The Mahatma and the Hare / H. Rider Haggard

A DREAM STORY

     "Ultimately a good hare was found which took the field at . . .

     There the hounds pressed her, and on the hunt arriving at the edge

     of the cliff the hare could be seen crossing the beach and going

     right out to sea. A boat was procured, and the master and some

     others rowed out to her just as she drowned, and, bringing the

     body in, gave it to the hounds. A hare swimming out to sea is a

     sight not often witnessed."--Local paper, January 1911.

--

     ". . . A long check occurred in the latter part of this hunt, the

     hare having laid up in a hedgerow, from which she was at last

     evicted by a crack of the whip. Her next place of refuge was a

     horse-pond, which she tried to swim, but got stuck in the ice

     midway, and was sinking, when the huntsman went in after her. It

     was a novel sight to see huntsman and hare being lifted over a

     wall out of the pond, the eager pack waiting for their prey behind

     the wall."--Local paper, February 1911.

*****

The author supposes that the first of the above extracts must have

impressed him. At any rate, on the night after the reading of it, just

as he went to sleep, or on the following morning just as he awoke, he

cannot tell which, there came to him the title and the outlines of this

fantasy, including the command with which it ends. With a particular

clearness did he seem to see the picture of the Great White Road,

"straight as the way of the Spirit, and broad as the breast of Death,"

and of the little Hare travelling towards the awful Gates.

Like the Mahatma of this fable, he expresses no opinion as to the merits

of the controversy between the Red-faced Man and the Hare that, without

search on his own part, presented itself to his mind in so odd a

fashion. It is one on which anybody interested in such matters can form

an individual judgment.

***

THE MAHATMA[*]

     [*] Mahatma, "great-souled." "One of a class of persons with

     preter-natural powers, imagined to exist in India and

     Thibet."--New English Dictionary.

Everyone has seen a hare, either crouched or running in the fields,

or hanging dead in a poulterer's shop, or lastly pathetic, even

dreadful-looking and in this form almost indistinguishable from a

skinned cat, on the domestic table. But not many people have met a

Mahatma, at least to their knowledge. Not many people know even who or

what a Mahatma is. The majority of those who chance to have heard the

title are apt to confuse it with another, that of Mad Hatter.

This is even done of malice prepense (especially, for obvious reasons,

if a hare is in any way concerned) in scorn, not in ignorance, by

persons who are well acquainted with the real meaning of the word and

even with its Sanscrit origin. The truth is that an incredulous Western

world puts no faith in Mahatmas. To it a Mahatma is a kind of spiritual

Mrs. Harris, giving an address in Thibet at which no letters are

delivered. Either, it says, there is no such person, or he is a

fraudulent scamp with no greater occult powers--well, than a hare.

I confess that this view of Mahatmas is one that does not surprise me

in the least. I never met, and I scarcely expect to meet, an individual

entitled to set "Mahatma" after his name. Certainly _I_ have no right to

do so, who only took that title on the spur of the moment when the Hare

asked me how I was called, and now make use of it as a _nom-de-plume_.

It is true there is Jorsen, by whose order, for it amounts to that, I

publish this history. For aught I know Jorsen may be a Mahatma, but he

does not in the least look the part.

Imagine a bluff person with a strong, hard face, piercing grey eyes, and

very prominent, bushy eyebrows, of about fifty or sixty years of age.

Add a Scotch accent and a meerschaum pipe, which he smokes even when he

is wearing a frock coat and a tall hat, and you have Jorsen. I believe

that he lives somewhere in the country, is well off, and practises

gardening. If so he has never asked me to his place, and I only meet him

when he comes to Town, as I understand, to visit flower-shows.

Then I always meet him because he orders me to do so, not by letter or

by word of mouth but in quite a different way. Suddenly I receive an

impression in my mind that I am to go to a certain place at a certain

hour, and that there I shall find Jorsen. I do go, sometimes to an

hotel, sometimes to a lodging, sometimes to a railway station or to the

corner of a particular street and there I do find Jorsen smoking his big

meerschaum pipe. We shake hands and he explains why he has sent for me,

after which we talk of various things. Never mind what they are, for

that would be telling Jorsen's secrets as well as my own, which I must

not do.

It may be asked how I came to know Jorsen. Well, in a strange way.

Nearly thirty years ago a dreadful thing happened to me. I was married

and, although still young, a person of some mark in literature. Indeed

even now one or two of the books which I wrote are read and remembered,

although it is supposed that their author has long left the world.

The thing which happened was that my wife and our daughter were coming

over from the Channel Islands, where they had been on a visit (she was a

Jersey woman), and, and--well, the ship was lost, that's all. The shock

broke my heart, in such a way that it has never been mended again, but

unfortunately did not kill me.

Afterwards I took to drink and sank, as drunkards do. Then the river

began to draw me. I had a lodging in a poor street at Chelsea, and I

could hear the river calling me at night, and--I wished to die as the

others had died. At last I yielded, for the drink had rotted out all

my moral sense. About one o'clock of a wild, winter morning I went to a

bridge I knew where in those days policemen rarely came, and listened to

that call of the water.

"Come!" it seemed to say. "This world is the real hell, ending in the

eternal naught. The dreams of a life beyond and of re-union there

are but a demon's mocking breathed into the mortal heart, lest by its

universal suicide mankind should rob him of his torture-pit. There is

no truth in all your father taught you" (he was a clergyman and rather

eminent in his profession), "there is no hope for man, there is nothing

he can win except the deep happiness of sleep. Come and sleep."

Such were the arguments of that Voice of the river, the old, familiar

arguments of desolation and despair. I leant over the parapet; in

another moment I should have been gone, when I became aware that some

one was standing near to me. I did not see the person because it was too

dark. I did not hear him because of the raving of the wind. But I knew

that he was there. So I waited until the moon shone out for a while

between the edges of two ragged clouds, the shapes of which I can see to

this hour. It showed me Jorsen, looking just as he does to-day, for he

never seems to change--Jorsen, on whom, to my knowledge, I had not set

eyes before.

"Even a year ago," he said, in his strong, rough voice, "you would not

have allowed your mind to be convinced by such arguments as those which

you have just heard in the Voice of the river. That is one of the worst

sides of drink; it decays the reason as it does the body. You must have

noticed it yourself."

I replied that I had, for I was surprised into acquiescence. Then I grew

defiant and asked him what he knew of the arguments which were or were

not influencing me. To my surprise--no, that is not the word--to my

bewilderment, he repeated them to me one by one just as they had arisen

a few minutes before in my heart. Moreover, he told me what I had been

about to do, and why I was about to do it.

"You know me and my story," I muttered at last.

"No," he answered, "at least not more than I know that of many men with

whom I chance to be in touch. That is, I have not met you for nearly

eleven hundred years. A thousand and eighty-six, to be correct. I was a

blind priest then and you were the captain of Irene's guard."

At this news I burst out laughing and the laugh did me good.

"I did not know I was so old," I said.

"Do you call that old?" answered Jorsen. "Why, the first time that we

had anything to do with each other, so far as I can learn, that is, was

over eight thousand years ago, in Egypt before the beginning of recorded

history."

"I thought that I was mad, but you are madder," I said.

"Doubtless. Well, I am so mad that I managed to be here in time to save

you from suicide, as once in the past you saved me, for thus things come

round. But your rooms are near, are they not? Let us go there and talk.

This place is cold and the river is always calling."

That was how I came to know Jorsen, whom I believe to be one of the

greatest men alive. On this particular night that I have described he

told me many things, and since then he has taught me much, me and a few

others. But whether he is what is called a Mahatma I am sure I do not

know. He has never claimed such a rank in my hearing, or indeed to be

anything more than a man who has succeeded in winning a knowledge of his

own powers out of the depths of the dark that lies behind us. Of course

I mean out of his past in other incarnations long before he was Jorsen.

Moreover, by degrees, as I grew fit to bear the light, he showed me

something of my own, and of how the two were intertwined.

But all these things are secrets of which I have perhaps no right to

speak at present. It is enough to say that Jorsen changed the current of

my life on that night when he saved me from death.

For instance, from that day onwards to the present time I have never

touched the drink which so nearly ruined me. Also the darkness has

rolled away, and with it every doubt and fear; I know the truth, and

for that truth I live. Considered from certain aspects such knowledge,

I admit, is not altogether desirable. Thus it has deprived me of my

interest in earthly things. Ambition has left me altogether; for years

I have had no wish to succeed in the profession which I adopted in my

youth, or in any other. Indeed I doubt whether the elements of worldly

success still remain in me; whether they are not entirely burnt away by

that fire of wisdom in which I have bathed. How can we strive to win a

crown we have no longer any desire to wear? Now I desire other crowns

and at times I wear them, if only for a little while. My spirit grows

and grows. It is dragging at its strings.

What am I to look at? A small, white-haired man with a thin and rather

plaintive face in which are set two large, dark eyes that continually

seem to soften and develop. That is my picture. And what am I in the

world? I will tell you. On certain days of the week I employ myself in

editing a trade journal that has to do with haberdashery. On another

day I act as auctioneer to a firm which imports and sells cheap Italian

statuary; modern, very modern copies of the antique, florid marble

vases, and so forth. Some of you who read may have passed such marts

in different parts of the city, or even have dropped in and purchased a

bust or a tazza for a surprisingly small sum. Perhaps I knocked it

down to you, only too pleased to find a _bonâ fide_ bidder amongst my

company.

As for the rest of my time--well, I employ it in doing what good I

can among the poor and those who need comfort or who are bereaved,

especially among those who are bereaved, for to such I am sometimes able

to bring the breath of hope that blows from another shore.

Occasionally also I amuse myself in my own fashion. Thus sure knowledge

has come to me about certain epochs in the past in which I lived in

other shapes, and I study those epochs, hoping that one day I may find

time to write of them and of the parts I played in them. Some of these

parts are extremely interesting, especially as I am of course able to

contrast them with our modern modes of thought and action.

They do not all come back to me with equal clearness, the earlier

lives being, as one might expect, the more difficult to recover and the

comparatively recent ones the easiest. Also they seem to range over a

vast stretch of time, back indeed to the days of primeval, prehistoric

man. In short, I think the subconscious in some ways resembles the

conscious and natural memory; that which is very far off to it grows dim

and blurred, that which is comparatively close remains clear and sharp,

although of course this rule is not invariable. Moreover there is

foresight as well as memory. At least from time to time I seem to come

in touch with future events and states of society in which I shall have

my share.

I believe some thinkers hold a theory that such conditions as those of

past, present, and future do not in fact exist; that everything already

is, standing like a completed column between earth and heaven; that

the sum is added up, the equation worked out. At times I am tempted to

believe in the truth of this proposition. But if it be true, of course

it remains difficult to obtain a clear view of other parts of the column

than that in which we happen to find ourselves objectively conscious at

any given period, and needless to say impossible to see it from base to

capital.

However this may be, no individual entity pervades all the column.

There are great sections of it with which that entity has nothing to

do, although it always seems to appear again above. I suppose that those

sections which are empty of an individual and his atmosphere represent

the intervals between his lives which he spends in sleep, or in states

of existence with which this world is not concerned, but of such gulfs

of oblivion and states of being I know nothing.

To take a single instance of what I do know: once this spirit of mine,

that now by the workings of destiny for a little while occupies the body

of a fourth-rate auctioneer, and of the editor of a trade journal, dwelt

in that of a Pharaoh of Egypt--never mind which Pharoah. Yes, although

you may laugh and think me mad to say it, for me the legions fought

and thundered; to me the peoples bowed and the secret sanctuaries were

opened that I and I alone might commune with the gods; I who in the

flesh and after it myself was worshipped as a god.

Well, of this forgotten Royalty of whom little is known save what a

few inscriptions have to tell, there remains a portrait statue in the

British Museum. Sometimes I go to look at that statue and try to recall

exactly under what circumstances I caused it to be shaped, puzzling out

the story bit by bit.

Not long ago I stood thus absorbed and did not notice that the hour of

the closing of the great gallery had come. Still I stood and gazed and

dreamt till the policeman on duty, seeing and suspecting me, came up and

roughly ordered me to begone.

