music of the gold-crest in the fir-tops, the sweet, flute-like solo of
the meditative thrush in the darkness of the hawthorn, and the weird,
continuous rattle of the goatsucker perched moveless on an oak-bough
near the river-bend, were no longer heard when at dusk Brighteye left
his burrow and sat, watching and listening, on the little eminence above
the river's brink. Even the drone of the drowsy beetle, swinging over
the ripples of the shadowed stream or from tuft to tuft of grass beside
the woodland path, had ceased. But at times the cheery dipper still sang
from the boulder whence the vole had dived to escape the big brown owl;
and, when other birds had gone to sleep, the robin on the alder-spray
and the wren among the willow-stoles piped their glad vespers to assure
a saddened world that presently the winter's gloom would vanish before
the coming of another spring.
Like a vision of glory, which, in the first hour of some poor wanderer's
sleep, serves but to mock awhile his awakened mind with recollections of
a happy past, so had the Indian summer shone on Nature's tired heart,
and mocked, and passed away. The last red roseleaf had fluttered
silently down; the last purple sloe had fallen from its sapless stem.
A sharp November frost was succeeded by a depressing month of mist and
drizzling rain. Then the heavens opened, and for day after day, and
night after night, their torrents poured down the stony water-courses of
the hills. The river rose beyond the highest mark of summer freshets,
till the low-lying meadow above the village was converted into a lake,
and Brighteye's burrow disappeared beneath the surface of a raging
flood.
Gifted with a mysterious knowledge of Nature's moods--which all wild
animals in some degree possess--the vole had made ready for the sudden
change. On the night preceding the storm, when in the mist even the
faintest sounds seemed to gain in clearness and intensity, he had
hollowed out for himself a temporary dwelling among the roots of a
moss-grown tree on the steep slope of the wood behind the river-path,
and had carried thither all his winter supplies from the granary where
first they had been stored.
Brighteye was exposed to exceptional danger by his compulsory retirement
from the old burrow in the river-bank. Stoats and weasels were ever on
the prowl; no water-entrance afforded him immediate escape from their
relentless hostilities, and he was almost as liable to panic, if pursued
for any considerable distance on land, as were the rabbits living on the
fringe of the gravel-pit within the heart of the silent wood. If a
weasel or a stoat had entered the vole's new burrow during the period
when the flood was at its highest, only the most fortunate circumstances
could have saved its occupant. Even had he managed to flee to the river,
his plight would still have been pitiful. Unable to find security in his
former retreat, and effectually deterred by the lingering scent of his
pursuers from returning to his woodland haunts, Brighteye, a homeless,
hungry little vagabond, at first perplexed, then risking all in search
of food and rest, would inevitably have met his fate.
But neither stoat nor weasel learned of his new abode. His burrow was
high and dry in the gravelly soil under the tree-trunk; and before his
doorway, as far as a hollow at the river's verge, stretched a natural
path of rain-washed stones on which the line of his scent could never
with certainty be followed. While many of his kindred perished,
Brighteye survived this period of flood; and when the waters, having
cleansed each riverside dwelling, abated to their ordinary winter level,
he returned to his burrow in the buttress by the stakes, and once more
felt the joy of living in safety among familiar scenes.
Since the leaves had fallen, the brown rats had become fewer and still
fewer along the river, and, when the flood subsided, it might have been
found that none of these creatures remained in their summer haunts. They
had emigrated to the rick-yard near the village inn; many of the stoats
and weasels, finding provender scarce, had followed in their footsteps;
and Brighteye and his kindred, with the water-shrews, the moorhens, and
the coots, were unmolested in their wanderings both by night and day.
The vole's favourite reed-bed was now seldom visited. Besides being
inundated, it was silted so completely with gravel that to cut through
the submerged stems would have been an arduous and almost impossible
task. Luckily, in his journeys along the edge of the shallows during the
flood, Brighteye had found a sequestered pond, near an old hedgerow
dividing the wood, where tender duckweed was plentiful, and, with
delicious roots of watercress, promised him abundant food. Every evening
he stole through the shadows, climbed the leaf-strewn rabbit-track by
the hedge, and swam across the pond from a dark spot beneath some
brambles to the shelter of a gorse-bush overhanging the weeds. There he
was well protected from the owl by an impenetrable prickly roof, while
he could readily elude, by diving, any stray creature attacking him from
land.
