FROM -THE- LIBRARY- OF- 
 A. W. Ryder 
 
The Mahatma and the Hare 
 
THEN, FROM BETWEEN THE WARDENS OF THE GATES, FLOWED 
 FORTH THE HELPERS AND THE GUARDIANS SEEKING THEIR 
 
 BELOVED " (see p. 162) 
 
THE MAHATMA AND 
 THE HARE 
 
 A Dream Story 
 
 BY 
 H. RIDER HAGGARD 
 
 With 12 Illustrations by 
 MESSRS. W. T. HORTON and H. M. BUOCK, R.I. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 1911 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1911, 
 
 BY 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 Published October, 1911 
 
 ^iijj- ^'^AH^ KJ 
 
 THE OUINN A BOOEN CO. PRESS 
 RAHWAY, N. J. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE MAHATMA ...... 1 
 
 THE GREAT WHITE ROAD .... 24 
 
 THE HARE 35 
 
 THE SHOOTING 60 
 
 THE COURSING 91 
 
 THE HUNTING ...... 107 
 
 THE COMING OF THE RED-FACED MAN . . 135 
 
 M89307 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " THEN FROM BETWEEN THE WARDENS OF THE 
 GATES FLOWED FORTH THE HELPERS " Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " I WENT TO A BRIDGE I KNEW "... 7 
 
 " I, WHO MYSELF WAS WORSHIPPED AS A GOD " 19 
 
 " CHANGED INDEED, MYSTERIOUS, WONDERFUL " 29 
 
 THE GREAT WHITE ROAD . . . 37 
 
 " OH ! MY BEAUTY/' HE SAID, " so I HAVE GOT 
 
 You AT LAST " 63 
 
 " I SAW A LINE OF MEN WALKING TOWARDS ME " 79 
 " I MADE MY LAST DOUBLE " . . . .103 
 "HERE SHE is!" YELLED ONE OF THEM . .115 
 " THE DOGS RUSHED ABOUT " .. . . .121 
 " MY ! ISN'T SHE A BEAUTY " .... 129 
 
 " GUARDED, GUIDED BY THE SPIRITS OF DEAD 
 
 SUNS" 159 
 
THE MAHATMA AND 
 THE HARE 
 
 A DREAM STORY 
 
 " Ultimately a good hare was found which took the 
 field at ... There the hounds pressed her, and on 
 the hunt arriving at the edge of the cliff the hare 
 could be seen crossing the beach and going right out 
 to sea. A boat was procured, and the master and 
 some others rowed out to her j ust as she drowned, and 
 bringing the body in, gave it to the hounds. A hare 
 swimming out to sea is a sight not often witnessed." 
 Local paper, January 1Q11. 
 
 . . . A long check occurred in the latter part of 
 this hunt, the hare having laid up in a hedgerow, 
 from which she was at last evicted by a crack of the 
 whip. Her next place of refuge was a horse-pond, 
 which she tried to swim, but got stuck in the ice 
 midway, and was sinking, when the huntsman went 
 in after her. It was a novel sight to see huntsman 
 and hare being lifted over a wall out of the pond, the 
 eager pack waiting for their prey behind the wall." 
 Local paper, February 1911. 
 
 THE author supposes that the first of the 
 above extracts must have impressed him. 
 At any rate, on the night after the reading 
 
,2 TR^ MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 , . pf it,, just, as he went to sleep, or on the fol- 
 : lowing : mbrh'irig just as he awoke, he can- 
 not tell which, there came to him the title 
 and the outlines of this fantasy, including 
 the command with which it ends. With 
 particular clearness did he seem to see the 
 picture of the Great White Road, " straight 
 as the way of the Spirit, and broad as the 
 breast of Death," and of the little Hare 
 travelling towards the awful Gates. 
 
 Like the Mahatma of this fable, he 
 expresses no opinion as to the merits of 
 the controversy between the Red-faced 
 Man and the Hare that, without search 
 on his own part, presented itself to his 
 mind in so odd a fashion. It is one on 
 which anybody interested in such matters 
 can form an individual judgment. 
 
THE M AH ATM A 1 
 
 EVERY ONE has seen a hare, either crouched 
 or running in the fields, or hanging dead in 
 a poulterer's shop, or lastly pathetic, even 
 dreadful-looking and in this form almost 
 indistinguishable from a skinned cat, on the 
 domestic table. But not many people have 
 met a Mahatma, at least to their knowledge. 
 Not many people know even who or what a 
 Mahatma is. The majority of those who 
 chance to have heard the title are apt to 
 confuse it with another, that of Mad Hatter. 
 This is even done of malice prepense 
 (especially, for obvious reasons, if a hare is 
 in any way concerned) in scorn, not in ignor- 
 ance, by persons who are well acquainted 
 
 1 Mahatma, " great-souled." "One of a class of 
 persons with preternatural powers, imagined to exist 
 in India and Thibet." New English Dictionary. 
 
4 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 with the real meaning of the word and even 
 with its Sanscrit origin. The truth is that an 
 incredulous Western world puts no faith in 
 Mahatmas. To it a Mahatma is a kind of 
 spiritual Mrs. Harris, giving an address in 
 Thibet at which no letters are delivered. 
 Either, it says, there is no such person, or 
 he is a fraudulent scamp with no greater 
 occult powers well, than a hare. 
 
 I confess that this view of Mahatmas is 
 one that does not surprise me in the least. 
 I never met, and I scarcely expect to meet, 
 an individual entitled to set " Mahatma " 
 after his name. Certainly I have no right to 
 do so who only took that title on the spur of 
 the moment when the Hare asked me how I 
 was called, and now make use of it as a 
 nom-de-plume. It is true there is Jorsen, 
 by whose order, for it amounts to that, I 
 publish this history. For aught I know 
 Jorsen may be a Mahatma, but he does not 
 in the least look the part. 
 
THE MAHATMA 5 
 
 Imagine a bluff person with a strong, 
 hard face, piercing grey eyes, and very 
 prominent, bushy eyebrows, of about fifty 
 or sixty years of age. Add a Scotch accent 
 and a meerschaum pipe, which he smokes 
 even when he is wearing a frock coat and a 
 tall hat, and you have Jorsen. I believe 
 that he lives somewhere in the country, is 
 well off, and practises gardening. If so he 
 has never asked me to his place, and I only 
 meet him when he comes to Town, as I 
 understand, to visit flower-shows. 
 
 Then I always meet him because he 
 orders me to do so, not by letter or by 
 word of mouth but in quite a different 
 way. Suddenly I receive an impression 
 in my mind that I am to go to a certain 
 place at a certain hour, and that there I 
 shall find Jorsen. I do go, sometimes to 
 an hotel, sometimes to a lodging, some- 
 times to a railway station or to the corner 
 of a particular street, and there I do find 
 
6 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 Jorsen smoking his big meerschaum pipe. 
 We shake hands and he explains why he 
 has sent for me, after which we talk of 
 various things. Never mind what they 
 are, for that would be telling Jorsen's 
 secrets as well as my own, which I must 
 not do. 
 
 It may be asked how I came to know 
 Jorsen. Well, in a strange way. Nearly 
 thirty years ago a dreadful thing happened 
 to me. I was married and, although still 
 young, a person of some mark in litera- 
 ture. Indeed even now one or two of 
 the books which I wrote are read and re- 
 membered, although it is supposed that 
 their author has long left the world. 
 
 The thing which happened was that my 
 wife and our daughter were coming over 
 from the Channel Islands, where they had 
 been on a visit (she was a Jersey woman) 
 and, and well the ship was lost, that's all. 
 The shock broke my heart, in such a way 
 
I WENT TO A BRIDGE I KNEW 
 
THE MAHATMA 9 
 
 that it has never been mended again, but 
 unfortunately did not kill me. 
 
 Afterwards I took to drink and sank, 
 as drunkards do. Then the river began 
 to draw me. I had a lodging in a poor 
 street at Chelsea, and I could hear the 
 river calling me at night, and I wished 
 to die as the others had died. At last 
 I yielded, for the drink had rotted out 
 all my moral sense. About one o'clock 
 of a wild, winter morning I went to a 
 bridge I knew where in those days police- 
 men rarely came, and listened to that call 
 of the water. 
 
 " Come! " it seemed to say. " This world 
 is the real hell, ending in an eternal naught. 
 The dreams of a life beyond and of re-unions 
 there are but a demon's mocking breathed 
 into the mortal heart, lest by its universal 
 suicide mankind should rob him of his 
 torture-pit. There is no truth in all your 
 father taught you " (he was a clergyman 
 
10 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 and rather eminent in his profession), 
 " there is no hope for man, there is noth- 
 ing he can win except the deep happiness 
 of sleep. Come and sleep." 
 
 Such were the arguments of that Voice 
 of the river, the old, familiar arguments of 
 desolation and despair. I leant over the 
 parapet; in another moment I should have 
 been gone, when I became aware that some 
 one was standing near to me. I did not 
 see the person because it was too dark. 
 I did not hear him because of the raving 
 of the wind. But I knew that he was there. 
 So I waited until the moon shone out for 
 a while between the edges of two ragged 
 clouds, the shapes of which I can see to 
 this hour. It showed me Jorsen, looking 
 just as he does to-day, for he never seems 
 to change Jorsen, on whom, to my know- 
 ledge, I had not set eyes before. 
 
 " Even a year ago," he said, in his strong, 
 rough voice, " you would not have allowed 
 
THE MAHATMA 11 
 
 your mind to be convinced by such argu- 
 ments as those which you have just heard 
 in the Voice of the river. That is one of 
 the worst sides of drink; it decays the 
 reason as it does the body. You must 
 have noticed it yourself." 
 
 I replied that I had, for I was surprised 
 into acquiescence. Then I grew defiant 
 and asked him what he knew of the argu- 
 ments which were or were not influencing 
 me. To my surprise no, that is not the 
 word to my bewilderment, he repeated 
 them to me one by one just as they had 
 arisen a few minutes before in my heart. 
 Moreover, he told me what I had been 
 about to do, and why I was about to do it. 
 
 " You know me and my story," I mut- 
 tered at last. 
 
 " No," he answered, " at least not more 
 than I know that of many men with 
 whom I chance to be in touch. That 
 is, I have not met you for nearly eleven 
 
12 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 hundred years. A thousand and eighty- 
 six, to be correct. I was a blind priest 
 then and you were the captain of Irene's 
 guard." 
 
 At this news I burst out laughing and 
 the laugh did me good. 
 
 " I did not know I was so old," I said. 
 
 " Do you call that old? " answered Jorsen. 
 " Why, the first time that we had anything 
 to do with each other, so far as I can learn, 
 that is, was over eight thousand years ago, 
 in Egypt before the beginning of recorded 
 history." 
 
 " I thought that I was mad, but you are 
 madder," I said. 
 
 " Doubtless. Well, I am so mad that I 
 managed to be here in time to save you 
 from suicide, as once in the past you saved 
 me, for thus things come round. But 
 your rooms are near, are they not? Let us 
 go there and talk. This place is cold and 
 the river is always calling." 
 
THE MAHATMA 13 
 
 That was how I came to know Jorsen, 
 whom I believe to be one of the greatest 
 men alive. On this particular night that I 
 have described he told me many things, and 
 since then he has taught me much, me and 
 a few others. But whether he is what is 
 called a Mahatma I am sure I do not know. 
 He has never claimed such a rank in my 
 hearing, or indeed to be anything more 
 than a man who has succeeded in winning 
 a knowledge of his own powers out of the 
 depths of the dark that lies behind us. Of 
 course I mean out of his past in other 
 incarnations long before he was Jorsen. 
 Moreover, by degrees, as I grew fit to bear 
 the light, he showed me something of my 
 own, and of how the two were intertwined. 
 
 But all these things are secrets of which 
 I have perhaps no right to speak at pre- 
 sent. It is enough to say that Jorsen 
 changed the current of my life on that 
 night when he saved me from death. 
 
14 THE M AH ATM A AND THE HARE 
 
 For instance, from that day onward to 
 the present time I have never touched the 
 drink which so nearly ruined me. Also 
 the darkness has rolled away, and with it 
 every doubt and fear; I know the truth, 
 and for that truth I live. Considered from 
 certain aspects such knowledge, I admit, 
 is not altogether desirable. Thus it has 
 deprived me of my interest in earthly 
 things. Ambition has left me altogether; 
 for years I have had no wish to succeed 
 in the profession which I adopted in my 
 youth, or in any other. Indeed I doubt 
 whether the elements of worldly success 
 still remain in me; whether they are not 
 entirely burnt away by that fire of wisdom 
 in which I have bathed. How can we 
 strive to win a crown we have no longer 
 any desire to wear? Now I desire other 
 crowns and at times I wear them, if only 
 for a little while. My spirit grows and 
 grows. It is dragging at its strings. 
 
THE MAHATMA 15 
 
 What am I to look at? A small, white- 
 haired man with a thin and rather plaintive 
 face in which are set two large, dark eyes 
 that continually seem to soften and develop. 
 That is my picture. And what am I in 
 the world? I will tell you. On certain 
 days of the week I employ myself in 
 editing a trade journal that has to do with 
 haberdashery. On another day I act as 
 auctioneer to a firm which imports and 
 sells cheap Italian statuary; modern, very 
 modern copies of the antique, florid marble 
 vases, and so forth. Some of you who read 
 may have passed such marts in different 
 parts of the city, or even have dropped in 
 and purchased a bust or a tazza for a 
 surprisingly small sum. Perhaps I knocked 
 it down to you, only too pleased to find 
 a bond fide bidder amongst my company. 
 
 As for the rest of my time well, I 
 employ it in doing what good I can 
 among the poor and those who need 
 
16 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 comfort or who are bereaved, especially 
 among those who are bereaved, for to 
 such I am sometimes able to bring the 
 breath of hope that blows from another 
 shore. 
 
