At this point I thought that I had heard enough, and slipped away when their backs were turned. For, friend Mahatma, I had just seen a fox shot, and now I knew what shooting meant.
About a week later I knew better still. It came about thus. By that time the turnips I have mentioned, those that grew in the big field, had swelled into fine, large bulbs with leafy tops. We used to eat them at nights, and in the daytime to lie up among them in our snug forms. You know, Mahatma, don"t you, that a form is a little hollow which a hare makes in the ground just to fit itself? No hare likes to sleep in another hare"s form. Do you understand?"
"Yes," I answered, "I understand. It would be like a man wearing another man"s boots."
"I don"t know anything about boots Mahatma, except that they are hard things with iron on them which kick one out of one"s form if one sits too close. Once that happened to me. Well, my form was under a particularly fine turnip that had some dead leaves beneath the green ones. I chose it because, like the brown earth, they just matched the colour of my back. I was sleeping there quite soundly when my sister came and woke me.
"There are men in the field," she said, her eyes nearly starting out of her head with fear, for she was always very timid.
"I"m off."
"Are you?" I answered. "Well, I think I shall stop here where I shan"t be noticed. If we begin jumping over those turnips they will see us."
"We might run down the rows, keeping our ears close to our backs," she remarked.
"No," I said, "there are too many bare patches."
At this moment a gun went "bang" some way off; and my sister, like a wise hare, scuttled away at full speed for the wood. But I only made myself smaller than usual and lay watching and listening.
There was a good deal to see and hear; for instance, a covey of partridges, troublesome birds that come scratching and fidgeting about when one wants to sleep, were running to and fro in a great state of concern.
"They are after us," said the old c.o.c.k.
"I remember the same thing last year. Come on, do."
"How can I with all these young ones to look after?" answered the hen.
"Why, if once they are scattered I shall never find them again."
"Just as you like, you know best," said the c.o.c.k. "Goodbye," and away he flew, while his wife and the rest ran to a little distance, scattered and squatted.
Presently, looking back over my shoulders without turning my head, as a hare can, I saw a line of men walking towards me. There was the Red-faced Man whom Giles called Grampus behind his back and Squire to his face. There was Giles himself, with his hurt hand tied up, holding a kind of stick with a slit in it from which hung a lot of dead partridges whose necks were in the slit. One of them was not dead or had come to life again, for it flapped in the stick trying to fly away. He held these in the hand that was tied up, and in the other, oh, horror! was a dead hare bleeding from its nose. It looked uncommonly like my mother, but whether it were or no I couldn"t be quite sure. At least from that day neither my sister nor I ever saw her again. I suppose you haven"t met her coming up this big white Road, have you, Mahatma?
"No, no," I answered impatiently, "I have already told you that you are the first hare I have ever seen upon the Road. Please get on with your story, or the Lights will change and the Gates be opened before I hear its end."
Just when I saw her I was thinking of running away, but the sight terrified me so much that I could not stir. You see, Mahatma, I really loved my mother as much as a hare can love anything, which is a good deal.
Well, beyond Giles was, who do you think? That dreadful boy, Tom, with a gun in his hand too. Did I say that they all had guns, except Giles and some beater men, only that Tom"s was single-barrelled? Then there were others whom I need not describe, stretching to left and right, and worst of all, perhaps, there was Giles"s great black dog, a silly-looking beast which always seemed to have its mouth open and its tongue hanging out, and to be wagging a big tail like the fox"s, only black and more ragged.
As I watched, up got the old hen partridge and one of her young ones and flew towards me. The Red-faced Man lifted his gun and fired, once, twice, and down came first the mother partridge and then the young one.
I forgot to say that Tom fired too at the old partridge, which fell dead quite close to me, leaving a lot of feathers floating in the air. As it fell Tom screeched out--
"I killed that, father."
This made the Red-faced Man very angry.
"You young scoundrel," he said, "how often have I told you not to shoot at my birds under my nose? No sportsman shoots at another man"s birds, and as for killing it, you were yards under the thing. If you do it again I will send you home."
