March Hare

“ they cried out when they saw Alice coming.
"There's plenty of room!" said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
"Have some wine," the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. [83]
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. "I don't see any wine," she remarked.
"There isn't any," said the March Hare.
"Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it," said Alice angrily.
"It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited," said the March Hare. ”

“ Standing beneath the arch of Titus, and amid so much ancient dust, it is difficult to forbear the commonplaces of enthusiasm, on which hundreds of tourists have already insisted. Over the half-worn pavement, and beneath this arch, the Roman armies had trodden in their outward march, to fight battles, a world's width away. Returning victorious, with royal captives, and inestimable spoil, a Roman triumph, that most gorgeous pageant of earthly pride, has streamed and flaunted in hundred-fold succession over these same flagstones, and through this yet stalwart archway. ”

“ And all the little children came up and kissed him, and cried, "Hosanna! hosanna! he is good; and he has got little wings like us."
"'So Hare lived on in the island, till, one day, the angel said, "Have you ever thought what your poor mother is doing now, and would you not like to go back to her?" And Hare said, "But can I always be good and have white robes and wings if I go back to Babylon?" ”

“ You're called 'Dene's spy' there, and the rustlers are still looking for you. I wouldn't worry about it, though.”
“Why not, I'd like to know?” inquired Hare, with a short laugh.
“Well, if you're like the other Gentiles who have come into Utah you won't have scruples about drawing on a man. Father says the draw comes natural to you, and you're as quick as he is. Then he says you can beat any rifle shot he ever saw, and that long-barrelled gun you've got will shoot a mile. So if it comes to shooting—why, you can shoot. If you want to run—who's going to catch you on that white-maned stallion? ”

“ They were a man and a maid, and the maid was Barbara Garnet. She was speaking.
"We can't get so far out of the way if we can keep this"—she saw John March rise into his saddle, caught a breath, and then cried:
"Why, it's Mr. March. Mr. March, we've missed our road!" Her laugh was anxious. "In fact, we're lost. Oh! Mr. March, Mr. Fair." The young men shook hands. Fair noted a light rifle and a bunch of squirrels at March's saddle-bow.
"You've been busier than we."
"Mighty poor sign of industry. I didn't come out for game, but a man's sure to be sorry if he goes into the woods without a gun. ”

“ Assail the poet, and defame the man."
After another winter at Rome, the family went to Lausanne, and thence my father, with my beautiful Albanese nurse, Lucia Cecinelli, took me to meet Mrs. Gayford, the English nurse sent out to fetch me by my adopted mother from Mannheim on the Rhine. There the formal exchange took place which gave me a happy and loving home. I saw my father afterwards, but he seldom noticed me. Many years afterwards I knew Mrs. Hare well and had much to do with her ”

“ The rustlers started out of their statue-like immobility, and lifting their dead leader dragged him down the garden path with his spurs clinking on the gravel and ploughing little furrows.
“Bishop, go in now. They may return,” said Hare. He hurried up the steps to place his arm round the tottering old man.
“Was that Holderness?”
“Yes,” replied Hare.
“The deeds of the wicked return unto them! God's will!”
Hare led the Bishop indoors. The sitting-room was full of wailing women and crying children. None of the young men were present. Again Hare made note of their inexplicable absence. ”

“ I must send you one of the allegories which I have heard Bradley tell his children; it is such a characteristic specimen:—
“‘Now I will tell you a story about Hare. When Hare was a little child he lived at Rome: you know what we call it?— (“Oh yes, papa, Babylon.”) —Well, he lived at Babylon, and he was a very good little boy then, but he used to walk about dressed in scarlet, for they all wore scarlet there. One day a man was seen in the streets, very beautiful, a stranger with silver wings. And he said, “Are you little Hare, and would you like to go with me and learn how to be good?” ”

