Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 44347-h.htm or 44347-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/44347/pg44347-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44347/44347-h.zip)
[Illustration]
MASTER REYNARD
The History of a Fox
From Animal Autobiographies by J. C. Tregarthen
Revised by
JANE FIELDING
New York
A. L. Chatterton Co.
Copyright, 1913
A. L. Chatterton Co.
MASTER REYNARD
The earth where I was born was far down the face of a steep cliff
and opened on a sloping shelf of turf, from the edge of which the
undercliff fell sheer to the sea. The entrance we used most was
slightly above the level of the springy sward and led by a small
tunnel to a roomy chamber where daylight never penetrated.
There on the bare dry ground the vixen laid us--my two sisters and me.
If I was like the baby cubs I have since seen, I was born blind, my
muzzle was blunt and rounded, and my coat as black as a crow, the only
white about me being a few hairs in the tag of my tiny brush. Even at
the time when I first remember what I was like my fur was still a very
dark color and bore no resemblance to the russet hue of a full-grown
fox.
This was a few weeks after my eyes were opened, when, after awaking
from our first sleep, we were in the habit of sunning ourselves just
inside the mouth of the earth. It was there, with my muzzle resting on
the vixen's flank, that I got my earliest glimpse of the world. The
turf was then almost hidden by pink flowers, over the heads of which
I could see, between two of the pinnacles that bordered the ledge,
the sea breaking on a reef where the cormorants used to gather at low
water and stand with folded or outstretched wings until the rising
tide drove them to the big white rock beyond.
So few things moved within our field of vision that every creature we
saw afforded us the keenest interest. Sometimes during days together
nothing stirred but the stems of the thrift and the surf about the
reef, for the sky was cloudless when the hot weather set in. Now and
again a red-legged crow came and perched on one of the pinnacles,
crying "Daw, daw!" until its mate joined it, and then, all too soon,
they took wing and flew away; at times a hawk or a peregrine would
glide by and break the monotony of our life.
Our narrow green was dotted by five boulders, and one of these we
could see from the earth. On this our most frequent visitor alighted.
It was an old raven, who presently dropped to the ground, walked up
to the remains of any fowl or rabbit lying near the heap of sandy soil
which my mother had scratched out when making the earth, and pecked,
pecked, pecked, until only the bones were left. Then, uttering his
curious "Cawpse, cawpse!" he would hop along the ground, flap his
big black wings, and pass out of sight. I feel sure that he saw us
watching him, for his eyes often turned our way.
One afternoon, to our astonishment, a half-grown rabbit came lopping
along, and stopped to nibble the turf at a spot barely a good spring
from the vixen. She, usually very drowsy, half opened her eyes and
turned her face towards the intruder, but she did not rise to her
feet. We youngsters were beside ourselves with excitement, but were
not allowed to scramble over her side to drive away this audacious
trespasser on our private domain. This, I think, was owing to my
mother's great anxiety on our account.
I have never known a vixen so determined that her cubs should lie
hidden by day; but then we were her first litter. She would constantly
warn us against venturing out whilst the sun was up. So particular
was she that we were not permitted to expose as much as our muzzles
outside the earth, though birds and rabbits moved about there freely.
We could not understand the restriction, and I fear that we thought it
unkind of her to confine us to a cramped, stuffy hole the summer day
through, when we longed to be gambolling about the sward or basking
in those warm corners under the boulders which retained some of their
heat even after the sun went down.
It is true that I tried hard to get my liberty. Time after time, when
I thought she had dozed off, I endeavored to squeeze between her and
the low roof. It was of no use, though I used the utmost stealth and
trod as lightly as a feather. Never once did I catch her napping. On
the few occasions when I was on the point of succeeding she seized me
between her velvety lips and put me back in my place between my two
little sisters.
Thus, by the kindest of mothers, I was disciplined in the ways of the
wild creatures, learning, by constant correction and example, that the
world outside the earth is denied to us by day, and is ours to move
and play and seek our prey in only by night.
And how short those nights were! What a weary, weary time it was,
awaiting their approach! How impatiently we watched their slow
advent! how we tingled with delight in every limb on seeing the shadow
of the high boulder creep and creep across the turf until it reached
the pinnacle that had a patch of golden lichen on it! Then, as the sun
sank behind the headland, the nearer sea became sombre, the bright
expanse beyond darkened, and at last the stars would begin to show in
the sky. By this my mother had shaken off her drowsiness, the glow
had come back into her green eyes, and, rising to her feet, she would
leave the earth. If she detected no danger, she would call us to her.
What a moment that was! the pent-up energy of hours of restraint
breaking out in such rompings and runnings after our own brushes as
I have never seen in any other young creatures. Wearying at last of
these antics and of jumping over the back of the vixen, who watched
us with loving eyes, we settled down to the game of lurk and pounce
amongst the boulders. To our great delight, the vixen often joined in
this before setting out in search of food. Her nimbleness and skill in
dodging filled us with amazement. Like a flash she was on us; there
was no avoiding her rushes, though she always avoided ours, and her
movements were as silent as the passing of a shadow when a swift cloud
crosses the sun.