The man's tone angered me. I laid my hand on the foot of the statue, for

it had just come back to me that it was a "Ka" image, a sacred thing,

any Egyptologist will know what I mean, which for ages had sat in a

chamber of my tomb. Then the Ka that clings to it eternally awoke at my

touch and knew me, or so I suppose. At least I felt myself change. A new

strength came into me; my shape, battered in this world's storms, put on

something of its ancient dignity; my eyes grew royal. I looked at that

man as Pharaoh may have looked at one who had done him insult. He saw

the change and trembled--yes, trembled. I believe he thought I was some

imperial ghost that the shadows of evening had caused him to mistake for

man; at any rate he gasped out--

"I beg your pardon, I was obeying orders. I hope your Majesty won't hurt

me. Now I think of it I have been told that things come out of these old

statues in the night."

Then turning he ran, literally ran, where to I am sure I do not know,

probably to seek the fellowship of some other policeman. In due course I

followed, and, lifting the bar at the end of the hall, departed without

further question asked. Afterwards I was very glad to think that I had

done the man no injury. At the moment I knew that I could hurt him if

I would, and what is more I had the desire to do so. It came to me, I

suppose, with that breath of the past when I was so great and absolute.

Perhaps I, or that part of me then incarnate, was a tyrant in those

days, and this is why now I must be so humble. Fate is turning my pride

to its hammer and beating it out of me.

For thus in the long history of the soul it serves all our vices.

THE GREAT WHITE ROAD

Now, as I have hinted, under the teaching of Jorsen, who saved me from

degradation and self-murder, yes, and helped me with money until once

again I could earn a livelihood, I have acquired certain knowledge and

wisdom of a sort that are not common. That is, Jorsen taught me

the elements of these things; he set my feet upon the path which

thenceforward, having the sight, I have been able to follow for myself.

How I followed it does not matter, nor could I teach others if I would.

I am no member of any mystic brotherhood, and, as I have explained, no

Mahatma, although I have called myself thus for present purposes because

the name is a convenient cloak. I repeat that I am ignorant if there

are such people as Mahatmas, though if so I think Jorsen must be one

of them. Still he never told me this. What he has told is that every

individual spirit must work out its own destiny quite independently

of others. Indeed, being rather fond of fine phrases, he has sometimes

spoken to me of, or rather, insisted upon what he called "the lonesome

splendour of the human soul," which it is our business to perfect

through various lives till I can scarcely appreciate and am certainly

unable to describe.

To tell the truth, the thought of this "lonesome splendour" to which

it seems some of us may attain, alarms me. I have had enough of being

lonesome, and I do not ask for any particular splendour. My only

ambitions are to find those whom I have lost, and in whatever life

I live to be of use to others. However, as I gather that the exalted

condition to which Jorsen alludes is thousands of ages off for any of

us, and may after all mean something quite different to what it seems to

mean, the thought of it does not trouble me over much. Meanwhile what I

seek is the vision of those I love.

Now I have this power. Occasionally when I am in deep sleep some part of

me seems to leave my body and to be transported quite outside the world.

It travels, as though I were already dead, to the Gates that all who

live must pass, and there takes its stand, on the Great White Road,

watching those who have been called speed by continually. Those upon the

earth know nothing of that Road. Blinded by their pomps and vanities,

they cannot see, they will not see it always growing towards the feet of

every one of them. But I see and know. Of course you who read will say

that this is but a dream of mine, and it may be. Still, if so, it is a

very wonderful dream, and except for the change of the passing people,

or rather of those who have been people, always very much the same.

There, straight as the way of the Spirit and broad as the breast of

Death, is the Great White Road running I know not whence, up to those

Gates that gleam like moonlight and are higher than the Alps. There

beyond the Gates the radiant Presences move mysteriously. Thence at the

appointed time the Voice cries and they are opened with a sound like to

that of deepest thunder, or sometimes are burned away, while from the

Glory that lies beyond flow the sweet-faced welcomers to greet those for

whom they wait, bearing the cups from which they give to drink. I do

not know what is in the cups, whether it be a draught of Lethe or

some baptismal water of new birth, or both; but always the thirsting,

world-worn soul appears to change, and then as it were to be lost in the

Presence that gave the cup. At least they are lost to my sight. I see

them no more.

Why do I watch those Gates, in truth or in dream, before my time? Oh!

You can guess. That perchance I may behold those for whom my heart burns

with a quenchless, eating fire. And once I beheld--not the mother but

the child, my child, changed indeed, mysterious, wonderful, gleaming

like a star, with eyes so deep that in their depths my humanity seemed

to swoon.

She came forward; she knew me; she smiled and laid her finger on her

lips. She shook her hair about her and in it vanished as in a cloud. Yet

as she vanished a voice spoke in my heart, her voice, and the words it

said were--

"Wait, our Beloved! Wait!"

Mark well. "Our Beloved," not "My Beloved." So there are others by whom

I am beloved, or at least one other, and I know well who that one must

be.

*****

After this dream, perhaps I had better call it a dream, I was ill for a

long while, for the joy and the glory of it overpowered me and brought

me near to the death I had always sought. But I recovered, for my hour

is not yet. Moreover, for a long while as we reckon time, some years

indeed, I obeyed the injunction and sought the Great White Road no more.

At length the longing grew too strong for me and I returned thither, but

never again did the vision come. Its word was spoken, its mission was

fulfilled. Yet from time to time I, a mortal, seem to stand upon the

borders of that immortal Road and watch the newly dead who travel it

towards the glorious Gates.

Once or twice there have been among them people whom I have known. As

these pass me I appear to have the power of looking into their hearts,

and there I read strange things. Sometimes they are beautiful things and

sometimes ugly things. Thus I have learned that those I thought bad were

really good in the main, for who can claim to be quite good? And on the

other hand that those I believed to be as honest as the day--well, had

their faults.

To take an example which I quote because it is so absurd. The rooms I

live in were owned by a prim old woman who for more than twenty years

was my landlady. She and I were great friends, indeed she tended me like

a mother, and when I was so ill nursed me as perhaps few mothers would

have done. Yet while I was watching on the Road suddenly she came by,

and with horror I saw that during all those years she had been robbing

me, taking, I am sorry to say, many things, in money, trinkets, and

food. Often I had discussed with her where these articles could possibly

have gone, till finally suspicion settled upon the man who cleaned the

windows. Yes, and worst of all, he was prosecuted, and I gave evidence

against him, or rather strengthened her evidence, on faith of which the

magistrate sent him to prison for a month.

"Oh! Mrs Smithers," I said to her, "how _could_ you do it, Mrs.

Smithers?"

She stopped and looked about her terrified, so that my heart smote me

and I added in haste, "Don't be frightened, Mrs. Smithers; I forgive

you."

"I can't see you, sir," she exclaimed, or so I dreamed, "but there! I

always knew you would."

"Yes, Mrs. Smithers," I replied; "but how about the window-cleaner who

went to jail and lost his situation?"

Then she passed on or was drawn away without making any answer.

Now comes the odd part of the story. When I woke up on the following

morning in my rooms, it was to be informed by the frightened

maid-of-all-work that Mrs. Smithers had been found dead in her bed.

Moreover, a few days later I learned from a lawyer that she had made

a will leaving me everything she possessed, including the lease of her

house and nearly £1000, for she had been a saving old person during all

her long life.

Well, I sought out that window-cleaner and compensated him handsomely,

saying that I had found I was mistaken in the evidence I gave against

him. The rest of the property I kept, and I hope that it was not wrong

of me to do so. It will be remembered that some of it was already my

own, temporarily diverted into another channel, and for the rest I have

so many to help. To be frank I do not spend much upon myself.

THE HARE

Now I have done with myself, or rather with my own insignificant present

history, and come to that of the Hare. It impressed me a good deal at

the time, which is not long ago, so much indeed that I communicated the

facts to Jorsen. He ordered me to publish them, and what Jorsen orders

must be done. I don't know why this should be, but it is so. He has

authority of a sort that I am unable to define.

One night after the usual aspirations and concentration of mind, which

by the way are not always successful, I passed into what occultists call

spirit, and others a state of dream. At any rate I found myself upon

the borders of the Great White Road, as near to the mighty Gates as I am

ever allowed to come. How far that may be away I cannot tell. Perhaps it

is but a few yards and perhaps it is the width of this great world, for

in that place which my spirit visits time and distance do not exist.

There all things are new and strange, not to be reckoned by our

measures. There the sight is not our sight nor the hearing our hearing.

I repeat that all things are different, but that difference I cannot

describe, and if I could it would prove past comprehension.

There I sat by the borders of the Great White Road, my eyes fixed upon

the Gates above which the towers mount for miles on miles, outlined

against an encircling gloom with the radiance of the world beyond the

worlds. Four-square they stand, those towers, and fourfold the gates

that open to the denizens of other earths. But of these I have no

knowledge beyond the fact that it is so in my visions.

I sat upon the borders of the Road, my eyes fixed in hope upon the

Gates, though well I knew that the hope would never be fulfilled, and

watched the dead go by.

They were many that night. Some plague was working in the East and

unchaining thousands. The folk that it loosed were strange to me who in

this particular life have seldom left England, and I studied them with

curiosity; high-featured, dark-hued people with a patient air. The

knowledge which I have told me that one and all they were very ancient

souls who often and often had walked this Road before, and therefore,

although as yet they did not know it, were well accustomed to the

journey. No, I am wrong, for here and there an individual did know.

Indeed one deep-eyed, wistful little woman, who carried a baby in her

arms, stopped for a moment and spoke to me.

"The others cannot see you as I do," she said. "Priest of the Queen of

queens, I know you well; hand in hand we climbed by the seven stairways

to the altars of the moon."

"Who is the Queen of queens?" I asked.

"Have you forgotten her of the hundred names whose veils we lifted one

by one; her whose breast was beauty and whose eyes were truth? In a day

to come you will remember. Farewell till we walk this Road no more."

"Stay--when did we meet?"

"When our souls were young," she answered, and faded from my ken like a

shadow from the sea.

After the Easterns came many others from all parts of the earth. Then

suddenly appeared a company of about six hundred folk of every age and

English in their looks. They were not so calm as are the majority of

those who make this journey. When I read the papers a few days later I

understood why. A great passenger ship had sunk suddenly in mid ocean

and they were all cut off unprepared.

When, followed by a few stragglers, these had passed and gathered

themselves in the red shadow beneath the gateway towers waiting for the

summons, an unusual thing occurred. For a few moments the Road was left

quite empty. After that last great stroke Death seemed to be resting on

his laurels. When thus unpeopled it looked a very vast place like to a

huge arched causeway, bordered on either side by blackness, but itself

gleaming with a curious phosphorescence such as once or twice I have

seen in the waters of a summer sea at night.

Presently in the very centre of this illuminated desolation, whilst it

was as yet far away, something caught my eye, something so strange to

the place, so utterly unfamiliar that I watched it earnestly, wondering

what it might be. Nearer and nearer it came, with curious, uncertain

hops; yes, a little brown object that hopped.

"Well," I said to myself, "if I were not where I am I should say that

yonder thing was a hare. Only what would a hare be doing on the Great

White Road? How could a hare tread the pathway of eternal souls? I must

be mistaken."

So I reflected whilst still the thing hopped on, until I became certain

that either I suffered from delusions, or that it was a hare; indeed a

particularly fine hare, much such a one as a friend of my old landlady,

Mrs. Smithers, had once sent her as a Christmas present from Norfolk,

which hare I ate.

A few more hops brought it opposite to my post of observation. Here it

halted as though it seemed to see me. At any rate it sat up in the alert

fashion that hares have, its forepaws hanging absurdly in front of it,

with one ear, on which there was a grey blotch, cocked and one dragging,

and sniffed with its funny little nostrils. Then it began to talk to me.

I do not mean that it really talked, but the thoughts which were in its

mind were flashed on to my mind so that I understood perfectly, yes, and

could answer them in the same fashion. It said, or thought, thus:--

"You are real. You are a man who yet lives beneath the sun, though how

you came here I do not know. I hate men, all hares do, for men are cruel

to them. Still it is a comfort in this strange place to see something

one has seen before and to be able to talk even to a man, which I could

never do until the change came, the dreadful change--I mean because of

the way of it," and it seemed to shiver. "May I ask you some questions?"

"Certainly," I said or rather thought back.

"You are sure that they won't make you angry so that you hurt me?"

"I can't hurt you, even if I wished to do so. You are not a hare any

longer, if you ever were one, but only the shadow of a hare."

