checked him till the
impulse passed, he would have left the form and perhaps lost himself
amongst the furze. He constantly renewed his struggles to have his way;
but the moment he ceased, she removed the restraining pad and caressed
him till, like his sister, he became drowsy and at length fell asleep.
When the stars shone bright, the hare rose, stretched her stately limbs,
covered the little sleepers with the grass-blades, gathered herself for
a spring, and leapt to an outcropping rock. On landing she leapt again
and again and again, in order to prevent any beast of prey from
following her tracks and discovering the form. After taking these
precautions she made for the crest of the hill, and standing on the
ruin, snuffed the wind and scrutinised the waste. Presently, assured
that no enemy threatened, she set out for the feeding-ground. At the
foot of the long slope she repeated her ruse of the leaps, and passed
through a hole in the wall that separated the wild from the farm land,
to which she had been attracted by the tender herbage of the young
wheat.
Near midnight the leverets awoke and found her gone; yet in their
loneliness they uttered neither plaint nor call, nor, strange to say,
attempted to leave the form, but nestled close hour after hour awaiting
her return. They gave no heed to the wind, for its sighing meant nothing
to them; but at early dawn, though no sound broke the silence, the
cocked ears first of one, then of the other, told they were all
expectation for some signal. Soon there came the faint, low call which
instinct whispered was their mother’s, followed by the soft beat of the
pads, growing more and more distinct till with a last bound the hare
cleared the wide space between the rock and the form, and at once gave
herself to the hungry, excited mites. Whilst she suckled them, a lark
rose and greeted the day with notes so rapturous as to drown the
crowings of the cocks in the homesteads dotting the plain. The leverets
fed and fed till they were satisfied, then settled down to rest against
their mother’s side, where presently the sun, risen above Caer Bran,
discovered them, and threw a bright splash of warm light across their
russet coats.
[Illustration: _C. Reid._, _To face p. 4._
“THEY NESTLED CLOSE.”]
It was a lovely April morning. Towards noon a big black cloud came up
out of the west bringing needed rain, whilst a rainbow arched land and
sea; and then the first call of the cuckoo rang out through the
stillness. Chapel Carn Brea faintly echoed “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” The joyous
notes brought the housewife to the door, checked the frolics of the
wondering lambs, made the field-mice sit up and listen and the leverets
prick their waking ears. The far-flung message that told of kindly
weather and plenty for man and beast cheered every living thing that
heard it: it cheered even the hare as she sat and watched over her
young, full of misgivings for their safety. Their helplessness, still
more her own powerlessness to defend them against enemies, stirred her
deepest feelings, and made her mothering instinct so much stronger than
that of the vixen laid up with cubs in the croft beyond the wheatfield.
She was haunted by the dread of being bereft of them; and incapable of
defence though she was, her fears kept her ever alert and vigilant. She
never slept. Even when she drowsed her open, wakeful eyes saw all that
passed within their range—the farmer faring to his work and hastening
to his meals, the cows driven to and from the fields, the pigs wandering
up and down the lane, the donkey browsing on the furzy waste by the
common with the large pool, and the geese who, towards sunset, waddled
from it to the farmyard gate cackling to be penned, as if apprehensive
of being carried off by the hill-foxes that came and sniffed at their
door when man was abed. She noted too the ravens as they winged by on
their way to the cliffs, and the kites as they soared high overhead; she
watched with no little concern the buzzard whose shadow passed over her
as he searched the hillside before alighting on the broken chancel of
the ruin. His terrifying cat-like mew caused the leverets to stir
beneath her, but she herself remained as motionless as the furze;
indeed, till the sun had set, she never moved for fear of prying eyes.