“ I am writing in the darkened room, where Edward lies powerless, with all his hair cut off and his head soaked in wet towels, almost unable to move, and unable to feed himself. I am sorry not to be able to go out while Marcus Hare is here, and he is much disappointed. He arrived suddenly from Naples and embraced me as if we were still children."
"April 10.—My dear Mother is much the same. It has been a peaceful week with her, though there is no improvement.... The paralysed arm is quite useless, and has a separate and ungovernable individuality. This is why she can never be left alone. ”

“ In the summer of 1832 all the family went to Baden-Baden, to meet Lady Paul and her daughter Eleanor, Sir John, the FitzGeralds, and the Bankheads. All the branches of Mrs. Hare's family lived in different houses, but they met daily for dinner, and were very merry. Before the autumn, my father returned to Italy, to the Villa Cittadella near Lucca, which was taken for two months for Mrs. Hare's confinement, and there, on the 9th of October, my sister was born. She received the names of "Anne Frances Maria Louisa." ”

“ Then Hare stood up in the skiff and bawled through his hollowed hand:
"Will you parley? Or do you wish to violate a flag?"
"Keep your interval, Henry Hare!" I retorted. "If you have anything to say, say it from where you are or I'll drill you clean!"
"Is that John Drogue, the Brent-Meester?" he shouted.
"None other," said I. "What brings you to Summer House in such fair weather, Harry Hare?"
"I wish to land and parley," he replied. "You may blindfold me if you like."
"When I put out your lights," said I, "it will be a quicker job than that. What do you wish to do—count our garrison?" ”

“ With many of the braves away on the hunt, the village was quiet, and the squaws took a little vacation from their work, as on the morrow they must be very busy caring for the supplies brought home by the hunters.
In the afternoon Sweet Grass said kindly: "Timid Hare, you have been a good girl and worked hard of late. You may have the rest of the day for play. Try your new snowshoes, if you like." ”

“ We drove swiftly up a rocky forest road to the large villa which a merchant of Kristiania has lent to the Queen for the benefit to her health from the pine air. Another merchant close by has lent his to the King, as the immense personnel of the court could not possibly live in one house. As we drove up through the garden, a tall figure in a wide-awake hat emerged from one of the windows upon the terrace. ‘Sa Majesté le Roi!’ said the chamberlain; so I jumped out of the carriage, and he came forward at once with ‘Is it Mr. Hare? ”

“ I have known many of those persons whom the world calls “great ladies” in later times, but I have never known any one who was more truly “a lady” in every best and highest sense, than Mrs. Pile.
On leaving Alton, we went to join the Marcus Hares in the express train at Swindon. Uncle Marcus, Aunt Lucy, her maid Griffiths, and my mother were in one compartment of the carriage; my little cousin Lucebella, Lea, an elderly peer (Lord Saye and Sele, I think) , and I were in the other, for carriages on the Great Western were then divided by a door. ”

“ Four years of perfect happiness were permitted them—years spent almost entirely in the quiet of their little rectory in the singularly small parish of Alton Barnes amid the Wiltshire Downs, where the inhabitants, less than two hundred in number, living close at each other’s doors, round two or three small pastures, grew to regard Augustus Hare and his wife with the affection of children for their parents. ”

“ Penrhyn [2] and his wife, were sharers by letter in every trifling incident which affected their sister’s life; and with his favourite brother Julius, Augustus Hare never slackened his intellectual intercourse and companionship. But even more than these was Lucy Anne Stanley [3] the life-long friend of Maria Hare, till, in the summer of 1833, the tie of sisterhood, which had always existed in feeling, became a reality, through her marriage with Marcus Hare, the youngest of the four brothers. ”

“ Careful as to his personal appearance, Francis Hare was always dressed in the height of the fashion. It is remembered how he would retire and change his dress three times in the course of a single ball! In everything he followed the foibles of the day. "Francis leads a rambling life of pleasure and idleness," wrote his cousin Anna Maria Dashwood; "he must have read, but who can tell at what time?—for wherever there is dissipation, there is Francis in its wake and its most ardent pursuer. ”

