The Way of the Wild Part 6

The cat, as she crouched, pa.s.sed from supercilious surprise to amazement. You could tell that by the roundness of her eyes. She had no knowledge of pigs, and had never met any of the wild-folk gone mad; yet it seemed that one must have done so now, and that one--to her growing uneasiness--was coming straight towards her. I fancy that in that moment she thought of the warm fire, the singing kettle, the saucer of milk, and Miss Somebody's best arm-chair.

The thing, whatever it was, came straight on in a more or less zigzag line, till the cat could make it out dimly in the moonlight, a blotched, roughly egg-shaped form, less than a foot long, so low to the ground that it appeared to be running on wheels, and covered all over with p.r.i.c.kles, like a Rugby ball into which tin tacks had been driven head first, the sharp ends pointing outwards and backwards. Its head was the small end, and much lower than its back. Its eyes, little and pig-like, set in a black cowl, gleamed red in the tired moonlight; and its face was the face of a pig, nothing else--just pure pig; insolent, cunning, vulgar, and blatant. Occasionally men name a wild beast correctly, and this little beast could only have one name--hedgehog: It was obvious on the face of it.

But the cat, being a cat and an aristocrat, knew, as has been said, nothing about pigs, real or only so called. She had killed a shrew once, and spat it out for tasting abominably and smelling worse; and shrews are cousins of the hedgehogs, of the same great clan, Insectivora--far removed from the pigs, really--and that is the nearest she had got.

She had never heard of hedgehogs, and never, never met a beast that walked through the wild as if he owned it. And, more, he expected her to get out of his way, which she did with feline and concentrated remarks; and he--by the whiskers and talons!--the fool exposed his back--turned his back openly, a thing no wild beast in its senses would do, unless running away. And that, for a cat who had waited close on two hours for baby business that didn't turn up, had got most unfas.h.i.+onably drenched, and had, moreover, in her time, tackled more than one grown-up rabbit, which was considerably larger than any hedgehog--that, I say, was, for the silver tabby, too much.

She sprang. Rather, she executed two bounds, and somewhat unexpectedly found herself on top of the hedgehog. I say "unexpectedly," because she had hitherto bounded upon wild-folk who contrived mostly not to be there. This one contrived nothing, except to stop still. And the cat executed a third bound--_off_ the hedgehog, and rather more violently and more quickly than the first two. Also, she spat.

When she had got over the intense pain--and cats feel pain badly--of sharp spines digging into her soft and tender forefoot-pads, she stopped, about two yards away, and glared at the hedgehog as if he had played off a foul upon her, and she was surprised to see that he was no longer egg-shaped, but rolled up into himself like a ball, so to speak, and utterly quiescent. (I wonder if she remembered the little wood-lice that she had so often amused herself playing with in idle hours. They rolled themselves up just like that. Perhaps she thought she'd come upon the Colossus of all the wood-lice.) Anyway, after she had spat off at him all the vile remarks she could think of for the moment, without producing any more reply than she would get from the average stone, she came back, drawn with curiosity as by strings.

The hedgehog did not move; there was no need. It was for the cat to make the next move--if she chose. He did not care. All things were one to him, and all the views which he presented to the world were points, a _cheval-de-frise_, a coiled ball of barbed wire, a living Gibraltar, what you will, but, anyway, practically impregnable; and the beggar knew it. "He who believeth doth not make haste"--that seemed to be his motto, and he had, by the same token, a fine facility for withstanding a siege.

He felt the cat, that cat who did not know hedgehogs, pat him tentatively. Then he heard her swearing softly and tensely at the painful result. She did not pat again--at least, only once, and, in spite of care, that hurt her worse than ever. Then she began growling, low and beastily--for all the cat tribe have a horrible growl; you may have noticed it. Perhaps the hedgehog smiled. I don't know. He knew that growl, anyhow; had heard it before--the anger of utter exasperation. He was an exasperating brute, too, for he never said anything, only shut himself up, and let others do the arguing, if they were fools enough to do so.