I shall never forget those frolics in which she shared; they not only
were useful training for the life before us, as I afterwards realized,
but also induced in us a fondness for her so great that we could not
bear to have her out of our sight when she left us to seek the food we
needed. We would watch her as she followed the narrow track that wound
up the cliff, till from the rocks near the top she looked down to
assure herself of our safety before going inland. And that was not the
last we saw of her. Times and times I have caught sight of her bright
eyes glittering like twin stars on the summit of the ivy-covered scarp
where the magpies built.
A more affectionate mother cubs never had; but for the life of me I
could not understand why she was so anxious about our safety: I had
neither seen nor heard anything in our little world to alarm me.
Whether she had or not I do not know, but she was haunted by the
dread of something, as I could tell by the way she used to look about
her and listen when watching our gambols, and by her starting at the
slightest unusual sound. Her nervousness made me nervous, and, thus
infected by my mother's fears, I got to be afraid without in the least
knowing what there was to be afraid of.
These vague fears were on two occasions the cause of false alarms.
Once, somewhere along the cliff a dry stick snapped. That was enough.
My sisters and I fled in terror to our den, where we were joined a
minute later by the anxious vixen who had just left us for a foraging
expedition. There was no danger: it was merely a lumbering badger
which crossed our playground later on; but I have learnt since that no
wild thing can hear the snap of a twig without alarm. The badger was a
strange-looking creature: his face was white, with black stripes from
ear to muzzle; his gray hair all but swept the ground; and he walked
not lightly on his toes as we do but heavily on the soles of his feet.
At another time the whistling of harvest curlews frightened us almost
out of our lives. These were both needless terrors; but soon I was
brought face to face with evidence of a real enemy, the one, no doubt,
of whom my mother lived in such dread. It was not many days after the
coming of the whimbrels--for the moon, a mere sickle then, had not
waxed to half its full size--when two incidents occurred which proved
to me, a raw, heedless cub, that there was serious ground for fear.
Both happened in broad daylight, one close on the heels of the other.
One drowsy noon we were watching from our usual place the old raven
pecking at the hind-quarters of a rabbit, when with an awful thud
a big stone struck the turf close to him, bounded off, and rolled
towards the corner of our playground. In a twinkling, before it had
stopped rolling, we had retreated to the very end of the earth and
there lay trembling, and wondering, even in our consternation, whether
the mischievous magpies, who had set up a sudden clamor, were not the
cause of our discomfiture. When we stole out in the quiet and dusk,
my mother walked straight to the stone and smelt it, and I, being
curious, must needs follow her example. What an awesome smell it had!
The scent was unlike anything I had sniffed before, and surely not the
scent of any beast of the field! The vixen, who stood there watching
me, noted the cold shiver it sent through my young limbs and seemed by
her expressive face to say: "The creature that tainted that stone is
the cause of all my fears," and, further, if I read aright the sad
look that rose to her eyes: "He will prove your scourge as he has
proved mine." My story will tell whether it has been so.
In our games that night I avoided the corner where the stone lay, and
so did my sisters. I noticed, too, that the vixen was away in quest
of food a shorter time than usual, and did not go out a second time
as she had generally done since our appetites had grown. We had,
therefore, to satisfy our hunger on the gosling she had brought.
This we broke up ourselves with our sharp milk teeth, chattering and
quarrelling as was our wont whilst the meagre feast lasted. The vixen
contented herself with a few old bones.
The other incident was graver, causing injury to my mother. It
happened thus. She had gone out one night shortly after--for the moon
was still not quite full--but, though absent till nearly dawn, she
failed to procure any food. I remember our impatience at her long
absence and our disappointment on seeing her issue from the furze
without even a few mice in her mouth. However, there was no help for
it. The sun was reddening the sky near the horizon, so, supperless and
sullen, we curled ourselves up and fell asleep. On awakening, as we
did before our usual time, we began to cry pitifully for food, and
at length, driven to desperation by our complaints, the vixen stole
out at noon, not under cover of mist or fog but with the sun shining
in the bluest of skies. Ravenous with hunger, we crowded the mouth of
the earth, listening for the sound of her returning steps. Long, long
we harkened without catching any whisper of her approach. At last we
heard a muffled, double report, and after an interval the faint patter
of her pads. In my anxiety to see what she had brought I put my head
out and kept my eyes fixed on the run in the yellow furze through
which she always came. Never shall I forget my horror at what I saw.
Instead of her russet face with its black and white marking, her mask
below the eyes was all blood and dreadful to behold. I am ashamed to
say it, but her appearance terrified me, though I loved her as I loved
my life. She staggered into the earth, and took no more notice of us
than, if we had been strange cubs, which alarmed me more than her
dazed look. The reason of her plight was a puzzle to me, and though
the stone, with its horrid association, forced itself upon my notice
as a possible cause, I dismissed the idea that it could have done the
injury, inasmuch as it was lying where it had rolled. No; in a vague
way I attributed her state to the daylight, so great had my fear of it
became. Ah me, how ignorant I was in those far-away days!
