THE HUNTINGThe 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 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.”