The Hare and the Huntsman - A Short Story

 

The Hare and the Huntsmen

Agatha hummed under her breath as she rolled gently back and forth in her creaky old rocking chair. The open fire in the oversized grate roared and popped, warming her weary bones and casting a comforting orange glow over the cobblestone floor. The spindly figure of Agatha’s faithful grizzled lurcher lay curled up by her feet, snoring quietly and twitching as he dreamt. Wind howled in the narrow lane outside the tiny cottage, but inside, it was calm and warm, and ever so snug.

   Agatha squinted through milky, clouded eyes at the needle and thread in her mottled hands, the light from the fire doing little to ease her sightlessness. Her socks needed darning – again – but the once simple and straightforward task had become just that little bit further out of Agatha’s reach with each passing season or phase of the moon.

   She glanced up at the window and squinted. Barren branches twisted and groaned outside, the heavy glass panes of the quaint little windows just about holding up in the torrent of rain and lashing gusts of winter wind. But Agatha was used to it; she'd lived alone on the outskirts of Easington Village for most of her life and had survived winters far more gruelling and desolate than this.

   A solitary shot rang out somewhere in the distance, the lurcher’s ears standing on end like guards falling into line. Agatha narrowed her eyes and reached over to pat the dog’s head. ‘The huntsmen are out again,’ she crowed. ‘I’d have expected them to have called off the hunt today, what with the bad weather and all.’

   The dog looked up at her and whined, his large eyes shining like pennies. He didn’t like the huntsmen, and just the mere thought of them made his legs tremble and his tail dip between his legs. Endless gunfire plagued his dreams some nights. But he wouldn’t let on. Not to Agatha. She fretted and fussed far too much, and he didn’t want to trouble her addled mind with something as trivial as nightmares. 

   The old lady scratched her companion under the chin. ‘Lie back down, Jethro. Those brutes won’t stay out for long. Not in these winds. Why, they’ll be lucky to shoot straight.’

   Jethro took comfort in her words, quickly slumping back down to lie at her feet. He took in a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting the heat of the fire melt away his fears. But then another shot rang out, and the sound of distant voices found their way into the little cottage, carried on the wind. A funnel of sinister bawls and howls swirled around, bringing a hairball of anxiety up into Jethro’s throat. He cowered, shuffling closer to Agatha’s legs. He knew what was coming next, but it didn’t make it any easier to bear.

   He hated hunt days.

   Agatha put down her needle and thread and hauled herself out of the chair. ‘Come on, lad. It looks as if we’re going to have to take matters into our own hands again.’

   Jethro whined and trotted over to the front door, bowing his head and dropping his ears low. He hesitated. The huntsman would surely see him, and their glazed eyes and lifeless moustaches would invariably send him into a quiver. Thankfully, they’d never shot at him, at least not that he could tell. He supposed it was down to him being a hound, of sorts. But he knew that it’d be a different story entirely if he were a rabbit or a hare, or even a stoat. The huntsmen had no respect for nature, they simply trampled through the woods like a plague, their minds bloodied and consumed by their undying need for the thrill of the chase. The kill. Jethro hated everything about it, about them.

   Agatha threw on her old woollen coat and twisted the doorknob, the wind roaring through the house and almost putting out the fire in the grate. ‘Come on lad. It won’t take long. We’ll be back warming our toes by the fire before you know it.’

   Jethro didn’t doubt it. But he’d rather not venture out into the cold and the rain and the winds at all. Not if it could be helped. But his mistress wasn’t afraid of the cold, or the rain, or the winds.

   Agatha shuffled along the little pathway by the front of the cottage, pushing her way through the overgrown ivy bushes and brambles. Jethro followed obediently; he wouldn’t let the old lady venture out alone. Not with the bloodthirsty huntsmen and their hair-brained hounds stomping through the village.

   The huntsmen shouted unfathomable instructions at each other in the dense tangle of woodland up ahead, but their voices were swallowed up by the wind, carried off until they wisped past Jethro’s ears and drifted into the misty fields behind him. Lost words; spirited away as if never spoken at all.

   Gone.

   Forgotten.

   Agatha reached the end of the twisting pathway and headed into the woods, the thick layer of twigs on the woodland floor cracking under her feet as she walked. Jethro trotted to keep up, but Agatha soon slipped out of sight, her coarse brown coat and flow of silvery hair blending into the rugged bark and the grey skies as if she were somehow part of the landscape. For a moment, Jethro thought he heard her name on the wind, as if whispered by the trees themselves, but it was little more than his imagination playing tricks on him. He was sure of it.