Suddenly he heard the growl stop. Followed a tense pause, during which he tightened his back-muscles under his spines, and tucked himself in, to meet any coming shock, more tightly than ever. Followed the pause a short warning hiss, jerked out almost in fright, it seemed--that cat's hiss that is only a bluff, and meant to imitate a snake--a sudden explosion of snarls, and a thud. A fractional silence, then a perfect boil-over of snarls, and thud upon thud.

Now, our friend hedgehog was an old hand, and he had heard many and curious sounds take place outside himself, so to speak; but, all the same, he was just tickled to death to know what, in claws and whiskers, was happening out there in the leering moonlight now; so much so, indeed, that at last he risked it, and took a furtive peep out of a c.h.i.n.k in himself, as it were. And what he saw might have amazed him, if he had not been a hedgehog and scarcely ever amazed at anything. He just got a snapshot view of the cat's fine ringed tail whirling round and round as she balanced herself on the swerve, vanis.h.i.+ng into the ghostly moonlight haze of the night; and in front of him, close beside him, squatting, stare-eyed and phlegmatic, he saw the form of a big, gaunt, old doe-rabbit. And I think he knew what had happened. He seemed to, anyway, and remained rolled up.

Rabbits are thoughtless, headstrong, headlong, hopeless, helpless cowards as a race and a rule. "The heart of a rabbit," they say in France, speaking of a coward. But all races and rules have exceptions.

Occasionally the exceptions are old buck-rabbits, who know a thing or two; but more often they are old doe-rabbits with young. And, mark you, from the point of view of those wild-folk, there may be easier rough handfuls to tackle than old doe-rabbits with young. This one had simply streaked out of the night from nowhere--and behind--and knocked the cat flying before she knew. Then, ere ever the feline could gather her wits, the old doe had descended upon her with an avalanche of blows--punches they were with the forefeet, all over the head and the nose, where a cat hates to be hit--and all so swiftly, so irresistibly, that that cat had never been given a chance to consider before she was stampeded into the night. It was the silver tabby's first experience of Mrs. Rabbit doing the devoted-mother act, and, by the look of her--tail only--and the speed at which she was going, it appeared most likely that it would be her last.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "This one had simply streaked out of the night from nowhere"]

Meanwhile the old doe-rabbit sat there in the moonlight as immovable and impa.s.sive as a Buddha, and the hedgehog, peering at her, guessed that the time to unroll was not yet. He knew that it would hurt any one to attack him; the cat knew it; all rabbits in their senses knew it; but was that mother-rabbit in her senses? He concluded to lie low and remain a fortress, therefore.

Then, after waiting about five minutes, as if she knew that cats sometimes steal back, the old doe-rabbit came to a "stop" quite close to the hedgehog, and went in. She remained there some time, during which a fox came by and sniffed at the hedgehog, but was quite wise as to the foolishness of doing more; and a deadly, curved-backed, flat-headed little murderer of a stoat galloped by, and sniffed too, but was no bigger fool than the fox, and went his way.

Both missed the "stop" by about two yards, though I don't know what would have happened if they had found it. Digging and death in the former case, and battle and blood in the latter, perhaps. But no matter, they pa.s.sed on their unlawful occasions; and half-an-hour after the going of the stoat the old doe-rabbit came out, and dissolved into the moon-haze.

Then the hedgehog came out, too--of himself, and--well, dissolved into the "stop."

What happened in there it was too dark to see, but not to hear; and what one could hear was--pitiful. He was there some time, for your hedgehog rarely hurries; and when he came out again, his little pig's eyes gleaming red under their spined cowl, it was with the same snuffling, softly grunting deliberation with which he had gone in; but the pale moon, that showed the gleam in his eyes, showed also blood on his snout, and on the bristles of his forefeet, blood.

Then, slowly, snorting, sniffing very audibly--as loud as a big dog often does--grunting softly in an undertone, as if talking to himself, he departed, rustling through the gra.s.s, leaving an irregular winding track behind in the dew and the gossamer, as he searched, eternally searched, for food.