"Ah! I thought as much, and that's a good thing anyhow. Tell me, Man,

have you ever been torn to pieces by dogs?"

"Good gracious! no."

"Or coursed, or hunted, or caught in a trap, or shot all over your back,

or twisted up in nets and choked in snares? Or have you swum out to sea

to die more easily, or seen your mate and mother and father killed?"

"No, no. Please stop, Hare; your questions are very unpleasant."

"Not half so unpleasant as the things are themselves, I can assure

you, Man. I will tell you my story if you like; then you can judge for

yourself. But first, if you will, do you tell me why I am here. Have you

seen more hares about this place?"

"Never, nor any other animals. No, I am wrong, once I saw a dog."

The Hare looked about it anxiously.

"A dog. How horrible! What was it doing? Hunting? If there are no hares

here what could it be hunting? A rabbit, or a pheasant with a broken

wing, or perhaps a fox? I should not mind so much if it were a fox. I

hate foxes; they catch young hares when they are asleep and eat them."

"None of these things. I was told that it belonged to a little girl who

died. That broke its heart, so that it died also when they shut her up

in a box. Therefore it was allowed to accompany her here because it had

loved so much. Indeed I saw them together, both very happy, and together

they went through those gates."

"If dogs love little girls why don't they love hares, at least as

anything likes to be loved, for the dog didn't want to eat the little

girl, did it? I see you can't answer me. Now would you like me to tell

you my story? Something inside of me is saying that I am to do so if you

will listen; also that there is plenty of time, for I am not wanted at

present, and when I am I can run to those gates much quicker than you

could."

"I should like it very much, Hare. Once a prophet heard an ass speak in

order to warn him. But since then, except very, very rarely in dreams,

no creature has talked to a man, so far as I know. Perhaps you wish

to warn me about something, or others through me, as the ass warned

Balaam."

"Who is Balaam? I never heard of Balaam. He wasn't the man who fetches

dead pheasants in the donkey-cart, was he? If so, I've seen him make the

ass talk--with a thick stick. No? Well, never mind, I daresay I should

not understand about him if you told me. Now for my story."

Then the Hare sat itself down, planting its forepaws firmly in front of

it, as these animals do when they are on the watch, looked up at me and

began to pour the contents of its mind into mine.

*****

I was born, it said, or rather told me by thought transference, in a

field of growing corn near to a big wood. At least I suppose I was born

there, though the first thing I remember is playing about in the wheat

with two other little ones of my own size, a brother and a sister that

were born with me. It was at night, for a great, round, shining thing

which I now know was the moon, hung in the sky above us. We gambolled

together and were very happy, till presently my mother came--I remember

how big she looked--and cuffed me with her paw because I had led the

others away from the place where she had told us to stop, and given her

a great hunt to find us. That is the first thing I remember about my

mother. Afterwards she seemed sorry because she had hurt me, and nursed

us all three, letting me have the most milk. My mother always loved me

the best of us, because I was such a fine leveret, with a pretty grey

patch on my left ear. Just as I had finished drinking another hare came

who was my father. He was very large, with a glossy coat and big shining

eyes that always seemed to see everything, even when it was behind him.

He was frightened about something, and hustled my mother and us little

ones out of the wheat-field into the big wood by which it is bordered.

As we left the field I saw two tall creatures that afterwards I came to

know were men. They were placing wire-netting round the field--you see I

understand now what all these things were, although of course I did not

at the time. The two ends of the wire netting had nearly come together.

There was only a little gap left through which we could run. Another

young hare, or it may have been a rabbit, had got entangled in it, and

one of the men was beating it to death with a stick. I remember that the

sound of its screams made me feel cold down the back, for I had never

heard anything like that before, and this was the first that I had seen

of pain and death.

The other man saw us slipping through and ran at us with his stick. My

mother went first and escaped him. Then came my sister, then I, then my

brother. My father was last of all. The man hit with his stick and it

came down thud along side of me, just touching my fur. He hit again and

broke the foreleg of my brother. Still we all managed to get through

into the wood, except my father who was behind.

"There's the old buck!" cried one of the men (I understand what he

said now, though at the time it meant nothing to me). "Knock him on the

head!"

So leaving us alone they ran at him. But my father was much too quick

for them. He rushed back into the corn and afterwards joined us in the

wood, for he had seen wire before and knew how to escape it. Still he

was terribly frightened and made us keep in the wood till the following

evening, not even allowing my mother to go to her form in the rough

pasture on its other side and lie up there.

Also we were in trouble because my brother's forepaw was broken. It gave

him a great deal of pain, so that he could not rest or sleep. After a

while, however, it mended up in a fashion, but he was never able to run

as fast as we could, nor did he grow so big. In the end the mother fox

killed him, as I shall tell.

My mother asked my father what the men with the sticks were doing--for,

you know, many animals can talk to each other in their own way, even if

they are of different kinds. He told her that they were protecting the

wheat to prevent us from eating it, to which she answered angrily that

hares must live somehow, especially when they had young ones to nurse.

My father replied that men did not seem to think so, and perhaps they

had young ones also. I see now that my father was a philosophic hare.

But are you tired of my story?

"Not at all," I answered; "go on, please. It is very interesting to hear

things described from the animal's point of view, especially when that

animal has grown wise and learned to understand."

"Ah," answered the Hare. "I see what you mean. And it is odd, but I do

understand. All has become clear to me. I don't know what happened when

I died, but there came a change, and I knew that I who was but a beast

always have been and still am a necessary part of everything as much as

you are, though more helpless and humble. Yes, I am as ancient and as

far-reaching as yourself, but how I began and how I shall end is dark to

me. Well, I will go on with my story."

It must have been a moon or so later, after my mother had given up

nursing me, that I went to lie out by myself. There was a big house on

the hillside overlooking the sea, and near to it were gardens surrounded

by a wall. Also outside of this wall was another patch of garden where

cabbages grew. I found a way to those cabbages and kept it secret, for

I was greedy and wanted them all for myself. I used to creep in at night

and eat them, also some flowers with spiky leaves that grew round them

which had a very fine flavour. Then after the dawn came I went to a form

which I had made under a furze bush on the slope that ran down to the

sea, and slept there.

One day I was awakened by something white, hard, and round which rolled

gently and stopped still quite close to me. It was not alive, although

it had a queer smell, and I wondered why it moved at all. Presently I

heard voices and there appeared a little man, and with him somebody who

was not a man because it was differently dressed and spoke in a higher

voice. I saw that they had sticks in their hands and thought of running

away, then that it would be safer to lie quite close. They came up to me

and the little man said--

"There's the ball; pick it up, Ella, the lie is too bad."

She, for now I know it was what is called a girl, stooped to obey and

saw my back.

"Tom," she said in a whisper, "here's a young hare on its form."

"Get out of the light," he answered, "and I'll kill it," and he lifted

the stick he held, which had a twisted iron end.

"No," she said, "catch it alive; I want a hare to be a friend to my

rabbit, which has lost all its little ones."

"Lost them? Eaten them, you mean, because you would always go and stare

at it," said Tom. "Where's the leveret? Oh! I see. Now, look out!"

A moment later and I was in darkness. Tom had thrown himself upon the

top of me and was grabbing at me with his hands. I nearly got away, but

as my head poked up under his arm the girl caught hold of it.

"Oh! it's scratching," she cried, as indeed I was with all my might.

"Hold it, Tom, hold it!"

"Hold it yourself," said Tom, "my face is full of furze prickles." So

she held and presently he helped her, till in the end I was tied up in a

pocket-handkerchief and carried I knew not whither. Indeed I was almost

mad with fear.

When I came to myself I found that I was within a kind of wire run which

smelt foully, as though hundreds of things had lived in it for years.

There was a hutch at the end of the run in which sat an enormous

she-rabbit, quite as big as my mother, a fierce-looking brute with long

yellow teeth. I was afraid of that rabbit and got as far from it as I

could. Presently it hopped out and looked at me.

"What are you doing here?" it asked. "Can't you talk? Well, it doesn't

matter. If I get hungry I'll eat you! Do you hear that? I'll eat you,

as I did all the others," and it showed its big yellow teeth and hopped

back into the hutch.

After that Tom and the girl came and gave us plenty of food which the

big rabbit ate, for I could touch nothing. For two days they came, and

then I think they forgot all about us. I grew very hungry, and at night

filled myself with some of the remaining food, such as stale cabbage

leaves. By next morning all was gone, and the big rabbit grew hungry

also. All that day it hopped about sniffing at me and showing its yellow

teeth.

"I shall eat you to-night," it said.

I ran round and round the pen in terror, till at last I found a place

where rats had been working under the wire, almost big enough for me to

squeeze through, but not quite.

The sun went down and the big she-rabbit came out.

"Now I am going to eat you," it said, "as I ate all the others. I am

hungry, very hungry," and it prodded me about with its nose and rolled

me over.

At last with a little squeal it drove its big yellow teeth into me

behind. Oh! how they hurt! I was near the rat-hole. I rushed at

it, scrabbling and wriggling. The big rabbit pounced on me with its

fore-feet, trying to hold me, but too late, for I was through, leaving

some of my fur behind me. I ran, how I ran! without stopping, till at

length I found my mother in the rough pasture by the wood and told her

everything.

"Ah!" she said, "that's what comes of greediness and of trying to be too

clever. Now, perhaps, you will learn to stop at home."

So I did for a long while.

*****

The summer went by without anything particular happening, except that my

brother with the lame foot was eaten by the mother fox. That great red

beast was always prowling about, and at night surprised us in a field

near the wood where we were feeding on some beautiful turnips. The rest

of us got away, but my brother being lame, was not quick enough. The fox

caught him, and I heard her sharp white teeth crunch into his bones.

The sound made me quite sick, and my mother was very sad afterwards. She

complained to my father of the cruelty of foxes, but he, who, as I have

said, was a philosopher, answered her almost in her own words.

"Foxes must live, and this one has young to feed, and therefore is

always hungry. There are three of them in a hole at the top of the

wood," he remarked. "Also our son was lame and would certainly have been

caught when the hunting begins."

"What's the hunting?" I asked.

"Never mind," said my father sharply. "No doubt you'll find out in time,

that is if you live through the shooting."

"What's the shooting?" I began, but my father cuffed me over the head

and I was silent.

I may tell you that my mother soon got over the loss of my brother, for

just about that time she had four new little ones, after which neither

she nor my father seemed to think any more about us. My sister and

I hated those little ones. We two alone remembered my brother, and

sometimes wondered whether he was quite gone or would one day come back.

The fox, I am glad to say, got caught in a trap. At least I am not glad

now--I was glad because, you see, I was so much afraid of her.

THE SHOOTING

I was quite close by one morning when the fox, who was smelling about

after me, I suppose because it had liked my brother so much, got caught

in the big trap which was covered over artfully with earth and baited

with some stuff which stank horribly. I remember it looked very like my

own hind-legs. The fox, not being able to find me, went to this filth

and tried to eat it.

Then suddenly there was a dreadful fuss. The fox yelped and flew into

the air. I saw that a great black thing was fast on its forepaw. How

that fox did jump and roll! It was quite wonderful to see her. She

looked like a great yellow ball, except for a lot of white marks about

the head, which were her teeth. But the trap would not come away,

because it was tied to a root with a chain.

At last the fox grew tired and, lying down, began to think, licking its

paw as it thought and making a kind of moaning noise. Next it commenced

gnawing at the root after trying the chain and finding that its teeth

would not go into it. While it was doing this I heard the sound of a man

somewhere in the wood. So did the fox, and oh! it looked so frightened.

It lay down panting, its tongue hanging out and its ears pressed back

against its head, and whisked its big tail from side to side. Then it

began to gnaw again, but this time at its own leg. It wanted to bite it

off and so get away. I thought this very brave of the fox, and though

I hated it because it had eaten my brother and tried to eat me, I felt

quite sorry.

It was about half through its leg when the man came. I remember that he

had a cat with a little red collar on its neck, and an owl in his hand,

both of them dead, for he was Giles, the head-keeper, going round his

traps. He was a tall man with sandy whiskers and a rough voice, and he

carried a single-barrelled gun under his arm.

You see, now that I am dead I know the use of these things, just as I

understand all that was said, though of course at the time it had no

meaning for me. Still I find that I have forgotten nothing, not one word

from the beginning of my life to the end.

