THE GREAT WINTER
After leaving the form the hare kept loping to and fro on the strip of
waste by the cliffs. No tempting bit of herbage detained him; he nibbled
neither leaf nor spray; his movements were as aimless as they could be.
He was in a quandary; he did not know where to turn because he did not
know where he was going to sit, though it had occupied his thoughts
since the withdrawal of the marten.
Of the many spots that occurred to him not one offered especial
attractions like the hill, which kept presenting itself to his notice,
without however winning him to it. And this is not to be wondered at, in
view of the fear he had of being waylaid and gobbled up by Grey Fox if
he ventured there. Nor was his fear groundless. Grey Fox had haunted the
hill in the hope of securing what he esteemed the titbit of the wild.
Day after day in the half light of the morning and in the dusk of the
evening he crouched in one spot after another beside the path by which
he thought the hare might leave or return, persisting in the quest until
he had completely ringed the form with his ambuscades and satisfied
himself that the hare was no longer using it.
At last he went to examine the seat: it was cold and scentless, and he
realised what a fool’s business he had given his best energies to.
Standing there he chided himself for throwing away so many precious
hours, above all for being outwitted by a hare. Scathing was his
self-reproach, yet brief, for Grey Fox wasted little time in vain
regrets. He wanted to come to a settlement, and was concerned to know
where the sly hussy of a grass-feeder had betaken herself. For a moment
he stood with his bluish-green eyes fixed on vacancy, lost in thought,
as if wondering where she could be, then stole down the slope, trailing
his great brush as he went. He was abandoning the hill.
This was on the night that the hare narrowly escaped falling into the
gully, so that after all puss might have safely returned instead of
racking his poor brain over a new seat. In the end he found one on the
moor, atop of a grassy mound which had once taken his fancy as he
passed. From the slightly raised station he commanded a wide outlook
across the waste, whose monotony the pool with its yellow reeds served
in some measure to relieve. The moor, drear and barren though it was,
furnished hospitality to a few migrant birds; a jack snipe fed within a
dozen yards of the hare, a flock of golden plover was on the ground out
of his ken beyond the pool. Later, eleven in all, they flew with musical
whistlings over the reeds and across his front. Nor were these the only
feathered visitors. Soon, as the weather grew colder, duck, widgeon, and
teal visited the pool to feed, arriving at nightfall and leaving at dawn
for the sea, where they rested through the day. Their line of flight was
only a little wide of the mound, and the hare was always back in time to
see the skeins go past. More than once too he caught sight of the dusky
forms of otters stealing back to the cliffs; they were returning from a
raid on the waterfowl.
But nothing is of long continuance in the wild. The visits of the duck
were abruptly terminated by the freezing of the pool, and a phalarope,
whom the lone water had attracted, was driven away at the same time.
The plover remained, the snipe foraged along a runnel fed by a warm
spring, but the heath was rendered uninhabitable for the hare by the
piercing wind, against which the withered grasses of the mound afforded
no protection. He endured the discomfort for some days, then as it
became unbearable he forsook the spot and returned, not without
misgivings, to the hill. But Grey Fox was still present to his mind; he
approached with the utmost caution, carefully shunned the old form, and
sat at a spot midway between it and the chantry.
In this higher station, however, he found effectual shelter from the
wind, though its whistling sounded menacingly close, especially when it
rose, as towards night it often did, to a shriek.
In its shrillest notes the north-easter was almost articulate; it seemed
to sound a warning of the bitter weather to come. For the cold was no
mere snap like the previous visitation; it was, as the old tenant of
Brea Farm foresaw in the red sunsets and dead set of the wind, the
beginning of a season of unusual severity. The flocks of redwings and
fieldfares which had sought the westernmost angle of the land found the
exposed fields as hard frozen and inhospitable as those they had fled
from. In the sheltered valleys alone, when the abundant crop of haws
along the hedgerows had been consumed, were they able to pick up a
living and find what was almost as necessary as food, a roosting-place
out of the eye of the wind. The blackthorn brakes, every branch of the
holly and the furze, any bush screened by ivy, were all occupied at
night by thrushes, mistle-thrushes, blackbirds, linnets, and finches,
whilst bevies of larks slept on the ground below.
