Early one morning, it must have been almost the last week in
September, the peace of the oak-coppice was disturbed by a terrible
clamour. It began with a single deep "Ough, ough, ough!" then another
voice chimed in with rather a shriller note, and then another and then
another, and then a whole score more joined them in one thundering
chorus. And the Hind started to her feet in alarm, and led the Calf
out of the wooded valley to the open moor above. There they stood
listening; while the whole valley was filled with the tumult, as if a
hundred demons had been let loose into it. Now and again it ceased for
a moment, and all was still; then it began again with "Ough, ough,
ough!"; and it was hard to say exactly where the sound came from, for
one side of the valley said it would hold it no longer, and tossed it
over to the other, and the other said it wouldn't hold it either and
tossed it back, so that the noise kept hovering between the two in
the most bewildering way. But after a short time the clamour drew
nearer to the Hind and Calf, and presently out came one of the
Fox-cubs, with his tongue lolling and his back crooked, looking
desperately weary and woe-begone. He went on for a little distance, as
if to go away over the moor, but soon stopped and flung back with
desperation into the covert. And the Hind trotted gently away, anxious
but not alarmed. "They are not after us, my son, I think," she said.
Then the noise drew closer and closer, and out bounded a whole pack of
hounds, with bristles erect and gleaming eyes, throwing their tongues
furiously on the line of the Cub. They flashed over the scent for
fifty yards, still yelling with all their might, and then they fell
silent and spread out in all directions. Presently they recovered the
line of the Cub, and turned back into the covert yelling louder than
ever; but meanwhile two wild puppies had crossed the scent of the Hind
and Calf and started after them as fast as they could run.
Then the Hind turned and fled and the Calf with her, as he had never
fled before; but his poor little legs began speedily to tire, and he
could not have held out for much longer, when suddenly he found
himself poked down quick as thought by his mother's nose into a tuft
of fern. "Lie still, my son, till I come back," she whispered; and so
she left him. And there he lay panting, while the voices of the
puppies came closer and closer to his hiding-place; but he never
moved, for his mother had bid him lie still. Then they rushed past him
with a wild cry, for his mother had waited to lead them after herself;
and their voices died away, and all was silent. Presently he heard a
dull sound, coming drum, drum, drum, louder and louder and louder; and
then the earth began to shake, and a huge dark body seemed to be
coming almost on to the top of him, but suddenly swerved aside just in
time, and left him unharmed. Then the drumming died away, and after a
time he heard a dismal yelping such as he had once heard before; but
he did not know that it was a man and horse that had nearly galloped
on to the top of him, and would have galloped quite on the top of him
if the horse had not shied, nor that the man had given the puppies a
thrashing for running a deer when they had been told to run a fox.
He was beginning to hope that his mother would soon come back, when he
heard two voices quite unlike any that he had ever heard before, and
saw riding towards him two people. One was a man with fair hair and
blue eyes, and a face burned brown by the sun, and the other a girl, a
year or thereabout younger than the man. She, too, had bright blue
eyes, and very fair hair, and a very pretty face--at least the man
seemed to think so, for he was always looking at it--though of course
the Calf, having never seen such creatures before, could not judge if
they were pretty or ugly. They came on till they were only at a little
distance from him, and the man pulled up and, pointing to him, said
very low, "Look." And the girl whispered, "What a little duck! I wish
I could take him home with me." But the man said, "No, no, no. His
mother will come and take him home presently, and the sooner we leave
him alone the better she will be pleased." So they rode away, and he
could hear them talking as they rode, for they seemed to have a great
deal to say to each other. But what they talked about, and how they
came to stay alone on the hill when the hounds were running down in
the valley, is more than I can tell you.