   The huntsmen were close by now. Jethro could sense their presence in the lingering cold, the stench of sinister intent lying heavy in the air like a poison. A flash of red caught his eye somewhere out in the thicket. And then another. The polished brown and shining silver of a gun glinted in the misty late afternoon light. He scurried behind a large oak tree and held his breath. This was the part he hated most of all. The chase. The fear. But he knew there would be no blood spilled today – not if his mistress had anything to do with it.

   ‘Quick,’ shouted one of the huntsmen. ‘Over here.’

   The group of red-hooded huntsmen ran through the trees, their guns pointed at whatever it was they were tailing. It was most likely a hare – it usually was – and the animal would undoubtedly outsmart the hapless hunters. It always did. If Jethro didn’t know better, he’d swear it was the same hare each and every time, playing a game of cunning with its would-be killers, luring them into the same trap day after day, week after week, year after year, for as long as Jethro could remember.

   He saw the startled, wide-eyed hare as it darted out from behind a cluster of bushes a little way up ahead. He glanced around for his mistress, but he supposed she must be somewhere up ahead in the tangle of trees and ferns, shrouded by the blanket of lingering fog that was drifting in from the North Sea. She was likely shooing the huntsmen away.

   The little tawny coloured hare hopped a mazy path through the trees, heading for the village lane on the other side of the little copse. The huntsmen spotted it through the thicket and dashed after it, their slobbery-mouthed hounds lumbering alongside them, all legs and drool. But the hare led them a merry dance, hopping this way and that until it reached the road that led though the village.

   ‘Damn and blast,’ shouted one of the huntsmen. ‘The little blighter has gotten away.’

   The men stood at the very edge of the woods where dense thicket gave way to swathes of wild grass and a little dirt track, their eyes scanning the landscape for any sign of the little hare. But sure enough, it had vanished. Erased from the landscape as if it had never been there at all.

   Jethro trudged along the little pathway at the edge of the woodland, keeping a safe distance between him and the angry muddle of faces further up the steep bank. He knew the hare was long gone, as it always was by the time they reached the village, but that didn’t stop the men from scratching their heads in confusion.

   They never learned.

   Jethro plonked himself down behind a cluster of thorny blackberry bushes and looked around for his mistress. He caught a faint glimpse of something from the corner of his eye; something brown and fuzzy, and it was headed straight for him. The hare twitched its little powder-pink nose and drooped its long velvety ears. Jethro studied the creature. It had never gotten this close to him before, always having remained just out of reach and on the very edges of his vision. He sniffed the winter air, the scent of the beast somehow familiar to him. Comforting even. But he didn’t know why. He didn’t know how.

   The hare looked deep into Jethro’s eyes for a fleeting moment, before turning on its heels and hopping away into the dense undergrowth, the sound of rustling leaves hissing on the wind as it slipped out of sight.

   ‘There it is,’ shouted one of the huntsmen. ‘It’s heading up towards the top end of the village.’ A shot rang out, Jethro’s legs trembling as the sound reverberated through the trees like a bow gliding across the strings of a violin. The bumbling pack of hounds were tracking the hare’s scent now, bounding through the woodland, a bloodthirsty determination shining in their rounded eyes like claret. 

   Jethro scanned his eyes across the landscape. There was still no sign of Agatha, and he couldn’t fathom where she might be. But he knew not to fret. She’d vanished before, many a time; their morning walks or their afternoon strolls having been cut short by the old lady’s sudden disappearance. She always turned up safe, if a little disorientated and muddy. Barefoot usually, too. Jethro guessed she could move faster barefoot in amongst the undergrowth. If she wanted to ward off the huntsmen and save the hares and the rabbits, she’d need all the speed she could muster in her frail, spindly body. Jethro had never quite understood the human fascination with shoes anyway.

   The lurcher walked slowly up the hill in the direction of the village, his nose pressed to the autumnal scattering of leaves and decaying flora covering the frosty ground. The huntsmen were mere blots in the distance now. They’d frantically hurried after the elusive tawny coloured hare, the reds of their jackets and flushed faces melding into the foggy landscape, the wind drowning out their calls and the snarling barks of their faithful hounds.

   As Jethro neared the road, a horse and cart emerged from within the mist. The horse’s hooves clipped and clopped, echoing eerily along the almost deserted lane. The dog upped his pace, hoping to reunite with his mistress, but she was nowhere to be found. Even her bitter-sweet scent had slipped away into the fog.

