HOW THE DEBT WAS PAID
All the following winter Redpad hunted in Knockdane. Several times the
hounds came and he had to run for his brush, but it takes a great deal
to catch a hardy Irish fox who is sound in wind and limb. When summer
came he picked up plenty of young rabbits and grew fat. Paddy Magragh
learned to recognise him, and designated him 'the big red felly.'
Although he had been deprived of his mother so early, yet he learned
by experience and instinct, those best of teachers, how to overcome or
circumvent the wiliest of the wood creatures for his own ends. He
established himself in the upper gallery of a badger's 'set.' The
badger had cleaned it out for his own winter use, but Redpad
discovered it one day, and adopted it. The badger was seriously
annoyed and endeavoured to oust the intruder by every means in his
power, but Redpad went on the principle of bowing to the storm. When
the badger offered to fight him he discreetly sought quarters
elsewhere; but no sooner had the rightful owner triumphantly freed the
burrow from the hated taint of fox, than he returned. At last the
badger grew weary of the contest. He took up his residence at the
bottom of the earth, and left Redpad in undisputed possession of the
upper gallery.
Winter came round for the second time, and by now Redpad had come to
his full strength. Knockdane seldom sees hard frost or snow, but as a
rule the south wind blows up a warm mist, and a steady rain drips
through the leafless trees.
In December rabbit-traps were set in Knockdane, and Redpad was not
long in finding them out. It was against regulations to set traps in
the open, but Paddy Magragh, who was in charge of the trapping, was
not particular; and Redpad's first introduction to a rabbit-trap was
the snap of steel jaws on his toe. He wrenched himself free, but he
walked lame for many a day afterwards, and he had learned his lesson.
He soon found out that the trapper made his morning and evening rounds
with fair regularity, and he arranged that his own excursions should
be made accordingly. He trotted round the traps just in front of
Magragh, and when the latter arrived, more than half of them contained
nothing but a severed rabbit's head. This happened two or three times,
and then Magragh, who knew nearly as much about wood ways as Redpad
himself, reversed the order in which he visited the traps, and
presently caught the thief red-handed.
'Every dog has his day, me fine lad,' muttered Magragh, hurling a fir
cone after the white-tagged brush; 'but I'm thinking the hounds will
have theirs before so long.'
After that Magragh lifted his traps to the other side of Knockdane,
for which Redpad had no great liking, as there were more farmsteads in
the neighbourhood, and consequently more cur dogs.
During the fine weather about Christmas time Redpad left the main
woods, and hunted and slept in the thick hedgerows by the river below
Knockdane. They were full of rats and rabbits, but were not a very
safe resort, for it is one of the Sabbath amusements of the youth of
those parts to go out with dogs, and hunt any outlying fox in the
hedges. Redpad could outrun any dog in the country, but his slender
limbs were no match for the more sturdily built terriers and
sheep-dogs at close grips, so perhaps it was just as well that a cold
snap drove him back to the woods again.
While the frost was on the ground Redpad was hungry and robbed
hen-roosts recklessly. One night twelve hens roosted in an outhouse
with a defective latch at John Skehan's farm. The next morning when
the owner went his rounds, three corpses lay on the floor, and the
rest of the fowls had disappeared; all but one broody biddy under a
basket.
'Ye may go afther the rest, ye divil,' said John Skehan to this
survivor bitterly, and dismissed her with a kick. His words were
fulfilled more literally than he expected. She alighted cackling
beyond the farmyard wall--a red shadow sprang up silently, and John
Skehan had a glimpse of a white-tagged brush heading towards Knockdane
along a path strewn with feathers. This was more than flesh and blood
could stand, and Skehan set his dog after the thief. At first the dog
gained on Redpad, who was weighted with the fowl, but presently the
fox dropped his burden, and John Skehan chuckled at the thought that
the robber would not profit by his raid. But Redpad increased his lead
again, and then picked up another hen from behind a hedge. This
happened twice, and every time he had to leave his booty to escape
from his pursuer; but the third time he succeeded in carrying it in
triumph to Knockdane. Afterwards it was found that those hens which he
could not carry away he had deposited in caches along the path between
Knockdane and the farm, in order to remove them at his leisure.
This misdeed hurried on the day of reckoning. John Skehan laid the
tattered remains of his poultry before the proper authorities, and in
consequence one day early in the year the hounds came to Knockdane.
The best hound in the dog-pack that season was that Ravager who had
been blooded on the morning when Vix had been hunted down, more than a
year before. Redpad had met Ravager once before that winter, and had
been obliged to resort to every trick he knew in order to circumvent
that sagacious leader of the pack.
Of course Redpad found the 'earth' stopped when he returned home at
daybreak, and he accordingly sought out a hiding-place which had
already baffled his enemies several times. There was an ivy-grown fir
tree which the wind had partially uprooted and flung against its
fellows. It was quite easily climbed, and Redpad curled himself up in
the ivy about fifteen feet from the ground. Here he slept very
comfortably until noon, and then the familiar 'yowl-yowl' awakened
him. For an hour or more he watched the hounds as they occasionally
galloped past; and at last two men in pink coats rode along and halted
under the very tree where he lay hidden. Presently a squirrel, passing
through a neighbouring tree, looked down and caught sight of a fox
sitting like an owl in an ivy bush. Nothing upsets a squirrel so much
as curiosity, and a fox in a fir tree was something quite outside the
experience of this particular one. He instantly desired to know a
hundred things as to the why and wherefore of this strange occurrence,
and in short was transformed into one tense note of interrogation.