Before very long his mother came back to him, and you may guess how
glad he was to see her, and how she rejoiced to see him. After looking
round to see that all was quiet, she led him away over the heather,
and then down a very steep hill-side among stunted gorse and loose
stones, hot and burning from the sun. "See, my son," she said, "this
is the first time that you have been chased by hounds, but I fear that
it may not be the last. Now, remember, no hound can run fast over this
short gorse, for his feet are soft; while we do not mind it, for our
feet are hard. And these loose stones are almost better for us than
the gorse, for our scent hardly lies on them and they hurt a hound's
feet almost as much as the gorse." So they went to the bottom of the
hill, and there was a peat-stream singing its song; but all that the
Calf could hear of it was this:--
_I carry no scent, come here, come here;_
_I am the friend of the wild Red-Deer._
The Hind led him up a shallow for a little way, and then she jumped
out on to the opposite bank and followed it upwards for a little way,
and then she jumped into the water again and went down for a full
hundred yards till they came to a comfortable shady spot, where they
both left the water and lay down together. "Now, my son," she said,
"here is another little lesson for you to learn. The song of the water
is true; it carries no scent, and no hound can follow us in it unless
he can see us. But a hound will always try the bank to find out where
we have left the water; if we enter it up the stream he will try
upward, and if we enter it down the stream he will try downward. So
always, if you have time, try to make them work upward when you mean
to go down, and downward when you mean to go up, as I have shown you
to-day." And like a wise little fellow he took care to remember what
she taught him.
They lay there together till the sun began to fall low, and then they
rose and went down to the water to cross it. And there what should
they see but a large shoal of little Fish with bright red spots, and
bands, like the marks of a finger, striping their sides from gills to
tail; for the stream was so clear that they could distinguish every
mark upon them. The little Fish seemed to be very anxious about
something, for they kept darting about, now spreading out and now all
coming together again; and the Calf could hear them whispering, "Shall
we ask her? Shall we, shall we?" And at last one little Fish rose,
with a little splash, and said in a watery little voice:
"Oh! please can you tell us how far it is to the sea?"
"Why, my little fellow," said the Hind, "surely it isn't time for you
to go to sea yet?"
"Oh, no," said the little Salmon, "for we haven't got our silver
jackets yet. But we are so looking forward to it. Will our silver
jackets come soon, do you think?"
"Not just yet, I expect," said the Hind kindly; "you must have
patience, you know, for a little time, only for a little time."
"Oh," said the little Salmon, in a sadly disappointed tone; and the
whole shoal began to move away, but almost directly came back and
began popping up to the surface of the water by dozens, saying, "Thank
you," "thank you," "thank you." For little Salmon are not only very
well-bred but very well-mannered besides, which all well-bred
creatures ought to be, but unfortunately very often are not.
So they left the little Salmon, and went their way to the cliffs that
overhang the sea, where they made their home in a great plantation of
Scotch firs, so closely cropped by wind and salt that they cannot grow
up into trees but run along the ground almost like ivy. And let me
warn you, by the way, when you ride fast through these stunted
plantations, as I hope you may many times, to grip your saddle tight
with your legs and keep your toes turned in, or you may find yourself
on the ground on the broad of your back; which will not hurt you in
the least, but may lose you your start in a good run. Well, here they
lay, and very much the Calf liked his new home; but they had not been
there for three days when one morning they heard faint sounds of a
great trampling of hoofs. It lasted for a long time, but they lay
quite still, though the Hind was very uneasy. Then suddenly they heard
the voice of hounds rise from the coverts on the cliff below them, and
a man screaming at the top of his voice. The sounds came nearer, and
then there was a great clatter of branches, and the great Stag, whom
they had known on the moor, came bounding leisurely through the
thicket. His head was thrown back and his mouth wide open; and very
proud and very terrible he looked as he cantered straight up to them.
He jerked his head impatiently at them, and said very sternly, "Off
with you! quick!" And the Hind jumped up in terror and the Calf with
her; and as they ran off they could see the old Stag lie down in their
place with his great horns laid back on his shoulders, and his chin
pressed tight to the ground.
