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[Illustration: THE STORY OF A RED-DEER]
THE STORY OF A RED DEER
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE STORY OF A RED DEER
BY THE HON. J. W. FORTESCUE
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1897
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED
LONDON AND BUNGAY.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EPISTLE DEDICATORY v
CHAPTER I 1
CHAPTER II 11
CHAPTER III 24
CHAPTER IV 35
CHAPTER V 47
CHAPTER VI 63
CHAPTER VII 75
CHAPTER VIII 87
CHAPTER IX 103
CHAPTER X 117
CHAPTER XI 128
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
_To_
_MR. HUGH FORTESCUE_,
_Honoured Sir_,
_When in the spring of this present year you asked of me that I should
write you a book, I was at the first not a little troubled; for of
making of many books there is no end, and of making of good books but
small beginning; and albeit there be many heroes of our noble county
of Devon, whose lives, if worthily written, might exceed in value all
other books (saving always those that are beyond price) that might be
placed in the hands of the youth thereof for instruction and example,
yet for such a task I deemed myself all too poorly fitted; for if men
would write books to be read of the young, they must write them, not
after particular study, but from the fulness and the overflowing of
their knowledge of such things as they have dwelt withal and felt and
loved beyond all others._
_So at the last I bethought me that there was no book that I could
more profitably write for you than the life of one of our own red
deer, which, as they be of the most beautiful of all creatures to the
eye, so be also the most worthy of study by the mind for their
subtlety, their nobility and their wisdom. For though I would have you
love the stories of great men and take delight in the reading of good
books, yet I would have you take no less delight in the birds and the
beasts that share with you your home, and in the observance of their
goings out and their comings in, of their friends and of their
enemies, of their prosperities and of their perils; whereby you will
gain not only that which the great Mr. Milton (in his tract of
Education) hath called the helpful experiences of hunters, fowlers and
fishermen, but such a love of God's creatures as will make the world
the fuller of joys for you because the fuller of friends; and this not
in one wise only, for I have ever noticed that they which be fondest
of dumb creatures are given to be tenderest to their fellow-men._
_So here you have the life of a wild red deer, set down with such
poor skill as I possess, even as the deer have told it to me in many a
long ride and many a stirring chase, and as they have told it to all
others that would listen, to such great hunters of old as the noble
Count Gaston de Foix and the worthy Sieur Jacques du Fouilloux, and to
many friends, of whom some indeed are passed away, but many yet
remain, striving ever to hear more of the same story. And if my tale
be short, yet blame me not, for it is for yourself by your own
learning of the deer to enlarge and to enrich it; so that when your
nine years are waxed to threescore and nine, you may take down this
small volume and write it anew, out of the treasures of a fuller
knowledge than mine own, for the generations that shall come after you
in this our ancient and well-beloved home._
_And so not doubting of your kindly acceptance hereof, I bid you
heartily farewell, being always_
_Your very loving kinsman and faithful friend to serve you,_
_J. W. F._
_Castle Hill.
This 26th of September, 1897._
THE STORY OF A RED-DEER
CHAPTER I
Once upon a time there was a little Red-Deer Calf. You know what a
Red-Deer is, for you of all boys have been brought up to know, though
it may be that you have never seen a calf very close to you. A very
pretty little fellow he was, downy-haired and white-spotted, though as
yet his legs were rather long and his ears were rather large, for he
was still only a very few weeks old. But he did not think himself a
baby by any means, for he was an early calf and had been born in the
second week in May; and a birthday in the second week in May is the
greatest event that can occur in a Red-Deer's family.
The first thing that he remembered was that he found himself lying
very snug and warm in a patch of fern, with the most beautiful pair of
brown eyes that ever were seen gazing straight down upon him. And
soon he was aware that they were the eyes of the Hind his mother, that
they followed him whereever he went, and watched over him whatever he
did, and that, whatever he might want, she was there to provide it for
him. She always had a cosy bed ready for him in grass or fern; she
washed him clean and brushed his little coat with her tongue every
morning; and she taught him but two lessons--to lie as still as a
mouse, and to do just as he was bid. For every morning before dawn she
had to go afield to feed herself, farther than the little Calf could
travel with her; and as she had no nurse to leave in charge of him,
she just tucked him up as closely as she could, and told him to lie
still till she came back. And like a good little fellow he obeyed her;
which was well for him, for if he had taken it into his head to jump
up and look about him, some evil man or beast might have seen him and
made away with him; and then this story would never have been written.
