that a strange calm, presaging sudden change of weather, brooded over
the solemn wood. The silence was unbroken until twilight, when the
starlings settled in and mingled their vespers with the soughing of
the rising wind. Then when I left my lair, threaded the boles of the
pines and came to the beeches, the leaves crackled under foot, a sign
of cold, dry weather; but I did not feel the keen wind until I gained
the shoulder of the ridge to the north, which is crowned by the tor.
At midnight on the moors the cold became intense; when, near dawn,
I crossed the upland road which since some heavy rains had been a
quagmire, I found it hard as rock, and the backwater of the pool above
the ford was frozen to the edge of the current. On the marshy ground
below, the cracking of the ice under my tread disturbed several snipe;
and between the alders and my own lair two woodcock got up, which,
from their weary flight, I should say had only just arrived.
My snug kennel under the furze looked doubly snug that cold, hard
dawn; and whatever privations the future might have in store, there
was at least every token of present abundance.
"The long-bills are pretty plentiful," thought I, as I curled up on my
dry couch. "Hungry times are over; there will be food galore now."
I slept through the day and sought the fen at nightfall, to find
the pool and the mere, or rather those parts of them that remained
unfrozen, crowded with wild-fowl. Strangers though we were to one
another, they proved very wary and difficult of approach, despite the
curiosity my appearance aroused in them.
So matters stood for some time, during which I cared to remain out
only part of the night; but when my coat got thick enough to resist
the piercing cold I hunted far and late, seldom reaching my kennel
before the sun showed red above the sea.
During the period of dry frost I fared well enough; but a snow-storm
which occurred at the time of the new moon and lasted for two days and
two nights, rendered foraging difficult, and made me feel a stranger
in my own country. Except in rudest outline, it was no longer like
itself. The fen was a great white plain, broken by a big and a small
pool and the winding stream that fed them. In place of the sombre
array of pines under the tor, usually as marked a feature in our
landscape as were the great reed-beds themselves, a vast slope of snow
met the eye; and the tor might have been a fleecy cloud in the leaden
sky. Strangest of all was the aspect of the dunes, which looked like
great waves of pure foam arrested in their roll.
Many a time I scanned this white undulating waste for the hare that
frequented the sand-hills, hoping to mark him in a position where it
would be possible to stalk him. I say, "possible" because of the great
powdery drifts that rose like new dunes across my hidden trails and
barred my progress in every direction. Moreover, each fall of snow
caused me fresh trouble; for it stultified the knowledge I had gained,
and compelled me to find new ways to my hunting grounds.
To add to my difficulties, soon only a few landmarks were left, and
these hard to recognize--horseshoe of thatch about the short chimney
was all there was to show the position of the cottage, and it was hard
to believe that the snow-laden elms were the same trees whose golden
leafage but a month before had cast so deep a shadow on the farmyard
where the cock pheasant had been feeding with the fowls. On the edge
of the ploughed field next the mowhay were the tracks made by the two
wary rabbits whose home was under the big rick, and the few partridges
which had escaped our jaws kept near the rubbing post in the middle of
the field.
But I recall that fallow best by the course I had across it after the
little jack-hare, who led me such a round as I have seldom gone. I
lost sight of him in the field beyond the orchard, where the turnips
lay in heaps, but followed his line up and down the hill to the head
of the fen, across which he went almost in the teeth of a raging
blizzard. He had ringed the bulrushes in the heart of the bog before
making one of his baffling sidelong leaps, and then set his face for
the foot-hills under my lair. The scent was hot amongst the scattered
furze-bushes through which he led me, and so heavily clogged were
his feet with snow that I felt sure I should overtake him before he
reached the tamarisks on the other side of the hill; but I underrated
his endurance. I followed him to the waste of sand-hills, only to find
that he had disappeared in a drift at the foot of the highest dune. In
his desperation--for I was all but on him--he must have plunged into
this and worked his way far in, as I could not find him, though I dug
and dug into the smothering mass in every direction. Nothing remained
but to make my weary way home through the blinding, driving storm.
There are more blanks than prizes in the life of even a clever fox.