The hedgehog moved through the night as if he owned it and had no fear of anything on earth; but many, it would seem, had cause to fear him.

He turned and snorted, and s.n.a.t.c.hed up a slug. Three very quick and suggestive--quite audible--scrunches, and it was gone. He described a half-circle, sniffing very loudly, and chopped up a grub. He paused for a fraction to nose out a beetle, and disposed of it with the same quick three or four chopping scrunches. (It sounded rather like a child eating toast-crusts.) He continued, always wandering devious, always very busy and ant-like, always snorting loudly; grabbed another beetle, and then a worm--all by scent, apparently--and reached the hedge-ditch, where, in the pitch-darkness, he could still be heard snorting and scrunching hapless insects, slugs, and worms at scarcely more than one-minute intervals. And he never stopped. He seemed to have been appointed by Nature as a sort of machine, a spiked "tank," to sniff tirelessly about, reducing the surplus population of pests, as if he were under a curse--as, indeed, the whole of the great order of little beasts to which he belonged, the Insectivora, are--which, afflicting him with an insatiable hunger, drove him everlastingly to hunt blindly through the night for gastronomic horrors, and to eat 'em.

Anyway, he did it, and in doing it seemed to make himself worthy of the everlasting thanks and protection of the people who owned that land--thanks which to date he had never received.

Strange to say, he never stopped of his own free-will, though he was stopped: once when he walked up to a man kneeling--and he was a poacher--and did not see him till, if I may so put it, the man coughed, when he ran like winkle into the hedge, and promptly became a ball for ten minutes; and once when he came upon a low, long, sinister, big, and grunting shadow, which again, if I be allowed the term, he did not see, though quite close, till he heard it grunt, when he instantly jerked himself into a ball on the spot and in the open. In both cases it seemed, on the face of it, more as if he had scented, rather than had either seen or heard, the dangers, and in both cases he had come within two yards of them--though they were not hidden--before scenting, seeing, or hearing them, whichever he did do.

Now, books and men have said that friend hedgehog fears only two things: gypsies and badgers--who eat him. I should not be surprised at anything the "gyp" did; nor, to this day, can we stake much on our knowledge of the secret badger; but this badger, at any rate, seemed to know nothing of books and men. He was delving for roots when the hedgehog cast up out of the night and jumped him to "attention" by his loud sniffs--much like a big dog's, I said. Thereafter, however, when our p.r.i.c.kly friend was represented as a ball only, and was as silent as the grave, the badger took no further notice of him, beyond keeping one eye--the weather eye--upon him, and treating him to a low growl, or curse, truly, from time to time.

The hedgehog, however, once there, did not seem keen upon unrolling and exposing himself till the badger had gone, which it did finally, vanis.h.i.+ng so suddenly and unexpectedly into the dark as almost to seem to have been a ghost. And after some minutes the hedgehog straightened out, and ate his way--one can call it nothing else--to the hedge. Here he came upon a wounded mouse, complaining into the night in a little, thin voice, because its back was broken, and it could not return to its hole. It was a harvest mouse, rejoicing in the enormous weight of 4.7 grains and a length of 57 mm., but with as much love of life and fear of death as an elephant. Heaven knows what had smitten it! Perhaps it was one of the very few who just escape the owl, or who foil that scientific death, the weasel, at the last moment--but no matter. The result was the same--death, anyway.

The hedgehog saw its eyes s.h.i.+ning like stars in a little jet of moonlight, and I fear the hedgehog slew far less adroitly than the owl, and not nearly so scientifically as the weasel; but he slew, none the less, and he did that which he did.

From thence we find our hedgehog, still wandering devious, but with always a direction, just as an ant has, heading his way down-ditch to a farm, and all the way he ate--beetles mostly, but with slugs and worms thrown in.

Now, those of the wild-folk who approach the farm, even by night, do so with their life in their paws, and most of them know it. Far, far safer would it be to remain in wood or field-hedge, gorse-patch or growing crop. Yet they go, like the adventurers of old.

