“I’ll wait,” said Hops.
After his mother had gone, he crouched again beside Plana. But he kept silent about the conversation he had had with his mother. Why should he talk about it? Plana was still such a child. And besides, Hops was ashamed of mentioning that his father was so fond of his mother.
Chapter Four
THAT WAS AN ADVENTURE FOR fair! It lifted the lively Hops completely out of the ranks of his playmates. At one and the same time he learned to know himself and life in all its vastness and peril.
For several weeks past they had all been having a glorious time. Now and again, of course, everything had not seemed so serene. From time to time there was a remote hint of danger. But every day they gained in experience, and every day they better understood the danger signals, even if these were not given especially for them.
When a jay screeched or a magpie began to chatter, they listened. They knew, of course, that the jay and the magpie were their enemies, but they knew, and knew more exactly every day, that by their cries the jay and the magpie betray the approach of stronger enemies.
The squirrel’s loud scolding would arouse their attention. They understood the whispering and twittering of the hedge-sparrows and titmice that darted through the branches of the bushes. And they understood how to flee.
They had mastered nothing on earth with quite such skill as the art of vanishing and hiding themselves beyond all chance of discovery.
And nothing on earth was so necessary to them.
The impulse to resist any living creature, to defend themselves, or to fight even the weakest opponent, never stirred their little rabbit hearts.
Their defense consisted of watchfulness; their resistance was the quickly awakened sense of fear that shot through them; and flight, their artful, dodging flight, to which they took in an instant, was their way of fighting.
Then came the adventure that swept Hops along with it.
He was sitting in the narrow open glade around the salt lick where he and the others so happily foregathered.
A thicket that was almost impenetrable, though not very broad, separated the glade from the meadow.
At that early hour in the morning, nearly all of them were refreshing themselves at the lick.
While the others, Rino and Olva, Murk and Lugea, Trumer, Plana, Klipps and the rest, were crouching on the bare, ochre-colored earth, and lapping the wonderfully refreshing salt, moist with the early dew, Hops sat in the middle of the trough. Buried in the earth, it contained the pure salt block, held firmly in place by the bright-colored clay.
Hops was sitting right on top of the block, enjoying himself immensely.
At times the others would start a brief game of tag, then settle down again and lap eagerly. A few hopped off into the grass that grew so thick and tasted especially spicy in that particular spot.
But Hops remained sitting in the middle of the trough.
Hops had grown to be a lusty fellow and, whenever an opportunity offered, loved nothing better than boldly and greedily to stuff himself to the full. Often he was so plunged in gluttony that for whole moments he would neglect that prime rule of every rabbit’s existence—timid cautiousness.
Suddenly he noticed that all his comrades had scattered.
It flashed through his mind that he had heard the danger signals of the jay and squirrel. Now, though they were silent, he seemed to hear them, and went numb with fear. Above him, in the old beech, a squirrel ran along a stout branch, sat on the extreme tip that swayed gently, held both his forepaws pleadingly in front of his glossy, white breast and screamed down at him, “Almighty tree trunk! Are you still there!”
He instantly whisked around again and scampered into the thick foliage high up in the top of the tree, so that all you could see of his bushy tail was a thin, red streak, twitching among the leaves.
Hops remained motionless.
His heart began to beat wildly.
He breathed in the wind so deeply that his whiskers twitched violently. Nothing! The wind brought him no scent.
Hops raised his ears.
Then, opposite him in the tall woods, where a light wind was stirring, he heard a very soft crackling in the trampled, tender underbrush, heard a very gentle pattering and rustle of footsteps. Two-legged!
Hops sat up on his hind legs. He sat up straight as an arrow, his long ears erect, his whiskers, his handsome whiskers, aquiver, his clear, round eyes so wide open in their anxiety that you could see their whites.
Then, between the tree trunks in the tall woods, he beheld the gigantic, mysterious being who walks erect on two legs, Him whom every creature in the forest fears more than any other.
The monster was already quite close, slinking cautiously, insidiously and with terrible menace, nearer and nearer.
Hops remained rooted to the spot, spellbound with fear.
Even the little rabbits had already learnt that this strange and terrible monster was their lord, as He was the lord over every creature in the forest. They knew that with one terrifying thunderclap He could hurl annihilation from afar. Only recently, when the stag Gobbo had been struck by His thunder out on the meadow, Plana had been sitting close by. Gobbo had leaped into the air above her, so that the red sweat, which spurted from his torn lung, spattered Plana, and her ears and flanks were quite soaked with blood.
In a flash the memory of that incident merged with the feeling of fear that held Hops numbed, his numbness gave way and, with one long bound, he sprang out of the trough, plunged into the grass that swished moist with dew around him, and strove to gain the thicket. When he had reached it, he breathed deeply, grateful for the comforting shelter of the thick plant growth that concealed him.
Again he sat up on his hind legs, raised his body, with its spoonlike ears, bolt upright and peered at the horrible figure standing among the tall trees on the opposite side of the glade, lying in wait.