The scent lay wonderfully that night, and I followed it as easily
as I had shortly before followed the scent of a bittern across the
snow between the reed-bed and the bulrushes. It was in this isolated
clump that the otters so often laid up before the frost hardened the
trembling mass environing it; but now I noticed that some of these
wily creatures had beaten a deep track across the narrow neck of the
big bend of the river, though I did not once get a glimpse of them.
I must pass over much detail of the varying fortunes of that eventful
time to speak of the mis-adventures that befell me on an expedition
when I unwittingly exposed myself to a great danger, and was lucky to
escape with my life. I had risen from my kennel, stretched myself,
sniffed the biting wind, listened, shaken my thick coat, and then, as
was my wont since giving up my journeys to the hills, first visited
the few remaining bits of boggy ground in sheltered places of the
brake, with the hope of picking up one of the woodcock that resorted
there to feed. I approached one spot after another against the wind
and with the utmost stealth; but, despite my extreme caution, I
succeeded only in flushing the birds, so wary had they become through
being harassed--chiefly, I believe, by young cubs.
After lapping some water below a cascade hung with icicles, I left
the soft margin of the rapid runnel which had been riddled by the
bills of the woodcock and, emerging from the furze, stole down to the
thicket of blackthorns. But my nose told me a fox had been there
already; so I at once made for my favorite pool, whence the cries of
various wild-fowl reached my ears. I knew that they consisted of duck,
widgeon, and teal; but from the noise they made, I judged them to be
more numerous than usual, and so they proved.
Through a gap in the reeds I gazed once and again at the tantalizing
sight. What more maddening spectacle for a hungry fox than that of
game beyond reach? I ransacked my brain to discover a way to get at
them. It was beyond my powers. The edge of the acre of water that
remained open was a score of yards from the reeds and scarcely less
from the island. There was only one course practicable, to disturb the
birds and to take up a hidden position from which I should be within
striking distance of the pool. The snowy surface which ringed them in
denied concealment save at one point, and that was much too far from
the water to suit my methods, for the scanty bit of cover was too long
springs from the brink of the ice. Any attempt to rush the birds from
there seemed vain. Many a time since the frost set in I had stood and
weighed the chances it offered, only to scorn the idea of using it
for an ambuscade. To-night, somehow--was it because of my ravenous
hunger?--the clump of sags, though weighed down by the snow, did not
look quite so hopeless as before the last fall; and I decided to
accept its hard conditions and give it a trial. It was an exasperating
thing to be obliged to scare the birds; but there was no help for it,
and so forward I went.
My forefoot was hardly through the fringe of reeds when a mallard saw
me and gave the alarm. In an instant a hundred pairs of eyes were
turned on me; and, as if fascinated by the sight of so fine a fox,
their owners did not take wing until I was nearly half-way across
the snow. Then, with a loud "quar, quar, quar" from the ducks, all
the birds rose in a confused company, the noise of their wing-beats
drowning for a moment the loud rustling of the swaying reeds. I
watched them divide into their several skeins, which then wheeled
above my head and flew seawards, the widgeon in the van.
Before seeking my ambush, I crossed the ice to the other side of the
pool, in the hope of finding a disabled bird in the thick cover, but
saw nothing save a few dead starlings that had fallen from their
roosting perches on the reeds. The flesh of starlings is nearly as
loathsome to me as the flesh of carrion-feeding birds; so I left
their stark bodies lying there, and trotted over the wide stretch of
snow to the island. When crossing, I noticed a small hole in the ice.
It had been made and kept open by otters that they might come there
to breathe whilst fishing; but I did not know this at the time. The
island, though it reeked with the smell of duck, was blank; so I made
for the sags again, and crawled under them carefully in order not to
disturb their white coating. Gently as I pushed my pointed muzzle
between the stems the frozen snow rattled down in a shower, and this
caused me much misgiving, for I feared that the exposed blades, black
with decay, would be sure to excite the suspicion of the quick-eyed
fowl, and warn them off the water.