Winter dragged slowly on its course, and, just as the first prophecy of
spring was breathed by the awakening woodlands, the warm west breezes
ceased to blow, and the bleak north wind moaned drearily among the
trees. Night after night a sheet of ice spread and thickened from the
shallows to the edge of the current, the wild ducks came down to the
river from the frost-bound moors, and great flocks of geese, whistling
loudly in the starlit sky, passed on their southward journey to the
coast.
For the first few nights Brighteye left his chamber only when acute
hunger drove him to his storehouse in the wood. Directly he had fed, he
returned home, and settled once more to sleep. At last his supplies were
exhausted, and he was forced to subsist almost entirely on the pith
beneath the bark of the willows. The pond by the hedgerow was sealed
with ice, and he suffered much from the lack of his customary food.
Half-way between his sleeping chamber and its water-entrance, a floor of
ice prevented ready access to the river; and, under this floor, a
hollow, filled with air, was gradually formed as the river receded from
the level it had reached on the first night of frost. Brighteye's only
approach to the outer world was, therefore, through the upper doorway.
All along the margin of the pool, as far as the swift water beyond the
stakes, the ice-shelf was now so high above the river that even to a
large animal like the otter it offered no landing place. Only at the
stakes, where the dark, cold stream flowed rapidly between two blocks of
ice, could Brighteye enter or leave the river. Partly because, if he
should be pursued, the swiftness of the stream was likely to lessen his
chances of escape, and partly because of a vague but ever-present
apprehension of danger, he avoided this spot. It was fortunate that he
did so; Lutra, knowing well the ways of the riverside people, often
lurked in hiding under the shelf of ice beyond the stakes, and, when she
had gone from sight, the big, gaunt trout came slyly from his refuge by
the boulder and resumed his tireless scrutiny of everything that passed
his "hover." At last a thaw set in, and Brighteye, awakening on the
second day from his noontide sleep, heard the great ice-sheet crack, and
groan, and fall into the river.
When darkness came he hurried to the water's brink, and, almost reckless
with delight, plunged headlong into the pool. He tucked his fore-paws
beneath his chin, and, with quick, free strokes of his hind-legs, dived
deep to the very bottom of the backwater. Thence he made a circle of the
little bay, and, floating up to the arch before his dwelling, sought the
inner entrance, where, however, the ice had not yet melted. He dived
once more, and gained the outer entrance in the front of the buttress,
but there, also, the ice was thick and firm. He breathed the cold, damp
air in the hollow beneath the ice, then glided out and swam to land. The
tiny specks of dirt, which, since the frost kept him from the river, had
matted his glossy fur, seemed now completely washed away, and he felt
delightfully fresh and vigorous as he sat on the grass, and licked and
brushed each hair into place. His toilet completed, he ran gaily up the
bank to his storehouse under the tree, but only to find it empty. Not in
the least disheartened, he climbed the rabbit-track, rustled over the
hedge-bank to the margin of the pond, and there, as in the nights before
the frost, feasted eagerly on duckweed and watercress. On the following
day the ice melted in the shaft below his chamber, and he was thus saved
the trouble of tunnelling a third water-passage--as a ready means of
escape from the otter and the big trout, as well as from a chance weasel
or stoat--which, if the ice had not disappeared, he surely would have
made as soon as his vigour was fully restored.
V.
THE COURAGE OF FEAR.
The dawn, with easy movement, comes across the eastern hills; the mists
roll up from steaming hollows to a cloudless sky; the windows of a
farm-house in the dingle gleam and sparkle with the light. So came the
fair, unhesitating spring; so rolled the veil of winter's gloom away; so
gleamed and sparkled with responsive greeting every tree and bush and
flower in the awakened river valley. The springs and summers of our life
are few, yet in each radiant dawn and sunrise they may, in brief, be
found.