Remarkable as was that December for the inrush of common birds, it was
scarcely less so for the rarer visitants: a bittern harboured in the
reed-bed of the pool, a gaggle of bernicle geese haunted Porthcurnow
Cove, five wild swans sought a refuge in the waters of Whitesand Bay,
whilst quite a number of Dartford warblers and firecrests found
sanctuary in the snug brakes of Golden Valley. There was not a sheltered
bottom or bay without its feathered guests. On the other hand, not a
bird was to be found on the hills: Sancreed Beacon, Caer Bran,
Bartinney, were deserted by every living thing save hibernating adder,
slow-worm, and newt; the old toad and the hare were the sole tenants of
Chapel Carn Brea.
Protected by his thick winter coat the hare was able to withstand the
nipping frosts that blackened all but the hardiest and most unpalatable
herbage, to which he was for the most part now driven for support. He
fed on furze and lichens and no longer looked forward to the joys of
pasturing time. Instead, his thoughts turned to the nights of plenty, to
remembered feasts on tender corn and sweet trefoil, to banquets on
fragrant thyme and juicy sow-thistles, to titbits like the pinks, above
all to the musk, the tastiest morsel that his beats had furnished. He
never wearied of dwelling on the appetising list; he would rehearse it
again and again, and wonder whether the good things of the honeysuckle
time would ever come again. He quite lost himself in these reveries; the
hissing of the wind, even the ring of the horse’s hoofs that broke in on
his musings as the farmer rode away to market, failed to disturb them.
He was trying to recall the flavour of dandelions as he dreamily watched
man and horse cross the lowland which seemed to shrink and cower beneath
the low-hanging sky. Clouds, grey and depressing, spread from horizon to
horizon save in the south-west, where at close of day after day the red
sun emblazoned the heaven, and for a brief while bathed ocean and
promontory with its cheery rays. They were especially pleasing to the
hare, coming as they did between the dull day and the dark night when he
wandered far and wide after pasture. Yet widely as he roamed he never
came across the packs of stoats which the host of birds had attracted,
nor—a thing that excited his surprise—once encountered Grey Fox.
Nevertheless he often thought of him, wondering what had befallen him:
whether he had met his death from the lurcher or been expelled from the
earth by the badgers and betaken himself elsewhere. Neither supposition
was right. Like the stoat-packs, Grey Fox harboured in the valleys,
attracted by the easily captured prey and making the most of his
opportunity. It was well for him that he did. In the middle of December
snow fell, shutting off food from the birds and causing all but the
hardiest to perish of hunger.
It would seem that the wind had delayed the fall, for no sooner did it
die away than the flakes began to descend, lightly at first, then close
enough to hide all but the nearest objects, so that when at last they
ceased, the land was covered to a depth of several inches. Spray and
frond did not submit more passively to the fall than did the hare; in
the end he was as completely hidden as a sheep in a drift. And like the
sheep he had not to bear the weight of his covering, for the heat of his
body thawed the snow round it, with the result that, when it froze
again, a shell of ice was formed, thin indeed, yet able to sustain its
load. For a while the hare was in complete darkness, but his breath
presently melted the snow in front of his nostrils, forming a peep-hole
through which he looked out on a world he could no longer recognise. His
very threshold seemed strange; only the side of the near boulder with
its streaks of yellow and grey lichens presented a familiar face.
The heavy fall had cleared the sky, whence a vast array of stars looked
down on a world as hushed as the depths they lighted. A wondrous silence
reigned over hill and plain, till it was broken in the dead of night by
a vixen calling from beyond the farm. The penetrating cry had scarcely
died away when from the distance came a faint response. On hearing it
the vixen squalled again, and was answered from Bartinney.
Again the awful squall rang out; this time the reply rose from beside
the rock near the chantry. The sharp yap, thrice repeated, made the hare
tremble, and no wonder, for it seemed to him to proceed from the back of
his snow-hut. Then he heard the muffled thud of approaching footfall,
and the next instant the form of Grey Fox flashed by as he bounded down
the hill straight for the curlew-moor, whence the vixen had called.
Perhaps it was as well for the hare that a vague fear, caused by the new
element, had kept him to the seat, for had Grey Fox and his mate chanced
on him before he was accustomed to the snow, the countryside might have
known him no more.
But staying within his snow-hut was not without its drawbacks; he had to
suffer for his inaction; his fore legs ached; his hind legs were gripped
by cramp; even worse than that was the itching of his ears, which he was
afraid to scratch for fear of bringing his house down.