 Occasionally also I amuse myself in my 
 own fashion. Thus sure knowledge has 
 come to me about certain epochs in the 
 past in which I lived in other shapes, and 
 I study those epochs, hoping that one 
 day I may find time to write of them 
 and of the parts I played in them. Some 
 of these parts are really extremely inter- 
 esting, especially as I am of course able 
 to contrast them with our modern modes 
 of thought and action. 
 
 They do not all come back to me with 
 equal clearness, the earlier lives being, as 
 one might expect, the more difficult to 
 recover and the comparatively recent ones 
 the easiest. Also they seem to range over 
 a vast stretch of time, back indeed to the 
 
THE MAHATMA 17 
 
 days of primeval, prehistoric man. In 
 short, I think the subconscious in some 
 ways resembles the conscious and natural 
 memory; that which is very far off to it 
 grows dim and blurred, that which is com- 
 paratively close remains clear and sharp, 
 although of course this rule is not invari- 
 able. Moreover there is foresight as well 
 as memory. At least from time to time 
 I seem to come in touch with future 
 events and states of society in which I 
 shall have my share. 
 
 I believe some thinkers hold a theory 
 that such conditions as those of past, pre- 
 sent, and future do not in fact exist; 
 that everything already is, standing like 
 a completed column between earth and 
 heaven; that the sum is added up, the 
 equation worked out. At times I am 
 tempted to believe in the truth of this 
 proposition. But if it be true, of course 
 it remains difficult to obtain a clear view 
 
18 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 of other parts of the column than that 
 in which we happen to find ourselves ob- 
 jectively conscious at any given period, 
 and needless to say impossible to see it 
 from base to capital. 
 
 However this may be, no individual entity 
 pervades all the column. There are great 
 sections of it with which that entity has 
 nothing to do, although it always seems to 
 appear again above. I suppose that those 
 sections which are empty of an individual 
 and his atmosphere represent the intervals 
 between his lives which he spends in sleep, 
 or in states of existence with which this 
 world is not concerned, but of such gulfs of 
 oblivion and states of being I know nothing. 
 
 To take a single instance of what I do 
 know: once this spirit of mine, that now 
 by the workings of destiny for a little 
 while occupies the body of a fourth-rate 
 auctioneer and of the editor of a trade 
 journal, dwelt in that of a Pharaoh of 
 
I. WHO MYSELF WAS WORSHIPPED AS A GOD 
 
THE MAHATMA 21 
 
 Egypt never mind which Pharaoh. Yes, 
 although you may laugh and think me 
 mad to say it, for me the legions fought 
 and thundered; to me the peoples bowed 
 and the secret sanctuaries were opened 
 that I and I alone might commune with 
 the gods; I who in the flesh and after it 
 myself was worshipped as a god. 
 
 Well, of this forgotten Royalty of whom 
 little is known save what a few inscrip- 
 tions have to tell, there remains a portrait 
 statue in the British Museum. Sometimes 
 I go to look at that statue and try to recall 
 exactly under what circumstances I caused 
 it to be shaped, puzzling out the story bit 
 by bit. 
 
 Not long ago I stood thus absorbed and 
 did not notice that the hour of the closing 
 of the great gallery had come. Still I 
 stood and gazed and dreamt till the police- 
 man on duty, seeing and suspecting me, 
 came up and roughly ordered me to begone. 
 
22 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 The man's tone angered me. I laid my 
 hand on the foot of the statue, for it had 
 just come back to me that it was a " Ka " 
 image, a sacred thing, any Egyptologist 
 will know what I mean, which for ages had 
 sat in a chamber of my tomb. Then the 
 Ka that clings to it eternally awoke at my 
 touch and knew me, or so I suppose. At 
 least I felt myself change. A new strength 
 came into me; my shape, battered in this 
 world's storms, put on something of its 
 ancient dignity; my eyes grew royal. I 
 looked at that man as Pharaoh may have 
 looked at one who had done him insult. 
 He saw the change and trembled yes, 
 trembled. I believe he thought I was 
 some imperial ghost that the shadows of 
 evening had caused him to mistake for 
 man; at any rate he gasped out 
 
 " I beg your pardon, I was only obeying 
 orders. I hope your Majesty won't hurt 
 me. Now I think of it I have been told 
 
THE MAHATMA 23 
 
 that things come out of these old statues 
 in the night." 
 
 Then turning he ran, literally ran, where 
 to I am sure I do not know, probably to 
 seek the fellowship of some other police- 
 man. In due course I followed, and, lifting 
 the bar at the end of the hall, departed 
 without further question asked. After- 
 wards I was very glad to think that I had 
 done the man no injury. At the moment 
 I knew that I could hurt him if I would, 
 and what is more I had the desire to do so. 
 It came to me, I suppose, with that breath 
 of the past when I was so great and abso- 
 lute. Perhaps I, or that part of me then 
 incarnate, was a tyrant in those days and 
 this is why now I must be so humble. 
 Fate is turning my pride to its hammer and 
 beating it out of me. 
 
 For thus in the long history of the soul 
 it serves all our vices 
 
THE GREAT WHITE ROAD 
 
 Now, as I have hinted, under the teach- 
 ing of Jorsen, who saved me from degrada- 
 tion and self-murder, yes, and helped me 
 with money until once again I could earn 
 a livelihood, I have acquired certain know- 
 ledge and wisdom of a sort that are not 
 common. That is, Jorsen taught me the 
 elements of these things; he set my feet 
 upon the path which thenceforward, having 
 the sight, I have been able to follow for 
 myself. How I followed it does not 
 matter, nor could I teach others if I would. 
 I am no member of any mystic brother- 
 hood, and, as I have explained, no Ma- 
 hatma, although I have called myself thus 
 for present purposes because the name is a 
 convenient cloak. I repeat that J am igno- 
 
 24 
 
THE GREAT WHITE ROAD 25 
 
 rant if there are such people as Mahatmas, 
 though if so I think Jorsen must be one 
 of them. Still he never told me this. What 
 he has told me is that every individual spirit 
 must work out its own destiny quite inde- 
 pendently of others. Indeed, being rather 
 fond of fine phrases, he has sometimes 
 spoken to me of, or rather, insisted upon 
 what he calls " the lonesome splendour of 
 the human soul," which it is our business to 
 perfect through various lives till it reaches a 
 glory and a might that I can scarcely ap- 
 preciate and am certainly unable to describe. 
 To tell the truth, the thought of this 
 " lonesome splendour " to which it seems 
 some of us may attain, alarms me. I have 
 had enough of being lonesome, and I do 
 not ask for any particular splendour. My 
 only ambitions are to find those whom I 
 have lost, and in whatever life I live to be 
 of use to others. However, as I gather 
 that the exalted condition to which Jorsen 
 
26 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 alludes is thousands of ages off for any of 
 us, and may after all mean something 
 quite different to what it seems to mean, 
 the thought of it does not trouble me over 
 much. Meanwhile what I seek is the vision 
 of those I love. 
 
 Now I have this power. Occasionally 
 when I am in deep sleep some part of me 
 seems to leave my body and to be trans- 
 ported quite outside the world. It travels, 
 as though I were already dead, to the Gates 
 that all who live must pass, and there 
 takes its stand, on the Great White Road, 
 watching those who have been called speed 
 by continually. Those upon the earth 
 know nothing of that Road. Blinded by 
 their pomps and vanities, they cannot see, 
 they will not see it always growing towards 
 the feet of every one of them. But I see 
 and know. Of course you who read will 
 say that this is but a dream of mine, and it 
 may be. Still, if so, it is a very wonderful 
 
THE GREAT WHITE ROAD 27 
 
 dream, and except for the change of the 
 passing people, or rather of those who 
 have been people, always very much the 
 same. 
 
 There, straight as the way of the Spirit 
 and broad as the breast of Death, is the 
 Great White Road running I know not 
 whence, up to those Gates that gleam 
 like moonlight and are higher than the 
 Alps. There beyond the Gates the radiant 
 Presences move mysteriously. Thence at 
 the appointed time the Voice cries and 
 they are opened with a sound like to that of 
 deepest thunder, or sometimes are burned 
 away, while from the Glory that lies beyond 
 flow the sweet-faced welcomers to greet 
 those for whom they wait, bearing the cups 
 from which they give to drink. I do not 
 know what is in the cups, whether it be 
 a draught of Lethe or some baptismal 
 water of new birth, or both; but always 
 the thirsting, world-worn soul appears to 
 
28 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 change, and then as it were to be lost in 
 the Presence that gave the cup. At least 
 they are lost to my sight. I see them no 
 more. 
 
 Why do I watch those Gates, in truth 
 or in dream, before my time? Oh! you can 
 guess. That perchance I may behold those 
 for whom my heart burns with a quench- 
 less, eating fire. And once I beheld not 
 the mother but the child, my child, changed 
 indeed, mysterious, wonderful, gleaming 
 like a star, with eyes so deep that in their 
 depths my humanity seemed to swoon. 
 
 She came forward; she knew me; she 
 smiled and laid her finger on her lips. She 
 shook her hair about her and in it vanished 
 as in a cloud. Yet as she vanished a voice 
 spoke in my heart, her voice, and the words 
 it said were 
 
 "Wait, our Beloved! Wait!" 
 
 Mark well. " Our Beloved," not " My 
 Beloved." So there are others by whom 
 
CHANGED INDEED, MYSTERIOUS, WONDERFUL 
 
THE GREAT WHITE ROAD 31 
 
 I am beloved, or at least one other, and 
 I know well who that one must be. 
 
 After this dream, perhaps I had better 
 call it a dream, I was ill for a long while, 
 for the joy and the glory of it overpowered 
 me and brought me near to the death I 
 had always sought. But I recovered, for 
 my hour is not yet. Moreover, for a long 
 while as we reckon time, some years in- 
 deed, I obeyed the injunction and sought 
 the Great White Road no more. At length 
 the longing grew too strong for me and 
 I returned thither, but never again did 
 the vision come. Its word was spoken, 
 its mission was fulfilled. Yet from time to 
 time I, a mortal, seem to stand upon the 
 borders of that immortal Road and watch 
 the newly dead who travel it towards the 
 glorious Gates. 
 
 Once or twice there have been among 
 them people whom I had known. As 
 
32 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 these pass me I appear to have the power 
 of looking into their hearts, and there I 
 read strange things. Sometimes they are 
 beautiful things and sometimes ugly things. 
 Thus I have learned that those I thought 
 bad were really good in the main, for who 
 can claim to be quite good? And on the 
 other hand that those I believed to be as 
 honest as the day well, had their faults. 
 To take an example which I quote 
 because it is so absurd. The rooms I 
 live in were owned by a prim old woman 
 who for more than twenty years was my 
 landlady. She and I were great friends, 
 indeed she tended me like a mother, and 
 when I was so ill nursed me as perhaps 
 few mothers would have done. Yet while 
 I was watching on the Road suddenly she 
 came by, and with horror I saw that during 
 all those years she had been robbing me, 
 taking, I am sorry to say, many things, in 
 money, trinkets, and food. Often I had 
 
THE GREAT WHITE ROAD 33 
 
 discussed with her where these articles 
 could possibly have gone, till finally sus- 
 picion settled upon the man who cleaned 
 the windows. Yes, and worst of all, he was 
 prosecuted, and I gave evidence against 
 him or rather strengthened her evidence, 
 on faith of which the magistrate sent him to 
 prison for a month. 
 
 "Oh! Mrs. Smithers," I said to her, 
 "how could you do it, Mrs. Smithers?" 
 
 She stopped and looked about her terri- 
 fied, so that my heart smote me and I 
 added in haste, " Don't be frightened, Mrs. 
 Smithers ; I forgive you." 
 
 " I can't see you, sir," she exclaimed, or 
 so I dreamed, "but there! I always knew 
 you would." 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Smithers," I replied; "but 
 how about the window-cleaner who went to 
 jail and lost his situation? " 
 
 Then she passed on or was drawn away 
 without making any answer. 
 
34 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 Now comes the odd part of the story. 
 When I woke up on the following morning 
 in my rooms, it was to be informed by 
 the frightened maid-of-all-work that Mrs. 
 Smithers had been found dead in her bed. 
 Moreover, a few days later I learned from 
 a lawyer that she had made a will leaving 
 me everything she possessed, including the 
 lease of her house and nearly 1000, for 
 she had been a saving old person during 
 all her long life. 
 
 Well, I sought out that window-cleaner 
 and compensated him handsomely, saying 
 that I had found I was mistaken in the evi- 
 dence I gave against him. The rest of the 
 property I kept, and I hope that it was not 
 wrong of me to do so. It will be remem- 
 bered that some of it was already my own, 
 temporarily diverted into another channel, 
 and for the rest I have so many to help. 
 To be frank I do not spend much upon 
 myself. 
 
THE HARE 
 
 Now I have done with myself, or rather 
 with my own insignificant present history, 
 and come to that of the Hare. It im- 
 pressed me a good deal at the time, which 
 is not long ago, so much indeed that I 
 communicated the facts to Jorsen. He 
 ordered me to publish them, and what 
 Jorsen orders must be done. I don't 
 know why this should be, but it is so. 
 He has authority of a sort that I am 
 unable to define. 
 
 One night after the usual aspirations and 
 concentration of mind, which by the way 
 are not always successful, I passed into 
 what occultists call spirit, and others a state 
 of dream. At any rate I found myself 
 upon the borders of the Great White Road, 
 
 35 
 
36 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 as near to the mighty Gates as I am ever 
 allowed to come. How far that may be 
 away I cannot tell. Perhaps it is but a few 
 yards and perhaps it is the width of this 
 great world, for in that place which my 
 spirit visits time and distance do not exist. 
 There all things are new and strange, not 
 to be reckoned by our measures. There 
 the sight is not our sight nor the hearing 
 our hearing. I repeat that all things are 
 different, but that difference I cannot 
 describe, and if I could it would prove past 
 comprehension. 
 