When ensconced, I found that my ambush barely screened me, and, what
was more serious, it seemed much farther from the pool than in the
bloodthirsty moment when I had decided to use it. However, being in,
I meant to stay, and so, the tip of my muzzle between two bent blades
that grew a few inches in front of the clump, and nothing but the tag
of my brush projecting at the rear, I began my vigil. It was bitter
work watching with the gale in your teeth, but I might have noticed
it less had the ambush been a little nearer the water. Nevertheless,
being of a sanguine temperament, I threw sense and sinew into my work
as if success were assured. My ears were spread their widest, to catch
any sound that reached them above the lapping of the water and the
swish of the encompassing reeds; my eyes, if not fixed on the pool,
scanned the snowy space between; and my legs were gathered under me
ready to spring. One by one some feathers the ducks had left, drifted
to the nearer side and were lost to sight; once I caught the faint
wing-beats of passing wild-fowl and, raising my eyes, saw the long
wedge of them black against the bright stars; but not a bird settled
on the water.
Hour after hour passed in this manner, and my patience was just giving
out when an incident occurred that dispelled all thought of trying
my luck elsewhere. It was not the fish that jumped clear of the
surface, which induced me to stay, but the great boil in the water
near where it fell. I believed this had been caused by an otter, and
quite expected to see the creature land on a small jagged point of
ice hard by, where the snow had been much trampled. Nor did mere
curiosity keep me an interested spectator: I was expecting to get fish
for supper after my wasteful friend had taken one or two bites of
his prey. Whilst I watched for his appearance, and watched in vain,
a rather larger fish leapt out--once--twice; and the third time it
was hardly above the surface when the open jaws of a huge pike showed
close behind it, and I could see the bristling array of teeth before
a tremendous swirl hid them again. In all my experiences I have only
once witnessed anything that took me more by surprise; and from that
night I have never swum across to the island without fear of being
seized by the grim monster which I now knew tenanted the pool.
The pike had scarcely disappeared before three teal, whose flight I
had not heard, settled in the middle of the water and set my brush
waving with excitement. Totally unsuspicious of my presence they swam
towards me, and approached so close to the ice as to be completely
hidden by the bank of snow near its edge. Judging their position as
well as I could by the delicious scent that reached me, I made two
tremendous leaps, which landed me amongst them before they could take
wing. But on account of the spray and the shock of the icy-cold water
I missed all three; though my jaws snapped close over the spot where
one of them dived. He came up yards away from where I was awaiting
him, rose as only a teal can rise, and flew off in company with his
mates, who were wheeling about overhead.
With a rankling sense of failure I scrambled with some difficulty on
to the ice, shook my coat and, turning my back on my ambush, trotted
off as briskly as I could in the direction of the mere. Through the
long wait on the snow and the coldness of the water into which I had
plunged, my feet were so benumbed that I could scarcely feel them
under me when crossing the bog. Nevertheless, I stumbled on until
warmth came back to them, and then hunted the waste beyond, working
across the wind on the margin of the laid reed-beds in the hope of
scenting moorhens or water-rail to break my long fast. Most carefully
did I try the patches of sedgy cover in the loops of the stream where
I had seldom failed; but even there I met with disappointment, the
few birds I winded evading me by diving under the ice which in places
covered the strong current.
I must have trotted miles along the zigzag course I took, before I
reached the expanse of windswept snow under which lay the frozen mere.
From inside the fringe of reeds I could hear the honking of the geese
on the open water, and at times a sound that was new to me, a wild
trumpeting which seemed to come from where the sea was thundering on
the bar. For a fox naturally prompt in decision, I stood there long,
considering whether to make a journey that offered but poor prospect
of success. In the wild-fowl's feeding-ground I had come from there
was at least makeshift for an ambush; on the level ice-field before
me there was not cover enough to hide a mouse, and the chance of a
kill was very, very small. Choice of supper, however, lay between
cold starling, bitter and dry, and hot goose, sweet and juicy--if I
could get it--and goose or nothing was my resolve. I set my face for
the spot where the scarcely discernible specks on the snow showed
the game to be thickest; and if my coat turned white in winter like
that of a stoat I had seen a few nights before, I might have stolen
at least part of the way unobserved. As it was, my reddish-brown fur,
though lighter than in the summer, made me as conspicuous as a crow on
a stubble to the noisy sentinels overhead, which at once spread the
cry of "Fox afoot!" far and wide over the great mere. The only method
possible, then, in this wild-goose chase, was to keep going with the
most nonchalant air at my command, as if my sole object in approaching
the pool was to wash down a heavy supper; and it was lucky for my plan
that my thick coat hid my prominent ribs and concealed my half-starved
condition.