We were free now to go and come as we listed, but, famished though we
were, not one of us attempted to leave the earth except to get a drink
of water, and we lay huddled together, looking out of the corners of
our eyes at our poor mother, as miserable and forlorn a litter of
foxes as could anywhere be found. In the depth of the night, however,
the pangs of hunger compelling us, we left the vixen, who seemed to
be asleep, and crept out. Being bigger than my sisters, I felt called
upon to take the lead, and neither of them showed any inclination to
dispute it with me. But where to take them, or how to get a supper, I
had not an idea.
I am not going to cast one word of blame on my mother for delaying
to teach us to shift for ourselves. It was out of affection that
she kept us so long to the nursery; and how could she possibly have
foreseen the calamity that had so unexpectedly disabled her and thrown
us on our own resources? And, lest a suspicion of neglect towards
us should attach to her memory, I must here say what I have not yet
mentioned--that by the death of the dog-fox, my father, the burden
of our upbringing from the day of our birth fell wholly on my little
mother. What labor and sacrifice this must have meant! After we were
weaned, how often have I seen her go without her share of the prey
that we greedy cubs might suffer no sint! When has cliff or moor
witnessed greater devotion, greater unselfishness? And now she lay
in the earth so sorely wounded as to be indifferent to our helpless
plight. I will not dwell on my feelings, but they made it difficult to
focus my thoughts on the undertaking before me.
For a minute or two I sat on my haunches near the big boulder,
considering gravely where I should go, my sisters the while
cruising restlessly up and down the turf with all the impatience of
irresponsibility, awaiting development. This to-and-fro movement of
theirs added to my bewilderment, and even the bats flitting about were
a trifle disconcerting to a cub with three routes to choose from, each
in its turn more inviting than the others.
There was the patch leading to the upper cliff; there was, I assumed,
a way down the undercliff; and there was, I knew, a track between the
two which the badger had worn. I have never been up the cliff, and
after the vixen's recent experience dared not go, though it was night,
and nothing stirred but the reeds about our drinking-place and the
leaves of the gnarled tree where the magpies built.
In the end I decided, if I could find a way, to go down the cliff.
There was a sandy cove below that I had often longed to reach in
my mother's absence, but my strength was unequal to the descent. I
determined to try to go there now. So, leading the others past the
little basin where we quenched our thirst, I brought them along the
cliff to a place where the sheer precipice changed into a succession
of ledges, down which we leaped until brought to a standstill above a
wall of nearly perpendicular rock. It was impossible to reach the flat
shelf below by leaping: we should have broken our bones; and there
we stood staring over the brink at the smooth rock beneath us, and
wondering how we could pass it.
Again my sisters looked to me to take the lead, so, putting forth all
the power of my untried claws, I began, brush first, to crawl down
a fissure that lay aslant the precipitous face of the great slab.
This I followed, partly by feeling with my hind claws where foothold
permitted a firm grip, partly by turning my face and seeing where
the easiest line of descent lay. At last I succeeded in reaching the
bottom without mishap. My sisters imitated me, coming down more easily
than I had done, probably on account of their greater skill and lesser
weight.
A creek, too wide to jump, now separated us from the sand, but, taking
to the water, we waded until we lost bottom, and then, for the first
time in our lives, by swimming crossed deep water. More bedraggled
creatures than we looked on landing it would be difficult to imagine;
but we shook ourselves from muzzle to tag, making the spray fly from
our wet coats, and set about searching for something to eat. Where
the beach met the cliff was a cave that ran a long way in and had two
lesser caves opening out of it. We explored these without finding in
either of them anything except dry seaweed and pieces of cork, so we
retraced our steps and made for the other side of the cove. There,
just beyond the ribs of a wreck that projected from the sand, we
came on a big jelly-fish. Though we should have turned up our noses
at such food in ordinary times, it was a windfall in our famished
condition, and we swallowed the quivering mass with gusto, sand and
all. Good food or bad, it filled our stomachs and stopped the gnawing
pangs of hunger.
We then clambered to the top of some rocks that stood out above the
sand, and found there a small pool of water, temptingly clear. Being
thirsty after our meal, we began to lap it. Ugh! it was nasty to the
taste, but, what was worse, the mistake was a blow to my conceit, for
I was humiliated by the reproachful glances my sisters shot at me.
To avoid them I raised my eyes, and, as I did so, caught sight of
the vixen on the cliff at the spot where we had taken to the ledges.
Then it came home to me that I had done wrong to leave the earth
without her, and, fearing she would be angry, I hid myself amongst
the rocks, as did my sisters. The vixen, usually quick as lightning
in her movements, came but very slowly down the cliff on the line
we had taken, and as slowly crossed the sand to the cave. This she
entered, and for a time was lost to view. My inclination nearly led me
to quit my hiding-place and go after her; but again fear checked me,
and I remained where I was. On leaving the cave, she with difficulty
followed our trail to the spot where we had eaten the jelly-fish, and,
not seeing us, seemed to lose heart, for she sank to the ground and
called us with a most piteous cry, which at once drew us to her side.