Four days passed without disquieting incident, but on the fifth the
vixen paid a visit to the hill and threw the hare into a fever of
anxiety. The daring marauder came at high noon, during the farmer’s
dinner-hour, when the land is forsaken and the peace of the waste
spreads to the fields, enticing the nocturnal prowler to venture forth
in broad daylight in search of food. Thus lured, the vixen, yielding to
the importunities of her hungry cubs, stole from her earth and, keeping
to the overgrown ditches, gained the boundary wall without exposing
herself to view. But the instant her mask showed above the coping-stone
the hare espied her, and from that moment followed every movement. She
thought that the fox knew of her presence and was in search of her, as
well as she might, for the hill harboured no prey save herself and her
young, at least none worth the coming for. So while the vixen searched
the lower slopes the hare watched with eyes starting from her head,
anxious to learn whether the murderous creature would hit the line she
had left at early dawn. Once she crossed it without checking; she
flashed over it again near the Giant’s Bowl, and then the hare knew that
the trail would not betray her; the hot sun had evaporated every
particle of what little scent she had left.[1] The hunter moved at an
unusually quick pace, as if she had set herself the task of examining
the whole hillside during the short time that man remained within doors.
Now she threaded the bushes, now she leapt them; once she was lost to
view in a patch of tall furze gorgeous with blossom, but in a few
seconds she reappeared at the far end to continue the quest in the open.
At last near the black shadow cast by a boulder she stopped, assumed a
listening attitude, then plunged her long nose into a bush after a
mouse, but apparently without getting it, for she did not lick her
chops. Nothing disconcerted, however, on she went again, ranging to and
fro without a pause till, half-way up the slope, she stood suddenly
still and looked towards the homestead as if all at once alive to the
risk she was running. A glance satisfied her that man was still indoors,
and again she resumed the quest, if possible with greater keenness than
before. Every stride now was taking her dangerously nearer and nearer to
the hare, but whilst she was yet some five or six rods below the form a
sheep-dog barked, and in an instant she was transformed from a lithe
hunter into a craven creature. Crouching, she fixed her gaze on the dog
expressing his delight at the reappearance of his master, who stood in
shirt-sleeves at the open door. “Down, Shep.” At the sound of the man’s
voice the vixen sank into the herbage as if turned to lead, and remained
there motionless, save in heaving flank and lolling tongue. Presently
the farmer withdrew; the vixen slunk down the hill, carefully avoiding
the exposed places, climbed the wall, and vanished from sight.
Much as the hare was relieved by this retreat, she could not regain her
peace of mind; for the visit left her with the fear that the creature
would return at nightfall and renew the search, a thought which urged
her to remove the leverets at dusk. But where? The nearest spot that
commended itself to her was at the foot of Bartinney, about a mile
distant; and the way thither led across the trails of fox and badger,
who might surprise her with her burden, and have her at their mercy. Her
position was a very difficult one; to stay was perilous, to shift was no
less so. Uncertain what to do for the best, she remained irresolute till
the stars began to peep; then, hoping against hope that the fox might
not come after all, she decided to remain. In any case she must go and
feed, yet setting-out time came and went whilst the hare kept to the
form. She could not tear herself away from her young with this danger
hanging over them. A sickle moon lit hill and plain and threw into
relief the coping-stone of the wall on which the eyes of the anxious
mother were fixed. Against the granite she could not fail to see the
dark form of her enemy. The better to observe, the hare raised herself
on her hind legs; and the leverets, thinking she was going to play with
them, stood up too, resting their forefeet against her sides; but at a
whisper from their mother they sank down again into a sitting posture.
The night wore on, however, without sign of the fox, and at length the
hare, feeling somewhat reassured, set out for the nearest
feeding-ground. There she browsed until midnight, when apprehension for
her young drove her back to the hill. Although she found all well, she
stayed close by and fed on the rough herbage near the summit. When she
returned to the form her fears had nearly subsided; by dusk they no
longer haunted her, and in a day or two she dismissed the fox from her
mind.
