The Story of a Hare E-Book

J. C. Tregarthen

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Whilst few, if any, animals have more enemies than the hare, none perhaps is better endowed with instincts to outwit them. As that great mediaeval hunter, the Master of Game, said in 1402: There is no man in this world that would say that any hound can unravel that which a hare has done, or that could find her. For she will go the length of a bowshot or more by one way, and ruse again by another and then she will take her way by another side and the same she shall do ten, twelve or twenty times, then she will come into some hedge or thicket and shall make semblance to abide there and then will make cross wards ten or twelve times and will make her ruses and then she will take some false path and shall go thence a great way, and such semblance she will make many times before she goes to her seat.

Leseprobe

THE STORY OF A HARE

C. Reid.][Frontispiece.“He Sat and Listened.”

THE

STORY OF A HARE

BY J. C. TREGARTHEN, F.Z.S.

AUTHOR OF “WILD LIFE AT THE LANDS END,” “THE LIFE STORY OF A FOX,”

“THE STORY OF AN OTTER.”

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

First Editions,1912

© 2021 Librorium Editions

TO

MARIE CORELLI

IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION

OF A VALUED AND LASTING

PREFACE

Whilst few, if any, animals have more enemies than the hare, none perhaps is better endowed with instincts to outwit them.

As that great mediæval hunter, the Master of Game, said in 1402: “There is no man in this world that would say that any hound can unravel that which a hare has done, or that could find her. For she will go the length of a bowshot or more by one way, and ruse again by another and then she will take her way by another side and the same she shall do ten, twelve or twenty times, then she will come into some hedge or thicket and shall make semblance to abide there and then will make crosswards ten or twelve times and will make her ruses and then she will take some false path and shall go thence a great way, and such semblance she will make many times before she goes to her seat.”

Shifts such as these, probably unrivalled in their subtlety, are embodied in the incidents, based on observation or record, which make up the present story of the hare, a story for the first time told at length.

Imagination has of necessity supplied much of the description of a life spent under the stars; but nothing alien to the hare’s habits and character has been wittingly introduced, though what the outlook on the world, what the thoughts of this and the predatory creatures entering into the drama are, must ever remain a matter for speculation.

The narrative has been placed a century back, chiefly because the more primitive days of a bygone Cornwall allowed the inclusion of more numerous fauna, and permitted the use of a wilder setting.

For my aim has been to present a picture instinct with the spirit of the wild, of the upland, moor, and cliff of the Land’s End at a time when the prey and the beast of prey roamed the night fearless of snare and gin—and man rarely intruded by day—under conditions, rapidly fading into oblivion, which seem worthy of record before they disappear for ever.

J. C. T.

Rosmorran, Newquay,

Cornwall, Aug. 28, 1912.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

PAGE

I.

Early Troubles

1

II.

Education

23

III.

Independence

40

IV.

Chased by Polecats

56

V.

A Delusive Refuge

66

VI.

Back on Carn Brea

78

VII.

From Pillar to Post

95

VIII.

The Great Winter

118

IX.

Peril of Death

136

X.

The Fiends of the Wild

160

XI.

L’homme S’amuse

180

Index

195

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

“

He Sat and Listened

”

Frontispiece

“

They Nestled Close

”

Face page

4

Author’s Sketch-map of the Scene of the Story

32

“

Grey Fox

”

84

Mount’s Bay from the Beacon

100

The Remains of the Beacon Wood

152

A Stoat

162

Sennen Church Tower

170

THE STORY OF A HARE

CHAPTER I

EARLY TROUBLES

The Cornish Heights terminate near the Land’s End in four wild hills of singular charm, though of very modest altitude. Springing as they do from a treeless tableland, they look quite like a miniature mountain range, especially when seen through rolling mists or capped by the rain-laden clouds which, like birds coming weary from the Atlantic, settle on their summits. Man seldom intrudes there, though they offer a peerless prospect over promontory and ocean. The faint paths amongst ling and furze are not his: they have been traced by the foxes that kennel on this silent retreat, or by badgers going to and from the deep sett on the northern slope; for the desolate upland has long been given over to the outlawed creature, and furnished sanctuary to any wildling that sought it.