Always just before the sun rose she came back, and every day she
seemed to love him better, and every day he felt that she was more
than the whole world to him. And morning after morning up rose the
blessed sun, and drove the mist away, and sent a little ray forward
through the fern to kiss him and bid him good-morrow. And the mist
left a drop on every blade and blossom, and said, "Good-bye, my little
fellow; I shall come back again this evening;" and the drops nodded
and sparkled and twinkled, and kept whispering, "Yes, coming back this
evening," over and over again, till the sun said that he could stand
it no longer and was obliged to dry them all up. Then rose a hum of
many wings as the flies woke up, and went out for their day's work;
but the breeze moved like a sentry over the bed of the little Calf and
said to them, "Move on, move on; this little Calf must not be
disturbed;" and they dared not disobey, for they knew that, if they
did, he was certain sooner or later to send for his big brother, the
Westerly Gale, who would blow them away with a vengeance. And all
through the day the breeze kept singing through the graceful, yielding
grass and the stubborn wiry heather; while mingled with it came
snatches of a little song from the brown peat-stream in the combe
below him. He could not make out much of it except these words, which
came over and over again:
_Mother and child come here, come here,_
_I am the friend of the Wild Red-Deer_
For some time they moved but little distant from the place where he
was born, for his legs could not yet carry him very far; but as he
grew stronger they wandered farther, till at last one day he found
himself on high ground, and saw the world that he was to live in, his
heritage of Exmoor. You know it, for you have seen it, fold upon fold
of grass and heather, slashed by deep combes and merry babbling
streams, and bounded on the one hand by the blue sky and on the other
by the blue sea. It was all his own, for he was a wild Red-Deer. And
he looked upon it with his great round eyes, and pricked his ears and
tossed his little head; for the sun was shining warm above him, and
the soft west wind blew fresh and untainted over the sea and flew
across the moor, catching up all that was sweetest on its way from
grass and gorse and heather, and bearing it straight to his nostrils.
And he threw his little nose into the air and snuffed up the full,
rich breeze; for no creature has a finer scent than a deer; and he
felt that this was life indeed.
Then they went down, leaving the song of the wind ever fainter behind
them; and in its stead rose the song of the peat-stream bidding them
come down to it. So they went; and there it was trickling down as
clear as crystal, though as yellow as amber. There was but little
water in it that fine midsummer, but it hastened on none the less over
the stones in a desperate hurry, as are all Exmoor streams, to get to
the sea. And it whispered its song as it went, but so low that they
heard no words. They passed by a little shallow, and there the Calf
saw dozens of little fry, scurrying about from stone to stone; and
just below the shallow they came to a little brown, oily pool in a
basin of rock. The Calf looked into it, and there he saw his own
little form, and behind it his mother's sweet eyes watching over him.
And then for the first time he noticed that his own coat was spotted
while his mother's was red. But while he was staring at the water a
fly suddenly came, and began to dance a reel over it to show what a
fine fellow he was, when all of a sudden a neat little body, all brown
and gold and red spots, leaped up out of the water, seized the fly in
his mouth and fell back with a splash which broke the pretty picture
all to pieces.
He shrank back, for he was rather startled, but his mother soon
comforted him. "It was only a little Trout, my dear," she said, "only
a greedy little Trout."
"But he was such a pretty little fellow," he said, for he had quite
got over his fright; "I wish he would jump again."
But the Hind looked grave. "We are never unkind to the Trout," she
said, "for they belong to the peat-stream, but you must never become
familiar with them. Fallow-Deer, I believe, treat them as equals," and
here she looked very proud, "but we do not. They are a lazy lot of
fellows whose forefathers would not take the trouble to go down to the
sea, whereby they might have grown into noble fish, with a coat as
bright as the moon on the water. But they would not, and so they have
remained small and ugly, and they never lose their spots. You must
never be rude to them, for that would be unworthy of a Red-Deer, but
you must never make great friends with them. You may talk to little
Salmon when we see them, for they lose their spots, but not to the
Trout." For the Hind was a great lady, with much pride of race, which
though it made her civil to every one, taught her to be shy of idlers
and low company.