First of all, if he approached by ditch, before getting to the farm proper, the hedgehog knew that he must pa.s.s the entrenchments of the rat-folk, and that alone was enough to put off many, for the rat-folk are no longer strictly wild, and, wild or tame, are hated with that cordiality that only fear can impose. I don't know that our hedgehog was given to fearing anything very much. He came of a brave race, and one cursed, moreover, with a vile, quick temper, more than likely to squash in its incipient stage any fear that might threaten to exist; but he did most emphatically detest rats, except to eat them--a compliment which the rats would have returned, if they had got a chance.

As a matter of fact, it is unlikely that p.r.i.c.kles--for such was the name of our hedgehog--would have gone that risky way, traveled so unhealthily far, left his more or less--mostly less--safe home wood at all, had it not been that it is sometimes with hedgehogs as it is with men--in the warm seasons--their fancy turns to thoughts of love.

p.r.i.c.kles's fancy had so turned, not lightly, for he was of an ancient and antediluvian race, heavy in thought, but certainly to love. And love, I want you to realize, in the wild, or anywhere else, for the matter of that, is the very devil. "Unite and multiply; there is no other law or aim than love," one great savant despairingly a.s.sorts is Nature's cry, and adds that she mutters to herself under her breath, "and exist afterwards if you can. That is no concern of mine."

To be precise, p.r.i.c.kles, who did more business with his nose than all the rest of his organs put together, was following a love-trail. A lady hedgehog, a flapper undoubtedly, and beautiful--all loves are beautiful in imagination--had pa.s.sed that way. Why _that_ unhealthful way, Heaven knew; but, allowing for the capriciousness of the s.e.x, and mad because in love, p.r.i.c.kles followed, slowly, deliberately, heavily, as befitted one descended from one of the oldest races on earth.

The air was heavy with the scent of may and of honeysuckle, and his way was a green-gold--silver where the moon cascaded down the hedge--and blue-black bridal-path, arched with scented swords, strewn with pink and rose and cream and white confetti of blossom. But he only saw and smelt one thing, and that, those who have known hedgehogs intimately will agree, is not like unto the scent of any blossom.

p.r.i.c.kles was ruminating anciently upon these things, possibly, and others, as he came down the trench--ditch, I mean--when the cry smote him. It smote everything--the filtered silence of the wonderful, tranquil night, the pale moon half-light, the furtive rustling shadows that stopped rustling, the wonderful breathing pulse of growing vegetation. And p.r.i.c.kles stopped as abruptly as if it had smitten him on his nose, too. He heard _that_, at any rate, whatever might have been hinted about the value of his ears elsewhere.

There was no doubt about that cry, no possible shadow of doubt whatever--it was a cry of extreme distress, a final, despairing S.O.S., flung out to the night in the frantic hope that one of the same species would hear and help.

Several night-foraging wild-folk have S.O.S. signals of their own, but none like this. It was not a rabbit's cry, for bunny's signal is thin and child-like; nor a hare's, for puss's last scream is like bunny's, only more so; nor a stoat's, for that is instinct with anger as well as pain; nor a cat's, for that thrills with hate; nor an owl's, for that is ghostly; nor a fox's, for Reynard is dumb then; nor a rat's, for that is gibbering and devilish; nor a mouse's, for that is weak and helpless. Then what? And why had it touched up p.r.i.c.kles as if with a live wire? It was perhaps the rarest S.O.S. signal of all heard in the wild, or one of the rarest, the peculiar, high, chattering, pig-like, savage tremolo of a hedgehog booked for some extra deathly form of death. And p.r.i.c.kles--naturally he knew it.

It came from straightaway down the ditch; from ahead, where p.r.i.c.kles had been heading for; from the farm, and Heaven know what it portended!