Hops felt himself well hidden in his moment of need, but still not entirely safe. The proximity of the weird creature filled him with dread; the fear that made his pulses throb would not let him lie quiet. He whisked about and began to scurry rapidly through the thicket.
His one thought was to get away from there. Far away!
Suddenly there was a rustling beside him. Something made a leap and snapped behind him. Hops heard distinctly the clapping-to of a pair of murderous bony jaws.
An enemy’s scent poured about him, poisonous, acrid, stinking, paralyzing.
A fox!
He had been crouching to one side, and among the thick bushes his spring had missed Hops by a hairsbreadth.
Instinctively Hops doubled in a loop in the direction of the danger, but past it.
He led the fox to make a full circle. Meanwhile Hops had gained a little headway.
He rushed off.
Out of the dangerous thicket whose tangles might in some way delay or impede him! Out onto the meadow where his path would be clear!
As he emerged on the green expanse he was filled with confidence that he had strength to flee, and with a joy in which fear was strangely and disturbingly mingled.
Hops bounded straight ahead in a perfect series of elastic leaps. He looked handsome as he ran, charming in his youth, in his unqualified determination to escape, in all his motions in which the easy and graceful effort of running was visible.
A pair of hares were sitting on the meadow, two does were standing there.
Hops perceived them only as misty shapes, and it was as misty shapes that everything flitted, dissolving, around him.
On he ran.
The fox was close behind him. Wholly taken up with the prey, which he had thought so safely within his grasp that it could not possibly elude him, he followed Hops.
Now . . . ! now . . . ! he would catch him! Now . . . ! now . . . ! he would know the joy of feeling its warm flesh between his teeth, of snapping the quivering creature’s neck while its piteous death shriek rang in his ears like a festive song.
Right
before him he saw Hops’ round white cottontail bob up and down, saw that longed-for bright impudent little knob of a tail dance enticingly ahead—Hops’ rabbit banner, flaunted in running. That, above all, the fox would have liked to seize and tear to pieces.
But then Hops circled once more.
It came so suddenly, so surprisingly, that the fox, in full pursuit, blundered some distance to one side.
A short, yapping sound of annoyance escaped him.
He changed his direction and saw the white ball still bobbing airily up and down through the grass. Only, it was a little farther away now.
Hops had heard the fox’s yelp. He heard the grass swish behind him, heard his pursuer again drawing nearer to him. He circled again.
Then he raced away, straight across the meadow, eager to get to the thick wooded strip opposite. Then right through it, in order to reach the broad clearing beyond. Once there he would make a fool of the fox. And if that didn’t succeed . . . his thoughts stopped.
He made a fine sight as he scampered over the damp turf, leaving behind, as the grasses bent under his bounds, a trail as thin as his thin, little body.
His forepaws extended parallel and straight. His head appeared to nestle between his feet. His ears lay very flat, pressed close against his body and covering nearly half his back. Only his long hind legs, that scampered invisible, drove him onward. His forepaws hardly seemed to touch the ground.
Everything in this complete little creature now cried: Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Cried: Flee! Flee! Flee! And cried it with the most complete finality.
Hops grew maturer during that mad race, grew more and more from moment to moment. The impelling fear that governed him grew vaguer the faster he scurried away, and there awoke in him unconsciously the feeling that he was fulfilling his destiny.
He was fleeing for his life.
The thick strip of woodland was successfully passed. Before Hops lay the broad clearing, above which only a few isolated birches, ashes and beeches towered.
Hops ran on. But the blood was beginning to hum in his head and ears. His heart and the veins in his neck were throbbing, deafeningly loud. It was hard to get his breath, and it rasped his mouth and throat, which were slowly beginning to parch with a burning pain, and tore his panting lungs. The muscles in his legs were growing lame, spasmodic.
A longing to throw himself down and sleep crept over him. A guilty feeling took possession of him because he was running away, because he was striving to escape—a feeling of guilt because he was in the world at all.
But fear dominated him again; he was completely overwhelmed by it and it drove him onward.
Presently it was fear alone which still kept him running.
He ran circle after circle. He dropped into thickly overgrown, deep hollows, lay still for whole moments, started up again, raced in the direction from which he had come, back, and again appeared in some place the fox had not expected.
His white bobtail darted, a little less lightning-like now, among the low dogwood shrubs.
Suddenly the wind, against which he was running, wafted a horrible scent to his parching nose. It was He, He who walked upright, He the annihilating lord of the forest.
Hops lost all hope. In desperation he doubled back. He did not succeed in running another true circle, only an abbreviated arc that led him back to the fox.
Then the thunder crashed.
Hops crouched down, flattened out with terror and, shrinking together, saw the fox turn a somersault before him.
Then there was silence.
Lying on the ground, his breathless flanks heaving, Hops listened to his own panting. He was ready; he had not a vestige of strength, nor the determination left, to flee. His fur clung clammily to his body, wet with sweat from running, from fear and the trembling anticipation of his end. But the thunder had not struck him, had not even been aimed at him.
The horrible smell of the mysterious and mighty monster grew sharper, exciting as touch, grew gradually stronger and stronger.