The keeper, who was on his way to the place where he nailed the

creatures he did not like by dozens upon poles, looked down and saw the

fox. "Oh! my beauty," he said, "so I have got you at last. Don't you

think yourself clever trying to bite off that leg. You'd have done it

too, only I came along just in time. Well, good night, old girl, you

won't have no more of my pheasants."

Then he lifted the gun. There was a most dreadful noise and the fox

rolled over and lay still.

"There you are, all neat and tidy, my dear," said the keeper. "Now I

must just tuck you away in the hollow tree before old Grampus sneaks

round and sees you, for if he should it will be almost as much as my

place is worth."

Next he set his foot on the trap and, opening it, took hold of the fox

by the fore-legs to carry it off. The cat and the owl he stuffed away

into a great pocket in his coat.

"Jemima! don't you wholly stink," he said, then gave a most awful yell.

The fox wasn't quite dead after all, it was only shamming dead. At any

rate it got Giles' hand in its mouth and made its teeth meet through the

flesh.

Now the keeper began to jump about just as the fox had done when it

set its paw in the trap, shouting and saying all sorts of things that

somehow I don't think I ought to repeat here. Round and round he

went with the fox hanging to his hand, like hares do when they dance

together, for he couldn't get it off anyhow. At last he tumbled down

into a pool of mud and water, and when he got up again all wet through I

saw that the fox was really dead. But it had died biting, and now I know

that this pleased it very much.

It was just then that the man whom the keeper had called Grampus came

up. He was a big, fat man with a very red face, who made a kind of

blowing noise when he walked fast. I know now that he was the lord of

all the other men about that place, that he lived in the house which

looked over the sea, and that the boy and girl who put me in with the

yellow-toothed rabbit were his children. He was what the farmers called

"a first-rate all-round sportsman," which means, my friend--but what is

your name?

"Oh! Mahatma," I answered at hazard.

"Which means, my friend Mahatma, that he spent most of the year in

killing the lower animals such as me. Yes, he spent quite eight months

out of the twelve in killing us one way and another, for when there was

no more killing to be done in his own country, he would travel to others

and kill there. He would even kill pigeons from a trap, or young rooks

just out of their nests, or rats in a stack, or sparrows among

ivy, rather than not kill anything. I've heard Giles say so to the

under-keeper and call him 'a regular slaughterer' and 'a true-blood

Englishman.'

"Yet, my friend Mahatma, I say in the light of the truth which has come

to me, that according to his knowledge Grampus was a good man. Thus,

what little time he had to spare from sport he passed in helping his

brother men by sending them to prison. Although of course he never

worked or earned anything, he was very rich, because money flowed to him

from other people who had been very rich, but who at last were forced

to travel this Road and could not bring it with them. If they could have

brought it, I am sure that Grampus would never have got any. However, he

did get it, and he aided a great many people with that part of it which

he found he could not spend upon himself. He was a very good man, only

he liked killing us lower creatures, whom he bred up with his money to

be killed.

"Go on with your story, Hare," I said; "when I see this Red-faced Man I

will judge of him for myself. Probably you are prejudiced about him."

"I daresay I am," answered the Hare, rubbing its nose; "but please

observe that I am not speaking unkindly of Grampus, although before I

have done you may think that I might have reason to do so. However, you

will be able to form your own opinion when he comes here, which I am

sure he does not mean to do for many, many years. The world is much too

comfortable for him. He does not wish to leave it."

"Still he may be obliged to do so, Hare."

"Oh! no, people like that are never obliged to do anything they do not

like. It is only poor things such as you and I, Mahatma, which must

suffer. I can see that you have had a great deal to bear, and so have

I, for we were born to suffering as the Red-faced Man was born to

happiness."

"Go on with your story, Hare," I repeated. "You are becoming

metaphysical and therefore dull. The time is short and I want to hear

what happened."

"Quite so, Mahatma. Well, Grampus came up breathing very heavily and

looking very red in the face. He held his hat in one hand and a large

crooked stick in the other, and even the top of his head, on which no

hair grew, was red, for he had been running.

"What the deuce is the matter?" he puffed. "Oh! it is you, Giles, is it?

What are you doing, sir, looking like that, all covered with blood and

mud? Has a poacher shot you, or what?"

"No, Squire," answered Giles humbly, touching his hat. "I have shot a

poacher, that's all, and it has given me what for," and he lifted the

body of the fox from the water.

"A fox," said Grampus, "a fox! Do you mean to say, Giles, that you have

dared to shoot a fox, and a vixen with a litter too? How often have

I told you that, although I keep harriers and not fox-hounds, you

are never to touch a fox. You will get me into trouble with all my

neighbours. I give you a month's notice. You will leave on this day

month."

"Very well, Squire," said Giles, "I'll leave, and I hope you'll find

some one to serve you better. Meanwhile I didn't shoot the dratted fox.

At least I only shot her after she'd gone and got herself into a trap

which I had set for that there Rectory dog what you told me to make off

with on the quiet, so that the young lady might never know what become

of it and cry and make a fuss as she did about the last. Then seeing

that she was finished, with her leg half chewed off, I shot her, or

rather I didn't shoot her as well as I should, for the beggar gave a

twist as I fired, and now she's bit me right through the hand. I only

hopes you won't have to pay my widow for it, Squire, under the Act,

as foxes' bites is uncommon poisonous, especially when they've been

a-eating of rotten rabbit."

"Dear me!" said the Red-faced Man softening, "dear me, the beast does

seem to have bitten you very badly. You must go and be cauterised with

a red-hot iron. It is painful but the best thing to do. Meanwhile, suck

it, Giles, suck it! I daresay that will draw out the poison, and if it

doesn't, thank my stars! I am insured. Look here, a minute or two can

make no difference, for if you are poisoned, you are poisoned. Where can

we put this brute? I wouldn't have it seen for ten pounds."

"There's an old pollard, Squire, about five yards away down near the

fence, which is hollow and handy," said Giles.

"Quite so," he answered, "I know it well. Do you bring the--dog, Giles.

Remember, it was a dog, not a fox."

Then they went to the pollard, and as Giles's hand was hurt the

Red-faced Man climbed up it, though Giles tried to prevent him.

"Now then, Giles," he said, "give me the fox--I mean the dog, and I will

drop it down. Great Heavens! how this tree stinks. Has there been an

earth here?"

"Not as I knows of, Squire," said Giles sullenly.

Grampus stretched his hand down into the hollow of the pollard and

dragged up a rotting fox by its tail.

"Giles," he said, "you have been killing more foxes and hiding them in

this tree. Giles, I dismiss you at once and without a month's wages."

"All right, sir," said Giles, "I'll go, and I prays you'll find some one

what will keep your hares which you must have, and your pheasants which

you must have, and your partridges which you must have, without killing

these varmints of foxes what eats the lot."

The Red-faced Man descended from the tree holding his nose and looked at

Giles. Giles sucked his bleeding hand and looked at him.

"Foxes are very destructive animals," said the Red-faced Man to Giles,

"especially when one shoots and keeps harriers."

"They are that, sir," said Giles to the Red-faced Man, "as only those

know what has to do with them."

"Put the other in, Giles," said the Red-faced man, "and when you have

time, throw some soil on to the top of the lot. This place smells

horrible. And look you here, Giles," he added in a voice of thunder, "if

ever I find you killing a fox upon this property, you will be dismissed

at once, as I have often told you before. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Squire, I understand," answered Giles, "and I'll see to the

burying of them this same afternoon, if the pain in my hand will suffer

it."

"Very well," said the Red-faced Man, "that's done with--except the cubs.

As you have killed the vixen you had better stink the cubs out of the

earth. I daresay they are old enough to look after themselves--at any

rate I hope so. And now, Giles, we must shoot some of these hares when

we begin on the partridges next week. There are too many of them, the

tenants are complaining, ungrateful beggars as they are, seeing that I

keep them for their sport."

At this point I thought that I had heard enough, and slipped away when

their backs were turned. For, friend Mahatma, I had just seen a fox

shot, and now I knew what shooting meant.

*****

About a week later I knew better still. It came about thus. By that

time the turnips I have mentioned, those that grew in the big field, had

swelled into fine, large bulbs with leafy tops. We used to eat them at

nights, and in the daytime to lie up among them in our snug forms. You

know, Mahatma, don't you, that a form is a little hollow which a hare

makes in the ground just to fit itself? No hare likes to sleep in

another hare's form. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I answered, "I understand. It would be like a man wearing another

man's boots."

"I don't know anything about boots Mahatma, except that they are hard

things with iron on them which kick one out of one's form if one

sits too close. Once that happened to me. Well, my form was under a

particularly fine turnip that had some dead leaves beneath the green

ones. I chose it because, like the brown earth, they just matched the

colour of my back. I was sleeping there quite soundly when my sister

came and woke me.

"There are men in the field," she said, her eyes nearly starting out of

her head with fear, for she was always very timid.

"I'm off."

"Are you?" I answered. "Well, I think I shall stop here where I shan't

be noticed. If we begin jumping over those turnips they will see us."

"We might run down the rows, keeping our ears close to our backs," she

remarked.

"No," I said, "there are too many bare patches."

At this moment a gun went 'bang' some way off; and my sister, like a

wise hare, scuttled away at full speed for the wood. But I only made

myself smaller than usual and lay watching and listening.

There was a good deal to see and hear; for instance, a covey of

partridges, troublesome birds that come scratching and fidgeting about

when one wants to sleep, were running to and fro in a great state of

concern.

"They are after us," said the old cock.

"I remember the same thing last year. Come on, do."

"How can I with all these young ones to look after?" answered the hen.

"Why, if once they are scattered I shall never find them again."

"Just as you like, you know best," said the cock. "Goodbye," and away

he flew, while his wife and the rest ran to a little distance, scattered

and squatted.

Presently, looking back over my shoulders without turning my head, as

a hare can, I saw a line of men walking towards me. There was the

Red-faced Man whom Giles called Grampus behind his back and Squire to

his face. There was Giles himself, with his hurt hand tied up, holding a

kind of stick with a slit in it from which hung a lot of dead partridges

whose necks were in the slit. One of them was not dead or had come to

life again, for it flapped in the stick trying to fly away. He held

these in the hand that was tied up, and in the other, oh, horror! was a

dead hare bleeding from its nose. It looked uncommonly like my mother,

but whether it were or no I couldn't be quite sure. At least from that

day neither my sister nor I ever saw her again. I suppose you haven't

met her coming up this big white Road, have you, Mahatma?

"No, no," I answered impatiently, "I have already told you that you are

the first hare I have ever seen upon the Road. Please get on with your

story, or the Lights will change and the Gates be opened before I hear

its end."

Just when I saw her I was thinking of running away, but the sight

terrified me so much that I could not stir. You see, Mahatma, I really

loved my mother as much as a hare can love anything, which is a good

deal.

Well, beyond Giles was, who do you think? That dreadful boy, Tom, with a

gun in his hand too. Did I say that they all had guns, except Giles and

some beater men, only that Tom's was single-barrelled? Then there were

others whom I need not describe, stretching to left and right, and worst

of all, perhaps, there was Giles's great black dog, a silly-looking

beast which always seemed to have its mouth open and its tongue hanging

out, and to be wagging a big tail like the fox's, only black and more

ragged.

As I watched, up got the old hen partridge and one of her young ones

and flew towards me. The Red-faced Man lifted his gun and fired, once,

twice, and down came first the mother partridge and then the young one.

I forgot to say that Tom fired too at the old partridge, which fell dead

quite close to me, leaving a lot of feathers floating in the air. As it

fell Tom screeched out--

"I killed that, father."

This made the Red-faced Man very angry.

"You young scoundrel," he said, "how often have I told you not to shoot

at my birds under my nose? No sportsman shoots at another man's birds,

and as for killing it, you were yards under the thing. If you do it

again I will send you home."

"Sorry, father," said Tom, adding in a low voice with a snigger, "I

did kill it after all. Dad thinks no one can hit a partridge except

himself."

Just then up jumped my father near to Giles, and came leaping in front

of the Red-faced Man about twenty yards away from him.