 There I sat by the borders of the Great 
 White Road, my eyes fixed upon the Gates 
 above which the towers mount for miles on 
 miles, outlined against an encircling gloom 
 with the radiance of the world beyond 
 the worlds. Four-square they stand, those 
 towers, and fourfold are the roads that run 
 to them, and fourfold the gates that open 
 to the denizens of other earths. But of 
 
THE GREAT WHITE ROAD 
 
THE HARE 39 
 
 these I have no knowledge beyond the 
 fact that it is so in my visions. 
 
 I sat upon the borders of the Road, 
 my eyes fixed in hope upon the Gates, 
 though well I knew that the hope would 
 never be fulfilled, and watched the dead 
 go by. 
 
 They were many that night. Some 
 plague was working in the East and un- 
 chaining thousands. The folk that it loosed 
 were strange to me who in this particular 
 life have seldom left England, and I studied 
 them with curiosity; high-featured, dark- 
 hued people with a patient air. The know- 
 ledge which I have told me that one and 
 all they were very ancient souls who often 
 and often had walked this Road before, 
 and therefore, although as yet they did 
 not know it, were well accustomed to the 
 journey. No, I am wrong, for here and 
 there an individual did know. Indeed 
 one deep-eyed, wistful little woman, who 
 
40 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 carried a baby in her arms, stopped for a 
 moment and spoke to me. 
 
 " The others cannot see you as I do," 
 she said. " Priest of the Queen of queens, 
 I know you well; hand in hand we climbed 
 by the seven stairways to the altars of 
 the moon." 
 
 ' Who is the Queen of queens? " I asked. 
 
 " Have you forgotten her of the hundred 
 names whose veils we lifted one by one; 
 her whose breast was beauty and whose 
 eyes were truth? In a day to come you 
 will remember. Farewell till we walk this 
 Road no more." 
 
 " Stay when did we meet? " 
 
 " When our souls were young," she an- 
 swered, and faded from my ken like a 
 shadow from the sea. 
 
 After the Easterns came many others 
 from all parts of the earth. Then suddenly 
 appeared a company of about six hundred 
 folk of every age and English in their 
 
THE HARE 41 
 
 looks. They were not so calm as are the 
 majority of those who make this journey. 
 When I read the papers a few days later I 
 understood why. A great passenger ship 
 had sunk suddenly in mid ocean and they 
 were all cut off unprepared. 
 
 When, followed by a few stragglers, 
 these had passed and gathered themselves in 
 the red shadow beneath the gateway towers 
 waiting for the summons, an unusual thing 
 occurred. For a few moments the Road 
 was left quite empty. After that last great 
 stroke Death seemed to be resting on his 
 laurels. When thus unpeopled it looked a 
 very vast place like to a huge arched cause- 
 way, bordered on either side by blackness, 
 but itself gleaming with a curious phosphor- 
 escence such as once or twice I have seen 
 in the waters of a summer sea at night. 
 
 Presently in the very centre of this illu- 
 minated desolation, whilst it was as yet far 
 away, something caught my eye, something 
 
42 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 so strange to the place, so utterly unfamiliar 
 that I watched it earnestly, wondering what 
 it might be. Nearer and nearer it came, 
 with curious, uncertain hops; yes, a little 
 brown object that hopped. 
 
 " Well," 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 Christ- 
 mas present from Norfolk, which hare I ate. 
 
 A few more hops brought it opposite to 
 my post of observation. Here it halted as 
 though it seemed to see me. At any rate 
 it sat up in the alert fashion that hares have, 
 
THE HARE 43 
 
 its fore-paws hanging absurdly in front 
 of it, with one ear, on which there was a 
 grey blotch, cocked and one dragging, and 
 sniffed with its funny little nostrils. Then 
 it began to talk to me. I do not mean 
 that it really talked, but the thoughts 
 which were in its mind were flashed on to 
 my mind so that I understood perfectly, 
 yes, and could answer them in the same 
 fashion. It said, or thought, thus: 
 
 " You are real. You are a man who 
 yet lives beneath the sun, though how you 
 came here I do not know. I hate men, 
 all hares do, for men are cruel to them. 
 Still it is a comfort in this strange place 
 to see something one has seen before 
 and to be able to talk even to a man, 
 which I could never do until the change 
 came, the dreadful change I mean be- 
 cause of the way of it," and it seemed to 
 to shiver. " May I ask you some ques- 
 tions?" 
 
44 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 " Certainly," I said or rather thought back. 
 1 You are sure that they won't make 
 you angry so that you hurt me? " 
 
 " I can't hurt you, even if I wished to 
 do so. You are not a hare any longer, 
 if you ever were one, but only the shadow 
 of a hare." 
 
 "Ah! I thought as much, and that's 
 a good thing anyhow. Tell me, Man, 
 have you ever been torn to pieces by 
 dogs?" 
 
 " Good gracious! no." 
 
 " Or coursed, or hunted, or caught in 
 a trap, or shot all over your back, or 
 twisted up in nets and choked in snares? 
 Or have you swum out to sea to die more 
 easily, or seen your mate and mother and 
 father killed?" 
 
 "No, no. Please stop, Hare; your 
 questions are very unpleasant." 
 
 " Not half so unpleasant as the things 
 are themselves, I can assure you, Man. 
 
THE HARE 45 
 
 I will tell you my story if you like; then 
 you can judge for yourself. But first, if 
 you will, do you tell me why I am 
 here. Have you seen more hares about 
 this place? " 
 
 " Never, nor any other animals. No, 
 I am wrong, once I saw a dog." 
 
 "A dog. How horrible! What was 
 it doing? Hunting? If there are no 
 hares here what could it be hunting? 
 A rabbit, or a pheasant with a broken 
 wing, or perhaps a fox? I should not 
 mind so much if it were a fox. I hate 
 foxes; they catch young hares when they 
 are asleep and eat them." 
 
 " None of these things. I was told 
 that it belonged to a little girl who died. 
 That broke its heart, so that it died also 
 when they shut her up in a box. There- 
 fore it was allowed to accompany her 
 here because it had loved so much. In- 
 deed I saw them together, both very 
 
46 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 happy, and together they went through 
 those gates." 
 
 " If dogs love little girls why don't 
 they love hares, at least as anything 
 likes to be loved, for the dog didn't 
 want to eat the little girl, did it? I see 
 you can't answer me. Now would you 
 like me to tell you my story? Some- 
 thing inside of me is saying that I am 
 to do so if you will listen; also that 
 there is plenty of time, for I am not 
 wanted at present, and when I am I 
 can run to those gates much quicker 
 than you could." 
 
 " I should like it very much, Hare. 
 Once a prophet heard an ass speak in 
 order to warn him. But since then, 
 except very, very rarely in dreams, no 
 creature has talked to a man, so far as 
 I know. Perhaps you wish to warn me 
 about something, or others through me, 
 as the ass warned Balaam." 
 
THE HARE 47 
 
 "Who is Balaam? I never heard of 
 Balaam. He wasn't the man who fetches 
 dead pheasants in the donkey-cart, was 
 he? If so, I've seen him make the ass 
 talk with a thick stick. No? Well, 
 never mind, I daresay I should not under- 
 stand about him if you told me. Now 
 for my story." 
 
 Then the Hare sat itself down, planting 
 its forepaws firmly in front of it, as these 
 animals do when they are on the watch, 
 looked up at me and hegan to pour the 
 contents of its mind into mine. 
 
 I was born, it said, or rather told me by 
 thought transference, in a field of growing 
 corn near to a big wood. At least I sup- 
 pose I was born there, though the first thing 
 I remember is playing about in the wheat 
 with two other little ones of my own size, a 
 brother and a sister that were born with 
 me. It was at night, for a great, round, 
 
48 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 shining thing which I now know was the 
 moon, hung in the sky above us. We 
 gambolled together and were very happy, 
 till presently my mother came I remem- 
 ber how big she looked and cuffed me 
 with her paw because I had led the others 
 away from the place where she had told 
 us to stop, and given her a great hunt 
 to find us. That is the first thing I re-, 
 member about my mother. Afterwards 
 she seemed sorry because she had hurt me, 
 and nursed us all three, letting me have the 
 most milk. My mother always loved me 
 the best of us, because I was such a fine 
 leveret, with a pretty grey patch on my left 
 ear. Just as I had finished drinking an- 
 other hare came who was my father. He 
 was very large, with a glossy coat and big 
 shining eyes that always seemed to see 
 everything, even when it was behind him. 
 He was frightened about something, and 
 hustled my mother and us little ones out 
 
THE HARE 49 
 
 of the wheat-field into the big wood by 
 which it is bordered. As we left the 
 field I saw two tall creatures that after- 
 wards I came to know were men. They 
 were placing wire-netting round the field 
 you see I understand now what all these 
 things were, although of course I did not at 
 the time. The two ends of the wire netting 
 had nearly come together. There was only 
 a little gap left through which we could 
 run. Another young hare, or it may have 
 been a rabbit, had got entangled in it, and 
 one of the men was beating it to death with 
 a stick. I remember that the sound of its 
 screams made me feel cold down the back, 
 for I had never heard anything like that 
 before, and this was the first that I had 
 seen of pain and death. 
 
 The other man saw us slipping through 
 and ran at us with his stick. My mother 
 went first and escaped him. Then came 
 my sister, then I, then my brother. My 
 
50 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 father was last of all. The man hit with 
 his stick and it came down thud along- 
 side of me, just touching my fur. He hit 
 again and broke the foreleg of my brother. 
 Still we all managed to get through into the 
 wood, except my father who was behind. 
 
 "There's the old buck!" cried one of 
 the men (I understand what he said now, 
 though at the time it meant nothing to 
 me). " Knock him on the head! " 
 
 So leaving us alone they ran at him. 
 But my father was much too quick for 
 them. He rushed back into the corn and, 
 afterwards joined us in the wood, for he 
 had seen wire before and knew how to 
 escape it. Still he was terribly frightened 
 and made us keep in the wood till the 
 following evening, not even allowing my 
 mother to go to her form in the rough 
 pasture on its other side and lie up there. 
 
 Also we were in trouble because my 
 brother's forepaw was broken. It gave 
 
THE HARE 51 
 
 him a great deal of pain, so that he could 
 not rest or sleep. After a while, how- 
 ever, it mended up in a fashion, but he 
 was never able to run as fast as we could, 
 nor did he grow so big. In the end the 
 mother fox killed him, as I shall tell. 
 
 My mother asked my father what the 
 men with the sticks were doing for, you 
 know, many animals can talk to each 
 other in their own way, even if they are of 
 different kinds. He told her that they 
 were protecting the wheat to prevent us 
 from eating it, to which she answered 
 angrily that hares must live somehow, 
 especially when they had young ones to 
 nurse. My father replied that men did 
 not seem to think so, and perhaps they 
 had young ones also. I see now that my 
 father was a philosophic hare. But are 
 you tired of my story? 
 
 " Not at all," I answered; " go on, 
 please. It is very interesting to hear things 
 
52 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 described from the animal's point of view, 
 especially when that animal has grown wise 
 and learned to understand." 
 
 " Ah," answered the Hare. " I see what 
 you mean. And it is odd, but I do under- 
 stand. All has become clear to me. I 
 don't know what happened when I died, 
 but there came a change, and I knew that 
 I who was but a beast always have been 
 and still am a necessary part of every- 
 thing as much as you are, though more 
 helpless and humble. Yes, I am as ancient 
 and as far-reaching as yourself, but how I 
 began and how I shall end is dark to me. 
 Well, I will go on with my story. 
 
 It must have been a moon or so later, 
 after my mother had given up nursing me, 
 that I went to lie out by myself. There was 
 a big house on the hillside overlooking the 
 sea, and near to it were gardens surrounded 
 by a wall. Also outside of this wall was 
 another patch of garden where cabbages 
 
THE HARE 53 
 
 grew. I found a way to those cabbages and 
 kept it secret, for I was greedy and wanted 
 them all for myself. I used to creep in at 
 night and eat them, also some flowers with 
 spiky leaves that grew round them which 
 had a very fine flavour. Then after the 
 dawn came I went to a form which I had 
 made under a furze bush on the slope that 
 ran down to the sea, and slept there. 
 
 One day I was awakened by something 
 white, hard, and round which rolled gently 
 and stopped still quite close to me. It was 
 not alive, although it had a queer smell, and 
 I wondered why it moved at all. Presently 
 I heard voices and there appeared a little 
 man, and with him somebody who was not 
 a man because it was differently dressed and 
 spoke in a higher voice. I saw that they 
 had sticks in their hands and thought of 
 running away, then that it would be safer 
 to lie quite close. They came up to me and 
 the little man said 
 
54 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 "There's the ball; pick it up, Ella, the 
 lie is too bad." 
 
 She, for now I know it was what is 
 called a girl, stooped to obey and saw 
 my back. 
 
 ' Tom," she said in a whisper, " here's a 
 young hare on its form." 
 
 " Get out of the light," he answered, 
 " and I'll kill it," and he lifted the stick he 
 held, which had a twisted iron end. 
 
 "No," she said, "catch it alive; I want 
 a hare to be a friend to my rabbit, which 
 has lost all its little ones." 
 
 " Lost them? Eaten them, you mean, 
 because you would always go and stare at 
 it," said Tom. " Where's the leveret? Oh! 
 I see. Now, look out! " 
 
 A moment later and I was in darkness. 
 Tom had thrown himself upon the top of 
 me and was grabbing at me with his hands. 
 I nearly got away, but as my head poked up 
 under his arm the girl caught hold of it. 
 