Perhaps, too, p.r.i.c.kles could tell a lady hedgehog's S.O.S. from that of a gentleman of the same breed; or, perhaps--but how do I know? He certainly acted that way.

p.r.i.c.kles waited the one-fifth part of an instant, to listen and locate.

Then he got going, and provided one astonishment. Till then he had seemed slow as the times he had descended from--like a rhinoceros.

But, like a rhino, he proved that he could s.h.i.+ft some when hustled. He did. It looked like suddenly releasing a clockwork toy wound up to breaking-point. His short legs gave this impression, and his next-to-no-neck, giving him a look of rigidity, a.s.sisted it. He did not run so much as rush, and his spines and bristles, coming low on either side in an overhang, so to speak, like an armored car, made him rustle and scuffle tremendously. Three rabbits doing the same act, or five cats, could scarce have made more row than he did.

It was not, however, so much the fact that p.r.i.c.kles had gone that was so noticeable as the fact that he had _arrived_. His arrival seemed to follow his going as one slide follows another on a screen. One would never have believed such quickness of him; nor, as a matter of fact, do I think he would have believed it of himself; but--well, love is a mighty power, and makes folks do some strange things.

What he found was two ditch-banks, pock-marked with the untidy dug-outs of the rat-people, smelling ratty, and looking worse, one original ray of moonlight lighting the beaten ditch between. In the moonlight one young female hedgehog, who may have been pretty by hedgehog standards, but was now pretty by none, and five rats, frankly beastly, very busy indeed with that same hedgehog. They must have caught that young lady of the spikes "napping"--a rare thing. Yet, allowing for the fact that she was in love--with love and nothing else, so far--and careless, or allowing that she may have mistaken the unclean ones momentarily, she may have given them one brief half-instant. And it doesn't do to give a rat even the half of a half-instant. If you do, he has got you, or you haven't got him.

Apparently they had pretty well got her before she could quite roll up, and in a half-rolled-up condition she was doing her best to meet the jabs of five pairs of gnawing, cold-chisel, incisor, yellow-rats' teeth at once. To time, apparently, she had not been successful in the attempt--you could see the dark stains of blood glisten in the moonlight, and the end was certain, on the face of it.

p.r.i.c.kles, however, was a new factor that had got to short-circuit that end, and p.r.i.c.kles didn't wait to meditate prehistorically _that_ time.

He came. He came full tilt into the midst of the melee like--well, like a clockwork toy still, that couldn't stop. Only he did stop, against the biggest rat of all, ducking his head, and jerking forward his shoulder-muscles, and spines, with a sort of a thrust over his head, and a noise like a pair of expiring bellows; and the p.r.i.c.kles. .h.i.t home.

That rat removed about one foot in one bound in one-fortieth of a second, and he let rip one squeal in the process that sent away every other rat into the nearest available hole as if it had been fired there from a spring. Then the lady hedgehog took the Heaven-sent opportunity to complete her rolling-up completely, and p.r.i.c.kles took his own created opportunity to roll up almost more completely, and--well, they were rolled up into two b.a.l.l.s, you see, and there is nothing more to be said about them. The rats did that, but it was all they did, except hurt their noses presently, and delicate, pink, hand-like fore-paws, and make 'em bleed on p.r.i.c.kles. They were very angry indeed, those unspeakable ones--very angry; but it didn't make any difference to the hedgehogs. They were there; they were rolled up; they were together.

What _could_ make any difference after _that_? And at last, when the rats gave them up as a very bad job, they went away _together_, and that's all there is to say. _Together_ clinches it, you understand.

V

PHARAOH

I

Upon a day Hawkley came to the district, and took up his abode in a cottage of four rooms. He "did" for himself. Every housekeeper will know what "did" for himself means. But he did for himself in another way also. He came to read up for an exam. He told everybody this, which was one reason why he would be seen at unG.o.dly hours, when no one was about, going to and from lonely spots, with a pair of blue gla.s.ses on his nose, a book under one arm, and a walking-stick with a silver band and a ta.s.sel--he was always careful to display the silver band and the ta.s.sel--under the other.