"Mark hare!" shouted Giles, and Grampus, who was still glowering at Tom

and had not quite finished pushing the cartridges into his gun, shut

it up in a hurry and fired first one barrel and then the other. But my

father, who was very cunning, jumped into the air at the first shot and

ducked at the second, so that he was missed; at least I suppose that is

why he was missed.

Giles grinned and the Red-faced Man said, "Damn!" What does 'damn' mean,

Mahatma? It was a very favourite word with the Red-faced Man, but even

now I can't quite understand it."

"Nor can I," I answered. "Go on."

"Well, my poor father next ran in front of Tom, who shot too and hit him

in the hind legs so that he rolled over and over in the turnips, kicking

and screaming. Have you ever heard a hare scream, Mahatma?"

"Yes, yes, it makes a horrid noise like a baby."

"Wiped your eye that time, Dad," cried Tom in an exultant voice.

"I don't know about wiping my eye," answered his father, turning quite

purple with rage, "but I wish you would be good enough, Thomas, not to

shoot my hares behind, so that they make that beastly row which upsets

me" (I think that the Red-faced Man was really kind at the bottom) "and

spoils them for the market. If you can't hit a hare in front, miss it

like a gentleman."

"As you do, Dad," said Tom, sniggering again. "All right, I'll try."

"Giles," roared Grampus, pretending not to hear, "send your dog and

fetch that hare. I can't bear its screeching."

So that great black dog rushed forward and caught my poor father in its

big mouth, although he tried to drag himself away on his front paws, and

after that I shut my eyes.

Then a lot of partridges got up and there was any amount of banging,

though most of them were missed. This made the Red-faced Man angrier

than ever. He took off his hat and waved it, bellowing--

"Call back that brute of a dog of yours, Giles. Call it back at once or

I'll shoot it."

So Giles called, "Nigger. Come you 'ere, Nigger! Nigg, Nigg, Nigg!"

But Nigger rushed about putting up partridges all over the place while

Grampus stamped and shouted and every one missed everything, till at

last Tom sat down on the turnips and roared with laughter.

At length, after Giles had beaten Nigger till he broke a stick over

him, making him howl terribly, order was restored, and the line having

reformed, began to march down on me. For, Mahatma, I was so frightened

by what had happened to my father, and I think my mother, that I didn't

remember what he, I mean my dead father, had told me, always to run away

when there is a chance, as poor hares can only protect themselves by

flight.

So as I had lost the chance I thought that I would just sit tight,

hoping that they would not see me. Nor indeed would they if it hadn't

been for that horrible Tom.

During the confusion the mother partridge which the Red-faced Man had

shot had been forgotten by everybody except Tom. Tom, you see, was

certain that he had shot it himself, being a very obstinate boy, and was

determined to retrieve it as his own.

Now that partridge had fallen within a yard of me, with its beak and

claws pointing to the sky, and when the line had passed where we lay Tom

lagged behind to look for it. He did not find it then, whether he ever

found it afterwards I am sure I don't know. But he found me.

"By Jove! here's a hare," he said, and made a grab at me just as he had

done in the furze bush.

Well, I went. Tom shot when I wasn't more than four yards from him, and

the whole charge passed like a bullet between my hind legs and struck

the ground under my stomach, sending up such a shower of earth and

stones that I was knocked right over.

"I've hit it!" yelled Tom, as he crammed another cartridge into his

single-barrelled gun.

By the time that it was loaded I was quite thirty yards away and going

like the wind. Tom lifted the gun.

"Don't shoot!" roared the Red-faced Man.

"Mind that there boy!" bellowed Giles.

I was running down between two rows of turnips and presently butted into

a lad who was bending over, I suppose to pick up a partridge. At any

rate his tail--"do you call it his tail, Mahatma?"

"That will do," I answered.

"Well, his tail was towards me; it looked very round and shiny. The shot

from Tom's gun hit it everywhere. I wish they had all gone into it, but

as he was so far away the charge scattered and six of the bullets struck

me. Oh! they did hurt. Put your hand on my back, Mahatma, and you will

feel the six lumps they made beneath the grey tufts of hair that grew

over them, for they are still there."

Forgetting that we were on the Road, I stretched out my hand; but, of

course, it went quite through the hare, although I could see the six

little grey tufts clearly enough.

"You are foolish, Hare; you don't remember that your body is not here

but somewhere else."

"Quite true, Mahatma. If it were here I could not be talking to you,

could I? As a matter of fact, I have no body now. It is--oh, never mind

where. Still, you can see the grey tufts, can't you? Well, I only hope

that those shot hurt that fat boy half as much as they did me. No, I

don't mean that I hope it now, I used to hope it."

My goodness! didn't he screech, much worse than my father when his legs

were broken. And didn't everybody else roar and shout, and didn't I

dance? Off I went right over the fat boy, who had tumbled down, up

to the end of the field, then so bewildered was I with shock and the

burning pain, back again quite close to them.

But now nobody shot at me because they all thought the boy was killed

and were gathered round him looking very solemn. Only I saw that the

Red-faced Man had Tom by the neck and was kicking him hard.

After that I saw no more, for I ran five miles before I stopped, and at

last lay down in a little swamp near the seashore to which my mother had

once taken me. My back was burning like fire, and I tried to cool it in

the soft slush.

THE COURSING

Quite a moon went by before I recovered from Tom's shot. At first I

thought that I was going to die, for, although luckily none of my bones

were broken, the pain in my back was dreadful. When I tried to ease the

agony by rubbing against roots it only became worse, for the fur fell

off, leaving sores upon which flies settled. I could scarcely eat or

sleep, and grew so thin that the bones nearly poked through my pelt.

Indeed I wanted very much to die, but could not. On the contrary, by

degrees I recovered, till at last I was quite strong again and like

other hares, except for the six little grey tufts upon my back and one

hole through my right ear.

Now all this while I had lived in the swamp near the sea, but when my

strength returned I thought of my old home, to which something seemed

to draw me. Also there were no turnips near the swamp, and as the winter

came on I found very little to eat there. So one day, or rather one

night, I travelled back home.

As it happened the first hare that I met near the big wood was my

sister. She was very glad to see me, although she had forgotten how we

came to part, and when I spoke of our father and mother these did not

seem to interest her. Still from that time forward we lived together

more or less till her end came.

One day--this was after we had made our home in the big wood, as hares

often do in winter--there was a great disturbance. When we tried to go

out to feed at daylight we found little fires burning everywhere, and

near to them boys who beat themselves and shouted. So we went back into

the wood, where the pheasants were running to and fro in a great state

of mind.

Some hours later, when the sun was quite high, men began to march

about and scores of shots were fired a long way off, also a wounded

cock-pheasant fell near to us and fluttered away, making a queer noise

in its throat. It looked very funny stumbling along on one leg with its

beak gaping and two of the long feathers in its tail broken.

"I know what this is," I said to my sister. "Let's be gone before they

shoot us. I've had enough of being shot."

So off we went, rushing past a boy by his fire, who yelled and threw a

stick at us. But as it happened, on the borders of the property of the

Red-faced Man there were poachers who knew that hares would come out

of the wood on this day of the shooting and had made ready for us by

setting wire nooses in the gaps of the hedges through which we ran. I

got my foot into one of these but managed to shake it off. My sister

was not so lucky, for her head went into another of them. She kicked and

tore, but the more she struggled the tighter drew the noose.

I watched her for a little while until one of the poachers ran up with a

stick.

Then I went away, as I could not bear to see her beaten to death, and

that was the end of my sister. So now I was the only one left alive of

our family, except perhaps some younger brothers whom I did not know,

though I think it was one of these that afterwards I saw shot quite dead

by Giles. He went over and over and lay as still as though he had never

moved in all his life. Death seems a very wonderful thing, Mahatma, but

I won't ask you what it is because I perceive that you can't answer.

After this nothing happened to me for a long while. Indeed I had the

best time of my life and grew very strong and big, yes, the strongest

and biggest hare of any that I ever saw, also the swiftest of foot.

Twice I was chased by dogs; once by Giles's black beast, Nigger, and

once by that of a shepherd. Finding that I could run right away from

them without exerting myself at all, I grew to despise dogs. Ah! little

did I know then that there are many different breeds of these animals.

One day in mid-winter, as the weather was very mild and open, I was

lying on the rough grass field that I have spoken of which borders a

flat stretch of moorland. On this moorland in summer grew tall ferns,

but now these had died and been broken down by the wind. Suddenly I woke

up from my sleep to see a number of men walking and riding towards me.

They were tenants and others who, although the real coursing season had

not yet begun in our neighbourhood, had been asked by Grampus to come

to try their greyhounds upon his land. Those of them who walked for the

most part held two long, lean dogs on a string, while one or two carried

dead hares. They were dreadful-looking hares that seemed to have been

bitten all over; at least their coats were wet and broken. I shivered at

the sight of them, feeling sure that I was going to be put to some new

kind of torture.

Besides the men on foot were those on horseback, among whom I recognised

the Red-faced Man and my enemy, the dreadful Tom. Most of the others

were people called farmers, who seemed very happy and excited and from

time to time drank something out of little bottles which they passed

to each other. Giles was not there. Now I know that this was because he

hated coursing, which killed down hares. Hares, he thought, out to be

shot, not coursed.

Whilst I watched, wondering what to do, there was a shout of "There she

goes!" and all the long dogs began to pull at their strings. Off the

necks of two of them the collars seemed to fall, and away they leapt

pursuing a hare. The men on the horses galloped after them, but the men

on foot remained where they were.

Now I was afraid to get up and run lest they should loose the other dogs

on me, so I lay still, till presently I saw the hare coming back towards

me, followed by the two dogs whose noses almost touched its tail. It was

exhausted and tried to twist and spring away to the right. But as it did

so one of the dogs caught it in its mouth and bit it till it died.

"That was a rotten hare," said Tom, who cantered up just then, "it gave

no course at all."

"Yes," puffed Grampus. "Hope the next one will show better sport."

"Hope so too," answered Tom, "especially as it is Jack and Jill's turn

to be slipped, and they are the best greyhounds for twenty miles round."

Then the Red-faced Man gave some orders and Jack and Jill were brought

forward by the man whose business it was to slip the dogs. One of them

was black and one yellow; I think Jack was the black one--a dreadful,

sneaking-looking beast with a white tip to its tail, which ended in a

sort of curl.

"Forward now," said Grampus, "and go slow. There's sure to be another

puss or two in this rough grass."

Next second I was up and away, and before you could count twelve Jack

and Jill were after me. I saw them standing on their hind legs straining

at the cord. Then the collars fell from them and they leapt forward like

the light. My thought was to get back to the wood, which was about

a minute's run behind me, but I did not dare to turn and head for it

because of the long line of people through which I must pass if I tried

to do so. So I ran straight for the moorland, hoping to turn there and

reach the wood on its other side, although this meant a long journey.

For a while all went well with me, and having a good start I began to

hope that I should outrun these beasts, as I had the shepherd's dog and

the retriever. But I did not know Jack and Jill. Just as I reached the

borders of the moor I heard the patter of their feet behind me, and

looking back saw them coming up, about as far away as I was from Tom

when he shot me.

They were running quite close together and behind them galloped the

judge and other men. There was a fence here and I bolted through a hole

in it. The greyhounds jumped over and for a moment lost sight of me, for

I had turned and run down near the side of the fence. But Tom, who had

come through a gap, saw me and waved his arm shouting, and next instant

Jack and Jill saw me too.

Then as the going was rough by the fence I took to the open moor, always

trying, however, to work round to the left in the hope that I might win

the shelter of the wood.

On we went like the wind, and now Jack and Jill were quite close behind

me, though before they got there I had managed to circle so that at last

my head pointed to the wood, which was more than half a mile away. Their

speed was greater than mine, and I knew that I must soon be caught.

At last they were not more than two yards behind, and for the first time

I twisted so that they overshot me, which gave me another start. Three

times they came up and three times I wrenched or twisted. The wood was

not so far away now, but I was almost spent.

What was I to do! What was I to do! I saw a clump of furze to the

left, a big clump and thick, and remembered that there was a hare's run

through it. I reached it just as Jill was on the top of me, and once

more they lost sight of me for a while as they ran round the clump

staring and jumping. When they saw me again on the further side I was

thirty yards ahead of them and the wood was perhaps two hundred and

fifty yards away. But now I could only run more slowly, for my heart

seemed to be bursting, though luckily Jack and Jill were getting tired

also. Still they soon came up, and now I must twist every few yards, or

be caught in their jaws.