She thought that her enemy, satisfied that the hill was bare of prey,
would not trouble her again, so that it came as a surprise when, a few
mornings later, she espied a vixen at the foot of the slope,
endeavouring to solve the puzzle of the scent the hare had left on her
way to the form less than an hour before. It was strange how little the
sight perturbed her, but when unaffected by her extreme anxiety for the
leverets she knew from experience there was no real need for fear. Never
once had she known a fox to succeed in tracing her from foiled ground,
though in the past she had known many who had tried as the vixen was now
trying. There near the wall the creature persisted in the almost
hopeless task, following now this way, now that along the many lines of
scent to discover the final course taken by the hare after her last
leap. Over and over again she seemed on the point of giving it up: the
network of trails maddened and bewildered her; and her irritation made
her snap viciously at the long bramble spray in which her brush got
entangled. Presently, in her despair, she made a cast at random; as luck
would have it, she hit the true line. At once she was all alive; her
brush, which had hung lifeless, now wagged furiously, and at the sight
of her enemy’s success the hare grew uneasy. Slowly, very slowly, the
vixen advanced along the trail as if fearful of losing what had cost her
so much trouble to find. Anon she came to the place above the clump of
blossoming furze where since the midday visit the hare had woven another
maze of tracks before coming to the leaping-place by the form. On
reaching it the vixen tried to follow the trail as it had been laid, but
the criss-crossing it had received so confused her that presently she
lost patience and made a short cast beyond. Here she happened on a part
of the trail where the hare had returned on her foil, and on coming to
the spot near the ruin where it ended she actually raised her mask as if
she believed the hare had taken wing and might be seen in mid-air. For a
moment she seemed to despair again; but the hunger caused by the night’s
bad hunting and the thought of her five ravenous cubs goaded her on; she
shook the dew from her coat and made another cast. This took her within
a dozen yards of the spot where mother and young squatted flat on the
ground. It seemed that the vixen must scent them; had there been a
breath of wind she could hardly have failed; but the air was still; not
a spray or blade moved save those disturbed by the vixen as she moved
hither and thither with ears widespread to catch the slightest sound. A
stifled cry, the faintest rustle in that silence must have betrayed
them; through the trying, critical seconds, however, they never moved,
they scarcely breathed.
The vixen seemed loath to leave the spot; but at length she quitted it
for the summit, where she searched the fallen stones and scaled the
crumbled walls, her form clearly outlined against the sky now tinted
with orange by the coming day. On the stone lintel she presently came to
a stand, arrested by the sight of the sun which peeped above the eastern
hills and warned her that it was time to be seeking her earth. Reluctant
as she was to obey, she dropped to the ground and made her way slowly
down the shadowed slope. Half-way in the descent she suddenly turned her
mask and scrutinised the ground in the hope of catching the hare with
head raised watching her retreat; but bush, rock, and frond alone met
her roving eyes. Near the Giant’s Bowl she again looked back, and by the
expression on her face, now vindictive rather than perplexed, seemed to
say: “Wily one, you’ve beaten me this dawn, but I’ll lick my chops over
you yet, both you and your tender young ones.” Then, the rumble of
wheels urging her, she hurried away, her beautiful coat all aripple
with the play of her lissom limbs. As soon as she had crossed the wall,
the hare, who had observed her from behind the blades, resumed the
suckling of her frightened young, fondling them as she had never done
before.
It had been a narrow escape, and the hare was now all impatience to
forsake the hill. But that could not be before nightfall, so she and the
leverets spent the long day unnerved by the rank scent left by the fox
on the herbage. The slow sun at last sank beneath the sea. At once the
hare took the doe leveret in her mouth and carried it along the southern
flank of the chain for more than a mile to the foot of Bartinney, where
she laid it in a patch of bracken bordering a little green. The next
moment she was on her way back at her best pace, as though she dreaded
that the vixen might forestall her. But no enemy was to be seen: the
jack was as she had left him. Seizing him by the skin of the neck she
bore him rapidly along despite his kicking, crouching whilst two stoats
passed, dropping him thrice to rest herself, and finally depositing him
in a clump of rushes by a rill some score yards from his sister. It was
not without a reason that she laid them on opposite sides of the green,
for by thus separating them she hoped that at least one might escape
detection in the event of a visit from an enemy.
On collecting himself after his strange experience, the jack sat and
listened to the music of the water, whilst through an opening in the
rushes his eyes scanned the green, whose close velvety sward seemed to
cry aloud to be gambolled on. There, so the country people aver, the
fairies forgather to hold high revel on the inviting turf, tripping to
the tinkling of the falls, in the dark-green ring lighted by innumerable
glow-worms. No little folk appeared that night, however; nothing in fact
came near until the hare returned to attend to her young, before
vanishing like the wraith she seemed and ensconcing herself in some
brambles on the lip of the green.
