J. C. Tregarthen

“ On the other hand, not a bird was to be found on the hills: Sancreed Beacon, Caer Bran, Bartinney, were deserted by every living thing save hibernating adder, slow-worm, and newt; the old toad and the hare were the sole tenants of Chapel Carn Brea.
Protected by his thick winter coat the hare was able to withstand the nipping frosts that blackened all but the hardiest and most unpalatable herbage, to which he was for the most part now driven for support. He fed on furze and lichens and no longer looked forward to the joys of pasturing time. ”

“ Clouds, grey and depressing, spread from horizon to horizon save in the south-west, where at close of day after day the red sun emblazoned the heaven, and for a brief while bathed ocean and promontory with its cheery rays. They were especially pleasing to the hare, coming as they did between the dull day and the dark night when he wandered far and wide after pasture. Yet widely as he roamed he never came across the packs of stoats which the host of birds had attracted, nor—a thing that excited his surprise—once encountered Grey Fox. ”

“ He had hardly settled down when the otter and her cubs hurried by along the opposite bank, on their way to a reedy marsh a mile above. Then all was quiet till, at peep of day, a kingfisher came and fished from a branch of the alder overhanging the inflow; the tinkle of the water as she struck it made a pretty sound in the silent dawn. Later, just as the smoke rose from the miller’s chimney, a moorhen led out her brood as if to teach them the geography of the pool, for she kept taking them from creeklet to creeklet till the miller came to raise the hatch and drove them all away. ”

“ To satisfy himself that he was mistaken he kept raising his head and looking round until, unable to endure the misery any longer, he stole from the seat and hurried back to the highest part of the farm, where a hedge had taken his fancy as he had crossed from the barley to the oats.
There, amongst the coarse grasses, beneath the fronds of a solitary brake-fern, he sat with his face to the dawn-wind, which played with his whiskers, swayed the ears of the barley, and buffeted the smoke rising from the chimney of the homestead. ”

“ The struggle is too furious to last: before the lapse of half an hour the life-long enemies lie exhausted on the ground, face to face with each other, their laboured breathing audible to the hare.
The fox when he recovers has no more wish to renew the fight than he had to begin it, but the lurcher’s one thought is to destroy the hateful wild thing before her, or die in the attempt. Again they fight; only for a short while now; limb and wind are unequal to further effort; their exhaustion is complete. At last the lurcher recognises that to kill the fox is a task beyond her powers. ”

“ On reaching the chantry he suddenly leapt aside as if from an ambuscade, for he found himself in the presence of man. There on a rock sat an antiquary sketching the ruin, and so engrossed by his task that he never saw the hare. Even if he had he would not have raised a finger to scare it, much less betray its refuge to the hounds. But the hare’s faith in man was gone. He fled down the hill towards Brea Farm, save for the thud of the flail in the barn silent as in winter, and from thence to the moor, over which he rather loped than galloped, for he was getting exhausted. ”

“ The hare was left master of the field. His flank rose and fell more quickly than its wont, the pupils of his eyes were distended as never before, but already he was planning his escape, and had chosen the retreat he would make for.
Hours of blinding rain followed, lightning occasionally lit up the blackness shrouding cliff and sea; it was no weather for any living thing to be abroad in, and indeed nothing appeared till near dawn, when a bedraggled white creature made her way with difficulty up the face of the cliff and staggered to the track. ”

“ In his dream he saw as if with his eyes, so vivid was the presentment, a wood devastated by storm; at its foot—for the trees covered a long declivity—a curving strand and a raging sea in which living things struggled to reach the shore. Night changed suddenly to day: as suddenly the scene changed from falling trees and breaking waves to wind-swept foothills, up which, nose to ground, a brindled lurcher ran with incredible swiftness—and the foothills were the foothills below him, the lurcher was the farm dog from Boscawen-Un; the trail it followed was his own trail. ”

“ But the moment the squire cheers the hounds on to his line he knows that he has been seen, instantly abandons his slinking tactics and breaks into a gallop, his head pointed straight for his native hills.
It was an exhilarating moment for Sir Tudor, and as he settled down to ride, what with the pleasant undulations of his horse, what with the freshness of the morning and the wildness of the country, above all with the thought that his little companions in a hundred hunts were chiming on the scent of their first Cornish hare, he would not have changed seats with King George. ”

“ Soon they return to the Galver, clinging tenaciously to the trail, whose bewildering maze they strive their utmost to unravel. The eager movements of every hound show that he knows the hare is near and will soon be afoot, yet, when like a shadow gliding over the sunlit slope below the ridge he silently steals away, not one even suspects that he has risen, much less catches a glimpse of his crouching form. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But when he had almost given himself up for lost, a shelf of rock that projected over the track offered asylum if only he could reach it. Once, twice he gathered his limbs, only to recoil from launching himself at the leap, for he felt that it was more than he could compass. Then he listened to the swelling cry; that warned him he had not a moment to lose.
Animals, like men, when face to face with death, perform feats seemingly beyond their powers. Thus it was with the hare, into whose mad spring was concentrated all the force that love of life could rouse. ”