I can't tell you what I felt, Mahatma, and until you have been hunted by

greyhounds you will never know. It was horrible. Yet I managed to twist

and jump so that always Jack and Jill just missed me. The farmers on the

horses laughed to see my desperate leaps and wrenches.

But Tom did worse than laugh. Noting that I was getting quite near the

wood, he rode between me and it, trying to turn me into the open, for he

wished to see me killed.

"Don't do that! It isn't sportsmanlike," shouted the Red-faced Man.

"Give the poor beast a chance."

I don't know whether he obeyed or not, as just then I made my last

double, and felt Jill's teeth cut through the fur of my scut and heard

them snap. I had dodged Jill, but Jack was right on to me and the wood

still twenty yards away.

I could not twist any more, it was just which of us could get there

first. I gathered all my remaining strength, for I was mad, mad with

terror, and bounded forward.

After me came Jack, I felt his hot breath on my flank. I jumped the

ditch, yes, I found power to jump that ditch where there was a rabbit

run just by the trunk of a young oak. Jack jumped after me; we must both

have been in the air at the same time. But I got through the rabbit run,

whereas Jack hit his sharp nose against the trunk of the tree and broke

his neck. Yes, he fell dead into the ditch.

I crawled on a few yards to a thick clump and squatted down, for I could

not stir another inch. So it came about that I heard them all talking on

the other side.

One of them said I was the finest hare he had ever coursed. Others, who

had dragged Jack out of the ditch, lamented his death, especially the

owner, who vowed that he was worth £50 and abused Tom. Tom, he said, had

caused him to be killed--I don't know how, but I suppose because he had

ridden forward and tried to turn me. The Red-faced Man also scolded Tom.

Then he added--

"Well, I am glad she got off, for she'll give us a good run with the

harriers one day. I shall always know that hare again by the white marks

on its back; also it is the biggest I have seen for a long while. Come

on, my friends, the dog is dead and there's an end of it. At least we

have had a good morning's sport, so let's go to the Hall and get some

lunch."

*****

The Hare paused for a little, then looked up at me in its comical

fashion and asked--

"Did you ever course hares, Mahatma?"

"Not I, thank goodness," I answered.

"Well, what do you think of coursing?"

"I would rather not say," I replied.

"Then I will," said the Hare, with conviction. "I think it horrible."

"Yes, but, Hare, you do not remember the pleasure this sport gives to

the men and the dogs; you look at it from an entirely selfish point of

view."

"And so would you, Mahatma, if you had felt Jack's hot breath on your

back and Jill's teeth in your tail."

THE HUNTING

The Hare sat silent for a time, while I employed myself in watching

certain shadows stream past us on the Great White Road. Among them was

that of a politician whom I had much admired upon the earth. In this

land of Truth I was grieved to observe certain characteristics about him

which I had never before suspected. It seemed to me, alas! that in

his mundane career he had not been so entirely influenced by a

single-hearted desire for the welfare of our country as he had

proclaimed and I had believed. I gathered even that his own interests

had sometimes inspired his policy.

He went by, leaving, so far as I was concerned, a somewhat painful

impression from which I sought relief in the company of the open-souled

Hare.

"Well," I said, "I suppose that you died of exhaustion after your

coursing experience, and came on here."

"Died of exhaustion, Mahatma, not a bit of it! In three days I was as

well as ever, only much more cunning than I had been before. In the

night I fed in the fields upon whatever I could get, but in the daytime

I always lay up in woods. This I did because I found out the shooting

was over, and I knew that greyhounds, which run by sight, would never

come into woods."

The weeks went by and the days began to lengthen. Pretty yellow flowers

that I had not seen before appeared in the woods, and I ate plenty of

them; they have a nice flavour. Then I met another hare and loved her,

because she reminded me of my sister. We used to play about together and

were very happy. "I wonder what she will do now that I am gone."

"Console herself with somebody else," I suggested sarcastically.

"No, she won't do that, Mahatma, because the hounds 'chopped' her just

outside the Round Plantation. I mean they caught and ate her. You think

that I am contradicting myself, but I am not. I mean I wonder what she

will do without me in whatever world she has reached, for I don't see

her here." Well, I went to the little Round Plantation because I found

that Giles seldom came there and I thought it would be safer, but as it

proved I made a great mistake. One day there appeared the Red-faced Man

and Tom and the girl, Ella, and a lot of other people mounted on horses,

some of them dressed in green coats with ridiculous-looking caps on

their heads.

Also with them were I don't know how many spotted dogs whose tails

curled over their backs, not like greyhounds whose tails curl between

their legs. Outside of the Plantation those dogs caught and ate my

future wife, as I have said. It was her own fault, for I had warned her

not to go there, but she was a very self-willed character. As it was

she never even gave them a run, for they were all round her in a minute.

Then they made a kind of cartwheel; their heads were in the centre of

this cartwheel and their tails pointed out. In its exact middle was my

future wife.

When the wheel broke up there was nothing of her left except her scut,

which lay upon the ground.

I had seen so many of such things that I was not so much shocked as

you might suppose. After all a fine hare like myself could always get

another wife, and as I have told you she was very self-willed.

So I lay still, thinking that those men and dogs would go away.

But what do you think Mahatma? Just as they were going the boy Tom

called out--

"I say, Dad, I think we might as well knock through the Round

Plantation. Giles tells me that the old speckle-backed buck lies up

here."

"Does he?" said Grampus. "Well, if so, that's the hare I want to

see, for I know he'd give us a good run. Here, Jerry" (Jerry was the

huntsman), "just put the hounds into that place."

So Jerry put the hounds in, making dreadful noises to encourage them,

and of course I came out, as I did not wish to share the fate of my

future wife.

"That's him!" screeched Tom. "Look at the grey marks on his back."

"Yes, that's he right enough," shouted the Red-faced Man. "Lay them on,

Jerry, lay them on; we're in for a rattling run now, I'll warrant."

So they were laid on and I went away as hard as my legs would carry me.

Very soon I found that I had left all those curly-tailed dogs a long way

behind.

"Ah!" I said to myself proudly, "these beasts are not greyhounds; they

are like Giles's retriever and the sheep dog. They'll never see me

again." So I looped along saving my breath and heading for a wood which

was quite five miles off that I had once visited from the Marsh on the

sea-shore where I lay sick, for I was sure they would never follow me

there.

You can imagine, then, Mahatma, how surprised I was when I drew near

that wood to hear a hideous noise of dogs all barking together behind

me, and on looking back, to see those spotted brutes, with their tongues

hanging out, coming along quite close to each other and not more than a

quarter of a mile away.

Moreover they were coming after me. I was sure of that, for the first of

them kept setting its nose to the ground just where I had run, and then

lifting up its head to bay. Yes, they were coming on my scent. They

could smell me as Giles's curly dog smells the wounded partridges. My

heart sank at the thought, but presently I remembered that the wood was

quite close, and that there I should certainly give them the slip.

So I went on quite cheerfully, not even running as fast as I could. But

fortune was against me, as everything has always been, for I never found

a friend. I ran along the side of a hedgerow which went quite up to

the wood, not knowing that at the end of it three men were engaged in

cutting down an oak tree. You see, Mahatma, they had caught sight of the

hunt and stopped from their work, so that I did not hear the sound of

their axes upon the tree. Nor, as my head was so near the ground, did I

see them until I was right on to them, at which moment also they saw me.

"Here she is!" yelled one of them. "Keep her out of covert or they'll

lose her," and he threw out his arms and began to jump about, as did the

other two.

I pulled up short within three or four yards of them. Behind were the

dogs and the people galloping upon horses and in front were the three

men. What was I to do? Now I had stopped exactly in a gateway, for a

lane ran alongside the wood. After a moment's pause I bolted through the

gateway, thinking that I would get into the wood beyond. But one of the

men, who of course wanted to see me killed, was too quick for me and

there headed me again.

Then I lost my senses. Instead of running on past him and leaping into

the wood, I swung right round and rushed back, still clinging to the

hedgerow. Indeed as I went down one side of it the hounds and the

hunters came up on the other, so that there were only a few sticks

between us, though fortunately the wind was blowing from them to me.

Fearing lest they should see me I jumped into the ditch and ran for

quite two hundred yards through the mud and water that was gathered

there. Then I had to come out of it again as it ended but here was a

fall in the ground, so still I was not seen.

Meanwhile the hunt had reached the three men and I heard them all

talking together. The end of it was that the men explained which way I

had gone, and once more the hounds were laid on to me. In a minute they

got to where I had entered the ditch, and there grew confused because my

footmarks did not smell in the water. For quite a long time they looked

about till at length, taking a wide cast, the hounds found my smell

again at the end of the ditch.

During this check I was making the best of my way back towards my own

home; indeed had it not been for it I should have been caught and torn

to pieces much sooner than I was. Thus it happened that I had covered

quite three miles before once more I heard those hounds baying behind

me. This was just as I got on to the moorland, at that edge of it which

is about another three miles from the great house called the Hall, which

stands on the top of a cliff that slopes down to the beach and the sea.

I had thought of making for the other wood, that in which I had saved

myself from the greyhounds when the beast Jack broke its neck against

the tree, but it was too far off, and the ground was so open that I did

not dare to try.

So I went straight on, heading towards the cliff. Another mile and

they viewed me, for I heard Tom yell with delight as he stood up in his

stirrups on the black cob he was riding and waved his cap. Jerry the

huntsman also stood up in his stirrups and waved his cap, and the last

awful hunt began.

I ran--oh! how I ran. Once when they were nearly on me I managed to

check them for a minute in a hollow by getting among some sheep. But

they soon found me again, and came after me at full tear not more than

a hundred yards behind. In front of me I saw something that looked

like walls and bounded towards them with my last strength. My heart was

bursting, my eyes and mouth seemed to be full of blood, but the terror

of being torn to pieces still gave me power to rush on almost as quickly

as though I had just been put off my form. For as I have told you,

Mahatma, I am, or rather was, a very strong and swift hare.

I reached the walls; there was an open doorway in them through which I

fled, to find myself in a big garden. Two gardeners saw me and shouted

loudly. I flew on through some other doors, through a yard, and into a

passage where I met a woman carrying a pail, who shrieked and fell on

to her back. I jumped over her and got into a big room, where was a

long table covered with white on which were all sorts of things that I

suppose men eat. Out of that room I went into yet another, where a fat

woman with a hooked nose was seated holding something white in front of

her. I bolted under the thing on which she was seated and lay there.

She saw me come and began to shriek also, and presently a most terrible

noise arose outside.

All the spotted dogs were in the house, baying and barking, and

everybody was yelling. Then for a minute the dogs stopped their clamour,

and I heard a great clatter of things breaking and of teeth crunching

and of the Red-faced Man shouting--

"Those cursed brutes are eating the hunt lunch. Get them out, Jerry, you

idiot! Get them out! Great heavens! what's the matter with her Ladyship?

Is any one murdering her?"

I suppose that they couldn't get them out, or at least when they did

they all came into the other room where I was under the seat on which

the fat woman was now standing.

"What is it, mother?" I heard Tom say.

"An animal!" she screamed. "An animal under the sofa!"

"All right," he said, "that's only the hare. Here, hounds, out with her,

hounds!"

The dogs rushed about, some of them with great lumps of food still

in their mouths. But they were confused, and all went into the wrong

places. Everything began to fall with dreadful crashes, the fat woman

shrieked piercingly, and her shriek was--

"China! Oh! my china-a. John, you wretch! Help! Help! Help!"

To which the Red-faced Man roared in answer--

"Don't be an infernal fool, Eliza-a. I say, don't be such an infernal

fool."

Also there were lots of other noises that I cannot remember, except one

which a dog made.

This silly dog had thrust its head up the hole over a fire such as the

stops make outside the coverts when men are going to shoot, either to

hide something or to look for me there. When it came down again because

the Red-faced Man kicked it, the dog put its paws into the fire and

pulled it all out over the floor. Also it howled very beautifully. Just

then another hound, that one which generally led the pack, began to

sniff about near me and finally poked its nose under the stuff which hid

me.