She had not been there long when a magpie left his resting-place in the
hawthorn overhanging the turf and stood preening his feathers on the
topmost spray. Presently, his quick eyes noted the marks left by the
hare’s pads on the dewy surface, and examined them searchingly as if to
learn the identity of the trespasser. He imagined that a badger or a fox
had made them; the thought that a hare—he had only seen one—had
crossed the green never entered his head, much less that a family of
hares was at that moment lying hidden around it. The inquisitive bird
was soon joined by his mate, and after a little chatter he flew away
with her towards a homestead from which the smoke was just beginning to
rise. They alighted on the elder-tree springing from the wall of the
rickyard, the white of their plumage very conspicuous in the bright
level rays which lit them up and fired the dormer-window of the thatched
roof beyond. By and by they dropped into the yard, where amongst the
straw they found an egg. They broke and ate it. Then the hen-bird came
flying back in great haste to the nest, as if she feared her precious
clutch might be chilled and become addled. Later the cock-bird returned
to tell her what was happening in the farmyard, and at once flew back to
the elder. He was back again in half an hour: indeed he kept flying to
and fro until sundown. The hare rejoiced in the restlessness of this
arch-mobber of vermin: it gave her a sense of security such as she had
not felt since the birth of her young. For her the magpie was an
untiring patrol, and further, one gifted with a tongue that would make
the boldest fox shrink from the insults it was capable of raining on
him. Her fears fled in the presence of this sentinel of the wild, so
that for a few minutes during the afternoon she actually fell asleep.
“If only there were some night-bird to watch over us,” she thought while
she sat awaiting dusk. And as soon as darkness fell an owl began
hooting. At once, as if she took it for a signal, she stole from the
form to attend to her young.
Her visit was most welcome to the jack, who was very sorry when she
withdrew. He listened to her retreating steps, and as they died away
tried to combat the feeling of loneliness that beset him. In the weary
watch that followed he sorely missed the companion of his waking hours.
He felt forlorn without her soft, warm side to nestle against; but in a
night or two he found something to occupy him. He took to grooming
himself, and off and on spent hours brushing his ears and licking his
coat, especially the snow-white fur on his belly, which had looked so
ghostly as his mother bore him through the dusk. He made himself as
clean as a pink, and when the feeling of isolation wore off, as it soon
did, he felt as happy as a strong, healthy leveret could feel. Soon,
however, his muscles began to ache for want of exercise: they kept
urging him to throw aside his fears and break his narrow bounds; but
night after night he resisted the impulse. At last inaction became
unendurable. Regardless of his mother’s monitions and the whispers of
instinct, he leapt the rill and raced about the moonlit green like a
thing possessed.
Instantly he was joined by his sister, and never perhaps did two
leverets enjoy their stolen freedom more. They bounded over each other’s
back; they leapt the rock by the thorn, clearing it by a good foot; they
galloped round and round like performers in a circus. Tiring of this,
they rose on their hind legs and sparred with their pads, moving about
the fairy ring and patting each other’s face like boxers. But whilst
they were thus engaged the snapping of a brier disturbed the night and
sent them to their seats. With wildly beating hearts they sat till the
clumsy badger who had trodden on the spray passed out of hearing; then
out they came again and renewed their frolics, which lasted without
further interruption till the moon began to pale.
Their mother found them in their seats looking as innocent as could be;
but she knew of their escapade from the scent on the green and,
recognising in this bid for liberty a token that the time was come for
leading them out, she resolved to devote herself to this duty without
further delay. So the following night, instead of returning at early
dawn, she hurried back in the small hours and surprised the culprits,
not, as she expected, in the midst of their games, but nibbling the
grass of the green. At the sight of their mother the guilty creatures
scurried to their forms, only to bound out at her summons and follow
frisking at her heels as she led past the spring to the hill. She
breasted the slope at a slow canter, but soon quickened her steps.
