FIRST BLOOD
Vix lay under a bush with her brush curled round her nose and eyes.
Only her ears, ever wakeful and alert, kept watch while she slept. It
was six o'clock, and a still misty morning with a heavy dew over
everything. Close by lay Redpad with his nose on his pads; but he
slept more lightly than Vix, for he had eaten less than she had done
after their hunting. Thus he was the first to wake at the sound of a
yelp in the valley. He sat up with a whimper and looked at his mother.
He expected her to leap up, but she only stretched out her forelegs
lazily and closed her eyes again. Perhaps her heavy meal at dawn had
blunted the senses which as a rule gave her such timely warning of
danger. Redpad could neither see nor smell anything suspicious, but
those noises had convinced him that all was not right. He cast a last
look at Vix, and then trotted away among the bushes.
Presently he met an old badger plodding along. The badger was glancing
back every now and then at the sound of a 'yow-yow-yow' in the valley;
and by and by a hare scudded past in a panic. All the while the
clamour was drawing nearer, and was interspersed with whip-cracking
and shouts. It all sounded very loud and alarming to Redpad, who was
accustomed to the stillness of the woods, and he decided to move on.
He was cantering along a ride when suddenly, on turning a corner, he
came full upon a horseman. The man stared at Redpad, and Redpad stared
at the man for a few seconds, and then the former leaped into the
bushes; but as he fled he heard a view-halloa behind him.
He galloped through thickets and crashed through briars, and as he ran
he heard the pack give tongue on his line. Up till now he had not
realised that the presence of the strangers in the wood boded anything
evil to the Foxkind, but had simply avoided them because they were new
to him and noisy. At last it dawned on him that he was pursued, and he
experienced all the fears of the hunted. In his extremity he ran back
to the thicket where he had slept, to seek his cunning mother's help.
Several times he was obliged to go out of his way to evade hounds who
were hunting up and down the wood; for it was the first time that many
of the puppies had been out, and the experience had proved too much
for their wits. Some four couple were unpleasantly close to Redpad's
brush as he entered the thicket, but he dodged them, and ran straight
to his mother's lair. It was still warm, but empty. Redpad made up his
mind quickly. To his right the wood was less thick. Here and there
grew an isolated oak or pine, and the hillside was covered with rocks
and fern. A little way off there was a crag some forty feet high at
whose foot rose a little stream. Redpad pattered up this to its
source; and about six feet from the ground, half hidden by polypody
ferns, found a cleft in the limestone. A rush and a scramble carried
him into this retreat, which was just large enough to contain him; and
the ferns had scarcely ceased to wave before the hounds broke out of
the covert.
Redpad watched the huntsman put them into the patch of bracken. One
worked one way, and one another, but they had no leader, for the old
hounds were mostly down in the valley. And the longer they lingered,
the staler grew the scent.
Suddenly a lemon-and-white hound on the bank of the stream lifted up
his voice and announced that a fox had passed that way, and the rest
rushed after him. Two men rode behind the hounds, and one said to the
other, pointing out the pale one who had picked up the scent:
'That's a grand houn' in the makin'.'
'Ay,' said the other, 'an' he's as swate on a stale line as ever auld
Pirate was before him. Hike! Hike to Ravager!'
The hounds hunted almost up to the crag, but the morning air was
merciful, and drew the scent above their heads. However, the yellow
puppy was not to be baulked. There was a narrow ledge which ran
obliquely from the ground to the cleft where Redpad lay hidden, and up
this he climbed. Redpad was watching the rest of the pack from between
the fern fronds, when a joyous bay above his head proclaimed that he
was discovered.
Redpad leaped from his hiding-place and darted away with the leading
hound not a dozen yards from his brush. There was no time to turn or
try any tricks--he ran for his life. He led his pursuers right across
Knockdane, but it seemed as though there was a galloping horse in
every path and ride, and a hound in every brake. In his extremity he
turned to the moor. He raced up the steep hillside through clumps of
solemn fir trees, where the tits twittered as though there were no
such thing as man, and through beds of ivy and fern.
At last the long slope of the Big Meadow lay before him, and he
gathered all his remaining strength for the dash over this danger
zone. By the hedge stood a horse and rider who halloaed as he passed,
but to fox ideas a man was far less dangerous than the hounds behind,
and he took no notice. He galloped across the field and entered the
clump of trees in the middle. Suddenly another fox leaped up and went
away in front of him. It was Vix. She knew well who were following
their line, and cantered at her top speed; but she was still heavy and
drowsy after her full meal at dawn, and presently Redpad, tired as he
was, overtook and passed her.
The pack was very close behind as they entered the narrow belt of
woodland at the top of the field; but the hounds were all alone, for
the thick hedge had stopped the horses at the bottom of the hill, and
they had been obliged to go a long way round. Redpad's tongue was out,
for he had run far through the wood that morning, and, besides, he was
very frightened. Just in front of him loomed the high demesne wall.
Redpad had leaped upon it, when he suddenly noticed a thick bush of
ivy which overhung the coping to his right, and instead of leaping
down the other side he crept into the ivy and lay there panting.
A second later Vix came up. Twice she leaped and twice she fell back,
but the third time she gained the coping just as the hounds came up.
They crowded over the wall on the scent, Ravager leading, and poured
down the hill on the other side after the little red figure half a
field's length in front. They were so close to him that one spring
would have landed Redpad in their midst, but he lay like a stone, and
they passed him by.
'Head them off if ye can, Mike,' yelled the huntsman, galloping up.
''Tis an auld fox!'
'It was not, then! Didn't I see him cross the path below, an' he a
cub?'
'Don't stand there arguin', ye fool! Nip round to the gate above, for
she's bet, an' we've none too many in this country.'
They galloped away, and the 'yowl-yowl' of the pack died away over the
moor.
* * * * *
Redpad lay among the ivy until the morning mists cleared away; and the
croon of the woodpigeons was the only sound which broke the stillness.
Then he leaped from his sanctuary and crept down the hill. He sought
for his mother high and low, through thickets and rocks, but he could
not find her; and when the autumn moon rose he wandered to and fro and
yelped for her, but she never came back again to Knockdane.
Nevertheless woodland grief is as short-lived as it is poignant, and
before September had given place to October, Redpad hunted in
Knockdane and robbed the Ballygallon hen-roosts contentedly alone.