i e6a2876c557e1281 Read Online Free PDF Page B

was small, a squeaking, intermittent yet linked in a continuous, pitying yelp. I scrambled over a bank of rich moss, bright green and close woven, then through the trees and to the bay. I knew the cry was that of a rabbit, and before I saw it I was already shivering with pity. The men, to supplement their tables, were catching rabbits, setting traps for them.
    They would set them
    at night and come early in the morning to clear them. I'd never seen the traps but I knew, from listening to Dad, all about them. But I understood that they were mostly set around the perimeter of the wood, for the rabbits came out to feed in the fields. This was the heart of the wood and somebody must have set a trap here. Then I saw the poor creature, and the sight riveted me to the spot. I could feel my hands coming slowly up to my mouth to still the scream. The rabbit was not struggling against the weight of a trap, but against the weight of a tree, a big tree, for one of its back legs was nailed to it. I hid my face, then I knew I was running, and thought I was running away through the wood again, and seemed surprised when I felt the rabbit's quivering body under my hands. The leg was all torn and bleeding, and when I pulled madly at the nail and the poor thing squealed loudly I began to moan. The sound reminded me of a man who had been knocked down by a car in the market last year. They had lain him in a shop doorway and he made moaning sounds. The next thing I remember was that I was running through the wood finding my way more by instinct than by sight, for I was blinded with a flood of tears. When I came out of the dimness of the wood and into the morning sunlight on the street I tore to the house, and there pushed everything before me, doors, chairs, little obstacles, and flung myself, not on my mother, but on my dad, crying, "Dad! Dad! Come on. The poor rabbit, the poor thing. Oh, Dad Dad."
    I had knocked some fried bread out of his hand and the grease had gone across the tablecloth, and my mother ex claimed, "What on earth's up with you, child? Look what you've done. What's the matter?" Then as if attacked by a thought that had suddenly frightened her, she pulled me from my dad and, shaking me, said, "Stop it! Stop it! What's happened?"
    "A rabbit, a rabbit, a poor rabbit!" I gulped and swallowed and choked before I could voice the horror that I had seen.
    "Nailed, somebody's nailed it to the tree. It's back leg, and the blood all over it." I turned up my palms to show the blood, and Dad, who was now on his feet, said, "Where?"
    "In the bay, Dad, up at the top."
    Stopping only to put his coat on, for nothing would have induced him to go outside the door without his coat, he hurriedly followed me into the street. I ran on ahead all the way, but when we reached the bay he was only a few steps behind. Now it was he who went ahead, and then, slowly, I approached his back, he ordered me sharply, "Stay where you are!"
    I saw his arm moving in a pumping motion, but he did not fall back with the nail in his hands as I had expected. Then I saw him grope in his pocket and bring out his knife. He paused with it in his hand, then called sharply, "Christine! go away, go away into the trees." I turned and, putting my fingers to my ears, ran to the end of the bay.
    It was not long before I heard him behind me, the rabbit was in his hands, it was dead. There was blood on its neck and it had only three legs. I fell flat on the ground and pushed my face into the wet grass, then my stomach seemed to rise through my backbone. I felt my spine drawn up in a curve, something like the hump of a fell, and then it seemed that my whole stomach came through my mouth.
    I didn't go to school that day.
    It was my mother's morning for Mrs. Durrant and she took me with her, and when we reached the bridge at the bottom of the hill, it seemed to be blocked by men. They weren't sitting on their hunkers or leaning over the parapet, but they were gathered together in a group.