I can see even now the delight on her poor face as we bounded towards
her across the sand that separated us. After licking us with her
swollen tongue, she led us up the cliff by a much easier path than the
one we had followed in descending, and we soon reached the level of
our earth. We proceeded towards it in single file by the narrowest of
paths, passing our usual drinking-place, where for a reason I am going
to explain, the supply was so scanty that we found barely enough water
to quench our thirst. The vixen was curled up at the mouth of the den
when we reached it, and we had to climb over her back to get to our
sleeping-places.
A short period free from troubles followed, during which my mother
rapidly recovered. Nevertheless, the wounds on her face were barely
healed when there befell one of the greatest calamities of my eventful
life--a calamity that was near putting an end to us all.
Before attempting to describe it, I must mention the sufferings we
endured in the days following our adventure down the cliff, through
the gradual drying up of the water that supplied our drinking-place.
Night after night, when we repaired to the basin that the falling
water had hollowed in the rock, I had noticed that the stream, which
came from some hidden source beneath a pile of boulders, got smaller
and smaller, and, after the very hot weather set in, dwindled to
a mere trickle. To such a thin thread did it shrink that from the
mouth of the earth, which was not many yards away, we could no longer
hear it splashing into the basin. Now and then, especially when some
animal, generally the badger, had been there before us, we were driven
to such an extremity as to be compelled to lick the dew off the turf
to cool our tongues until the water had collected again.
It was a terrible time. To this day we speak of the year of my birth
as the Dry Year, and indeed I, who was a May fox, was nearly three
moons old before I saw rain, which fell on the afternoon of the day
when the curlews' whistling scared us. I remember, though not as
vividly as the rainbow seen that day, the embrowned turf of our
playground being dotted with slugs which the downpour had enticed out
of the sunless crevices of the rocks.
The rain had ceased before nightfall, and the following day the sky,
which had been black and lowering, became as cloudless as before,
whilst the heat, previously intense, became well-nigh unbearable.
Hour after hour we lay in the deep shade of the bracken fronds at
the entrance, panting for breath and longing for the water we were
not allowed to get before dusk. At the first sign of twilight,
and even whilst the after-glow suffused the sky, we rushed to the
drinking-place, our three masks completely filling the basin, which
we soon lapped dry. Almost as refreshing as the water we swallowed
was the cool spray--despite the rain it was no more--that fell on our
heads from the lip of the rock above.
For several days from dawn to dusk we thus endured the agony of
parching thirst, till at last, when our tongues lolled out, and one of
my sisters showed signs of utter exhaustion, the vixen so far yielded
to our entreaties as to permit us to slink out, one by one, to drink.
Unfortunately we could not reach the reeds about the water without
exposing ourselves to the eyes of the magpies overhead. On spying
us they set up such a clamor that every bird and beast for a great
distance along the cliffs must have known that a fox was moving, and
rejoiced at our misfortune.
[Illustration: "THESE BLACK AND WHITE PESTS."]
We have many enemies, but none whom we despise so much as magpies,
crows, and jays. Their treatment of us is as unprovoked as it is
insulting. We have never injured them, and yet, as I shall tell later,
the pariahs of the wild, that gorge on our unburied kills, seek every
opportunity of betraying us.
Those cliff magpies, at whose tongues we suffered such indignities,
must have spent their days in watching our movements. After my sisters
had had their drink, it took hours for the basin to refill, yet as
soon as my muzzle projected beyond the bracken when I went to take my
turn, the hateful wretches would cry out, "There he is!"
I never grew indifferent to this daily annoyance, and in a rage I used
to lap up what water there was in choking haste, so as to escape the
mobbing of these black and white pests who flew just beyond my reach,
and at times even brushed with their wings the tops of the tall reeds
about the basin.
We were not the only sufferers from the drought. Indeed everything
suffered, and most of all perhaps the herbage. The thrift and white
campion that covered the ledges, the ferns that found root-hold in the
crannies and crevices of the rocks, and the stone-crop and lichens
growing on the rocks themselves, drooped and withered; and at last
the boggy ground above the drinking-place caked and dried, so that
the reeds turned yellow, and rattled rather than swished when the
night wind stirred them. Under the scorching sun the thread of water
shrank and shrank until it dripped drop by drop, and finally dried up
altogether. At my last visit to the drinking-place the smooth basin
was hot with the fierce rays, and the moss about the edge of the
rock above was nearly as moistureless as the crinkled lichen on the
pinnacles.
In these conditions it was impossible to remain where we were, and
that night my mother reluctantly decided to abandon our home and to
lead us up the cliff. Would that she had taken us the moment the stars
showed, instead of waiting until deep night; for the delay nearly
proved fatal to us all. A fox's life is so short that he cannot forget
even the groundless scares his fears make him the victim of, so it
is not to be wondered at that the events of the night I am about to
describe are almost as vivid to me still as at the time they happened.