THE HARE 55 
 
 "Oh! it's scratching," she cried, as in- 
 deed I was with all my might. " Hold it, 
 Tom, hold it!" 
 
 " Hold it yourself," said Tom, " my face 
 is full of furze prickles." So she held and 
 presently he helped her, till in the end I 
 was tied up in a pocket-handkerchief and 
 carried I knew not whither. Indeed I was 
 almost mad with fear. 
 
 When I came to myself I found that I 
 was within a kind of wire run which smelt 
 foully, as though hundreds of things had 
 lived in it for years. There was a hutch at 
 the end of the run in which sat an enormous 
 she-rabbit, quite as big as my mother, a 
 fierce-looking brute with long yellow teeth. 
 I was afraid of that rabbit and got as far 
 from it as I could. Presently it hopped 
 out and looked at me. 
 
 "What are you doing here?" it asked. 
 " Can't you talk? Well, it doesn't matter. 
 If I get hungry I'll eat you! Do you hear 
 
56 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 that? I'll eat you, as I did all the others," 
 and it showed its big yellow teeth and 
 hopped back into the hutch. 
 
 After that Tom and the girl came and 
 gave us plenty of food which the big rabbit 
 ate, for I could touch nothing. For two 
 days they came, and then I think they for- 
 got all about us. I grew very hungry, and 
 at night filled myself with some of the re- 
 maining food, such as stale cabbage leaves. 
 By next morning all was gone, and the big 
 rabbit grew hungry also. All that day it 
 hopped about sniffing at me and showing 
 its yellow teeth. 
 
 " I shall eat you to-night," it said. 
 
 I ran round and round the pen in terror, 
 till at last I found a place where rats had 
 been working under the wire, almost big 
 enough for me to squeeze through, but not 
 quite. 
 
 The sun went down and the big she- 
 rabbit came out. 
 
THE HARE 57 
 
 " Now I am going to eat you," it said,' 
 " as I ate all the others. I am hungry, very 
 hungry," and it prodded me about with its 
 nose and rolled me over. 
 
 At last with a little squeal it drove its 
 big yellow teeth into me behind. Oh! how 
 they hurt! I was near the rat-hole. I 
 rushed at it, scrabbing and wriggling. The 
 big rabbit pounced on me with its fore-feet, 
 trying to hold me, but too late, for I was 
 through, leaving some of my fur behind 
 me. I ran, how I ran! without stopping, 
 till at length I found my mother in the 
 rough pasture by the wood and told her 
 everything. 
 
 "Ah!" she said, "that's what comes of 
 greediness and of trying to be too clever. 
 Now, perhaps, you will learn to stop at 
 home." 
 
 So I did for a long while. 
 
 The summer went by without anything 
 
58 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 particular happening, except that my 
 brother with the lame foot was eaten by the 
 mother fox. That great red beast was al- 
 ways prowling about, and at night surprised 
 us in a field near the wood where we were 
 feeding on some beautiful turnips. The 
 rest of us got away, but my brother being 
 lame, was not quick enough. The fox 
 caught him, and I heard her sharp white 
 teeth crunch into his bones. The sound 
 made me quite sick, and my mother was 
 very sad afterwards. She complained to 
 my father of the cruelty of foxes, but he, 
 who, as I have said, was a philosopher, 
 answered her almost in her own words. 
 
 " Foxes must live, and this one has 
 young to feed, and therefore is always 
 hungry. There are three of them in a 
 hole at the top of the wood," he re- 
 marked. " Also our son was lame and 
 w r ould certainly have been caught when 
 the hunting begins." 
 
THE HARE 59 
 
 "What's the hunting?" I asked. 
 
 " Never mind," said my father sharply. 
 " No doubt you'll find out in time, that 
 is if you live through the shooting." 
 
 "What's the shooting?" I began, but 
 my father cuffed me over the head and 
 I was silent. 
 
 I may tell you that my mother soon got 
 over the loss of my brother, for just about 
 that time she had four new little ones, 
 after which neither she nor my father 
 seemed to think any more about us. My 
 sister and I hated those little ones. We 
 two alone remembered my brother, and 
 sometimes wondered whether he were quite 
 gone or would one day come back. The 
 fox, I am glad to say, got caught in a trap. 
 At least I am not glad now I was glad 
 because, you see, I was so much afraid of 
 her. 
 
THE SHOOTING 
 
 I WAS quite close by one morning when the 
 fox, who was smelling about after me, I 
 suppose because it had liked my brother 
 so much, got caught in the big trap which 
 was covered over artfully with earth and 
 baited with some stuff which stank horribly. 
 I remember it looked very like my own 
 hind-legs. The fox, not being able to find 
 me, went to this filth and tried to eat it. 
 
 Then suddenly there was a dreadful 
 fuss. The fox yelped and flew into the 
 air. I saw that a great black thing was 
 fast on its forepaw. How that fox did 
 jump and roll! It was quite wonderful 
 to see her. She looked like a great yellow 
 ball, except for a lot of white marks about 
 the head, which were her teeth. But the 
 
 60 
 
THE SHOOTING 61 
 
 trap would not come away, because it was 
 tied to a root with a chain. 
 
 At last the fox grew tired and, lying 
 down, began to think, licking its paw as 
 it thought and making a kind of moaning 
 noise. Next it commenced gnawing at the 
 root after trying the chain and finding that 
 its teeth would not go into it. While it 
 was doing this I heard the sound of a man 
 somewhere in the wood. So did the fox, 
 and oh! it looked so frightened. It lay 
 down panting, its tongue hanging out and 
 its ears pressed back against its head, and 
 whisked its big tail from side to side. Then 
 it began to gnaw again, but this time at its 
 own leg. It wanted to bite it off and so 
 get away. I thought this very brave of 
 the fox, and though I hated it because it 
 had eaten my brother and tried to eat me, 
 I felt quite sorry. 
 
 It was about half through its leg when 
 the man came. I remember that he had a 
 
62 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 cat with a little red collar on its neck, and 
 an owl in his hand, both of them dead, 
 for he was Giles, the head-keeper, going 
 round his traps. He was a tall man with 
 sandy whiskers and a rough voice, and he 
 carried a single-barrelled gun under his arm. 
 You see, now that I am dead I know the 
 use of these things, just as I understand all 
 
 that was said, though of course at the time 
 
 * 
 
 it had no meaning for me. Still I find that 
 I have forgotten nothing, not one word 
 from the beginning of my life to the end. 
 
 The keeper, who was on his way to the 
 place where he nailed the creatures he did 
 not like by dozens upon poles, looked 
 down and saw the fox. " Oh! my beauty," 
 he said, " so I have got you at last. Don't 
 you think yourself clever trying to bite 
 off that leg. You'd have done it too, only 
 I came along just in time. Well, good 
 night, old girl, you won't have no more 
 of my pheasants." 
 
C~-A >" ' Q ^ 
 
 ; -oV-j^ 
 
 * ' JS 4* ^ t - 
 
 " OH ! MY BEAUTY/' HE SAID, " SO I HAVE GOT YOU AT LAS 
 
THE SHOOTING 65 
 
 Then he lifted the gun. There was a 
 most dreadful noise and the fox rolled over 
 and lay still. 
 
 " There you are, all neat and tidy, my 
 dear," said the keeper. " Now I must 
 just tuck you away in the hollow tree 
 before old Grampus sneaks round and sees 
 you, for if he should it will be almost as 
 much as my place is worth." 
 
 Next he set his foot on the trap and, 
 opening it, took hold of the fox by the fore- 
 legs to carry it off. The cat and the owl he 
 stuffed away into a great pocket in his coat. 
 
 "Jemima! don't you wholly stink," he 
 said, then gave a most awful yell. 
 
 The fox wasn't quite dead after all, it 
 was only shamming dead. At any rate it 
 got Giles' hand in its mouth and made 
 its teeth meet through the flesh. 
 
 Now the keeper began to jump about 
 just as the fox had done when it set its paw 
 in the trap, shouting and saying all sorts of 
 
66 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 things that somehow I don't think I ought 
 to repeat here. Round and round he went 
 with the fox hanging to his hand, like 
 hares do when they dance together, for he 
 couldn't get it off anyhow. At last he 
 tumbled down into a pool of mud and 
 water, and when he got up again all wet 
 through I saw that the fox was really dead. 
 But it had died biting, and now I know 
 that this pleased it very much. 
 
 It was just then that the man whom the 
 keeper had called Grampus came up. He 
 was a big, fat man with a very red face, who 
 made a kind of blowing noise when he 
 walked fast. I know now that he was the 
 lord of all the other men about that place, 
 that he lived in the house which looked over 
 the sea, and that the boy and girl who put 
 me in with the yellow-toothed rabbit were his 
 children. He was what the farmers called 
 " a first-rate all-round sportsman," which 
 means, my friend but what is your name?" 
 
THE SHOOTING 67 
 
 " Oh! Mahatma," I answered at hazard. 
 
 " Which means, my friend Mahatma, that 
 he spent most of the year in killing the 
 lower animals such as me. Yes, he spent 
 quite eight months out of the twelve in kill- 
 ing us one way and another, for when there 
 was no more killing to be done in his own 
 country, he would travel to others and kill 
 there. He would even kill pigeons from a 
 trap, or young rooks just out of their nests, 
 or rats in a stack, or sparrows among ivy, 
 rather than not kill anything. I've heard 
 Giles say so to the under-keeper and call 
 him " a regular slaughterer " and " a true- 
 blood Englishman." 
 
 Yet, my friend Mahatma, I say in the 
 light of the truth which has come to me, 
 that according to his knowledge Grampus 
 was a good man. Thus, what little time 
 he had to spare from sport he passed in 
 helping his brother men by sending them 
 to prison. Although of course he never 
 
68 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 worked or earned anything, he was very 
 rich, because money flowed to him from 
 other people who had been very rich, but 
 who at last were forced to travel this 
 Road and could not bring it with them. 
 If they could have brought it, I am sure 
 that Grampus would never have got any. 
 However, he did get it, and he aided 
 a great many people with that part of 
 it which he found he could not spend 
 upon himself. He was a very good man, 
 only he liked killing us lower creatures, 
 whom he bred up with his money to be 
 killed." 
 
 " Go on with your story, Hare," I said; 
 " when I see this Red-faced Man I will 
 judge of him for myself. Probably you are 
 prejudiced about him." 
 
 " I daresay I am," answered the Hare, 
 rubbing its nose; "but please observe that 
 I am not speaking unkindly of Grampus, 
 although before I have done you may think 
 
THE SHOOTING 69 
 
 that I might have reason to do so. How- 
 ever, you will be able to form your own 
 opinion when he comes here, which I am 
 sure he does not mean to do for many, many 
 years. The world is much too comfortable 
 for him. He does not wish to leave it." 
 
 " Still he may be obliged to do so, Hare." 
 
 " Oh! no, people like that are never 
 obliged to do anything they do not like. 
 It is only poor things such as you and I, 
 Mahatma, which must suffer. I can see 
 that you have had a great deal to bear, and 
 so have I, for we were born to suffering as 
 the Red-faced Man was born to happiness." 
 
 " Go on with your story, Hare," I re- 
 peated. ' You are becoming metaphysical 
 and therefore dull. The time is short and 
 I want to hear what happened." 
 
 " Quite so, Mahatma. Well, Grampus 
 came up breathing very heavily and looking 
 very red in the face. He held his hat in 
 one hand and a large crooked stick in the 
 
70 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 other, and even the top of his head, on 
 which no hair grew, was red, for he had 
 been running. 
 
 " What the deuce is the matter? " he 
 puffed. " Oh! it is you, Giles, is it? What 
 are you doing, sir, looking like that, all 
 covered with blood and mud? Has a 
 poacher shot you, or what? " 
 
 " No, Squire," answered Giles humbly, 
 touching his hat. " I have shot a poacher, 
 that's all, and it has given me what for," 
 and he lifted the body of the fox from 
 the water. 
 
 "A fox," said Grampus, "a fox! Do 
 you mean to say, Giles, that you have 
 dared to shoot a fox, and a vixen with a 
 litter too? How often have I told you 
 that, although I keep harriers and not fox- 
 hounds, you are never to touch a fox. 
 You will get me into trouble with all my 
 neighbours. I give you a month's notice. 
 You will leave on this day month." 
 
THE SHOOTING 71 
 
 "Very well, Squire," said Giles, "I'll 
 leave, and I hope you'll find some one to 
 serve you better. Meanwhile I didn't 
 shoot the dratted fox. At least I only 
 shot her after she'd gone and got herself 
 into a trap which I had set for that there 
 Rectory dog what you told me to make off 
 with on the quiet, so that the young lady 
 might never know what become of it and 
 cry and make a fuss as she did about the 
 last. Then seeing that she was finished, 
 with her leg half chewed off, I shot her, 
 or rather I didn't shoot her as well as I 
 should, for the beggar gave a twist as I 
 fired, and now she's bit me right through 
 the hand. I only hopes you won't have 
 to pay my widow for it, Squire, under the 
 Act, as foxes' bites is uncommon poison- 
 ous, especially when they've been a-eating 
 of rotten rabbit." 
 
 "Dear me!" said the Red-faced Man 
 softening, " dear me, the beast does seem 
 
72 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 to have bitten you very badly. You must 
 go and be cauterised with a red-hot iron. 
 It is painful but the best thing to do. 
 Meanwhile, suck it, Giles, suck it! I dare- 
 say that will draw out the poison, and if 
 it doesn't, thank my stars! I am insured. 
 Look here, a minute or two can make no 
 difference, for if you are poisoned, you are 
 poisoned. Where can we put this brute? 
 I wouldn't have it seen for ten pounds." 
 