Luckily these attacks came one at a time, until the hour before sunset,
when they fell together and nearly drove him mad. The red sun that had
previously been such a comfort to him, now seemed as if it would never
go down and set him free to stretch his limbs and scratch his ears. But
it sank at last, though a bit of the rim still showed when he burst out
and made off like the wind. Beyond the chantry he pulled up; he would at
last be rid of the itching in his ears; but the cramp threatened and
sent him going again. So down the hill he tore, putting his feet into a
blind hole and tumbling head over heels with the impetus of his rush. He
was on his feet in a twinkling, and aided by the hairy soles of his
pads, scurried over the frozen surface with singular ease towards the
linhay field, where he began scraping the snow away to get at the
herbage beneath. What little he found he ate ravenously, but there was
not enough to stay his hunger, which he appeased with the shoots of the
furze.
The light in the farmhouse window was yet burning when he ceased feeding
and began wandering over the moor. He was not happy. The vague
misgivings which had harassed him whilst in the form, the disquiet
caused by ancestral monitions, became real fears when he recognised that
he was leaving a trail easy to follow unless he confused it. Whereupon,
coming to the end of the outward journey, he wove a maze of tracks
amidst the scattered bushes, and the better to conceal the line by which
he returned, crept along an overgrown ditch where only a practised
poacher could have traced him. He roamed until day was about to break,
and when the sun arose it found him sitting by the spring near the
Fairies’ Green.
He was very tired, but afraid to drowse. Every moment he expected to see
some enemy coming along his trail, and for hours he kept watch on the
white plain till sleep claimed him, leaving his sentinel senses on
guard. No moving objects, however, fell on his sight, nothing save the
waste of snow and the vapour over the spring: no sound smote his ears
except the purl of the rill and the faint tinkle of the ice-crystals on
the sedge, so that—a most unusual occurrence—he did not awake till the
sun was about to go down and it was time to think of leaving the form.
After an uneventful night’s wandering he returned to the seat, and would
have continued to use it had not the wind risen again, rendering the
situation so inclement that he had no choice but to go.
His intention was disclosed by his carelessness on quitting the form.
Instead of bounding from it, as was his usual practice, he simply
stepped out, leaving tracks that a child might have traced home, and
leaping across the runnel he rolled on the green, a thing he would never
have done had he meant to come back. Very different was his conduct at
dawn in the field by Johanna’s Garden. He crossed and criss-crossed his
tracks before springing on to the hedge, and from that into the garden,
where, after two of his longest leaps, he squatted some dozen yards from
the medlar.
Yet, carefully as he had concealed his approach, he could not conceal
his person. Indeed, he looked very conspicuous on the surface, which, if
not quite flat, was only slightly wavy from the ridge and furrow
beneath. Perhaps he knew that snow threatened, and relied on it to hide
him. However that may be, the flakes began to fall thickly soon after he
had settled down, and when they ceased he was as effectually covered as
he had been on the hill. Then the sun came out, turning countryside and
garden into a glittering fairyland.
The resplendent enclosure seemed to be crying out for some creature to
enjoy its delights, when suddenly, without a sound to announce their
approach, two full-grown stoats appeared on the wall by the badgers’
creep and stood looking down at the snow. They were not seeking the
tracks of the hare, they were not hunting, they were abroad simply for
the snow, and the next instant they sprang to the ground and began
rolling over one another, uttering a happy chuckling noise the while. On
separating they wallowed in the snow, as if they could not get enough of
the joy of it. But all at once they rose to their feet, raised their
long necks and listened; an unusual sound had alarmed them. It was only
the noise made by the snow that fell from the overladen branches, and
the instant they discovered the cause, they resumed their romps,
twisting and turning like snakes and time after time leaping into the
air. The height they jumped was quite surprising; almost eerie was their
speed as they galloped over the snow.
The hare watched them at their games without serious alarm, he was
almost interested in their movements, when presently they fell to “hide
and seek,” but the moment they gave over playing and began searching the
furrows for mice he was in dread lest in their tunnellings they should
bump against and discover him. Hence he kept an anxious look-out, and
when a long interval passed without a sign of them he suffered agonies
of fear. Even when they did show, it was not much he saw, just their
heads, and that only for a moment or two. As they approached, however,
he could discern the slight heave of the snow that attended their
progress. Presently up popped the head of the nearest, within a few
yards, and when it was withdrawn up popped the head of the other in the
adjacent furrow, only to disappear again as the two made their way
towards the gate. The hare, more and more terrified, awaited their
return, and before long saw the snow lift along the furrow next the one
in which he sat. Then the head of the stoat appeared, but was instantly
drawn back as a dark shadow fell on the snow.