My sisters had returned once more from the dried-up basin to which
they had been some five or six times since sunset, and joined me where
I lay near the mouth of the earth, waiting for the dew to fall and
listening for the footsteps of the vixen who had gone to get ready the
new lair. It was a beautiful night--the sea calm, and the surf about
the reef alight with phosphorescence, whilst the furze-bushes and the
clump of brambles near the reeds were dotted with glow-worms. There
was even a solitary one on the drooping bracken above the entrance.
A wind of summer strength stirred the withered herbage and murmured
around the precipitous crags above our heads, but, save the boom from
the great cave below when the tide rose, all was still. Suddenly,
without warning of any kind, there came a flash of light from the
cliffs above the sandy cove where we had eaten the jelly-fish. It died
away and then returned, more brightly than before. It was not nearly
so fierce as the lines of fire I had seen zigzagging the black sky
on the afternoon of the heavy rain, nor was there any thunder with
it as then, but there was a strange, crackling noise, as of animals
crunching bones.
Immediately flames leapt in great tongues from the brambly thicket
beyond the reeds. These drove us to the den; and there we crouched
listening to the awful sound, which grew louder and louder. Soon a
faint glare lit up a part of the earth as far in as the spot where two
rocks narrowed the tunnel. Before this I was on the point of bolting;
but now fear seized my limbs and I could not rise, could only crouch
closer and closer to the earth like my sisters. Whilst we lay there
huddled together and crying out for the vixen she returned, darkening
the tunnel as she came towards us. Scarcely had she joined us when an
evil-smelling fog rolled in, causing us to keep our muzzles close to
the ground. Then the fire swept past the earth, lighting it up to the
end where we lay. Panic-stricken though I was, I remember noticing how
the smooth floor gleamed, and how curiously the light glowed on the
vixen's fur. Suddenly the heat became less intense, and a current of
fresh air entering the earth revived us as we lay panting at the point
of suffocation.
The crackling and roar of the flames had long died away before we
dared to quit our sanctuary, and when at last we ventured to the mouth
of the earth, what a sight met our gaze! Our playground was charred,
except for a narrow strip near its edge, and towards this a thin line
of fire moved slowly, blotting out the criss-cross tracks we had worn
between the boulders. A ring of sparks encircled the raven's perch,
and crept higher and higher, consuming the lichen, and leaving bare
rock in its train; where the brambles had stood was a heap of glowing
ash; grasses and reeds had disappeared; in short, the place which had
been our little world and of which we knew every blade and spray, was
as nearly past recognition as a corn-field after harvest. Away towards
the west great ruddy flames leapt from the furze brake and lit up sky
and sea and headland with such a lurid light as I had never seen;
whilst on the near slopes a hundred smaller fires flickered and died,
to blaze again and re-illuminate the great piles of bared rock. Sparks
falling from above showed that the ivy round the home of the magpies
had not escaped; and as the birds had mobbed me most unmercifully that
very day, I rejoiced in their misfortune.
The vixen, satisfied at last that she might venture forth, took up
my puny sister, who was then unable to stand, and set out for the
steep path by which she usually reached the top of the cliff. My other
sister and I trod closely on her heels as she picked her way over the
heated ground and skirted the glowing remains of the furze-bushes. In
the ascent my pads were rather badly burnt and my fore-legs singed
by a fire which suddenly broke out in some smouldering heather into
which they sank. The glimpse I got of the face of the precipice showed
that the ivy had lost all its leaves, the bared stems standing out
plainly against the black fissures that seamed the great wall of rock
besprinkled with sparks which in their fall resembled shooting stars.
When we reached the summit we could hear the magpies calling out,
but, to do them justice, they were not mobbing us then. Once beyond
the blackened ground we ranged up one on each side of the vixen, and
after crossing fields of stubble and turnips and getting far beyond
the reek of the burning, we caught the scene of the brook for which
she was making. We struck it where it wound through marshy ground on
the outskirts of a furze brake, and in a trice were up to our bellies
in the delicious cool stream with our tongues hard at work. The water
was cold and sweet; there was plenty of it, and we lapped and lapped
as long as we could take in a drop. In all my life I never again
enjoyed a drink like that, and the mud that stuck to my legs seemed to
soothe the pain of the burns.
My little sister was able to follow us now without assistance, but the
vixen, who was exhausted with carrying her so far, went at a walking
pace between the stems of the furze and kept looking back to see that
she was keeping up with us, though she took no notice whatever of my
other sister who was going on three legs, or of myself whose poor feet
were so tender that I hardly dared touch the ground.
Emerging from the furze we came upon a circle of turf, where we
caught sight of at least a dozen rabbits scurrying to the holes that
honey-combed the ground at the foot of a high cairn. One of these had
been enlarged, as the heap of fresh earth showed, and into it the
vixen led us to a dry and sweet-smelling den, where she left us, to
procure food. In there it seemed as still as death to us who had had
the roar of the sea in our ears all our lives, but the lair was very
comfortable, and roomy enough for us to stand side by side whilst
the vixen distributed the rabbit she presently brought us. We found,
too, on curling ourselves up, that, big as we were, we could lie close
together without trespassing on the tunnel as we had latterly done in
the cliff earth. So, as we were thoroughly weary, we soon forgot the
dangers we had passed and fell asleep, our mother lying between us and
the opening, as was her invariable custom.
