The Mahatma and the Hare: A Dream StoryHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Science
The Mahatma and the Hare: A Dream Story
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction
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, 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 began 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 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 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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