It jumped back and bayed, whereon I jumped out the other side. Tom made

a rush at me and knocked the fat woman off the thing she was standing

on, so that she fell among the dogs, which covered her up and began to

sniff her all over. Flying from Tom I found myself in front of something

filmy, beyond which I saw grass. It looked suspicious, but as nothing in

the world could be so bad as Tom, no, not even his dogs, I jumped at it.

There was a crash and a sharp point cut my nose, but I was out upon the

grass. Then there were twenty other crashes, and all the hounds were out

too, for Tom had cheered them on. I ran to the edge of the lawn and saw

a steep slope leading to the sands and the sea. Now I knew what the

sea was, for after Tom had shot me in the back I lived by it for a long

while, and once swam across a little creek to get to my form, from which

it cut me off.

While I ran down that slope fast as my aching legs would carry me, I

made up my mind that I would swim out into the sea and drown there,

since it is better to drown than to be torn to pieces. "But why are you

laughing, friend Mahatma."

"I am not laughing," I said. "In this state, without a body, I have

nothing to laugh with. Still you are right, for you see that I should be

laughing if I could. Your story of the stout lady and the dogs and the

china is very amusing."

"Perhaps, friend, but it did not amuse me. Nothing is amusing when one

is going to be eaten alive."

"Of course it isn't," I answered. "Please forgive me and go on."

"Well, I tumbled down that cliff, followed by some of the dogs and Tom

and the girl Ella and the huntsman Jerry on foot, and dragged myself

across the sands till I came to the lip of the sea."

Just here there was a boat and by it stood Giles the keeper. He had come

there to get out of the way of the hunting, which he hated as much as he

did the coursing. The sight of him settled me--into the sea I went. The

dogs wanted to follow me, but Jerry called and whipped them off.

"I won't have them caught in the current and drowned," he said. "Let the

flea-bitten old devil go, she's brought trouble enough already."

"Help me shove off the boat, Giles," shouted Tom. "She shan't beat us;

we must have her for the hounds. Come on, Ella."

"Best leave her alone, Master Tom," said Giles. "I think she's an

unlucky one, that I do."

Still the end of it was that he helped to float the little boat and got

into it with Tom and Ella.

Just after they had pushed off I saw a man running down the steps on

the cliff waving his arms while he called out something. But of him they

took no heed. I do not think they noticed him. As for me, I swam on.

I could not go very fast because I was so dreadfully tired; also I did

not like swimming, and the cold waves broke over my head, making the cut

in my nose smart and filling my eyes with something that stung them.

I could not see far either, nor did I know where I was going. I knew

nothing except I was about to die, and that soon everything would be at

an end; men, dogs--everything, yes, even Tom. I wanted things to come

to an end. I had suffered so dreadfully, life was so horrible, I was so

very tired. I felt that it was better to die and have done.

So I swam on a long way and began to forget things; indeed I thought

that I was playing in the big turnip field with my mother and sister.

But just as I was sinking exhausted a hand shot down into the water and

caught me by the ears, although from below the fingers looked as though

they were bending away from me. I saw it coming and tried to sink more

quickly, but could not.

"I've got her," said the voice of Tom gleefully. "My! isn't she a

beauty? Over nine pounds if she is an ounce. Only just in time, though,"

he went on, "for, look! she's drowning; her head wobbles as though she

were sea-sick. Buck up, pussie, buck up! You mustn't cheat the hounds at

last, you know. It wouldn't be sportsmanlike, and they hate dead hares."

Then he held me by my hind legs to drain the water out of me, and

afterwards began to blow down my nose, I did not know why.

"Don't do that, Tom," said Ella sharply. "It's nasty."

"Must keep the life in her somehow," answered Tom, and went on blowing.

"Master Tom," interrupted Giles, who was rowing the boat. "I ain't

particular, but I wish you'd leave that there hare alone. Somehow I

thinks there's bad news in its eye. Who knows? P'raps the little devil

feels. Any way, it's a rum one, its swimming out to sea. I never see'd a

hunted hare do that afore."

"Bosh!" said Tom, and continued his blowing.

We reached the shore and Tom jumped out of the boat, holding me by the

ears. The hounds were all on the beach, most of them lying down, for

they were very tired, but the men were standing in a knot at a distance

talking earnestly, Tom ran to the hounds, crying out--

"Here she is, my beauties, here she is!" whereon they got up and began

to bay. Then he held me above them.

"Master Tom," I heard Jerry's voice say, "for God's sake let that hare

go and listen, Master Tom," and the girl Ella, who of a sudden had begun

to sob, tried to pull him back.

But he was mad to see me bitten to death and eaten, and until he had

done so would attend to no one. He only shouted, "One--two--three! Now,

hounds! _Worry, worry, worry!_"

Then he threw me into the air above the red throats and gnashing teeth

which leapt up towards me.

*****

The Hare paused, but added, "Did you tell me, friend Mahatma, that you

had never been torn to pieces by hounds, 'broken up,' I believe they

call it?"

"Yes, I did," I answered, "and what is more I shall be obliged if you

will not dwell upon the subject."

THE COMING OF THE RED-FACED MAN

"As you like," said the Hare. "Certainly it was very dreadful. It seemed

to last a long time. But I don't mind it so much now, for I feel that it

can never happen to me again. At least I hope it can't, for I don't know

what I have done to deserve such a fate, any more than I know why it

should have happened to me once."

"Something you did in a previous existence, perhaps," I answered. "You

see then you may have hunted other creatures so cruelly that at last

your turn came to suffer what you had made them suffer. I often think

that because of what we have done before we men are also really being

hunted by something we cannot see."

"Ah!" exclaimed the Hare, "I never thought of that. I hope it is true,

for it makes things seem juster and less wicked. But I say, friend

Mahatma, what am I doing here now, where you tell me poor creatures with

four feet never, or hardly ever come?"

"I don't know, Hare. I am not wise, to whom it is only granted to visit

the Road occasionally to search for some one."

"I understand, Mahatma, but still you must know a great deal or you

would not be allowed in such a place before your time, or at any rate

you must be able to guess a great deal. So tell me, why do you think

that I am here?"

"I can't say, Hare, I can't indeed. Perhaps after the Gates are open and

your Guardian has given you to drink of the Cup, you will go to sleep

and wake up again as something else."

"To drink of the cup, Mahatma? I don't drink; at least I didn't, though

I can't tell what may happen here. But what do you mean about waking up

as something else? Please be more plain. As what else?"

"Oh! who can know? Possibly as you are on the human Road you might even

become a man some day, though I should not advise you to build on such a

hope as that."

"What do you say, Mahatma? A man! One of those two-legged beasts that

hunt hares; a thing like Giles and Tom--yes, Tom? Oh! not that--not

that! I'd almost rather go through everything again than become a cruel,

torturing man."

As it spoke thus the Hare grew so disturbed that it nearly vanished;

literally it seemed to melt away till I could only perceive its outline.

With a kind of shock I comprehended all the horror that it must feel at

such a prospect as I had suggested to it, and really this grasping of

the truth hurt my human pride. It had never come home to me before that

the circumstances of their lives--and deaths--must cause some creatures

to see us in strange lights.

"Oh! I have no doubt I was mistaken," I said hurriedly, "and that your

wishes on the point will be respected. I told you that I know nothing."

At these words the Hare became quite visible again.

It sat up and very reflectively began to rub its still shadowy nose with

a shadowy paw. I think that it remembered the sting of the salt water in

the cut made by the glass of the window through which it had sprung.

Believing that its remarkable story was done, and that presently it

would altogether melt away and vanish out of my knowledge, I looked

about me. First I looked above the towering Gates to see whether the

Lights had yet begun to change. Then as they had not I looked down the

Great White Road, following it for miles and miles, until even to my

spirit sight it lost itself in the Nowhere.

Presently coming up this Road towards us I saw a man dressed in a green

coat, riding-breeches and boots and a peaked cap, who held in his hand

a hunting-whip. He was a fine-looking person of middle age, with a

pleasant, open countenance, bright blue eyes, and very red cheeks,

on which he wore light-coloured whiskers. In short a jovial-looking

individual, with whom things had evidently always gone well, one to whom

sorrow and disappointment and mental struggle were utter strangers. He,

at least, had never known what it is to "endure hardness" in all his

life.

Studying his nature as one can do on the Road, I perceived also that in

him there was no guile. He was a good-minded, God-fearing man according

to his simple lights, who had done many kindnesses and contributed

liberally towards the wants of the poor, though as he had been very

rich, it had cost him little thus to gratify the natural promptings of

his heart.

Moreover he was what Jorsen calls a "young soul," quite young indeed, by

which I mean that he had not often walked the Road in previous states of

life, as for instance that Eastern woman had done who accosted me before

the arrival of the Hare. So to speak his crude nature had scarcely

outgrown the primitive human condition in which necessity as well as

taste make it customary and pleasant to men to kill; that condition

through which almost every boy passes on his way to manhood, I suppose

by the working of some secret law of reminiscence.

It was this thought that first led me to connect the new-comer with the

Red-faced Man of the Hare's story. It may seem strange that I should

have been so dense, but the truth is that it never occurred to me, any

more than it had done to the Hare, that such a person would be at all

likely to tread the Road for many years to come. I had gathered that he

was comparatively young, and although I had argued otherwise with the

Hare, had concluded therefore that he would continue to live his

happy earth life until old age brought him to a natural end. Hence my

obtuseness.

The man was drifting towards me thoughtfully, evidently much bewildered

by his new surroundings but not in the least afraid. Indeed there none

are afraid; when they glide from their death-beds to the Road they leave

fear behind them with the other terrors of our mortal lot.

Presently he became conscious of the presence of the Hare, and thoughts

passed through his mind which of course I could read.

"My word!" he said to himself, "things are better than I hoped. There's

a hare, and where there are hares there must be hunting and shooting.

Oh! if only I had a gun, or the ghost of a gun!"

Then an idea struck him. He lifted his hunting-crop and hurled it at the

Hare.

As it was only the shadow of a crop of course it could hurt nothing.

Still it went through the shadow of the Hare and caused it to twist

round like lightning.

"That was a good shot anyway," he reflected, with a satisfied smile.

By now the Hare had seen him.

"_The Red-faced Man!_" it exclaimed, "Grampus himself!" and it turned to

flee away.

"Don't be frightened," I cried, "he can't hurt you; nothing can hurt you

here."

The Hare halted and sat up. "No," it said, "I forgot. But you saw, he

tried to. Now, Mahatma, you will understand what a bloodthirsty brute he

is. Even after I am dead he has tried to kill me again."

"Well, and why not?" interrupted the Man. "What are hares for except to

be killed?"

"There, Mahatma, you hear him. Look at me, Man, who am I?"

So he looked at the Hare and the Hare looked at him. Presently his face

grew puzzled.

"By Jingo!" he said slowly, "you are uncommonly like--you _are_ that

accursed witch of a hare which cost me my life. There are the white

marks on your back, and there is the grey splotch on your ear. Oh! if

only I had a gun--a real gun!"

"You would shoot me, wouldn't you, or try to?" said the Hare. "Well, you

haven't and you can't. You say I cost you your life. What do you mean?

It was my life that was sacrificed, not yours."

"Indeed," answered the Man, "I thought you got away. Never saw any more

of you after you jumped through the French window. Never had time. The

last thing I remember is her Ladyship screaming like a mad cockatoo,

yes, and abusing me as though I were a pickpocket, with the drawing-room

all on fire. Then something happened, and down I went among the broken

china and hit my head against the leg of a table. Next came a kind of

whirling blackness and I woke up here."

"A fit or a stroke," I suggested.

"Both, I think, sir. The fit first--I have had 'em before, and the

stroke afterwards--against the leg of the table. Anyway they finished me

between them, thanks to that little beast."

Then it was that I saw a very strange thing, a hare in a rage. It seemed

to go mad, of course I mean spiritually mad. Its eyes flashed fire; it

opened its mouth and shut it after the fashion of a suffocating fish. At

last it spoke in its own way--I cannot stop to explain in further detail

the exact manner of speech or rather of its equivalent upon the Road.

"Man, Man," it exclaimed, "you say that I finished you. But what did you

do to me? You shot me. Look at the marks upon my back. You coursed me

with your running dogs. You hunted me with your hounds. You dragged me

out of the sea into which I swam to escape you by death, and threw me

living to the pack," and the Hare stopped exhausted by its own fury.