 " There's an old pollard, Squire, about 
 five yards away down near the fence, which 
 is hollow and handy," said Giles. 
 
 " Quite so," he answered, " I know it 
 well. Do you bring the dog, Giles. 
 Remember, it was a dog, not a fox." 
 
 Then they went to the pollard, and as 
 Giles's hand was hurt the Red-faced Man 
 climbed up it, though Giles tried to pre- 
 vent him. 
 
 " Now then, Giles," he said, " give me 
 the fox I mean the dog, and I will drop 
 
THE SHOOTING 7S 
 
 it down. Great Heavens! how this tree 
 stinks. Has there been an earth here?" 
 
 " Not as I knows of, Squire," said Giles 
 sullenly. 
 
 Grampus stretched his hand down into 
 the hollow of the pollard and dragged up 
 a rotting fox by its tail. 
 
 " Giles," he said, " you have been killing 
 more foxes and hiding them in this tree. 
 Giles, I dismiss you at once and without a 
 month's wages." 
 
 " All right, sir," said Giles, " I'll go, and 
 I prays you'll find some one what will keep 
 your hares which you must have, and your 
 pheasants which you must have, and your 
 partridges which you must have, without 
 killing these varmints of foxes what eats 
 the lot." 
 
 The Red-faced Man descended from the 
 tree holding his nose and looked at Giles. 
 Giles sucked his bleeding hand and looked 
 at him. 
 
74 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 " Foxes are very destructive animals," 
 said the Red-faced Man to Giles, " especi- 
 ally when one shoots and keeps harriers." 
 
 " They are that, sir," said Giles to the 
 Red-faced Man, " as only those know what 
 has to do with them." 
 
 " Put the other in, Giles," said the Red- 
 faced Man," and when you have time, throw 
 some soil on to the top of the lot. This 
 place smells horrible. And look you here, 
 Giles," he added in a voice of thunder, " if 
 ever I find you killing a fox upon this 
 property, you will be dismissed at once, as 
 I have often told you before. Do you 
 understand? " 
 
 " Yes, Squire, I understand," answered 
 Giles, " and I'll see to the burying of them 
 this same afternoon, if the pain in my 
 hand will suffer it." 
 
 "Very well," said the Red-faced Man, 
 " that's done with except the cubs. As 
 you have killed the vixen you had better 
 
THE SHOOTING 75 
 
 stink the cubs out of the earth. I daresay 
 they are old enough to look after them- 
 selves at any rate I hope so. And now, 
 Giles, we must shoot some of these hares 
 when we begin on the partridges next week. 
 There are too many of them, the tenants 
 are complaining, ungrateful beggars as they 
 are, seeing that I keep them for their sport." 
 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 
 
76 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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, Ma- 
 hatma, 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." 
 
THE SHOOTING 77 
 
 "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, keep- 
 ing 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 cock. 
 
78 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 " 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 cock. " 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, hold- 
 ing 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. 
 
I SAW A LINE OF MEN WALKING TOWARDS ME 
 
THE SHOOTING 81 
 
 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 
 
82 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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 
 w^orst 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 par- 
 tridge 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 
 
THE SHOOTING 83 
 
 " 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 snigger, " 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 
 
84 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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, " Damn! " What does ' damn ' 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 scream- 
 ing. 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 
 
THE SHOOTING 85 
 
 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, sniggering 
 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 the 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 
 
86 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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, " Nigger. Come you 
 'ere, Nigger! Nigg, Nigg, Nigg!" 
 
 But Nigger rushed about putting up 
 partridges all over the place, while Gram- 
 pus 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 Nigger 
 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 
 
THE SHOOTING 87 
 
 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 par- 
 tridge 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 point- 
 ing to the sky, and when the line had 
 passed 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 passed like a bullet between 
 
88 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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. 
 
 "Mind that there boy!" bellowed Giles. 
 
 I was running down between two rows 
 of turnips and presently butted into a lad 
 who was bending over, I suppose to pick 
 up a partridge. At any rate his tail do 
 you call it his tail, Mahatma? " 
 
 " That will do," I answered. 
 
 " Well, his tail was towards me; it looked 
 very round and shiny. The shot from 
 Tom's gun hit it everywhere. I wish they 
 
THE SHOOTING 89 
 
 had all gone into it, but as he was so far 
 away the charge scattered and six of the 
 bullets struck me. Oh! they did hurt. 
 Put your hand on my back, Mahatma, and 
 you will feel the six lumps they made 
 beneath the grey tufts of hair that grew 
 over them, for they are still there." 
 
 Forgetting that we were on the Road, 
 I stretched out my hand; but, of course, 
 it went quite through the hare, although 
 I could see the six little grey tufts clearly 
 enough. 
 
 "You are foolish, Hare; you don't re- 
 member that your body is not here but 
 somewhere else." 
 
 " Quite true, Mahatma. If it were here 
 I could not be talking to you, could I? 
 As a matter of fact, I have no body now. 
 It is oh, never mind where. Still, you 
 can see the grey tufts, can't you? Well, 
 I only hope that those shot hurt that fat 
 boy half as much as they did me. No, I 
 
90 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 don't mean that I hope it now, I used to 
 hope it. 
 
 My goodness! didn't he screech, much 
 worse than my father when his legs were 
 broken? And didn't everybody else roar 
 and shout, and didn't I dance? Off I went 
 right over the fat boy, who had tumbled 
 down, up to the end of the field, then so 
 bewildered was I with shock and the burn- 
 ing pain, back again quite close to them. 
 
 But now nobody shot at me because they 
 all thought the boy was killed and were 
 gathered round him looking very solemn. 
 Only I saw that the Red-faced Man had 
 Tom by the neck and was kicking him 
 hard. 
 
 After that I saw no more, for I ran 
 five miles before I stopped, and at last lay 
 down in a little swamp near the seashore 
 to which my mother had once taken me. 
 My back was burning like fire, and I tried 
 to cool it in the soft slush. 
 
THE COURSING 
 
 QUITE a moon went by before I recovered 
 from Tom's shot. At first I thought that 
 I was going to die, for, although luckily 
 none of my bones were broken, the pain in 
 my back was dreadful. When I tried to 
 ease the agony by rubbing against roots it 
 only became worse, for the fur fell off, 
 leaving sores upon which flies settled. I 
 could scarcely eat or sleep, and grew so 
 thin that the bones nearly poked through 
 my pelt. Indeed I wanted very much to 
 die, but could not. On the contrary, by 
 degrees I recovered, till at last I was quite 
 strong again and like other hares, except 
 for the six little grey tufts upon my back 
 and one hole through my right ear. 
 
 Now all this while I had lived in the 
 
 91 
 
92 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 swamp near the sea, but when my strength 
 returned I thought of my old home, to 
 which something seemed to draw me. 
 Also there were no turnips near the 
 swamp, and as the winter came on I found 
 very little to eat there. So one day, or 
 rather one night, I travelled back home. 
 
 As it happened the first hare that I met 
 near the big wood was my sister. She was 
 very glad to see me, although she had for- 
 gotten how we came to part, and when I 
 spoke of our father and mother these did 
 not seem to interest her. Still from that 
 time forward we lived together more or 
 less till her end came. 
 
 One day this was after we had made our 
 home in the big wood, as hares often do 
 in winter there was a great disturbance. 
 When we tried to go out to feed at day- 
 light we found little fires burning every- 
 where, and near to them boys who beat 
 themselves and shouted. So we went back 
 
THE COURSING 93 
 
 into the wood, where the pheasants were 
 running to and fro in a great state of mind. 
 
 Some hours later, when the sun was quite 
 high, men began to march about and scores 
 of shots were fired a long way off, also a 
 wounded cock-pheasant fell near to us and 
 fluttered away, making a queer noise in its 
 throat. It looked very funny stumbling 
 along on one leg with its beak gaping and 
 two of the long feathers in its tail broken. 
 
 " I know what this is," I said to my sister. 
 " Let's be gone before they shoot us. I've 
 had enough of being shot." 
 
 So off we went, rushing past a boy by 
 his fire, who yelled and threw a stick at us. 
 But as it happened, on the borders of the 
 property of the Red-faced Man there were 
 poachers who knew that hares would come 
 out of the wood on this day of the shooting 
 and had made ready for us by setting wire 
 nooses in the gaps of the hedges through 
 which we ran. I got my foot into one of 
 
94 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 these but managed to shake it off. My 
 sister was not so lucky, for her head went 
 into another of them. She kicked and 
 tore, but the more she struggled the 
 tighter drew the noose. 
 
 I watched her for a little while until one 
 of the poachers ran up with a stick. 
 
 Then I went away, as I could not bear to 
 see her beaten to death, and that was the 
 end of my sister. So now I was the only 
 one left alive of our family, except perhaps 
 some younger brothers whom I did not 
 know, though I think it was one of these 
 that afterwards I saw shot quite dead 
 by Giles. He went over and over and 
 lay as still as though he had never moved 
 in all his life. Death seems a very won- 
 derful thing, Mahatma, but I won't ask 
 you what it is because I perceive that 
 you can't answer. 
 
 After this nothing happened to me for a 
 long while. Indeed I had the best time of 
 
THE COURSING 95 
 
 my life and grew very strong and big, yes, 
 the strongest and biggest hare of any that I 
 ever saw, also the swiftest of foot. Twice I 
 was chased by dogs; once by Giles's black 
 beast, Nigger, and once by that of a shep- 
 herd. Finding that I could run right away 
 from them without exerting myself at all, 
 I grew to despise dogs. Ah! little did I 
 know then that there are many different 
 breeds of these animals. 
 
 One day in mid-winter, as the weather 
 was very mild and open, I was lying on the 
 rough grass field that I have spoken of 
 which borders a flat stretch of moorland. 
 On this moorland in summer grew tall 
 ferns, but now these had died and been 
 broken down by the wind. Suddenly I 
 woke up from my sleep to see a number 
 of men walking and riding towards me. 
 
 They were tenants and others who, al- 
 though the real coursing season had not 
 yet begun in our neighbourhood, had been 
 
96 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 asked by Grampus to come to try their 
 greyhounds upon his land. Those of them 
 who walked for the most part held two 
 long, lean dogs on a string, while one 
 or two carried dead hares. They were 
 dreadful-looking hares that seemed to have 
 been bitten all over; at least their coats 
 were wet and broken. I shivered at the 
 sight of them, feeling sure that I was going 
 to be put to some new kind of torture. 
 
 Besides the men on foot were those on 
 horseback, among whom I recognised the 
 Red-faced Man and my enemy, the dread- 
 ful Tom. Most of the others were people 
 called farmers, who seemed very happy and 
 excited and from time to time drank some- 
 thing out of little bottles which they passed 
 to each other. Giles was not there. Now 
 I know that this was because he hated 
 coursing, which killed down hares. Hares, 
 he thought, ought to be shot, not coursed. 
 
 Whilst I watched, wondering what to 
 
THE COURSING 97 
 
 do, there was a shout of " There she 
 goes! " and all the long dogs began to pull 
 at their strings. Off the necks of two of 
 them the collars seemed to fall, and away 
 they leapt pursuing a hare. The men 
 on the horses galloped after them, but the 
 men on foot remained where they were. 
 
 Now I was afraid to get up and run lest 
 they should loose the other dogs on me, 
 so I lay still, till presently I saw the hare 
 coming back towards me, followed by the 
 two dogs whose noses almost touched its 
 tail. It was exhausted and tried to twist 
 and spring away to the right. But as it did 
 so one of the dogs caught it in its mouth 
 and bit it till it died. 
 
 " That was a rotten hare," said Tom, 
 who cantered up just then, " it gave no 
 course at all." 
 
 "Yes," puffed Grampus. "Hope the 
 next one will show better sport." 
 
 " Hope so too," answered Tom, " espe- 
 
98 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 cially as it is Jack and Jill's turn to be 
 slipped, and they are the best greyhounds 
 for twenty miles round." 
 
 Then the Red-faced Man gave some or- 
 ders and Jack and Jill were brought for- 
 ward by the man whose business it was to 
 slip the dogs. One of them was black and 
 one yellow; I think Jack was the black one 
 a dreadful, sneaking-looking beast with 
 a white tip to its tail, which ended in a 
 sort of curl. 
 
 " Forward now," said Grampus, " and 
 go slow. There's sure to be another puss 
 or two in this rough grass." 
 
 Next second I was up and away, and 
 before you could count twelve Jack and 
 Jill were after me. I saw them standing 
 on their hind legs straining at the cord. 
 Then the collars fell from them and they 
 leapt forward like the light. My thought 
 was to get back to the wood, which was 
 about a minute's run behind me, but I did 
 
THE COURSING 99 
 
 not dare to turn and head for it because of 
 the long line of people through which I 
 must pass if I tried to do so. So I ran 
 straight for the moorland, hoping to turn 
 there and reach the wood on its other side, 
 although this meant a long journey. 
 
 For a while all went well with me, and 
 having a good start I began to hope that I 
 should outrun these beasts, as I had the 
 shepherd's dog and the retriever. But I 
 did not know Jack and Jill. Just as I 
 reached the borders of the moor I heard the 
 patter of their feet behind me, and looking 
 back saw them coming up, about as far 
 away as I was from Tom when he shot me. 
 
 They were running quite close together 
 and behind them galloped the judge and 
 other men. There was a fence here and I 
 bolted through a hole in it. The grey- 
 hounds jumped over and for a moment lost 
 sight of me, for I had turned and run 
 down near the side of the fence. But Tom, 
 
100 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 who had come through a gap, saw me 
 and waved his arm shouting, and next 
 instant Jack and Jill saw me too. 
 