Filled with the restlessness of springtide life--a restlessness felt by
all wild creatures, and inherited by man from far distant ages when,
depending on the hunt for his sustenance, he followed the migrations of
the beasts--Brighteye often left his retreat much earlier in the
afternoon than had been his wont, and stole along the river-paths even
while the sunshine lingered on the crest of the hill and on the ripples
by the stakes below the pool.
Prompted by an increasing feeling of loneliness and a strong desire that
one of his kindred should share with him his comfortable home, he
occupied much of his time in enlarging the upper chamber of the burrow
till it formed a snug, commodious sleeping place ceiled by the twisted
willow-roots; and, throwing the soil behind him down the shaft, he
cleared the floor till it was smooth and level. Then he boldly sallied
forth, determined to wander far in search of a mate rather than remain a
bachelor. He proceeded down-stream beside the trout-reach, and for a
long time his journey was in vain. He heard a faint plash on the surface
of the water, and at once his little heart beat fast with mingled hope
and fear; but the sound merely indicated that the last of winter's
withered oak-leaves, pushed gently aside by a swelling bud, had fallen
from the bough. Suddenly, from the ruined garden above him on the brow
of the slope, came the dread hunting cry of his old enemy, the tawny
owl. Even as the first weird note struck with far-spreading resonance on
the silence of the night, all longing and hope forsook the vole.
Realising only that he was in a strange place far from home, and exposed
to many unknown dangers, he sat as moveless as the pebbles around him,
till, from a repetition of the cry, he learned that the owl was
departing into the heart of the wood. Then, silently, he journeyed
onward. Further and still further--past the rocky shelf where he had
landed after his escape from the salmon, and into a region honeycombed
with old, deserted rat-burrows, and arched with prostrate trees and
refuse borne by flood--he ventured, his fear forgotten in the strength
of his desire.
Close beside the river's brink, as the shadows darkened, he found the
fresh scent of a female vole. He followed it eagerly, through shallow
and whirlpool and stream, to a spit of sand among some boulders, where
he met, not the reward of his labour and longing, but a jealous admirer
of the dainty lady he had sought to woo. After the manner of their kind
in such affairs, the rivals ruffled with rage, kicked and squealed as
if to declare their reckless bravery, and closed in desperate battle.
Their polished teeth cut deeply, and the sand was furrowed and pitted by
their straining feet. Several times they paused for breath, but only to
resume the fight with renewed energy. The issue was, however, at last
decided. Brighteye, lying on his back, used his powerful hind-claws with
such effect that, when he regained his footing, he was able, almost
unresisted, to get firm hold of his tired opponent, and to thrust him,
screaming with pain and baffled rage, into the pool.
The female vole had watched the combat from a recess in the bank; and,
when the victor returned from the river, she crept out trustfully to
meet him, and licked his soiled and ruffled fur. But for the moment
Brighteye was not in a responsive mood. Though his body thrilled at the
touch of her warm, soft tongue, he recognised that his first duty was to
make his conquest sure. His strength had been taxed to the utmost, and,
since his rage was expended and his tiny wounds were beginning to smart,
he feared a second encounter and the possible loss of his lady-love.
So, with simulated anger, he drove her before him along the up-stream
path and into the network of deserted run-ways by the trout-reach. There
his mood entirely changed; and soon, in simple, happy comradeship, he
led her to his home.
Brighteye was a handsome little fellow. At all times he had been careful
in his toilet, but now, pardonably vain, he fastidiously occupied every
moment of leisure in brushing and combing his long, fine, soft fur. Both
in appearance and habits he was altogether different from the
garbage-loving rat. His head was rounder and blunter than the rat's, his
feet were larger and softer, and his limbs and his tail were shorter. On
the under side his feet were of a pale pink colour, but on the upper
side they were covered, like the field-vole's, with close, stiff hair
set in regular lines from the toes to the elbows of the front limbs and
to the ankles of the hind-legs, where the long, fine fur of the body
took its place. A slight webbing crossed the toes of his hind-feet--so
slight, indeed, that it assisted him but little in swimming--and his
tiny, polished claws were plum-coloured. Except when he was listening
intently for some sign of danger, his small, round ears were almost
concealed in his thick fur. His mate was of smaller and more delicate
build--this was especially noticeable when once I saw her swim with
Brighteye through the clear water beneath the bank--and she was clad in
sombre brown and grey.