I was startled out of my sleep by a stamping overhead, caused by the
rabbits in the heart of whose burrow we were lying. The noise, which
broke out again and again just as I was on the point of dropping
off, irritated me so much that at last I got on my hind-legs, thrust
my muzzle into the hole in the roof, and breathed loudly through
my nostrils. This snorting was not without result, for after the
stampede that followed there was quiet for a long time. Nevertheless
the tiresome creatures had spoilt my day's rest and, try as I might,
I could not doze off again. My sisters slept through it all, and the
vixen showed no sign of being disturbed, except that she half opened
her eyes when the rabbits scampered over the spot where she lay.
It was very early, as I could tell by the scent of the furze that
stole along the tunnel and almost overpowered the flavor of rabbit,
from which the den was never quite free. To pass the weary hours I
licked the mud off my legs, which still smarted, and, whilst I did
so, thought of our narrow escape, and wondered in a vague way whether
fires were to be numbered amongst the regular troubles of a fox's life.
At length the vixen roused herself, and when the coolness and smell of
the air warned her that the sun had set, she rose and led us forth,
not for our usual gambols, but, as it proved, for our first lesson
in hunting. I suspected something unusual was afoot the moment she
ordered us to follow her across the stream, whither she had taken us
to drink; and the further we got from the earth, the more excited
I grew at the prospect of the adventures before us. It was most
exhilarating to be wandering over the broad, high country, which, in
comparison with our ledge at the foot of the precipice, seemed like
the roof of the world. For nights and nights past I had yearned to
accompany my mother on her rounds, and the unexpected gratification of
my intense longing thrilled every fibre of my being. So great was my
excitement that I quite forgot not only a loose milk tooth that had
been worrying me, but even the tenderness of my poor pads, on which I
had with difficulty limped to the drinking-place.
The vixen ran steadily some dozen paces in front, and side by side
we cubs followed in her train, noiselessly as shadows. It fascinated
me to watch her lissom movements as she stole along, and to note the
ripples that ruffled her smooth coat when she crossed the broken
ground. We had passed over one hill and were breasting the next beyond
before I began to wonder what we were going to see and how soon, and
then, without warning, she reared on her hind-legs, listened with ears
erect, and pounced on something in a patch of rushes, in which she
buried her long muzzle. The next instant she came trotting back to my
little sister, and gave her the mouse she held between her lips. Her
quick hearing had detected its movements in the undergrowth.
But mousing was apparently not the chief business of the night, for,
without dwelling, she stepped across the dried-up runnel which the
rushes fringed, and headed for the craggy ridge above. In her progress
up the steep slope she kept scanning the ground to right and left of
the trail as if she expected at any moment to see the prey she was in
search of, and when near the crest, she crouched and crawled forward
with the utmost caution. With breathless excitement we wormed our
bodies along in her wake, as though we had been trained to it. But we
had not; we were imitating her instinctively, and kept our distance as
faithfully as the shadow of her brush that darkened the moonlit ground
in front of us.
On reaching the ridge I could not help shifting my gaze to glance
at the wide marshland below us, so strikingly unlike any scene my
young eyes had looked on. Here and there on the level expanse sheets
of water and a winding stream shone like silver, and from the great
reed-beds about them came a soft voice like the murmur of waves on a
distant beach. This was the expression of a stolen instant, and no
sooner were my eyes back on the vixen than she sank to the ground as
though she had suddenly lost the use of her legs. We did the same.
This pleased her, as I could tell by the expression of satisfaction
in the eager face which she turned slowly towards us and as slowly
withdrew, brushing aside as she did so the dry bents that rose a good
way up her long ears.
At first I wondered what she had found, as the only living
things visible to me were some rabbits far below on the lip of a
funnel-shaped warren. But presently over her head I saw the tips of
the ears of a rabbit quite close to us, and my heart began to thump
as it had perhaps never done before. The sight of the living prey had
awoke in me the dormant spirit of the hunter that has hardly slumbered
since; and not in me only--my sisters were evidently as excited as I
was, for their brushes were lashing mine as wildly as mine did theirs.
The rabbit meanwhile winded danger and, as its nostrils showed, kept
sniffing the air to try and locate it. When it succeeded, its eyes
fell, not on a stealthy enemy thirsting for its blood but--so sudden
was the vixen's change of attitude and demeanor--on a harmless,
playful fox rolling on her back as I had seen her roll in utter
guilelessness a hundred times. The rabbit started, as well it might,
and I expected to see it dive into its hole; but, marvellous to
relate, instead of seeking safety it regained its composure and
resumed its nibbling on an almost bare patch, towards which the
assumed frolics of the vixen and the slant of the ground were leading
her. Then, with one of the lightning-like rushes which made her look
a blurred mass even to our quick eyes, she was on it, and when she
faced us the rabbit's head and hind-quarters hung limp as she held it
across her mouth.
On witnessing the kill we cubs jumped to our feet, eager to partake of
the first course of our supper. But when we attempted to take it from
her mouth, to our amazement the vixen snarled at us as she had never
done before. My little sister, to whom she had always been so tender,
was the last to try, and, incredible as it may seem, the vixen turned
on her like a fury.