 Then as the going was rough by the 
 fence I took to the open moor, always try- 
 ing, however, to work round to the left in 
 the hope that I might win the shelter of 
 the wood. 
 
 On we went like the wind, and now Jack 
 and Jill were quite close behind me, though 
 before they got there I had managed to 
 circle so that at last my head pointed to 
 the wood, which was more than half a mile 
 away. Their speed was greater than mine, 
 and I knew that I must soon be caught. 
 
 At last they were not more than two 
 yards behind, and for the first time I 
 twisted so that they overshot me, which 
 gave me another start. Three times they 
 came up and three times I wrenched or 
 twisted. The wood was not so far away 
 now, but I was almost spent. 
 
THE COURSING ,./ 101 
 
 What was I to do! What was T to do! 
 I saw a clump of furze to the left, a big 
 clump and thick, and remembered that 
 there was a hare's run through it. I 
 reached it just as Jill was on the top of 
 me, and once more they lost sight of me for 
 a while as they ran round the clump staring 
 and jumping. When they saw me again on 
 the further side I was thirty yards ahead of 
 them and the wood was perhaps two hun- 
 dred and fifty yards away. But now I 
 could only run more slowly, for my heart 
 seemed to be bursting, though luckily Jack 
 and Jill were getting tired also. Still they 
 soon came up, and now I must twist every 
 few yards, or be caught in their jaws. 
 
 I can't tell you what I felt, Mahatma, 
 and until you have been hunted by grey- 
 hounds you will never know. It was hor- 
 rible. Yet I managed to twist and jump 
 so that always Jack and Jill just missed 
 me. The farmers on the horses laughed? 
 to see my desperate leaps and wrenches. 
 
102 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 But Tom did worse than laugh. Noting 
 that I was getting quite near the wood, he 
 rode between me and it, trying to turn me 
 into the open, for he wished to see me 
 killed. 
 
 "Don't do that! It isn't sportsman- 
 like," shouted the Red-faced Man. " Give 
 the poor beast a chance." 
 
 I don't know whether he obeyed or not, 
 as just then I made my last double, and 
 felt Jill's teeth cut through the fur of my 
 scut and heard them snap. I had dodged 
 Jill, but Jack was right on to me and the 
 wood still twenty yards away. 
 
 I could not twist any more, it was just 
 which of us could get there first. I gathered 
 all my remaining strength, for I was mad, 
 mad with terror, and bounded forward. 
 
 After me came Jack, I felt his hot breath 
 on my flank. I jumped the ditch, yes, I 
 found power to jump that ditch where 
 there was a rabbit run just by the trunk of 
 
I MADE MY LAST DOUBLE 
 
THE COURSING 105 
 
 a young oak. Jack jumped after me; we 
 must both have been in the air at the same 
 time. But I got through the rabbit run, 
 whereas Jack hit his sharp nose against the 
 trunk of the tree and broke his neck. Yes, 
 he fell dead into the ditch. 
 
 I crawled on a few yards to a thick 
 clump and squatted down, for I could not 
 stir another inch. So it came about that I 
 heard them all talking on the other side. 
 
 One of them said I was the finest hare he 
 had ever coursed. Others, who had dragged 
 Jack out of the ditch, lamented his death, 
 especially the owner, who vowed that he was 
 worth 50 and abused Tom. Tom, he said, 
 had caused him to be killed I don't know 
 how, but I suppose because he had ridden 
 forward and tried to turn me. The Red- 
 faced Man also scolded Tom. Then he 
 added 
 
 " Well, I am glad she got off, for she'll 
 give us a good run with the harriers one 
 
106 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 day. I shall always know that hare again 
 by the white marks on its back; also it is 
 the biggest I have seen for a long while. 
 Come on, my friends, the dog is dead and 
 there's an end of it. At least we have had 
 a good morning's sport, so let's go to the 
 Hall and get some lunch." 
 
 The Hare paused for a little, then looked 
 up at me in its comical fashion and asked 
 
 " Did you ever course hares, Mahatma? " 
 
 " Not I, thank goodness," I answered. 
 ' Well, what do you think of coursing? " 
 
 " I would rather not say," I replied. 
 
 " Then I will," said the Hare, with con- 
 viction. " I think it horrible." 
 
 " Yes, but, Hare, you do not remember 
 the pleasure this sport gives to the men 
 and the dogs; you look at it from an en- 
 tirely selfish point of view." 
 
 " And so would you, Mahatma, if you 
 had felt Jack's hot breath on your back 
 and Jill's teeth in your tail." 
 
THE HUNTING 
 
 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 char- 
 acteristics 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 coun- 
 try as he had proclaimed and I had be- 
 lieved. I gathered even that his own in- 
 terests had sometimes inspired his policy. 
 
 He went by, leaving, so far as I was 
 concerned, a somewhat painful impression 
 
 107 
 
108 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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 ex- 
 perience, 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 shoot- 
 ing 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 
 
THE HUNTING 109 
 
 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, be- 
 cause 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 
 
110 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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 cart- 
 wheel ; 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. 
 
THE HUNTING 111 
 
 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." 
 
THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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 loped 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. 
 
THE HUNTING 113 
 
 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 
 
THE M AH ATM A AND THE HARE 
 
 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 hegan 
 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 
 
" HERE SHE IS! " YELLED ONE OF THEM 
 
THE HUNTING 117 
 
 wood, I swung right round and rushed 
 back, still clinging to the hedgerow. In- 
 deed 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 
 
118 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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. 
 
THE HUNTING 119 
 
 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, 
 
120 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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 be- 
 gan 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 
 
" THE DOGS RUSHED ABOUT 
 
THE HUNTING 123 
 
 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 
 
THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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 
 
THE HUNTING 125 
 
 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 my- 
 self 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 
 
126 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 had cheered them on. I ran to the edge 
 of the lawn and saw a steep slope lead- 
 ing 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 
 
THE HUNTING 127 
 
 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 hunt- 
 ing, 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," 
 
128 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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 
 
"MY! ISN'T SHE A BEAUTY?" 
 
THE HUNTING 131 
 
 knew nothing except that 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 
 
132 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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 some- 
 how," 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, it's 
 swimming out to sea. I never see'd a 
 hunted hare do that afore." 
 
THE HUNTING 133 
 
 "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!" 
 
134 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 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 COMING OF THE RED- 
 FACED MAN 
 
 " As you like," said the Hare. " Certainly 
 it was very dreadful. It seemed to last a 
 long time. But I don't mind it so much 
 now, for I feel that it can never happen to 
 me again. At least I hope it can't, for I 
 don't know what I have done to deserve 
 such a fate, any more than I know why it 
 should have happened to me once." 
 
 " Something you did in a previous exist- 
 ence, perhaps," I answered. " You see then 
 you may have hunted other creatures so 
 cruelly that at last your turn came to 
 suffer what you had made them suffer. I 
 often think that because of what we have 
 done before we men are also really being 
 hunted by something we cannot see." 
 
 135 
 
136 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed the Hare, "I never 
 thought of that. I hope it is true, for it 
 makes things seem juster and less wicked. 
 But I say, friend Mahatma, what am I 
 doing here now, where you tell me poor 
 creatures with four feet never, or hardly 
 ever come? " 
 
 " I don't know, Hare. I am not wise, 
 to whom it is only granted to visit the 
 Road occasionally to search for some 
 
 one." 
 
 " I understand, Mahatma, but still you 
 must know a great deal or you would not 
 be allowed in such a place before your time, 
 or at any rate you must be able to guess a 
 great deal. So tell me, why do you think 
 that I am here? " 
 
 " I can't say, Hare, I can't indeed. Per- 
 haps after the Gates are open and your 
 Guardian has given you to drink of the 
 Cup, you will go to sleep and wake up 
 again as something else." 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 137 
 
 "To drink of the cup, Mahatma? I 
 don't drink; at least I didn't, though I 
 can't tell what may happen here. But what 
 do you mean about waking up as some- 
 thing else? Please be more plain. As 
 what else? " 
 
 "Oh! who can know? Possibly as you 
 are on the human Road you might even 
 become a man some day, though I should 
 not advise you to build on such a hope 
 as that." 
 
 ' What do you say, Mahatma? A man! 
 One of those two-legged beasts that hunt 
 hares; a thing like Giles and Tom yes, 
 Tom? Oh! not that not that! I'd 
 almost rather go through everything again 
 than become a cruel, torturing man." 
 
 As it spoke thus the Hare grew so dis- 
 turbed that it nearly vanished; literally it 
 seemed to melt away till I could only per- 
 ceive its outline. With a kind of shock I 
 comprehended all the horror that it must 
 
138 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 feel at such a prospect as I had suggested 
 to it, and really this grasping of the truth 
 hurt my human pride. It had never come 
 home to me before that the circumstances 
 of their lives and deaths must cause 
 some creatures to see us in strange lights. 
 
 " Oh! I have no doubt I was mistaken," 
 I said hurriedly, " and that your wishes on 
 the point will be respected. I told you 
 that I know nothing." 
 
 At these words the Hare became quite 
 visible again. 
 
 It sat up and very reflectively began to 
 rub its still shadowy nose with a shadowy 
 paw. I think that it remembered the sting 
 of the salt water in the cut made by the 
 glass of the window through which it had 
 sprung. 
 
 Believing that its remarkable story was 
 done, and that presently it would altogether 
 melt away and vanish out of my knowledge, 
 I looked about me. First I looked above 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 139 
 
 the towering Gates to see whether the 
 Lights had yet begun to change. Then 
 as they had not I looked down the Great 
 White Road, following it for miles and 
 miles, until even to my spirit sight it lost 
 itself in the Nowhere. 
 
 Presently coming up this Road towards 
 us I saw a man dressed in a green coat, 
 riding-breeches and boots and a peaked 
 cap, who held in his hand a hunting-whip. 
 He was a fine-looking person of middle 
 age, with a pleasant, open countenance, 
 bright blue eyes, and very red cheeks, on 
 which he wore light-coloured whiskers. In 
 short a jovial-looking individual, with 
 whom things had evidently always gone 
 well, one to whom sorrow and disappoint- 
 ment and mental struggle were utter 
 strangers. He, at least, had never known 
 what it is to " endure hardness " in all 
 his life. 
 
 Studying his nature as one can do on 
 
140 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 the Road, I perceived also that in him 
 there was no guile. He was a good- 
 minded, God-fearing man according to his 
 simple lights, who had done many kind- 
 nesses and contributed liberally towards the 
 wants of the poor, though as he had been 
 very rich, it had cost him little thus to 
 gratify the natural promptings of his heart. 
 Moreover he was what Jorsen calls a 
 " young soul," quite young indeed, by 
 which I mean that he had not often walked 
 the Road in previous states of life, as for 
 instance that Eastern woman had done 
 who accosted me before the arrival of the 
 Hare. So to speak his crude nature had 
 scarcely outgrown the primitive human 
 condition in which necessity as well as 
 taste makes it customary and pleasant to 
 men to kill; that condition through which 
 almost every boy passes on his way to 
 manhood, I suppose by the working of 
 some secret law of reminiscence. 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 
 
 It was this thought that first led me 
 to connect the new-comer with the Red- 
 faced Man of the Hare's story. It may 
 seem strange that I should have been so 
 dense, but the truth is that it never 
 occurred to me, any more than it had 
 done to the Hare, that such a person 
 would be at all likely to tread the Road 
 for many years to come. I had gathered 
 that he was comparatively young, and 
 although I had argued otherwise with the 
 Hare, had concluded therefore that he 
 would continue to live his happy earth life 
 until old age brought him to a natural end. 
 Hence my obtuseness. 
 
 The man was drifting towards me 
 thoughtfully, evidently much bewildered by 
 his new surroundings but not in the least 
 afraid. Indeed there none are afraid; 
 when they glide from their death-beds to 
 the Road they leave fear behind them with 
 the other terrors of our mortal lot. 
 
THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 Presently he became conscious of the 
 presence of the Hare, and thoughts passed 
 through his mind which of course I could 
 read. 
 
 " My word! " he said to himself, " things 
 are better than I hoped. There's a hare, 
 and where there are hares there must be 
 hunting and shooting. Oh! if only I had 
 a gun, or the ghost of a gun! " 
 
 Then an idea struck him. He lifted his 
 hunting-crop and hurled it at the Hare. 
 
 As it was only the shadow of a crop 
 of course it could hurt nothing. Still it 
 went through the shadow of the Hare and 
 caused it to twist round like lightning. 
 
 " That was a good shot anyway," he 
 reflected, with a satisfied smile. 
 
 By now the Hare had seen him. 
 
 "The Red-faced Man!" it exclaimed, 
 " Grampus himself! " and it turned to flee 
 away. 
 
 "Don't be frightened," I cried, "he 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 143 
 
 can't hurt you; nothing can hurt you here." 
 
 The Hare halted and sat up. " No," it 
 said, " I forgot. But you saw, he tried to. 
 Now, Mahatma, you will understand what 
 a blood-thirsty brute he is. Even after I 
 am dead he has tried to kill me again." 
 
 "Well, and why not?" interrupted the 
 Man. " What are hares for except to be 
 killed?" 
 
 ' There, Mahatma, you hear him. Look 
 at me, Man, who am I?" 
 
 So he looked at the Hare and the Hare 
 looked at him. Presently his face grew 
 puzzled. 
 
 "By Jingo!" he said slowly, "you are 
 uncommonly like you are that accursed 
 witch of a hare which cost me my life. 
 There are the white marks on your back, 
 and there is the grey splotch on your ear. 
 Oh! if only I had a gun a real gun! " 
 
 ' You would shoot me, wouldn't you, or 
 try to?" said the Hare. "Well, you 
 
144 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 haven't and you can't. You say I cost you 
 your life. What do you mean? It was my 
 life that was sacrificed, not yours." 
 