He chattered tentatively--the fox did not move. Then he chattered
defiantly, but still there was no sign. He hopped near and dared the
fox to chase him, but Redpad knew better than to stir. Then the
squirrel grew almost beside himself with passion. He kicked the branch
on which he sat, he scolded until the woods rang, he jibbered with
rage. Three jays came up to see what the fuss was about, and added
their voices to the commotion. At last it grew so loud that even the
dull human ears of the men under the tree remarked that something
unusual was going on. They looked up--saw something red stir in the
ivy and--'By Jove!' said the younger; and his halloa sent the squirrel
leaping away.
Five minutes later a council was held under the tree.
'Who will climb up and fetch him?' asked the master; but the 'boys'
standing round only grinned and shook their heads.
Then old Paddy Magragh, who loved the foxes of Knockdane for the sake
of the sport which the foxes begot, said: 'An' if I fetch him down to
yez, will yer anner see that he has fair play and a good start?'
'Yes,' said the master; 'you shall turn him down yourself.'
So Paddy began to ascend the tree with a sack in one hand and his coat
wrapped round the other. When he was about half-way up the tree he
came face to face with Redpad, and the fox looked up with a snarl, but
he could retreat no further up the trunk. Magragh crept closer and
held out his coat. Quick as lightning Redpad buried his double row of
ivory fangs in it. But it was too thick for them to reach the hand
inside, and Magragh, seizing him by the back of the neck, tumbled him
into the sack.
Redpad was let loose in the middle of the Big Meadow. When the
sack-mouth was opened, he went away like an arrow without a glance
behind.
'Good luck to yez,' said Paddy Magragh, 'for, begob, 'tis a great hunt
ye'll give them to-day.'
It is a true saying that a bagged fox will not run far, but this was
not so with Redpad, for he knew every inch of the country, and
besides, he had not been long enough in the sack to grow cramped. He
flew over the short grass, and as he cleared the demesne wall he heard
the pack open behind him. To the south lay Carricktriss with its rocks
and heather blue in the distance; down in the plain there was
Sutcliffe's Gorse, surrounded by wet fields where the horses would
sink fetlock deep at every step, and hedges impenetrable to anything
but a blackbird. However, Redpad had made up his mind where he was
going, and set his mask resolutely towards the east. Four miles of
meadow-land lie between Knockdane and Kiltorkan Hill, but Redpad had a
map of the country in his head, and he knew that no covert in the
country was a surer refuge for a hunted fox. He slipped across a grass
field where a couple of hobbled goats bucketted away at his approach;
and, taking just the same line which Vix, his mother, had chosen for
her last race for life eighteen months before, he galloped over the
bog.
Most of the fences were wide-topped banks with a 'grip'[2] on the
further side, and Redpad took them with an easy spring on and off. He
was running with a good lead over a marshy field when he met with his
first check at the highroad. A train of 'side cars,' 'ass cars,' and
pedestrians, nearly a quarter of a mile long, were slowly proceeding
to a funeral at Ballycarnew. Redpad could not cross the road under
their feet, and was obliged to make a long detour which brought the
hounds considerably nearer his brush--so much nearer indeed that
presently he ascended a little knoll covered with furze to see if a
certain drain was open. Although he did not know it, Vix in her
extremity had also tried to reach this hiding-place, and she too had
found it blocked. But Vix had been too exhausted to run any further
and had turned to face the hounds in the field beyond, whereas Redpad
was still fresh and with strength to spare.
[2] Ditch.
He looked back at the pack working out his line in the fields below
him, and saw that Ravager was at their head. The horsemen had been
stopped by a wire fence, and were following far behind. For the first
time Redpad felt a little anxious. The scent was evidently good that
day, and Kiltorkan was still more than two miles ahead. He quickened
his pace and tried the old old trick of running through a herd of
cattle in order to foul the line. This checked the hounds for a
moment, but Ravager cast forward, and presently they came on faster
than ever.
Redpad was still running strongly, but his tongue was out and he was
coated with mud. He skirted two or three farmsteads, forded a brook
where he paused to gulp a mouthful of water, and then climbed a long
gradual slope. At the top he paused and looked back. He saw that
Ravager with two couple of the best hounds was working some fifty
yards ahead of the rest of the pack, and that some distance in the
rear rode a man in pink. Kiltorkan was about half a mile away, but at
its base ran a thin shining line of railroad. The Fur Folk of
Kiltorkan care little for the noisy, fussy train which pants down to
Waterford twice a day. They have found out long ago that it is only
formidable in its own place, and is hedged in in some mysterious way
by the wire fence on either side of the embankment.
Whether Redpad had any preconceived plan in his head as he raced to
the railway I cannot say, but as soon as he climbed the bank on to the
metals he heard a low roar, and round the distant curve the mail train
swung into view. The hounds were now very close behind, for the pace
for the last half-mile had been terrific. A cunning scheme came into
Redpad's brain. He raced madly up the track towards the oncoming
train. Belching forth smoke, and shaking the ground with the thunder
of its rushing wheels, it had fewer terrors for him than the hunters
behind. It was a hundred yards off--fifty--thirty--Redpad leaped aside
and let the roaring monster hurtle past him, but the hounds, running
blindly on the hot scent, never saw the danger. As Redpad leaped down
the embankment the engine-driver saw what would occur and jammed the
brakes to the groaning wheels, but it was too late. There was one
yell, which rose above the clatter of the train, and then all was
over.
Redpad struggled up the hill with his heart thudding against his ribs.
At the summit there was a cairn of stones strong enough to defy pick
and spade. Before slipping inside he looked back. The remainder of the
pack were huddled together in the field below the railway. The train
was at a standstill, and a group of men stood on the track looking at
something lemon-and-white which lay without moving at their feet.
Redpad knew that he had nothing more to fear that day. If he had been
a philosopher he might have reflected upon the saw that 'every dog has
his day'; but as he was only a fox he crept into Kiltorkan Cairn to
pant and bite thorns out of his pads.