Nothing but my desire to record faithfully the impressions of that
time would make one own that I considered my mother unnatural and
cruel in denying food to the weakling among her cubs. If the water
which had cooled our parched throats the night before scalded us
we should not have been so taken aback as by this sudden change of
conduct on her part. It was simply incomprehensible. Had something
outside our knowledge caused her to turn against us? If not, what did
she mean by her harshness?
It did occur to me that this unaccountable behavior might be feigned,
and that presently she would drop the rabbit at our feet and be again
the affectionate mother she had always been. Indeed, I watched her
out of the corners of my eyes from the spot to which I had retired,
expecting to see her snarl relax into a grin. But in this I was
disappointed, for, on reaching a ledge below, to which we followed
her at a respectful distance, she devoured every bit of the luscious
morsel before our eyes, though she knew well enough that we were
ravenously hungry. The delicious smell of the hot entrails which the
wind brought us put the keenest edge on my appetite--already sharp
set by the previous night's shortness--and with the strong craving to
satisfy it came the novel thought of satisfying it with a rabbit of
my own catching. The bunnies were still playing about on the edge of
the warren, and whilst the vixen kept shifting her gaze from them to
me, licking her blood-stained lips, the lesson she wished to teach
suddenly flashed upon me, and the explanation of her conduct was
complete. She was saying as plainly as could be: "There is your prey.
I have shown you how to catch it. Go and get your own supper." I
required no further prompting. Then and there I began my first stalk
under the eyes of all I loved in the world.
Summoning my untried powers, I wormed myself over the ground towards
a single bush that screened me from the observation of most of the
rabbits. Its shelter gained, I looked back and up to where three pairs
of green eyes regarded my every movement, and then peeped with the
utmost caution round the corner of the furze towards my prey. The
bunnies were all there and thoroughly alert, and so disconcerting did
I find their united gaze that I drew my head back to consider the
situation. When I peeped again half their number showed their white
scuts and went to ground, and the other half seemed prepared to follow
their example.
Satisfied that direct approach was out of the question, I walked
aslant the slope towards a piece of flat ground on a level with the
warren, as though I were engaged on some engrossing pursuit in that
direction. As I went I did not even squint at the rabbits, though it
cost me an effort to look straight before my muzzle. My simulated
detachment from my prey must, I felt sure, have excited the admiration
of my dear mother, and so must the thoroughness with which I gave
myself over to the antics that took me at first farther and farther
away and then nearer and nearer to the few remaining rabbits, whose
curiosity had got the better of their fears. The silly creatures were
quite taken in by the capers I cut, and one at least realized his
danger too late, for ere he could reach his hole I snapped him up and
bore him up the hill towards the vixen.
Insignificant as the incident appears to me now, it was one of the
greatest events of my life. Every fox is proud of his first skill,
and I was no little elated by mine. Indeed, I felt I must make some
sort of demonstration in honor of the occasion. Imagine me, then, a
handsome young dog-fox, head erect, ears pricked, brush on end and
well fluffed out, trotting along on the very tips of my toes with
my first rabbit between my jaws, and you have a picture of me as I
swaggered over the bare turf in the moonlight, before the eyes of my
admiring mother and jealous sisters. I shall never forget the pride I
felt nor the inner voice that kept whispering, "You are able to get
your own living now, my boy, but don't be too highly elated!"
I got on rapidly after this my first experience. How could I do
otherwise, with such a clever and painstaking little mother as I had
to instruct me in the wiles and ways of our craft? In a short time I
became expert not only in catching young rabbits, rats, moles, and
mice, but in picking up the feathered prey that frequented fen and
hillside.
Of course I met with many disappointments; pheasants, partridges and
wild-duck often escaped my clutches when I already considered them
mine. My failures were due chiefly to inexperience, but in a measure
also to the intrusion of other foragers, who turned up at critical
moments and ended for me the work of hours. On one occasion a hunted
hare passed between me and a covey of partridges I was drawing up to;
but the birds, who squatted in a circle with their heads outwards,
as their custom is, did not rise until a pack of stoats came along
on his line, and with their noisy yelpings broke the silence of the
roosting-place. On another, the sudden appearance of a poaching cat
defrauded me of a pheasant on the edge of the pine-wood; but that
night I killed before the darkness faded, and had buried what I could
not eat before the vixen raised the "dawn" cry.
After good hunting we used to romp home together over the furze-dotted
land or across the fen, and from sheer high spirits vixen and cubs
alike used to bound over the bushes or clumps of rushes and sags
across our path. Week after week nothing happened to disturb our peace
or excite our fears, but, for all our apparent security, we were never
abroad at sunrise unless a thick fog lay over the land.
In those expeditions I used latterly to separate myself from the vixen
on reaching the hunting-ground and seek my prey alone, rejoining her
when she sounded the call to leave the trail or ambuscade. In this way
I became more and more independent, and at times would turn a deaf
ear to her summons. Twice I was so belated that the pools by the way
reflected the rosy fore-glow of the dreaded sun as I scurried past
them.
