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The Mahatma and the Hare 2764.txt
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The Mahatma and the Hare 2764.txt
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Produced by John Bickers; Dagny; Emma Dudding; David Widger
THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE
A DREAM STORY
by H. Rider Haggard
"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."