“ Moreover in the strange conditions the hare himself sometimes proved a terror to creatures he stumbled on, causing a hedgehog to curl up in affright on the Five Acres, and scaring a heron out of its senses on the moor beyond. The fog was as impervious to scent as to sight, and he was on his victims before they heard him, for the fog deadened all sound, of footfall, of bird cry, even of the great foghorn on the Longships, which sounded like a penny trumpet. ”

“ At the sound the jack pricked his ears as though he recognised a familiar voice. It was indeed the rill, but swollen now by tributary runnels into a little stream three feet wide at the shallows where the hares crossed. On the bridle-path leading to the hamlet of Crowz-an-Wra the leverets raced up and down, whilst the hare sat on the turfy border by an old cross and watched them. In the profound silence the beating of their pads on the hard surface was loud enough to mask the approach of a stealthy enemy ”

“ Dark though it was, thickly as fell the snow, he could discern the form of the great hill that had been to him like a second mother. If it be possible for beast to love a spot on earth, the hare loved the hill where he had been born and suckled, the hill which had sheltered him, the hill to which, in his trouble, he had always turned. He had never passed it by unregarded, he could not even now. But it looked ghastly and cold, it repelled him, Chapel Carn Brea repelled him as a dead thing once loved repels the living; so he averted his gaze and moved on towards the homestead. ”

“ Dawn after dawn the hare stole back to his island retreat, where after awhile he began to throw aside his ordinary precautions and to relax his vigilance, passing the day in careless content. One noon he even grew so reckless as to abandon his usual wakeful position and rest on his side, with head and ears erect, his hind legs stretched out to their full length, and the white underfur exposed in a way that would have betrayed him to any prying eyes. ”

“ Yet, miserable though their plight seemed, they passed a clump of brambles which at least offered a partial refuge; farther up the hill they passed another, more inviting still; indeed they kept on as if regardless of all cover till they reached the summit of Caer Bran, where they sought seats under the furze mantling the slope of the outer of the earthworks that crown it. The wind blew, the rain pelted, but the high bank and domed roof protected them from all discomfort save that caused by the drippings of the sodden bushes. ”

“ As he skirted the large pool on the Land’s End moor his ever alert eyes fell on the tiny island in its midst; immediately there flashed on his mind an idea of the immunity from molestation such a retreat would afford. There, with the water around him, he felt that he would be safer than anywhere else; that neither fox nor cat, polecat nor weasel, would disturb him, nor man intrude; in short, that the islet offered the sanctuary he had often longed for and hitherto sought in vain. ”

“ She had not been there long when a magpie left his resting-place in the hawthorn overhanging the turf and stood preening his feathers on the topmost spray. Presently, his quick eyes noted the marks left by the hare’s pads on the dewy surface, and examined them searchingly as if to learn the identity of the trespasser. He imagined that a badger or a fox had made them; the thought that a hare—he had only seen one—had crossed the green never entered his head, much less that a family of hares was at that moment lying hidden around it. ”

“ Intent on their quarry, the weasels gave no heed, but the owl looked out of its hole to learn what ailed its exemplary neighbour, and the marten peered over the edge of the nest to ascertain, if possible, the cause of the disturbance. She saw nothing of rabbit or weasels, for the trees hid them from sight, but she had an uninterrupted view of the hare, and at once was all excitement at the prospect of an unexpected feast. Though she had tasted hare once and only once, the memory of the delicious flavour remained, and she had often longed to taste it again. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Undaunted, and enraged at this treatment, the weasel now confronted the hare herself, only to be knocked over, trampled on, and spurned to the middle of the green, where it lay on its back kicking as though its last hour was come. Whereupon the magpie, who, considering the weasel too insignificant for his intervention, had hitherto held its tongue, chattered loudly as if to applaud the deed; whilst the hare, whose blood was up, remained within a yard of the weasel, ready to renew the battle should it again show fight. ”

“ In as wild a dawn as ever broke upon the Land’s End, the hare leapt from his sanctuary and stole over the rain-lashed moor to Chapel Carn Brea, where, happy in the thought that the downpour would destroy all trace of his trail, he fell soundly asleep, nor even dreamt of the terrible ordeal through which he had passed. ”

“ She had caught the scent of the hare; she knew he was close by, and she was doing her utmost to descry him. She looked here, she looked there, and at last, as she was about to advance, she made him out. On the instant she sank slowly to the ground; she feared that quick movement on her part would put the prey to flight before she was free to pursue, for her shy nature restrained her from exposing herself to view of man and dog. So there she stayed, eyeing the timid prey which met her gaze with a frightened stare. Presently the man left with his donkeys. ”

“ But such is her keenness that she cannot resist the burning, alluring trail, and leaping from the wall, she makes her way up the hill and enters the furze, where Grey Fox awaits her.
Without growl or snarl the fight begins. Except the violent shaking of the bushes, there is no outward indication of the terrible struggle that goes on. For a long while the hare, watching excitedly, sees nothing of the combatants save the white tip of the fox’s brush, but anon they come into the open, where not a spray shuts out the view. ”

“ It was the leader of the stoats, who after struggling with the backwash which had nearly buffeted the life out of her, had managed to land, and after a long rest, come back for her followers.
Awhile she stood beneath the ledge and looked up. Too feeble to do more, she meant to return at dusk to pit her wit against the hare’s, in some way to get at him, drive her fangs into his great vein and drink deep of his blood: she was even thinking of the feast in prospect as she crawled away on the trail of the pack. ”