To these hills, in the late winter of a year long ago, there came a hare in search of a spot to which she might safely commit her young. She was hard to satisfy, rejecting for this reason or for that a score of harbourages that competed for her favour. One night she all but decided on a bramble-patch near the top of Caer Bran; the next she fancied first a heathery knoll on Bartinney, then an abandoned mine-heap on Sancreed Beacon; and at the last moment rejected both for the western slope of Chapel Carn Brea, partly on account of its uninterrupted outlook, but more because it was less overrun than the sister hills by the predatory creatures that infested the countryside. All through the month of March she had not seen a polecat or even a stoat upon the hillside; only once had she detected on it the trail of an enemy; so with a feeling of security the timorous mother entrusted her young to its keeping, laying them in a tussock of coarse grass near a ruined chantry.

They were pretty little things with wide-open eyes, distinguishable by only the white star in the forehead of the male and the greater restlessness that he displayed. The tiny fellow, as if eager to explore the world into which he had just been born, was all agog to be out and about in the afterglow, and had not his mother checked him till the impulse passed, he would have left the form and perhaps lost himself amongst the furze. He constantly renewed his struggles to have his way; but the moment he ceased, she removed the restraining pad and caressed him till, like his sister, he became drowsy and at length fell asleep.

When the stars shone bright, the hare rose, stretched her stately limbs, covered the little sleepers with the grass-blades, gathered herself for a spring, and leapt to an outcropping rock. On landing she leapt again and again and again, in order to prevent any beast of prey from following her tracks and discovering the form. After taking these precautions she made for the crest of the hill, and standing on the ruin, snuffed the wind and scrutinised the waste. Presently, assured that no enemy threatened, she set out for the feeding-ground. At the foot of the long slope she repeated her ruse of the leaps, and passed through a hole in the wall that separated the wild from the farm land, to which she had been attracted by the tender herbage of the young wheat.

Near midnight the leverets awoke and found her gone; yet in their loneliness they uttered neither plaint nor call, nor, strange to say, attempted to leave the form, but nestled close hour after hour awaiting her return. They gave no heed to the wind, for its sighing meant nothing to them; but at early dawn, though no sound broke the silence, the cocked ears first of one, then of the other, told they were all expectation for some signal. Soon there came the faint, low call which instinct whispered was their mother’s, followed by the soft beat of the pads, growing more and more distinct till with a last bound the hare cleared the wide space between the rock and the form, and at once gave herself to the hungry, excited mites. Whilst she suckled them, a lark rose and greeted the day with notes so rapturous as to drown the crowings of the cocks in the homesteads dotting the plain. The leverets fed and fed till they were satisfied, then settled down to rest against their mother’s side, where presently the sun, risen above Caer Bran, discovered them, and threw a bright splash of warm light across their russet coats.

C. Reid.]                                               [To face p. 4.“They Nestled Close.”

It was a lovely April morning. Towards noon a big black cloud came up out of the west bringing needed rain, whilst a rainbow arched land and sea; and then the first call of the cuckoo rang out through the stillness. Chapel Carn Brea faintly echoed “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” The joyous notes brought the housewife to the door, checked the frolics of the wondering lambs, made the field-mice sit up and listen and the leverets prick their waking ears. The far-flung message that told of kindly weather and plenty for man and beast cheered every living thing that heard it: it cheered even the hare as she sat and watched over her young, full of misgivings for their safety. Their helplessness, still more her own powerlessness to defend them against enemies, stirred her deepest feelings, and made her mothering instinct so much stronger than that of the vixen laid up with cubs in the croft beyond the wheatfield. She was haunted by the dread of being bereft of them; and incapable of defence though she was, her fears kept her ever alert and vigilant. She never slept. Even when she drowsed her open, wakeful eyes saw all that passed within their range—the farmer faring to his work and hastening to his meals, the cows driven to and from the fields, the pigs wandering up and down the lane, the donkey browsing on the furzy waste by the common with the large pool, and the geese who, towards sunset, waddled from it to the farmyard gate cackling to be penned, as if apprehensive of being carried off by the hill-foxes that came and sniffed at their door when man was abed. She noted too the ravens as they winged by on their way to the cliffs, and the kites as they soared high overhead; she watched with no little concern the buzzard whose shadow passed over her as he searched the hillside before alighting on the broken chancel of the ruin. His terrifying cat-like mew caused the leverets to stir beneath her, but she herself remained as motionless as the furze; indeed, till the sun had set, she never moved for fear of prying eyes.