"Well," replied the Man coolly, "and suppose I, or my people, did, what

of it? Why shouldn't I? You were a beast, I was a man with dominion over

you. You can read all about that in the Book of Genesis."

"I never heard of the Book of Genesis," said the Hare, "but what does

dominion mean? Does this Book of Genesis say that it means the right to

torment that which is weaker than the tormentor?"

"All you animals were made for us to eat," commented the Man, avoiding

an answer to the direct question.

"Very good," answered the Hare, "let us suppose that we _were_ given

you to eat. Was it in order to eat me that you came out against me with

guns, then with dogs that run by sight, and then with dogs that run by

smell?"

"If you were to be killed and eaten, why should you not be killed in one

of these ways, Hare?"

"Why should I be killed in those ways, Man, when others more merciful

were to your hand? Indeed, why should I be killed at all? Moreover, if

you wished to satisfy your hunger with my body, why at the last was I

thrown to the dogs to devour?"

"I don't quite know, Hare. Never looked at the matter in that light

before. But--ah! I've got you now," he added triumphantly. "If it hadn't

been for me you never would have lived. You see _I_ gave you the gift of

life. Therefore, instead of grumbling, you should be very much obliged

to me. Don't you understand? I preserved hares, so that without me you

would never have been a hare. Isn't that right, Mr.-- Mr.--I am sorry I

have forgotten your name," he added, turning towards me.

"Mahatma," I said.

"Oh! yes, I remember it now--Mr.--ah--Mr. Hatter."

"There is something in the argument," I replied cautiously, "but let us

hear our friend's answer."

"Answer--my answer! Well, here it is. What are you, Man, who dare to say

that you give life or withhold it? You a Lord of life, _you!_ I tell

you that I know little, yet I am sure that you or those like you have

no more power to create life than the world we have left has to bid the

stars to shine. If the life must come, it will come, and if it cannot

fulfil itself as a hare, then it will appear as something else. If you

say that you create life, I, the poor beast which you tortured, tell you

that you are a presumptuous liar."

"You dare to lecture me," said the Man, "me, the heir of all the ages,

as the poet called me. Why, you nasty little animal, do you know that I

have killed hundreds like you, and," he added, with a sudden afflatus of

pride, "thousands of other creatures, such as pheasants, to say nothing

of deer and larger game? That has been my principal occupation since I

was a boy. I may say that I have lived for sport; got very little else

to show for my life, so to speak."

"Oh!" said the Hare, "have you? Well, if I were you, I shouldn't boast

about it just now. You see, we are still outside of those Gates. Who

knows but that you will find every one of the living things you have

amused yourself by slaughtering waiting for you within them, each

praying for justice to its Maker and your own?"

"My word!" said the Man, "what a horrible notion; it's like a bad

dream."

He reflected a little, then added, "Well, if they do, I've got my

answer. I killed them for food; man must live. Millions of pheasants are

sold to be eaten every year at a much smaller price than they cost to

breed. What do you say to that, Mr. Hatter? Finishes him, I think."

"I'm not arguing," I replied. "Ask the Hare."

"Yes, ask me, Man, and although you are repeating yourself, I'll answer

with another question, knowing that here you must tell the truth. Did

you really rear us all for food? Was it for this that you kept your

keepers, your running dogs and your hunting dogs, that you might kill

poor defenceless beasts and birds to fill men's stomachs? If this was

so, I have nothing more to say. Indeed, if our deaths or sufferings at

their hands really help men in any way, I have nothing more to say. I

admit that you are higher and stronger than we are, and have a right to

use us for your own advantage, or even to destroy us altogether if we

harm you."

The Man pondered, then replied sullenly--

"You know very well that it was not so. I did not rear up pheasants and

hares merely to eat them or that others might eat them. Something forces

me to tell you that it was in order that I might enjoy myself by showing

my skill in shooting them, or to have the pleasure and exercise of

hunting them to death. Still," he added defiantly, "I who am a Christian

man maintain that my religion perfectly justified me in doing all these

things, and that no blame attaches to me on this account."

"Very good," said the Hare, "now we have a clear issue. Friend Mahatma,

when those Gates open presently what happens beyond them?"

"I don't know," I answered, "I have never been there; at least not that

I can remember."

"Still, friend Mahatma, is it not said that yonder lives some Power

which judges righteously and declares what is true and what is false?"

"I have heard so, Hare."

"Very well, Man, I lay my cause before that Power--do you the same. If I

am wrong I will go back to earth to be tortured by you and yours again.

If, however, I am right, you shall abide the judgment of the Power, and

I ask that It will make of you--a hunted hare!"

Now when he heard these awful words--for they were awful--no less, the

Red-faced Man grew much disturbed. He hummed and he hawed, and shifted

his feet about. At last he said--

"You must admit that while you lived you had a first-class time under my

protection. Lots of turnips to eat and so forth."

"A first-class time!" the Hare answered with withering scorn. "What sort

of a time would you have had if some one had shot you all over the back

and you must creep away to die of pain and starvation? How would you

have enjoyed it if, from day to day, you had been forced to live in

terror of cunning monsters, who at any hour might appear to hurt you in

some new fashion? Do you suppose that animals cannot feel fear, and is

continual fear the kind of friend that gives them a 'first-class time'?"

To this last argument the Man seemed able to find no answer.

"Mr. Hare," he said humbly, "we are all fallible. Although I never

thought to find myself in the position of having to do so, I will admit

that I may possibly have been mistaken in my views and treatment of you

and your kind, and indeed of other creatures. If so, I apologise for

any, ah--temporary inconvenience I may have caused you. I can do no

more."

"Come, Hare," I interposed, "that's handsome; perhaps you might let

bygones be bygones."

"Apologise!" exclaimed the Hare. "After all I have suffered I do not

think it is enough. At the very least, Mahatma, he should say that he is

heartily ashamed and sorry."

"Well, well," said the Man, "it's no use making two bites of a cherry. I

am sorry, truly sorry for all the pain and terror I have brought on you.

If that won't do let's go up and settle the matter, and if I've been

wrong I'll try to bear the consequences like a gentleman. Only, Mr.

Hare, I hope that you will not wish to put your case more strongly

against me than you need."

"Not I, Man. I know now that you only erred because the truth had not

been revealed to you--because you did not understand. All that I will

ask, if I can, is that you may be allowed to tell this truth to other

men."

"Well, I am glad to say I can't do that, Hare."

"Don't be so sure," I broke in; "it's just the kind of thing which might

be decreed--a generation or two hence when the world is fit to listen to

you."

But he took no heed, or did not comprehend me, and went on--

"It is an impossibility, and if I did they would think me a lunatic or

a snivelling, sentimental humbug. I believe that lots of my old friends

would scarcely speak to me again. Why, putting aside the pleasures of

sport, if the views you preach were to be accepted, what would become of

keepers and beaters and huntsmen and dog-breeders, and of thousands of

others who directly or indirectly get their living out of hunting and

shooting? Where would game rents be also?"

"I don't know, I am sure," replied the Hare wearily. "I suppose

that they would earn their living in some other way, as they must in

countries where there is no sport, and that you would have to make up

for shooting rents by growing more upon the land. You know that after

all we hares and the other game eat a great deal which might be saved if

there were not so many of us. But I am not wise, and I have never looked

at the question from that point of view. It may seem selfish, but I have

to consider myself and the creatures whose cause I plead, for something

inside me is telling me now--yes, now--that all of them are speaking

through my mouth. It says that is why I am allowed to be here and to

talk with you both; for their sakes rather than for my own."

"If you have more to say you had better say it quickly," I interrupted,

addressing the Red-faced Man. "I see that the Lights are beginning to

change, which means that soon the Road will be closed and the Gates

opened."

"I can't remember anything," he answered. "Yes, there is one matter," he

added nervously. "I see, Mr. Hare, that you are thinking of my boy Tom,

not very kindly I am afraid. As you have been so good as to forgive me I

hope that you won't be hard on Tom. He is not at all a bad sort of a lad

if a little thoughtless, like many other young people."

"I don't like Tom," said the Hare, with decision. "Tom shot me when you

told him not to shoot. Tom shut me up in a filthy place with a yellow

rabbit which he forgot to feed, so that it wanted to eat me. Tom tried

to cut me off from the wood so that the running dogs might catch me,

although you shouted to him that it was not sportsmanlike. Tom dragged

me out of the sea and blew down my nostrils to keep me alive. Tom threw

me to the hounds, although Giles remonstrated with him and even the

huntsman begged him to let me go. I tell you that I don't like Tom."

"Still, Mr. Hare," pleaded the Red-faced Man, "I hope that if it should

be in your power when we get through those Gates, that you will be

merciful to Tom. I can't think of much to say for him in this hurry, but

there, he is my only son and the truth is that I love him. You know he

may live--to be different--if you don't bring some misfortune on him."

"Who am I to bring misfortune or to withhold it?" asked the Hare,

softening visibly. "Well, I know what love means, for my mother loved me

and I loved her in my way. I tell you that when I saw her dead, turned

from a beautiful living thing into a stained lump of flesh and fur, I

felt dreadful. I understand now that you love Tom as my mother loved me,

and, Man, for the sake of your love--not for his sake, mind--I promise

you that I won't say anything against Tom if I can help it, or do

anything either."

"You're a real good fellow!" exclaimed the Red-faced Man, with evident

relief. "Give me your hand. Oh! I forgot, you can't. Hullo! what's up

now? Everything seems to be altering."

*****

As he spoke, to my eyes the Lights began to change in earnest. All the

sky (I call it sky for clearness) above the mighty Gates became as

it were alive with burning tongues of every colour that an artist can

conceive. By degrees these fiery tongues or swords shaped themselves

into a vast circle which drove back the walls of darkness, and through

this circle, guided, guarded by the spirits of dead suns, with odours

and with chantings, descended that crowned City of the Mansions before

whose glory imagination breaks and even Vision veils her eyes.

It descended, its banners wavering in the winds of prayer; it hung above

the Gates, the flowers of all splendours, Heaven's very rose, hung like

an opal on the boundless breast of night, and there it stayed.

The Voice in the North called to the Voice in the South; the Voice in

the East called to the Voice in the West, and up the Great White Road

sped the Angel of the Road, making report as he came that all his

multitude were gathered in and for that while the Road was barred.

He passed and in a flash the Gates were burned away. The ashes of them

fell upon the heads of those waiting at the Gates, whitening their faces

and drying their tears before the Change. They fell upon the Man and the

Hare beside me, veiling them as it were and making them silent, but

on me they did not fall. Then, from between the Wardens of the Gates,

flowed forth the Helpers and the Guardians (save those who already were

without comforting the children) seeking their beloved and bearing the

Cups of slumber and new birth; then pealed the question--

"Who hath suffered most? Let that one first taste of peace."

Now all the dim hosts surged forward since each outworn soul believed

that it had suffered most and was in the bitterest need of peace. But

the Helpers and the Guardians gently pressed them back, and again there

pealed, no question but a command.

This was the command:--

"Draw near, thou Hare."

*****

Jorsen asked me what happened after this justification of the Hare,

which, if I heard aright, appeared to suggest that by the decree of some

judge unknown, the woes of such creatures are not unnoted and despised,

or left unsolaced. Of course I had to answer him that I could not tell.

Perhaps nothing happened at all. Perhaps all the wonders I seemed to

see, even the Road by which souls travel from There to Here and from

Here to There, and the Gates that were burned away, and the City of the

Mansions that descended, were but signs and symbols of mysteries which

as yet we cannot grasp or understand.

Whatever may be the truth as to this matter of my visions, I need hardly

add, however, that no one can be more anxious than I am myself to learn

in what way the Red-faced Man, speaking on behalf of our dominant race,

and the Hare, speaking as an appointed advocate of the subject animal

creation, finished their argument in the light of fuller knowledge.

Much also do I wonder which of them was proved to be right, a difficult

matter whereon I feel quite incompetent to express any views.

But you see at that moment I woke up. The edge of the Road on which I

was standing seemed to give way beneath me, and I fell into space as one

does in a nightmare. It is a very unpleasant sensation.

*****

I remember noticing afterwards that I could not have been long asleep.

When I began to dream I had only just blown out the candle, and when I

awoke again there was still a smouldering spark upon its wick.

But, as I have said, in that spirit-land wither I had journeyed is to be

found neither time nor space nor any other familiar thing.