Half-way up she began doubling, the leverets imitating her twists and
turns in a surprising way and with astonishing exactness. Towards
daybreak, however, they flagged, and by the time they got back to the
green they were so tired that they were content to remain in the form
till the hour for exercise came round again.
The hare returned nightly at almost the same moment, and went farther
and farther afield as their strength grew, without encountering even in
these extended excursions any enemy more formidable than an old badger,
who never dreamt of pursuit. It is true that he looked hard at them, but
only because of his surprise at seeing survivors of a race which he
thought extinct. The instant he satisfied himself they really were
hares, he resumed his grunting and crossed the ridge on the way to his
earth.
At the first faint blush in the east the hares sped towards the pool
that fills the hollow between Bartinney and Chapel Carn Brea. There near
the edge of the water the leverets confused their trails and chose their
seats. This they did under the eyes of their mother, who watched
interestedly from the slope where she lay amongst the heather. As it
proved, no precautions were necessary, for no creature came near;
indeed, nothing disturbed the drowsy stillness till late in the day,
when a breeze sprang up that sent the water in tiny wavelets against the
rushy shore. This immunity from molestation was the result of the hare’s
knowledge of the ways of her enemies, of their retreats, and especially
of the times of their coming and going. At every outing they crossed the
foul line left by some marauder on its way to the lowland, but—those of
the badger excepted—never a homing trail; for the hares were settled in
their forms before fox, polecat, and stoat came slinking back to their
lairs.
But not even the hare, with cunning quickened by the dependence of her
young, could provide against every contingency. On the fourth day of
their stay by the pool, when they were back in their seats around the
green, they were discovered and attacked by a bloodthirsty little
creature that was abroad foraging in the very middle of the morning. The
hare’s suspicions were first aroused by the angry cries of some small
birds in the corner of the nearest field. Soon the demonstration grew
more and more distinct, showing that the birds were pursuing the object
of their displeasure in the direction of the green. From the first the
noise attracted the attention of the magpie. Immediately he saw the
birds he cocked his head, now this way now that, as if beholding the
most interesting sight of his life. And a strange sight it certainly
was; for, accompanied by linnets and finches that fluttered over it,
there came with the quick movement of its kind, a weasel, seemingly
quite indifferent to the mobbing it received. As soon as it appeared the
hare quivered in every limb; but there was no shiver of fear, for when
presently the little miscreant scented the jack and stood on its hind
legs screaming, to paralyse him with terror, she bounded across the
green, and with a stroke of a forepad sent the animal flying into the
water. Undaunted, and enraged at this treatment, the weasel now
confronted the hare herself, only to be knocked over, trampled on, and
spurned to the middle of the green, where it lay on its back kicking as
though its last hour was come. Whereupon the magpie, who, considering
the weasel too insignificant for his intervention, had hitherto held its
tongue, chattered loudly as if to applaud the deed; whilst the hare,
whose blood was up, remained within a yard of the weasel, ready to renew
the battle should it again show fight. Braver still, the linnet whose
eggs the weasel had been sucking, as was evident from the stain on its
muzzle, stood within a few inches and upbraided it for the wrong done
her, and, frail thing though she was, scarcely deigned to move when
shortly it regained its feet and made for the hill. It was not allowed
to sneak away unattended; birds and hare—strange allies—accompanied
the discomfited little wretch past the spring to the heather, where it
wormed its way amongst the stems and hid itself from view. Then the
linnets and finches, having avenged their friend, flew back to their
thickets; and the hare, crouching low as if frightened now by her own
shadow, stole to her form. The magpie still perched on the spray from
which he had witnessed the scene. The arch-rogue had thoroughly enjoyed
every phase of it, and now that it was over he was all alive, quizzing
the spots where the hare and the leverets lay, as if trying to get a
view of them amidst the cover. At last he too flew away; then no trace
remained of the participators in the drama but a tiny feather that lay
where the linnet had stood.
The visit of the weasel had its consequences, for the hare, fearing that
the creature would return when she was away foraging, resolved to take
the leverets with her at setting-out time, and after she had regained
her composure she sat planning the round she would lead them.
-----
[1] The doe hare leaves little scent whilst her young are helpless.