But they had no time to lose, for the hounds were coming closer; so
they bustled for a little way through the thicket, and then the Hind
led the Calf into a path, because of course his little legs could not
keep pace with hers in the tangle of the plantation. Thus they ran on
for a little way, till they heard the sound of a horse coming towards
them, when they turned into the thicket again and lay down. And
presently a man in a red coat came trotting by with his eyes fixed on
the ground, and meeting the hounds stopped them at once. Then he
pulled out a horn, blew one single note, and trotted away with the
hounds, just three couple of them, at his heels.
But the Hind and Calf lay still; and presently they heard two more
horses coming gently along the path, and two human voices chattering
very fast. And who should ride by but the pretty girl whom he had seen
looking at him a few days before! A man was riding with her, but not
the man that he had seen with her before, for this one was dark, and
besides he was rather older; but as they passed they saw her smile at
him, and open her pretty eyes at him, in a way that seemed to please
him very well.
So they rode on till their chattering could be heard no more; and then
another man came riding by on a grey horse, quite alone, whom the Calf
recognised as the fair man that had been with the girl when first he
saw her; and very doleful and miserable he seemed to be. For he
stopped on the path opposite to them, looking down at the ground with
a troubled face, and kept flicking savagely at the heather with his
whip, till at last he flicked his poor horse on the nose by mistake,
and was obliged to pat him and tell him how sorry he was. How long he
might have stopped there no one knows; but all of a sudden the Hind
and Calf heard a wild sound of men hallooing, and the horn sounding in
quick, continuous notes. Then the man's face brightened up directly,
and he caught hold of the grey horse by the head and galloped off as
fast as he could go.
Directly after this, the Deer heard a mighty rush of hoofs all
hastening to the same spot, the sound growing gradually fainter and
fainter until all was still. But they lay fast till a white Sea-gull
flew high over their heads chirping out, "They're gone, they're gone,"
in a doleful voice; not, you know, because he was sorry that all the
men and horses were gone, but because Sea-gulls, for some reason, can
never say anything cheerfully. And then the Hind arose and led the
Calf cautiously out of the plantation to the open moor; and as they
went they saw a long string of horses, reaching for two or three
miles, toiling painfully one after the other; while far ahead the
hounds, like white specks, kept creeping on and on and on, with a
larger speck close to them which could be nothing else than a grey
horse. So the Hind led the Calf on to a quiet combe, and there they
lay down in peace.
And when the sun began to sink they saw, far away, the hounds and a
very few horses with them, returning slowly and wearily home. But
presently they were startled by voices much closer to them, and they
saw the fair man on the grey horse and the pretty girl, riding side by
side. The Hind was a little alarmed at first, but there was no
occasion for it; for the pair were riding very close together, so
close that his hand was on her horse's neck, and they seemed to be far
too much occupied with each other to think of anything else. So they
passed on; and after they were gone there came a loose horse, saddled
and bridled, but covered all over with mire, and with a stirrup
missing from the saddle. And presently he lay down and rolled over
and over till the girths parted with a crack and left the saddle on
the ground; then he got up, hung up one hind-leg in the reins, and
kicked himself free; then he lay down again, and rubbed his cheeks
against the heather until he had forced the bridle over his head; then
he gave himself a great shake to make quite sure that he had got rid
of everything, and at last he went down to the water and drank, and
wandered off grazing as happy as could be.
Last of all came a man tramping wearily over the heather, with a
stirrup in his hand; but the Calf hardly recognised him as the dark
man whom he had seen in the morning, for his hat was crushed in, and
his clothes caked with mire from head to foot. And he toiled on,
looking round him on all sides, till he caught his foot in a tussock
of grass, and fell on his nose; and what he said when he got up I
don't know, though I might guess, for he looked very cross.
So he too passed out of sight, and the sun went down, and the mist
stole over the face of the moor, and the Hind and Calf were left alone
with the music of the flowing water to sing them to sleep. But they
never saw that old Stag again.