“ No officers of justice, searching for a fugitive, ever made a louder. Richard Hare, his face turned to chalk, his eyes starting, and his own light hair bristling up with horror, struggled into his wet smock-frock after a fashion, the tails up about his ears and the sleeves hanging, forced on his hat and his false whiskers, looked round in a bewildered manner for some cupboard or mouse-hole into which he might creep, and, seeing none, rushed to the fireplace and placed his foot on the fender. ”

“ The old Mormon's hint did not disturb him; even the thought of Snap Naab did not return to trouble his contentment. The full present was sufficient for Hare, and his joy bubbled over, bringing smiles to August's grave face. Never had a summer afternoon in the oasis been so fair. The green fields, the red walls, the blue sky, all seemed drenched in deeper, richer hues. The wind-song in the crags, the river-murmur from the canyon, filled Hare's ears with music. To be alive, to feel the sun, to see the colors, to hear the sounds, was beautiful; and to know that Mescal awaited him, was enough. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She was then living with her mother Lady Boyle in the same house of Millard’s Hill, near Frome, in which my great-aunts Caroline and Marianne Hare had lived before; and, to my great surprise and delight, I was allowed to go by the coach to spend two days with her there. It was on this occasion that I first wore a morning-coat instead of a jacket, and very proud I was of it. Apropos of dress, at this time and for many years afterwards, all young gentlemen wore straps to their trousers, not only when riding, but always: it was considered the ne plus ultra of snobbism to appear without them. ”

“ Papa Hare then said very low and deep, “What do you want to do, my son?”
“I do not know,” said Tiny Hare, “but I want to do just as I like.”
[Pg 174]
Then said Papa Hare, “Do not wake me from my nap any more now, and when the big moon is high in the sky, and it is just like day. I will take you far out in the wood, and you may run and jump and play and eat, and be very safe, for MAN will be in his home, and DOG in his, and HAWK in hers.”
“I do not want to go out in the wood, and run and jump and play when the moon is high in the sky. I want to do just as I like.” ”

“ Aunt Lucy and the Maurices had long urged my mother to send me to school, and perhaps in many ways my terrible fits of naughtiness made it desirable, though they chiefly arose from nervousness, caused by the incessant “nagging” I received at home from every one except my mother and Lea. But the choice of the school to which I was sent at nine years old was very unfortunate. When illness had obliged my Uncle Augustus Hare to leave his beloved little parish of Alton Barnes for Italy, a Rev. ”

“ He knew that he would be a coward to shoot a Hare that was too weak to run away.
The boy stooped down and picked up the old Hare. He wrapped him close up to his own warm body in his blanket. Then he went with him through the snow of the woods until they came to a place where a stream ran. There were young willow trees growing along the edge. Here he set down the Hare. He began to dig away the ice and frozen [Pg 119] earth with his new arrow tip, until the roots of the trees and the soft bark could be seen. How the Hare did eat these! Son-of-a-Brave left him, still eating, and went home. ”

“ I said “No,” for at that time I had never heard of George Hare or of the Bishop’s youngest son, Francis, who likewise died in India. But my brother insisted that we must have had an Indian relation who died there; and on my inquiring “why,” he told me the following story. He assured me, that being resolved once more to visit the old family home, he had gone down to Hurstmonceaux, and had determined to pass the night in the castle. ”

“ Hare is well-looking, and agreeable, appears amiable, and is a good musician. I remember seeing her and her sisters with her mother, Lady Paul, at Florence, when I had little notion that she was to be Mrs. Hare. I never meet Francis Hare without being surprised by the versatility of his information; it extends to the fine arts, literature, rare books, the localities of pictures and statues; in short, he is a moving library that may always be consulted with profit, and his memory is as accurate as an index in rendering its precious stores available. ”