It was a kite who, in her station high overhead, had espied the stoats,
and carrion-feeder though she usually was, had come after them. For the
bird, ravenous with hunger, was forced to get anything she could secure,
and from the medlar-tree on which she alighted watched the snow eagerly
for sign of the prey. The stoats, aware of her presence, lay as still as
death. An hour, two hours passed, then the bigger stoat cautiously
raised his head to reconnoitre, and on seeing that the kite was still
there, as cautiously withdrew it, hoping thus to escape her attention.
But in vain: nothing could escape the bird’s fierce, searching eyes. She
instantly glided to the spot, and with the outstretched talons of her
great yellow feet kept grabbing at the heaving snow, yet always too far
back to secure the retreating stoat, for he moved with amazing rapidity
and never once stopped nor showed his head. Of course the kite could
move as fast as he, and ought to have caught him; indeed she would have
done, had she not been so stupid as to keep striking just behind him. A
more exciting chase could hardly be witnessed; again and again the kite
seemed to have learned wisdom and to be about to close her talons on the
stoat, but as often failed, and when at last she struck directly above
the stoat he had gained the drift by the hedge and was too deep for her
to reach. Thus the pursuit came to an end, but not the incident, for
from his vantage ground the stoat chattered insults at the bird as she
flew back to the tree to await the appearance of the other stoat.
The second stoat, however, had peeped out during the chase and, seeing
the way clear, ran to the near hedge, where she lay safe amongst the
stones that once formed the walls of the cottage. Her tracks on the snow
told of her withdrawal; but they had no message for the kite who, after
watching in vain till the day was nearly gone, at last spread her wide
wings and sailed away in the direction of the Kites’ Carn. Lucky
creature, thought the hare, whose eyes followed the bird’s flight as far
as the narrow peep-hole allowed, lucky creature to be able to glide
through the air and avoid the drifts. The reflection came into his mind
that night as he struggled through deep snow near High Down, whither he
was attracted by the hawthorn bushes.
On reaching the bleak spot, he went from tree to tree gnawing the bark
on the windward side, so that while he fed, his back was to the gale and
his face in a measure protected from the driven snow. He seemed to
prefer the rind on the upper part of the stem, for at each of the three
bushes he stood on his hind feet and reached as high as he could,
despite the swaying of the bushes under the gusts that shook them. The
creaking noise they made formed a weird harmony with the moan of the
wind, which was quite in keeping with the spirit of the haggard upland.
Soon the hare, unable to endure the bitter cold, forsook the down for
the lowland and made for home. Home! Can it be said that he had ever had
a home? The hill had perhaps the best claim, then there was the Fairies’
Green, and the moor, but all of them too exposed for him now, hardiest
of earth’s children though he was. Privation, besides, had begun to tell
on him, and in his weakened condition he turned from the wild to seek
the protection afforded by man; so he was making for the homestead of
whose daily life he had been so close an observer, striking through the
blinding storm over field and waste as unfalteringly as though guided by
some visible beacon.
In the midst of the great croft by Boscawen-Un stone-circle he became a
prey to misgivings which caused him to stop and consider. “Is it safe,”
he asked himself, “to entrust myself so near to man?” Instantly from
that mysterious second self of his came the answer, “Why not? Man has
never injured you, never even sought you, though you have battened on
his crops and taken of his best.” Reassured by this thought he held on
his course across the moors till abreast of Chapel Carn Brea, where he
again paused. Dark though it was, thickly as fell the snow, he could
discern the form of the great hill that had been to him like a second
mother. If it be possible for beast to love a spot on earth, the hare
loved the hill where he had been born and suckled, the hill which had
sheltered him, the hill to which, in his trouble, he had always turned.
He had never passed it by unregarded, he could not even now. But it
looked ghastly and cold, it repelled him, Chapel Carn Brea repelled him
as a dead thing once loved repels the living; so he averted his gaze and
moved on towards the homestead. He followed the bridle-path all the way,
but just before reaching the house he passed under the third bar of the
gate of the rickyard, made his way between the turf and the furze-stack,
and jumped on to the wall in their lee. There he sat between the stems
of two elders, with his face to the farmyard, wondering what the coming
day had in store for him. His heart was beating faster than its wont.