Four days passed without disquieting incident, but on the fifth the vixen paid a visit to the hill and threw the hare into a fever of anxiety. The daring marauder came at high noon, during the farmer’s dinner-hour, when the land is forsaken and the peace of the waste spreads to the fields, enticing the nocturnal prowler to venture forth in broad daylight in search of food. Thus lured, the vixen, yielding to the importunities of her hungry cubs, stole from her earth and, keeping to the overgrown ditches, gained the boundary wall without exposing herself to view. But the instant her mask showed above the coping-stone the hare espied her, and from that moment followed every movement. She thought that the fox knew of her presence and was in search of her, as well as she might, for the hill harboured no prey save herself and her young, at least none worth the coming for. So while the vixen searched the lower slopes the hare watched with eyes starting from her head, anxious to learn whether the murderous creature would hit the line she had left at early dawn. Once she crossed it without checking; she flashed over it again near the Giant’s Bowl, and then the hare knew that the trail would not betray her; the hot sun had evaporated every particle of what little scent she had left.[1] The hunter moved at an unusually quick pace, as if she had set herself the task of examining the whole hillside during the short time that man remained within doors. Now she threaded the bushes, now she leapt them; once she was lost to view in a patch of tall furze gorgeous with blossom, but in a few seconds she reappeared at the far end to continue the quest in the open. At last near the black shadow cast by a boulder she stopped, assumed a listening attitude, then plunged her long nose into a bush after a mouse, but apparently without getting it, for she did not lick her chops. Nothing disconcerted, however, on she went again, ranging to and fro without a pause till, half-way up the slope, she stood suddenly still and looked towards the homestead as if all at once alive to the risk she was running. A glance satisfied her that man was still indoors, and again she resumed the quest, if possible with greater keenness than before. Every stride now was taking her dangerously nearer and nearer to the hare, but whilst she was yet some five or six rods below the form a sheep-dog barked, and in an instant she was transformed from a lithe hunter into a craven creature. Crouching, she fixed her gaze on the dog expressing his delight at the reappearance of his master, who stood in shirt-sleeves at the open door. “Down, Shep.” At the sound of the man’s voice the vixen sank into the herbage as if turned to lead, and remained there motionless, save in heaving flank and lolling tongue. Presently the farmer withdrew; the vixen slunk down the hill, carefully avoiding the exposed places, climbed the wall, and vanished from sight.

Much as the hare was relieved by this retreat, she could not regain her peace of mind; for the visit left her with the fear that the creature would return at nightfall and renew the search, a thought which urged her to remove the leverets at dusk. But where? The nearest spot that commended itself to her was at the foot of Bartinney, about a mile distant; and the way thither led across the trails of fox and badger, who might surprise her with her burden, and have her at their mercy. Her position was a very difficult one; to stay was perilous, to shift was no less so. Uncertain what to do for the best, she remained irresolute till the stars began to peep; then, hoping against hope that the fox might not come after all, she decided to remain. In any case she must go and feed, yet setting-out time came and went whilst the hare kept to the form. She could not tear herself away from her young with this danger hanging over them. A sickle moon lit hill and plain and threw into relief the coping-stone of the wall on which the eyes of the anxious mother were fixed. Against the granite she could not fail to see the dark form of her enemy. The better to observe, the hare raised herself on her hind legs; and the leverets, thinking she was going to play with them, stood up too, resting their forefeet against her sides; but at a whisper from their mother they sank down again into a sitting posture. The night wore on, however, without sign of the fox, and at length the hare, feeling somewhat reassured, set out for the nearest feeding-ground. There she browsed until midnight, when apprehension for her young drove her back to the hill. Although she found all well, she stayed close by and fed on the rough herbage near the summit. When she returned to the form her fears had nearly subsided; by dusk they no longer haunted her, and in a day or two she dismissed the fox from her mind.