 " Indeed," answered the Man, " I thought 
 you got away. Never saw any more of 
 you after you jumped through the French 
 window. Never had time. The last thing 
 I remember is her Ladyship screaming like 
 a mad cockatoo, yes, and abusing me as 
 though I were a pickpocket, w r ith the 
 drawing-room all on fire. Then some- 
 thing happened, and down I went among 
 the broken china and hit my head against 
 the leg of a table. Next came a kind of 
 whirling blackness and I woke up here." 
 
 " A fit or a stroke," I suggested. 
 
 "Both, I think, sir. The fit first I 
 have had 'em before, and the stroke after- 
 wards against the leg of the table. Any- 
 way they finished me between them, thanks 
 to that little beast." 
 
 Then it was that I saw a very strange 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 145 
 
 thing, a hare in a rage. It seemed to go 
 mad, of course I mean spiritually mad. 
 Its eyes flashed fire; it opened its mouth 
 and shut it after the fashion of a suffocat- 
 ing fish. At last it spoke in its own way 
 I cannot stop to explain in further 
 detail the exact manner of speech or rather 
 of its equivalent upon the Road. 
 
 " Man, Man," it exclaimed, " you say that 
 I finished you. But what did you do to 
 me? You shot me. Look at the marks 
 upon my back. You coursed me with your 
 running dogs. You hunted me with your 
 hounds. You dragged me out of the sea 
 into which I swam to escape you by death, 
 and threw me living to the pack," and the 
 Hare stopped exhausted by its own fury. 
 
 " Well," replied the Man coolly, " and 
 suppose I, or my people, did, what of it? 
 Why shouldn't I ? You were a beast, I was 
 a man with dominion over you. You can 
 read all about that in the Book of Genesis." 
 
146 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 " I never heard of the Book of Genesis," 
 said the Hare, " but what does dominion 
 mean? Does this Book of Genesis say 
 that it means the right to torment that 
 which is weaker than the tormentor? " 
 
 " All you animals were made for us to 
 eat," commented the Man, avoiding an 
 answer to the direct question. 
 
 " Very good," answered the Hare, " let 
 us suppose that we were given you to eat. 
 Was it in order to eat me that you came 
 out against me with guns, then with dogs 
 that run by sight, and then with dogs that 
 run by smell? " 
 
 " If you were to be killed and eaten, why 
 should you not be killed in one of these 
 ways, Hare? " 
 
 " Why should I be killed in those ways, 
 Man, when others more merciful were to 
 your hand? Indeed, why should I be killed 
 at all? Moreover, if you wished to satisfy 
 your hunger with my body, why at the 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 147 
 
 last was I thrown to the dogs to devour? " 
 
 " I don't quite know, Hare. Never 
 looked at the matter in that light before. 
 But ah! I've got you now," he added 
 triumphantly. " If it hadn't been for me 
 you never would have lived. You see I 
 gave you the gift of life. Therefore, instead 
 of grumbling, you should be very much 
 obliged to me. Don't you understand? I 
 preserved hares, so that without me you 
 would never have been a hare. Isn't that 
 right, Mr. Mr. I am sorry I have 
 forgotten your name," he added, turning 
 towards me. 
 
 " Mahatma," I said. 
 
 " Oh! yes, I remember it now Mr. ah 
 -Mr. Hatter." 
 
 " There is something in the argument," 
 I replied cautiously, " but let us hear our 
 friend's answer." 
 
 " Answer my answer! Well, here it is. 
 What are you, Man, who dare to say that 
 
148 THE M AH ATM A AND THE HARE 
 
 you give life or withhold it? You a Lord of 
 life, you! I tell you that I know little, yet 
 I am sure that you or those like you have 
 no more power to create life than the world 
 we have left has to bid the stars to shine. 
 If the life must come, it will come, and if it 
 cannot fulfil itself as a hare, then it will 
 appear as something else. If you say that 
 you create life, I, the poor beast which 
 you tortured, tell you that you are a pre- 
 sumptuous liar." 
 
 ' You dare to lecture me," said the 
 Man, " me, the heir of all the ages, as 
 the poet called me. Why, you nasty little 
 animal, do you know that I have killed 
 hundreds like you, and," he added, with 
 a sudden afflatus of pride, " thousands of 
 other creatures, such as pheasants, to say 
 nothing of deer and larger game? That 
 has been my principal occupation since I 
 was a boy. I may say that I have lived 
 for sport; got very little else to show for 
 my life, so to speak." 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 149 
 
 " Oh! " said the Hare, " have you? Well, 
 if I were you, I shouldn't boast about it 
 just now. You see, we are still outside 
 of those Gates. Who knows but that you 
 will find every one of the living things 
 you have amused yourself by slaughtering 
 waiting for you within them, each praying 
 for justice to its Maker and your own? " 
 
 "My word!" said the Man, "what a 
 horrible notion; it's like a bad dream." 
 
 He reflected a little, then added, " Well, 
 if they do, I've got my answer. I killed 
 them for food; man must live. Millions 
 of pheasants are sold to be eaten every 
 year at a much smaller price than they 
 cost to breed. What do you say to that, 
 Mr. Hatter? Finishes him, I think." 
 
 " I'm not arguing," I replied. " Ask the 
 Hare." 
 
 " Yes, ask me, Man, and although you 
 are repeating yourself, I'll answer with 
 another question, knowing that here you 
 
150 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 must tell the truth. Did you really rear 
 us all for food? Was it for this that you 
 kept your keepers, your running dogs 
 and your hunting dogs, that you might 
 kill poor defenceless beasts and birds to 
 fill men's stomachs? If this was so, I have 
 nothing more to say. Indeed, if our 
 deaths or sufferings at their hands really 
 help men in any way, I have nothing more 
 to say. I admit that you are higher and 
 stronger than we are, and have a right to 
 use us for your own advantage, or even to 
 destroy us altogether if we harm you." 
 
 The Man pondered, then replied sul- 
 lenly 
 
 " You know very well that it was not 
 so. I did not rear up pheasants and hares 
 merely to eat them or that others might 
 eat them. Something forces me to tell 
 you that it was in order that I might 
 enjoy myself by showing my skill in 
 shooting them, or to have the pleasure 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 151 
 
 and exercise of hunting them to death. 
 Still," he added defiantly, " I who am a 
 Christian man maintain that my religion 
 perfectly justified me in doing all these 
 things, and that no blame attaches to me 
 on this account." 
 
 " Very good," said the Hare, " now 
 we have a clear issue. Friend Mahatma, 
 when those Gates open presently what 
 happens beyond them? " 
 
 " I don't know," I answered, " I have 
 never been there; at least not that I can 
 remember." 
 
 " Still, friend Mahatma, is it not said 
 that yonder lives some Power which judges 
 righteously and declares what is true and 
 what is false? " 
 
 " I have heard so, Hare." 
 ' Very well, Man, I lay my cause be- 
 fore that Power do you the same. If 
 I am wrong I will go back to earth to 
 be tortured by you and yours again, If, 
 
152 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 however, I am right, you shall abide the 
 judgment of the Power, and I ask that 
 It will make of you a hunted hare!" 
 
 Now when he heard these awful words 
 for they were awful, no less the Red- 
 faced Man grew much disturbed. He 
 hummed and he hawed, and shifted his 
 feet about. At last he said 
 
 " You must admit that while you lived 
 you had a first-class time under my pro- 
 tection. Lots of turnips to eat and so 
 forth." 
 
 " A first-class time! " the Hare answered 
 with withering scorn. ' What sort of a 
 time would you have had if some one had 
 shot you all over the back and you must 
 creep away to die of pain and starvation? 
 How would you have enjoyed it if, from 
 day to day, you had been forced to live 
 in terror of cunning monsters, who at any 
 hour might appear to hurt you in some 
 new fashion? Do you suppose that animals 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 153 
 
 cannot feel fear, and is continual fear the 
 kind of friend that gives them a ' first- 
 class time '?" 
 
 To this last argument the Man seemed 
 able to find no answer. 
 
 " Mr. Hare," he said humbly, " we are 
 all fallible. Although I never thought 
 to find myself in the position of having 
 to do so, I will admit that I may possibly 
 have been mistaken in my views and treat- 
 ment of you and your kind, and indeed 
 of other creatures. If so, I apologise for 
 any, ah temporary inconvenience I may 
 have caused you. I can do no more." 
 
 " Come, Hare," I interposed, " that's 
 handsome, perhaps you might let bygones 
 be bygones." 
 
 "Apologise!" exclaimed the Hare. 
 " After all I have suffered I do not think it 
 is enough. At the very least, Mahatma, he 
 should say that he is heartily ashamed and 
 sorry." 
 
154 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 " Well, well," said the Man, " it's no use 
 making two bites of a cherry. I am sorry, 
 truly sorry for all the pain and terror I 
 have brought on you. If that won't do 
 let's go up and settle the matter, and if 
 I've been wrong I'll try to bear the con- 
 sequences like a gentleman. Only, Mr. 
 Hare, I hope that you will not wish to 
 put your case more strongly against me 
 than you need." 
 
 " Not I, Man. I know now that you 
 only erred because the truth had not been 
 revealed to you because you did not 
 understand. All that I will ask, if I can, 
 is that you may be allowed to tell this 
 truth to other men." 
 
 * Well, I am glad to say I can't do 
 that, Hare." 
 
 "Don't be so sure," I broke in; "it's 
 just the kind of thing which might be de- 
 creed a generation or two hence when 
 the world is fit to listen to you." 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 155 
 
 But he took no heed, or did not com- 
 prehend me, and went on 
 
 " It is an impossibility, and if I did they 
 would think me a lunatic or a snivelling, 
 sentimental humbug. I believe that lots 
 of my old friends would scarcely speak 
 to me again. Why, putting aside the 
 pleasures of sport, if the views you preach 
 were to be accepted, what would become 
 of keepers and beaters and huntsmen and 
 dog-breeders, and of thousands of others 
 who directly or indirectly get their living 
 out of hunting and shooting? Where would 
 game rents be also? " 
 
 " I don't know, I am sure," replied the 
 Hare wearily. " I suppose that they would 
 earn their living in some other way, as 
 they must in countries where there is no 
 sport, and that you would have to make 
 up for the shooting rents by growing more 
 upon the land. You know that after all 
 we hares and the other game eat a great 
 
156 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 deal which might be saved if there were 
 not so many of us. But I am not wise, 
 and I have never looked at the question 
 from that point of view. It may seem 
 selfish, but I have to consider myself and 
 the creatures whose cause I plead, for 
 something inside of me is telling me now 
 yes, now that all of them are speaking 
 through my mouth. It says that is why 
 I am allowed to be here and to talk with 
 you both; for their sakes rather than for 
 my own." 
 
 " If you have more to say you had 
 better say it quickly," I interrupted, ad- 
 dressing the Red-faced Man. " I see 
 that the Lights are beginning to change, 
 which means that soon the Road will be 
 closed and the Gates opened." 
 
 " I can't remember anything," he an- 
 swered. ' Yes, there is one matter," he 
 added nervously. " I see, Mr. Hare, that 
 you are thinking of my boy Tom, not very 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 157 
 
 kindly I am afraid. As you have been 
 so good as to forgive me I hope that you 
 won't be hard on Tom. He is not at all 
 a bad sort of a lad if a little thoughtless, 
 like many other young people." 
 
 " I don't like Tom," said the Hare, with 
 decision. " Tom shot me when you told 
 him not to shoot. Tom shut me up in 
 a filthy place with a yellow rabbit which 
 he forgot to feed, so that it wanted to eat 
 me. Tom tried to cut me off from the 
 wood so that the running dogs might 
 catch me, although you shouted to him 
 that it was not sportsmanlike. Tom 
 dragged me out of the sea and blew 
 down my nostrils to keep me alive. Tom 
 threw me to the hounds, although Giles 
 remonstrated with him and even the 
 huntsman begged him to let me go. I 
 tell you that I don't like Tom." 
 
 "Still, Mr. Hare," pleaded the Red- 
 faced Man, " I hope that if it should be 
 
158 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 in your power when we get through 
 those Gates, that you will be merciful to 
 Tom. I can't think of much to say for 
 him in this hurry, but there, he is my 
 only son and the truth is that I love 
 him. You know he may live to be dif- 
 ferent if you don't bring some mis- 
 fortune on him." 
 
 ' Who am I to bring misfortune or to 
 withhold it?" asked the Hare, softening 
 visibly. " Well, I know what love means, 
 for my mother loved me and I loved 
 her in my way. I tell you that when 
 I saw her dead, turned from a beau- 
 tiful living thing into a stained lump of 
 flesh and fur, I felt dreadful. I under- 
 stand now that you love Tom as my mother 
 loved me, and, Man, for the sake of your 
 love not for his sake, mind I promise 
 you that I won't say anything against Tom 
 if I can help it, or do anything either." 
 
 "You're a real good fellow!" exclaimed 
 
" GUIDED, GUARDED BY THE SPIRITS OF DEAD SUNS " 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN' 161 
 
 the Red-faced Man, with evident relief. 
 " Give me your hand. Oh! I forgot, you 
 can't. Hullo! what's up now? Every- 
 thing seems to be altering." 
 
 As he spoke, to my eyes the Lights 
 began to change in earnest. All the 
 sky (I call it sky for clearness) above the 
 mighty Gates became as it were alive with 
 burning tongues of every colour that an 
 artist can conceive. By degrees these fiery 
 tongues or swords shaped themselves into a 
 vast circle which drove back the walls of 
 darkness, and through this circle, guided, 
 guarded by the spirits of dead suns, with 
 odours and with chantings, descended that 
 crowned City of the Mansions before whose 
 glory imagination breaks and even Vision 
 veils her eyes. 
 