"Sorry, father," said Tom, adding in a low voice with a sn.i.g.g.e.r, "I did kill it after all. Dad thinks no one can hit a partridge except himself."
Just then up jumped my father near to Giles, and came leaping in front of the Red-faced Man about twenty yards away from him.
"Mark hare!" shouted Giles, and Grampus, who was still glowering at Tom and had not quite finished pushing the cartridges into his gun, shut it up in a hurry and fired first one barrel and then the other. But my father, who was very cunning, jumped into the air at the first shot and ducked at the second, so that he was missed; at least I suppose that is why he was missed.
Giles grinned and the Red-faced Man said, "d.a.m.n!" What does "d.a.m.n" mean, Mahatma? It was a very favourite word with the Red-faced Man, but even now I can"t quite understand it."
"Nor can I," I answered. "Go on."
"Well, my poor father next ran in front of Tom, who shot too and hit him in the hind legs so that he rolled over and over in the turnips, kicking and screaming. Have you ever heard a hare scream, Mahatma?"
"Yes, yes, it makes a horrid noise like a baby."
"Wiped your eye that time, Dad," cried Tom in an exultant voice.
"I don"t know about wiping my eye," answered his father, turning quite purple with rage, "but I wish you would be good enough, Thomas, not to shoot my hares behind, so that they make that beastly row which upsets me" (I think that the Red-faced Man was really kind at the bottom) "and spoils them for the market. If you can"t hit a hare in front, miss it like a gentleman."
"As you do, Dad," said Tom, sn.i.g.g.e.ring again. "All right, I"ll try."
"Giles," roared Grampus, pretending not to hear, "send your dog and fetch that hare. I can"t bear its screeching."
So that great black dog rushed forward and caught my poor father in its big mouth, although he tried to drag himself away on his front paws, and after that I shut my eyes.
Then a lot of partridges got up and there was any amount of banging, though most of them were missed. This made the Red-faced Man angrier than ever. He took off his hat and waved it, bellowing--
"Call back that brute of a dog of yours, Giles. Call it back at once or I"ll shoot it."
So Giles called, "n.i.g.g.e.r. Come you "ere, n.i.g.g.e.r! Nigg, Nigg, Nigg!"
But n.i.g.g.e.r rushed about putting up partridges all over the place while Grampus stamped and shouted and every one missed everything, till at last Tom sat down on the turnips and roared with laughter.
At length, after Giles had beaten n.i.g.g.e.r till he broke a stick over him, making him howl terribly, order was restored, and the line having reformed, began to march down on me. For, Mahatma, I was so frightened by what had happened to my father, and I think my mother, that I didn"t remember what he, I mean my dead father, had told me, always to run away when there is a chance, as poor hares can only protect themselves by flight.
So as I had lost the chance I thought that I would just sit tight, hoping that they would not see me. Nor indeed would they if it hadn"t been for that horrible Tom.
During the confusion the mother partridge which the Red-faced Man had shot had been forgotten by everybody except Tom. Tom, you see, was certain that he had shot it himself, being a very obstinate boy, and was determined to retrieve it as his own.
Now that partridge had fallen within a yard of me, with its beak and claws pointing to the sky, and when the line had pa.s.sed where we lay Tom lagged behind to look for it. He did not find it then, whether he ever found it afterwards I am sure I don"t know. But he found me.
"By Jove! here"s a hare," he said, and made a grab at me just as he had done in the furze bush.
Well, I went. Tom shot when I wasn"t more than four yards from him, and the whole charge pa.s.sed like a bullet between my hind legs and struck the ground under my stomach, sending up such a shower of earth and stones that I was knocked right over.
"I"ve hit it!" yelled Tom, as he crammed another cartridge into his single-barrelled gun.
By the time that it was loaded I was quite thirty yards away and going like the wind. Tom lifted the gun.
"Don"t shoot!" roared the Red-faced Man.