Household and similar duties soon began to claim attention in and around
the riverside dwelling. The green grass was growing rapidly under the
withered blades that arched the run-ways between the river's brink and
the woodland path; and, as the voles desired to keep these run-ways
clear, they assiduously cut off all encroaching stems and brushed them
aside. The stems dried, and in several places formed a screen beneath
which the movements of the voles were not easily discernible. Selecting
the best of the dry grass-stalks, the voles carried them home, and,
after much labour, varied with much consultation in which small
differences of opinion evidently occurred, completed, in the sleeping
chamber beneath the willow-roots, a large, round nest. The magnitude of
their labour could be easily inferred from the appearance of the nest:
each grass-blade carried thither had been bitten into dozens of
fragments, and the structure filled the entire space beyond the first of
the exposed roots, though its interior, till from frequent use it
changed its form, seemed hardly able to accommodate the female vole.
In this tight snuggery, at a time when the corncrake's nocturnal music
was first heard in the meadow by the pool, five midget water-voles,
naked and blind, were born. Brighteye listened intently to the faint,
unmistakable family noises issuing therefrom, and then, like a
thoughtful dry-nurse, went off to find for his mate a tender white root
of horse-tail grass. For several nights he was assiduous in his
attentions to the mother vole; and afterwards, his house-keeping duties
being suspended, he became a vigilant sentinel, maintaining constant
watch over the precious family within his home.
When the baby voles were about a week old, a large brown rat, that on
several occasions in the previous year had annoyed the youthful
Brighteye, returned to the pool. Wandering through the run-ways, the
monster chanced to discover the opening from the bank to Brighteye's
chamber, and, thinking that here was a place admirably suited for a
summer resort, proceeded to investigate. The vole scented him
immediately, and, though the weaker animal, climbed quickly out and with
tooth and nail fell upon the intruder. An instant later, the mother vole
appeared, and with even greater ferocity than that of her mate joined in
the keen affray in order to defend her home and family to the utmost of
her powers. But the rat possessed great strength and cruel teeth, and
his size and weight were such that for several minutes he successfully
maintained his position. With desperate efforts, the voles endeavoured
to pull the rat into the water, where, as they knew, their advantage
would be greater than on land. They succeeded at last in forcing him
over the bank, and in the pool proceeded to punish him to such an
extent--clinging to his neck by their teeth and fore-feet, while they
used their hind-claws with painful effect on his body--that, dazed by
their drastic methods and almost suffocated, he reluctantly gave up the
struggle, and floated, gasping, down the stream.
The mother vole, though she and her spouse had proved victorious, was so
unsettled by the rat's incursion, that, as a cat carries her kittens,
she carried each of her young in turn from their nest to a temporary
refuge in a clump of brambles. Still dissatisfied, she removed them
thence to a shallow depression beside one of the run-ways, where,
throughout the night, she nursed them tenderly. At daybreak she took
them back to the warmth and the comfort of the nest. Shortly afterwards,
when their eyes were opened and they were following the parent voles on
one of their customary night excursions, the mother found herself face
to face with a far more formidable antagonist than the rat.
The baby voles, like the offspring of nearly all land animals that have
gradually become aquatic in their habits, were at first strangely averse
from entering the water, and had to be taken by their parents into the
pool. There the anxious mother, firm yet gentle in her system of
education, watched their every movement, and encouraged them to follow
her about the backwaters and shallows near their home. But if either of
them showed the faintest sign of fatigue, the mother dived quietly and
lifted the tired nursling to the surface.