I may have spent a month in the vixen's company before I could make
up my mind to shake off her authority and forage where I pleased. She
was conscious that I chafed at the restraint which she considered
necessary, and was no doubt prepared for the serious step I had
resolved on. Nevertheless, when the night came, it was not without a
sense of shame at breaking away from one who had been so tender and
forbearing that I sidled past her where she sat outside the earth
playing with my sisters. I had rather expected she would exercise
her authority and call me back. Though she stopped her gambols and
looked wistfully at me, she made no protest, and I passed on my way
unchallenged; but I was glad when the bushes hid me from her sight
and from the questioning eyes of my sisters, who seemed very much
astounded at my going off alone.
Soon after crossing the stream I began to rehearse the plan I had
surreptitiously formed in the earth. As it promised success, I decided
to go through with it, though a darker night would have suited my
purpose better. Clouds indeed there were, but white and fleecy, only
slightly veiling the light of the full moon, which shone very brightly
as it crossed the deep blue spaces between. The self-confidence I
felt in the earth had been oozing out of me as I threaded my lonely
way through brake and reed-bed, but it returned when, after trotting
across the quaking bog that trembled under my light steps like a
jelly-fish, I came at last in sight of the pool where I intended to
lie in wait for wild-fowl.
Although I had taken a short cut over the treacherous morass to
forestall the duck, I feared that they might have settled in the water
before I reached my ambush, and it was with eager eyes that I scanned
the surface from a clump of rushes on a finger of land that jutted a
little way into the pool. All was well! Not a bird floated on the open
water between the beds of lilies or in the lanes between the floating
grasses. The only things that caught my eye were a moorhen and the
trail of light she left behind her as she swam the gloomy water, which
was shadowed by some alders.
Crossing the baked and cracked mud left exposed by the sunken pool,
I entered the water, swam over to the islet, and secreted myself on
the margin of a tiny creek just above a line of stranded feathers.
There, screened from the keen eyes of flighting wild-fowl, I began my
vigil with all the hope that waits on inexperience. Crouching beneath
my ambush, I heard a few distant cries, which came, I should think,
from birds feeding on the edge of the tide. So faint were they as to
be audible only when the fitful breeze lulled and the tall, feathery
reeds about the pool ceased rustling.
Presently, from the water between two lily-beds a silvery fish jumped
thrice in quick succession, as if pursued by some invisible foe; of
the latter I saw no sign, unless its presence was indicated by a swirl
in the water near where the fish fell. The long silence which followed
was broken at last by a swish of wings--an inspiriting sound after
the tedious wait--and some wild-fowl wheeled in a wide circle above
my head before settling on one of the many pools that glistened on
the wide marshland below them. As I lost the sound, I feared that the
birds had dropped in elsewhere, but round they came again, and, with a
splash that made me tingle with excitement, a mallard and three ducks
alighted on the water midway between the islet and the reeds. They
were evidently ill at ease, though they seemed to me so secure that I
could not imagine what they could be so suspicious of--certainly not
of the peregrine that harassed them at sunrise; and at the time I knew
nothing of the monster pike that tenanted the pool, and took toll of
feather as well as of fin. Could it be that they had got some inkling
of my presence? I crouched absolutely motionless whilst their restless
eyes searched the tangle on the island, and when they stared at the
patch where I was hiding I scarcely dared to breathe.
Before settling down to feed they cruised restlessly up and down,
and even whilst they gobbled the green weed they kept looking so
persistently my way that I began to think they could scent me, though
they had only bills for noses. I had marked the mallard for my prey.
He was a plump bird, and I had to keep my tongue from licking my
lips at the prospect of the feast; for he was very tempting to an
appetitie sated of rabbit, and by this time I knew every feather of
the plumage that covered his juicy flesh. Just then it vexed me to
hear the vixen's call, far off though it was, as I feared she might
hit my trail, follow it, and spoil my hunting. Her yapping caused all
four birds to raise their heads and listen, but they showed no further
sign of alarm, as every creature of the wild knows that dead silence
precedes the kill and that it need have no dread of a noisy fox.
The ducks were near enough now for me to see the least movement of
the mallard's eyes, the white of which, even when his head was down,
showed that he was in deadly fear of something. "Fool!" thought I,
"eat your supper in peace; but when you land on the mud of the creek,
where lie yesternight's imprints of your webbed feet, then look about
you."
[Illustration: "HIS BEADY EYES GLEAMED."]
And yet I was mistaken; at that instant an enemy was within a few
yards of him. I had warning of its approach, for I saw the moonlight
catch a heave of the water, just as from the cliff I had seen it
catch the glassy surface of the curling wave; but in my inexperience
I never dreamt that the glint could be caused by a rival for the
bird. I was now to learn better, as with a great flapping of wings and
a loud quack the mallard disappeared below the surface. I remember
nothing about the three ducks for I nearly jumped out of my skin; and
my stupefaction was complete when I saw a big animal appear at the
surface and leave the water with the mallard in his mouth.