"But, mother," said the poor little Calf, "_I've_ got a spotted coat."
"But you will lose it, my darling," she said tenderly. "No, no, my
child will be a true Red-Deer."
So they left the water, and presently stopped while his mother plucked
at a tuft of sweet grass among the heather; when to his astonishment a
little grey ball of fur came bounding out of a hole in the ground, and
another at his heels, and three more after them. And they ran round
and round and played like mad things. And presently another, far
bigger than they, came up slowly out of another hole, sat up on her
hind-legs, pricked her ears, and began to look about her. Then
catching sight of the Calf she crouched down, and began in a very
shrill voice: "Why, my dear tender heart" (for she was not only a
Rabbit, but a Devonshire Rabbit, and of course spoke broad Devon), "if
it isn't my little maister, and her ladyship too, begging your pardon,
my lady. And sweetly pretty he is, my lady; and butiful you'm looking
too, in your summer coat, so glossy as a chestnut, sure enough. And
dear heart alive, how he groweth. Why, 'twas but a few days agone that
my Bucky saith to me--I don't rightly remember how many days agone,
but I mind 'twas the very day when the old Greyhen up to Badgworthy
came to ask me if I had seen her poult--for she's lost a poult, my
lady, hath the poor soul, as your ladyship knoweth. Well, my Bucky
saith to me, 'Bunny,' saith he, 'you may depend that young maister
will grow to be so fine a stag as ever was seen on Exmoor.'" Then
without pausing an instant she called out at the top of her voice to
one of the little rabbits: "Flossy-a! Come back, little bittlehead,
come back, or the fox will catch 'ee!"
The Hind listened very graciously to this long speech, for she loved
to hear good words of her Calf, and she was just a _little_ pleased to
hear of her own good looks. But she could not help looking beautiful,
and she looked all the more so because she very seldom thought about
it. So she returned the compliment by asking after Bunny and her
family.
"Oh! thank you, my lady," answered Bunny, "I reckon we'm well. There
han't been no man this way this long time, thanks be; and there's
plenty of meat, and not too much rain. And the family's well, my lady;
look to mun playing all around, so gay; and my third family this
spring, my lady--that I should say so! No, I reckon I can't complain;
but oh, my lady! they foxes, and they weasels! They do tell me that
the old vixen from Cornham Brake hath five cubs; and I can't abide a
vixen--never could. And they weasels--they'm small, but they'm worse
than foxes. Now there's my Bucky. He can't bide home, he saith, these
fine days, but must go and lie out. I says to mun, 'Bucky,' I says,
''tis very well for the likes of her ladyship to lie out every day,
but _you_ should bide home to bury.' But no, he would go. 'Well then,
Bucky,' I says, 'I reckon that you'll grow a pair of horns like his
lordship, brow, bay, and trey, Bucky,' I says, 'and turn to bay when
the weasel's after 'ee.' And with that he layeth back his ears and
away he goeth--Flossy-a, come back, will 'ee, or I'll give you what
vor! Now there's that Flossy, my lady, so like to her father as my two
ears. She won't bide close to bury; and they do tell me that the vixen
to Cornham has moved this way. It won't do, my lady, it won't do. Oh
dear, dear, dear!" And she stopped for want of breath.
"Well, good evening, Bunny," said the Hind very kindly, "I must take
my little son home. I shall see you again very soon."
"And good evening to your ladyship," answered Bunny, "and good evening
to you, my pretty dear. Ah! you'm his lordship's son sure enough. I
mind the time----"
But the Hind had moved on out of hearing, for when once an old
Doe-Rabbit begins to talk she never stops. Then presently the Calf
said: "Mother, who is his lordship?" And she answered: "He is your
father, my darling. For the Red-Deer are lords of this forest, and he
is the lord of them all. And brow, bay, trey is the coronet that every
good Stag wears, and which you too shall wear in due time, when you
grow up." And he said no more, for to his mind there was nothing on
earth half so beautiful as she was, and he asked no better than to
grow up to be such another.