Late one evening, while the parent voles were busy with their work of
family training, the old cannibal trout suddenly appeared, rose quickly
at one of the youngsters swimming near the edge of the current, but,
through a slight miscalculation, failed to clutch his prize. The mother
vole, ever on the alert, plunged down, and, heedless of danger, darted
towards her enemy. For a second or two she manoeuvred to obtain a grip,
then, as she turned to avoid attack, the jaws of the trout opened wide,
and, like a steel trap, closed firmly on her tail. Maddened with rage
and pain, she raised herself quickly, clutched at the back of her
assailant, and buried her sharp, adze-shaped teeth--that could strip a
piece of willow-bark as neatly as could a highly tempered tool of
steel--in the flesh behind his gills. So sure and speedy was her action,
that she showed no sign of fatigue when she reached the surface of the
water, and the trout, his spinal column severed just behind his gills,
drifted lifelessly away.
Though the young voles, in the tunnelled buttress of the river-bank,
lived under the care of experienced parents ever ready and resolute in
their defence, and became as shy and furtive as the wood-mice dwelling
in the hollows of the hedge beside the pond, they were not always
favoured by fortune. The weakling of the family died of disease; another
of the youngsters, foraging alone in the wood, was killed by a
bloodthirsty weasel; while a third, diving to pick up a root of
water-weed, was caught by the neck in the fork of a submerged branch,
and drowned.
During the autumn and the winter the survivors remained with their
parents; the burrow was enlarged and improved by the addition of new
granaries for winter supplies, new water-entrances to facilitate escape
in times of panic, and a new, commodious sleeping chamber, strewn with
hay and withered reeds, at the end of a long tunnel extending almost
directly beneath the river-path. The supplies in the granaries were,
however, hardly needed: the winter was exceptionally mild, and the voles
were generally able to obtain duckweed and watercress for food. Often,
on my way to the ruined garden, I noticed their footprints--indistinctly
outlined on the gravel, but deep and triangular where the creatures
climbed through soft and yielding soil--along the path leading to the
pond in the pasture near the wood.
When spring came once more, and the scented primroses gleamed faintly in
the gloom beside the upper entrance to the burrow, and the corncrake,
babbling loudly, wandered through the growing grass at the foot of the
meadow-hedge, the household of the voles was broken up. The young ones
found partners, and, in homes not far from the burrow by the
willow-stoles, settled down to the usual life of the vole, a life of
happiness and yet of peril.
For still another year Brighteye's presence was familiar to me. I often
watched him as he sat at the water's edge above the buttress, or on the
stone in mid-stream, or on the half-submerged root of a tree washed into
an angle of the pool above the stakes, and as, after his usual toilet
observances, he swam thence across the reed-bed opposite the "hover"
where, in autumn, the breeding salmon lurked.
Then, for many months, I lived far from the well loved village. But one
winter evening, after a long journey, I returned. The snow, falling
rapidly, blotted out the prospect of the silent hills. The village
seemed asleep; the shops were closed for the weekly holiday; not a
footfall could be heard, not even a dog could be seen, down the long
vista of the straggling street. The white walls of the cottages, and the
white snow-drifts banked beside the irregular pavements, were in
complete contrast to the radiant summer scene on which my eyes had
lingered when I left the village. My feeling of cheerlessness was not
dispelled even by the warmth and comfort of the little inn. Oppressed by
the evidences of change, which in my disappointment were, no doubt, much
exaggerated, I left the inn, and, heedless of the piercing cold and the
driving snow, made my way towards the river. As I approached the stakes
below the pool, a golden-eye duck rose from beside the bank, and on
whistling wings flew swiftly into the gloom. I crouched in the shelter
of a holly tree, and waited and watched till the cold became
unendurable; but no other sign of life was visible; the pool was
deserted.
In summer I returned home to stay, and then, as of old, I often wandered
by the river. Evening after evening, till long after the last red glow
had faded from the western hill-tops, I lingered by the pool. The owl
sailed slowly past; the goatsucker hawked for moths about the oaks; the
trout rose to the incautious flies; the corncrake babbled loudly in the
long, lush meadow grass. A family of voles swam in and out of the
shallows opposite my hiding place; but none of the little animals
approached the buttress near the stakes. Frequently I saw their
footprints on the sandy margin, but never the footprints of Brighteye.
Somehow, somewhere, he had met relentless fate.
THE FIELD-VOLE.
I.
HIDDEN PATHWAYS IN THE GRASS.