   He ran upwards towards the place he called home, towards the little stone cottage on the edge of the village. The huntsmen were lingering up ahead, their eyes scanning the lane for any sign of their prey. Jethro didn’t think they had a chance in a month of Sundays of finding the hare; the beast was too quick, too nimble. Even the hounds were dumbstruck, having completely lost the animal’s scent.

   But just as the thoughts formed in Jethro’s mind, the hare sprang out from the dense covering of trees, almost as if it were toying with its pursuers. The huntsmen roared, their dogs whining and leaping about the place like salmon fighting their way upstream. The game was afoot, or so it would seem. But the old lurcher had seen it all before. It was a folly. A merry dance.

   Jethro meandered further up the lane, hugging the tree line to avoid the attention of the huntsmen as best he could. He watched on as the bold and fearless hare darted around them, weaving its way between their legs like a thread upon a loom. The men grumbled and spat, their faces darkening into shades of red that even the mist couldn’t hide.

   The hare darted left, and then right, before hopping up the hill towards the very edge of Easington Village, out of the hound’s reach. The church was just about visible up ahead on the grassy mound, but the bells had fallen silent. At least for now.

  One of the hounds dug its heels in, quickening its pace until it had almost caught up with the hare. Jethro growled low in his chest, his eyes narrowing. He sprang forwards, bounding up the hill towards the hare and its would-be attacker. He threw himself at the hound, pulling at the scruff of its neck with his teeth. But it was too late – the hunting dog had hold of the hare by the back leg, blood seeping from the animal’s soft tawny fur. Jethro dug deep, pulling the hound backwards with all his might, until eventually the hound snarled and relinquished its grip on the hare. The angry beast turned to face Jethro, blood dripping from its jowls. The hare – taking heed of the bloodied warning – skittered away as fast as it could, back into the relative safety of the woodland undergrowth.

   The hound leapt forwards, barely missing Jethro with its white, razor-sharp teeth. It circled, ready to pounce again. Jethro’s legs shook uncontrollably, his body convulsing at the sight of the hound’s fury.

   ‘Come on, lad,’ bawled one of the huntsmen.

   The hound growled, sending a sneaky glance over to his master before looking Jethro up and down. Jethro held his breath, not daring to move so much as a wiry hair on his body. The hound was in two minds – Jethro could see it in his eyes – but there quickly came another call from his master, and the beast turned on its heels, leaving Jethro alone in the misty lane.

   The huntsmen headed along the straight road at the top of the hill, still in pursuit of the illusory hare. Jethro was sure the hare would be long gone by now, if it knew what was good for it. He waited until the shifting shapes of the men and their dogs drifted into the echoes of the lingering fog, before trotting along the bramble-covered trackway in the direction of home.

   Jethro stumbled in through the open front door of the little cottage to find his mistress already home. She sat by the heat of the coal fire, her muddied skirts bunched up to her knobbly knees, blood spilling from a fresh wound on her ankle. She looked up, her frosted eyes narrowing as she struggled to make out the figure of her faithful companion in the doorway. She held a dirty rag to her leg to stem the bleeding, but the flimsy fabric was soaked through in no time at all.

   ‘There you are lad,’ she said kindly. ‘Come and sit by the fire.’

   Jethro trotted over and plonked himself down the proggy mat in front of the fire grate, not taking his eyes from his mistress, not even for a second. She was pale. Deathly pale.

   ‘Nowt’s a bother,’ said Agatha dryly, patting Jethro on the head as she stood up and hobbled over to the stove. She poured hot water from a pan into a little porcelain bowl, pulled a fresh cloth from inside the kitchen cupboard, and shuffled her way over to her favourite rocking chair, lowering herself back down.

   The blood was flowing heavily again now, mixing with the mud that streaked the old lady’s lower legs. She wiped it away with the clean linen cloth and rested her leg on the little rickety footstool.

   Jethro whined. ‘I’m as fit as a fiddle, lad,’ Agatha insisted. But his mistress had puncture wounds in her ankle. What if they became infected? What if she lost too much blood?

   Jethro wondered whether perhaps she’d got tangled in the coarse woodland undergrowth? Or caught up with the unruly huntsmen? Although, he didn’t see how she could have caught up to them. Surely, he would have seen her, caught her scent on the wind.

   He flopped down onto the rug and closed his eyes, letting the heat of the open fire soothe his frozen bones. He guessed he’d never know what had really happened to his mistress, but at least now they were warm and safe, tucked up in their little cottage on the edge of the woods.