 It descended, its banners wavering in the 
 winds of prayer; it hung above the Gates, 
 the flower of all splendours, Heaven's very 
 
162 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 rose, hung like an opal on the boundless 
 breast of night, and there it stayed. 
 
 The Voice in the North called to the 
 Voice in the South; the Voice in the 
 East called to the Voice in the West, 
 and up the Great White Road sped the 
 Angel of the Road, making report as he 
 came that all his multitude were gathered 
 in and for that while the Road was 
 barred. 
 
 He passed and in a flash the Gates were 
 burned away. The ashes of them fell upon 
 the heads of those waiting at the Gates, 
 whitening their faces and drying their 
 tears before the Change. They fell upon 
 the Man and the Hare beside me, veiling 
 them as it were and making them silent, 
 but on me they did not fall. Then, from 
 between the Wardens of the Gates, flowed 
 forth the Helpers and the Guardians (save 
 those who already were without comfort- 
 ing the children) seeking their beloved and 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 163 
 
 bearing the Cups of slumber and new birth; 
 then pealed the question 
 
 "Who hath suffered most? Let that 
 one first taste of peace." 
 
 Now all the dim hosts surged forward 
 since each outworn soul believed that it 
 had suffered most and was in the bitterest 
 need of peace. But the Helpers and the 
 Guardians gently pressed them back, and 
 again there pealed, no question but a com- 
 mand. 
 
 This was the command: 
 
 " DRAW NEAR, THOU HARE." 
 
 Jorsen asked me what happened after 
 this justification of the Hare, which, if I 
 heard aright, appeared to suggest that by 
 the decree of some judge unknown, the 
 woes of such creatures are not unnoted and 
 despised, or left unsolaced. Of course I 
 had to answer him that I could not tell. 
 
164 THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE 
 
 Perhaps nothing happened at all. Per- 
 haps all the wonders I seemed to see, 
 even the Road by which souls travel from 
 There to Here and from Here to There, 
 and the Gates that were burned away, 
 and the City of the Mansions that de- 
 scended, were but signs and symbols of 
 mysteries which as yet we cannot grasp 
 or understand. 
 
 Whatever may be the truth as to 
 this matter of my visions, I need hardly 
 add, however, that no one can be more 
 anxious than I am myself to learn in what 
 way the Red-faced Man, speaking on be- 
 half of our dominant race, and the Hare, 
 speaking as an appointed advocate of the 
 subject animal creation, finished their argu- 
 ment in the light of fuller knowledge. 
 Much also do I wonder wjiich of them was 
 proved to be right, a difficult matter 
 whereon I feel quite incompetent to ex- 
 press any views. 
 
THE RED-FACED MAN 165 
 
 But you see at that moment I woke up. 
 The edge of the Road on which I was 
 standing seemed to give way beneath me, 
 and I fell into space as one does in a night- 
 mare. It is a very unpleasant sensation. 
 
 I remember noticing afterwards that I 
 could not have been long asleep. When I 
 began to dream I had only just blown out 
 the candle, and when I awoke again there 
 was still a smouldering spark upon its wick. 
 
 But, as I have said, in that spirit-land 
 whither I had journeyed is to be found 
 neither time nor space nor any other 
 familiar thing. 
 
 THE END 
 
WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S JOSEPH VANCE 
 
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DELIGHTFUL ANTHOLOGIES 
 
 The following books are uniform, with full gilt flexible 
 covers and pictured cover linings. i6mo. Each, cloth, 
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 THE GARLAND OF CHILDHOOD 
 
 A Little Book for All Lovers of Children. Compiled by 
 PERCY WITHERS. A collection of poetry about children 
 for grown-ups to read. 
 "This exquisite anthology." Boston Transcript. 
 
 THE VISTA OF ENGLISH VERSE 
 
 Compiled by HENRY S. PANCOAST. 
 
 From Spenser to Kipling, based on the editor's Standard 
 English Poems with additions. 
 
 LETTERS THAT LIVE 
 
 Compiled by LAURA E. LOCKWOOD and AMY R. KELLY. 
 Some 150 letters from Walter Paston to Lewis Carroll. 
 " These self-records preserve and extend the personality of this rare 
 company of lolk.."CAtcag Tribune. 
 
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 Compiled by LUCY H. HUMPHREY. 
 Covers Europe, including Spain, Belgium and the Britishlsles. 
 
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 Compiled by LUCY H. HUMPHREY, a companion volume to 
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 A little book for wayfarers. Compiled by E. V. LUCAS. 
 Some 125 poems from over 60 authors. 
 " A very charming book from cover to cover." Dial, 
 
 THE FRIENDLY TOWN 
 
 A little book for the urbane, compiled by E. V. LUCAS. 
 Over 200 selections in verse and prose from 100 authors. 
 " Would have delighted Charles Lamb." The Nation. 
 
 POEMS FOR TRAVELERS 
 
 Compiled by MARY R. J. DuBois. i6mo. Cloth, $1.50; 
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 A BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN 
 
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LEADING AMERICANS 
 
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 LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 
 
 By R. M. JOHNSTON, Lecturer in Harvard University, Au- 
 thor of "'Napoleon," etc. 
 
 Washington, Greene, Taylor, Scott, Andrew Jackson, Grant, 
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 LEADING AMERICAN NOVELISTS 
 
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 LEADING AMERICAN ESSAYISTS 
 
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THE WORLD'S LEADERS 
 
 A NEW SERIES OF BIOGRAPHIES 
 
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 The notable interest in biography has generally been met 
 by two widely different classes of publication the biographi- 
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 I here seems room for a series devoted to individuals in whose 
 lives everybody is interested, and systematically arranged. 
 
 This new series is to be called " The World's Leaders " 
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 to the pursuits of the men treated. It will include only those 
 whose names are known to virtually all reading people, and 
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 ested in the task. Pains will be taken to make the volumes 
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 The books are designed not so much to recount history, as 
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 have made history. It is intended that the contents shall be 
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 expositions, criticisms or philosophies; and yet it is realized 
 that the best biography must contain something of each of 
 the others. 
 
 It is not intended to put the books on a plane that will 
 make much in them unattractive to any boy of fifteen who 
 would care to read biography. 
 
 Each, with portraits. Large i2mo. Probable price, $1.75 
 net. 
 
 H. W. Boynton's The World's Leading Poets. Homer, Virgil, 
 
 Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe. 
 G. B. Rose's The World's Leading Painters. Leonardo da 
 
 Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt. 
 W. L. Sevan's The World's Leading Conquerors. Alexander, 
 
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 Europe, Cortes and Pizarro, Napoleon. 
 
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 are enlightening." ,<y. Y. Tribune. 
 
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 A personal and very readable record, illustrated by photographs, of the 
 author's success in assembling within a limited area, the choice varieties of 
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 <5HFII FI<*H llSiniKTRIFQ By JAMES L. KELLOGG 
 
 SHELL-FISH of w illiams College. 
 
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 FISH STORIES: Alleged and Experienced, with a Little 
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 to the Study of Fishes," etc. With colored plates and many 
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SIXTH EDITION, ENLARGED AND WITH PORTRAITS 
 
 HALE'S DRAMATISTS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ROSTAND, HAUPTMANN, SUDERMANN, 
 PINERO, SHAW, PHILLIPS, MAETERLINCK 
 
 By PROF. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, JR., of Union College. 
 With gilt top, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.60. 
 
 Since this work first appeared in 1905, Maeterlinck's SISTER 
 BEATRICE, THE BLUE BIRD and MARY MAGDALENE, Rostand's 
 CHANTECLER and Pinero's MID-CHANNEL and THE THUNDER- 
 BOLT among the notable plays by some of Dr. Hale's drama- 
 tistshave been acted here. Discussions of them are added 
 to this new edition, as are considerations of Bernard Shaw's 
 and Stephen Phillips' latest plays. The author's papers on 
 Hauptmann and Sudermann, with slight additions, with his 
 "Note on Standards of Criticism," "Our Idea of Tragedy," 
 and an appendix of all the plays of each author, with dates of 
 their first performance or publication, complete the volume. 
 
 Bookman: "He writes in a pleasant, free-and-easy way. . . . He 
 accepts things chiefly at their face value, but he describes them so ac- 
 curately and agreeably that he recalls vividly to mind the plays we 
 have seen and the pleasure we have found in them." 
 
 New York Evening Post : " It is not often nowadays that a theatrical 
 book can be met with so free from gush and mere eulogy, or so weighted 
 by common sense ... an excellent chronological appendix and full 
 index . . . uncommonly useful for reference." 
 
 Dial: " Noteworthy example of literary criticism in one of the most 
 interesting of literary fields. . . . Provides a varied menu of the 
 most interesting character. . . . Prof. Hale establishes confidential 
 relations with the reader from the start. . . . Very definite opinions, 
 clearly reasoned and amply fortified by example. . . . Well worth 
 reading a second time." 
 
 New York Tribune: " Both instructive and entertaining." 
 
 Brooklyn Eagle: "A dramatic critic who is not just 'busting' him- 
 self with Titanic intellectualities, but who is a readable dramatic critic. 
 . . . Mr. Hale is a modest and sensible, as well as an acute and sound 
 critic. . . . Most people will be surprised and delighted with Mr. 
 Hale's simplicity, perspicuity and ingenuousness." 
 
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 able book." 
 
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NEW POPULAR EDITION, WITH APPENDIX 
 
 Containing tables, etc., of the Opera Season 1908-11. 
 
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 to write the book . . . full of the spirit of discerning criticism. . . . 
 Delightfully engaging manner, with humor, allusiveness and an abund- 
 ance of the personal note." Richard Aldrich in New York Times Re- 
 view. (Complete notice on application.) 
 
 CHAPTERS OF OPERA 
 
 Being historical and critical observations and records con- 
 cerning the Lyric Drama in New York from its 
 earliest days down to the present time. 
 
 By HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL, musical critic of the New York 
 Tribune, author of " Music and Manners in the Classical 
 Period," " Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," " How to 
 Listen to Music," etc. With over 70 portraits and pictures 
 of Opera Houses. 450 pp. izmo. $2.50 net; by mail, 
 $2.68. Illustrated circular on application. 
 This is perhaps Mr. Krehbiel's most important book. The 
 first seven chapters deal with the earliest operatic perform- 
 ances in New York. Then follows a brilliant account of the 
 first quarter-century of the Metropolitan, 1883-1908. He tells 
 how Abbey's first disastrous Italian season was followed by 
 seven seasons of German Opera under Leopold Damrosch 
 and Stanton, how this was temporarily eclipsed by French 
 and Italian, and then returned to dwell with them in har- 
 mony, thanks to Walter Damrosch's brilliant crusade, also 
 of the burning of the opera house, the vicissitudes of the 
 American Opera Company, the coming and passing of Grau 
 and Conried, and finally the opening of Oscar Hammerstein's 
 Manhattan Opera House and the first two seasons therein, 
 1906-08. 
 
 "Presented not only in a readable manner but without bias . . . 
 extremely interesting and valuable." Nation. 
 
 "The illustrations are a true embellishment . . . Mr. Krehbiel's 
 style was never more charming. It is a delight." Philip Hale in Boston 
 Herald. 
 
 "Invaluable for purpose of reference . . . rich in critical passages 
 . . .all the great singers of the world have been heard here. Most of 
 the great conductors have come to our shores. . . . Memories of 
 them which serve to humanize, as it were, his analyses of their work." 
 New York Tribune. 
 
 ***! the reader will send his name and address, the publishers will send, 
 from time to time, information regarding their new books. 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 
 
8th printing of "one of the most important books on music 
 that has ever been printed" (W. J. Henderson). 
 
 With a chapter by HENRY E. KREHBIEL, covering Richard 
 Strauss, Cornelius, Goldmark, Kienzl, Humperdink, Smetana, 
 Dvorak, Charpentier, Sullivan, Elgar, etc., in addition to his 
 earlier chapter on Music in America. 
 
 Practically a cyclopedia of its subject. 
 
 MUSIC AND MUSICIANS 
 
 By PROF. ALBERT LAVIGNAC, Author of " The Music Dramas 
 of Richard Wagner." Translated by WILLIAM MAR- 
 CHANT. I2mo. $1.75 net (by mail, $1.90). 
 
 This remarkable book by the doyen of the Paris Con- 
 servatory, has been accepted as a standard work in America, 
 and reprinted in England. It is difficult to briefly give an idea 
 of its comprehensiveness, which, with its 518 pages, 94 illus- 
 trations, 510 examples in Musical Notation, and over 1,000 
 references in the index, makes it, as the Dial says, " in fact, 
 although not in form, a veritable encyclopaedia of music." 
 " The wonder is," says the well-known writer on musical 
 subjects, W. J. HENDERSON, "that those parts of the book 
 which ought to be dry are so readable ... a style which 
 can be fairly described as fascinating." The work is divided 
 as follows: A Study of Musical Sound (66 pp.) Materials 
 of Sound (122 pp.), including the voice, orchestral instru- 
 ments, with pictures of each, many other instruments, and 
 an illuminating account of orchestration Grammar of Music 
 (152 pp.), covering the harmonic system, counterpoint, and 
 the fugue Esthetics (41 pp.), including Composition, with a 
 discussion of the forms of the sonata, symphony, concerto, 
 overture, dance forms, national characteristics, improvisation, 
 criticism and the beautiful in music History of the Art of 
 Music (106 pp.), covering the ancients, the primitives, and 
 the various national schools with notes on the individual com- 
 posers and some performers, and concluding remarks on the 
 musical career. To this is added the Appendix by the well- 
 known American authority, H. E. KREHBIEL, covering Music 
 in America and The Present State of the Art of Music. 
 
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