Hops lay still, merely raising his dead-tired face, twisted with pain, while the handsome white whiskers that bearded his upper lip began a wildly quivering movement. He snuffed in the bitter message of that scent.
But he did not stir. He was at the end of his strength, completely submissive. That restful pause, the slow recovery of his breath, the quieting of his pulse, the slowing down of his heart’s throbbing filled him with an ecstasy such as he had never known before. His cramped muscles began to relax. His legs, that had been stiff and painful, grew warm again, seemed filled with a wonderfully pleasant prickling sensation. Hops was no longer master of his exhausted body. He had exerted it to the utmost, driven it beyond its strength. Now his fatigued body held Hops in its power. A pleasant dreamy condition spread through him and baffled his will. A delicious intoxication clouded his senses.
Hops felt the terrible scent drawing nearer and nearer.
He heard the footsteps of the two-legged one. But, as the terrifying monster passed right beside him, Hops lay motionless.
Without astonishment, his mist-clouded eyes watched how He stooped, picked up the still fox by the neck, and carried it off.
Hops sank into a sleep that was somewhat deeper than usual.
Chapter Five
MEANWHILE ALL SORTS OF LESS exciting things had been happening to the others. Even before Hops was aware of the approaching monster they had whisked, in due time and without panic, under the protecting bushes. They crouched close to the ground and He did not perceive them, they lay so flattened, so silent.
He did not see their eyes round with fear, did not observe the slight, quivering movements of their stiff white whiskers, did not hear the violent throbbings of ten frightened little rabbits’ hearts.
All but one of them were on the far side of the tall trees, through which He had come and among which He remained standing.
Only one found herself near Him.
That was Plana.
Of course it had to be her to whom something unpleasant happened. Of course!
Plana was a pretty little thing. All the rabbit boys were glad to tolerate her, and even the other rabbit maidens treated her kindly. She was such a droll creature, so cheerful and good-natured. She never began a quarrel with anyone, and never even gave occasion for a dispute.
Yet Plana was thoughtless, flighty and absent-minded and at times seemed not to know what she was about.
Of course the others thought Plana a little stupid. But at bottom she was not stupid at all, merely thoughtless.
Thus, when the disturbance began in the glade, when the warning cries of the jays, magpies and titmice left no doubt that He was coming, she did not creep with the others into the thicket on the far side of the salt lick.
She was sitting close to the open woods. She realized that she had to flee and hide herself and simply ran in among the tall trees where He was slinking.
With the instinct of her kind, she flattened herself against the ground, she nestled gently among the soft sods as only Plana knew how to nestle.
Then she heard Him, heard his soft footfalls, nearer and nearer.
Plana was aquiver with terror. But she remained motionless.
She merely thought, “Probably I’ve done something wrong again.” Quite downcast she wondered, “Why am I always doing things wrong?”
Then she thought nothing more, could think of nothing more.
For He was right beside her!
The terrifying monster was right beside her, stood and stared and hardly moved.
Nothing but a miserable bunch of lettuce leaves separated Him from Plana, who lay expecting her end.
His scent poured over her like a torrent of water, persistent, bewildering, overwhelming. Plana nearly lost consciousness, overpowered by that strange, menacing smell that at once penetrated the very depth of her being and crippled her.
She saw in front of her two hard, brown monsters. His feet! Those strange, mysterious feet, that were only two and ye
t supported Him, those incomprehensible feet that no rabbit had ever seen before.
Plana went rigid and waited in mortal fear.
She heard His breathing.
He breathed, in fact, very softly. But to her if seemed like a roaring in the air, far, very far above her.
Several minutes passed.
Then Plana attempted something that certainly no one but Plana ever would have attempted, because she did not realize exactly what she was doing.
She bounded up.
Right under His eyes, she bounded up. She simply leaped out into the clearing, leaped, in her bewilderment, right over the trough containing the salt lick, and rushed toward the thicket.
Everything remained still.
It was not until she reached the concealing shade of the bushes that she sat up, trembling, on her hind legs, raised her spoonlike ears one after the other, and thought, terrified, “Now what have I done this time?”
He, however, was standing in the open woods leaning against the trunk of an old oak. He was watching a stag and did not even observe the young rabbit.
But many signals, many ominous signs had warned the stag, so that he decided to stay away from the salt lick that morning. For a long time He remained standing beside the oak. For a long time not a sound, not a creature stirred in His vicinity. The rabbits lay motionless, flattened against the ground, covered by the thick bushes and the leaves of the blackberry brambles. The pheasants had all run away. The mice took care not to leave their holes in the ground. Only the honey and the bumblebees hummed, the butterflies fluttered through the air, the dragonflies hovered, like wonderful airplanes, hung suspended for a moment, darted ahead and hovered gracefully up and down again. In the grass, in the bushes and on the bark of the trees, crept or crawled or marched or hopped the countless, diminutive tribes of ants, beetles, grasshoppers and gadflies. A myriad, fabulous world in itself.
But the jays and the magpies, the squirrels and a pair of crows, the hedge-sparrows and titmice remained aloft at their posts.