Presently I could see that the wild-fowl lining the margin of the ice
were nearly all geese; but what riveted my gaze was a small group of
big white birds beyond, whose heads towered high above the mass of
insignificant-looking duck that crowded the water.
"Halloo! something new in the feather line," thought I. "What monsters
are these?"
And then it occurred to me that, as I had never cast eyes on their
kind before, it might be that these strangers had never set eyes on a
fox, and would entertain no fear of such an innocent-looking creature
come to quench his thirst. This line of reasoning seemed so plausible
that I licked my dry chops at the prospect of a lordly feast, and
for a moment felt inclined to despise such small birds as geese.
These latter had for some time held their heads turned my way; so,
to show that concealment was not dreamt of, I stood still, raised
my mask to the moon, just risen above the headland, and, though it
cost me a great effort, barked as joyously as only a full-fed fox can
bark. Rarely in my chequered life have I given utterance to notes so
expressive of content; and as the geese seemed greatly taken by the
music, I continued to indulge them, at the same time lessening the
distance that separated us.
We were getting on quite good terms with one another--at least, so I
thought--until I was within--well, it is difficult to judge distance
over snow--perhaps fifty yards of them. Then I saw unmistakable
signs of restlessness. To lull suspicion I waved my brush in my most
fascinating manner; I rolled on my back, hoping to prove to them that,
murderer though I might be by repute, I was really a playful creature,
even on that wild winter's night; and in order to reassure the more
timorous, including a fine gander, who had retired from the front to
the rear rank, I began to cut capers, running after my brush in small
circles, or rather in a spiral which would bring me, as I could see
out of the corner of my eye, within rushing distance of two of the
most curious of my admirers.
It was all in vain; my back was to the cowardly crew when they rose;
but even then I should have seized a laggard had I sprung a few hairs
higher, for the tip of my muzzle actually touched his cold webbed
foot. In my fall on the edge of the ice I all but lost my balance and
toppled into the water. Was I enraged when I recovered myself? I need
not enlarge on that.
The flight of the geese alarmed the duck, which rose in a big cloud
from the mere, with a noise that would, I am sure, have bewildered any
animal except a fox, or perhaps an otter. But I ignored it, and amidst
their silly clamor and the loud whirr of their wings that momentarily
drowned the gale, fixed my eyes on the three swans--for such they
were--who did not take flight like the others, but swam up and down
the rough water in a manner which, if not expressive of contempt, was
at least aggressive and provocative. Their attitude was a revelation
to me; no bird had ever dared challenge me before; and if they see as
foxes do, these black-billed strangers who stared so hard must have
read blank amazement on my innocent face as I read defiance on theirs.
Nor was I free from irritation at the bravado conspicuous in their
puffed-out breasts and beruffled plumage.
Suddenly my demeanor changed from amazement to rage. This certainly
they must have known from my flaming eyes, bristling fur, and
fluffed-out brush lashing from side to side; but up and down they
swam, hissing out their summons to come and do battle, if I dared. A
fox shrink from combat with feathered foes? Never! I jumped into the
water, and swam across the strong current for the spot they had chosen
for the contest. All three preserved their determined front until I
was close enough to see the yellow on their bills and the snake-like
look in their evil eyes, but at my next stroke two of them beat the
water with their great wings, rose in the air, and with loud-creaking
pinions flew over my head.
"Cowards!" said I. "Why did you not stand your ground?"
Whilst I wondered that the remaining bird did not follow their
example, a streak of blood on his white plumage told me he was
wounded; and the instant it caught my eye I felt he was mine. I never
doubted I should kill him as soon as I could close my jaws on his long
white neck; the only thing that troubled me was how I should manage
to land him on the ice with such a strong stream running. He was the
biggest of the three, a magnificent bird, and, except for his bill,
as white as the snow. To my astonishment, wounded though he was, he
actually swam to meet me and struck the first blow. Before I could
close with him he stretched his head over mine, caught me by the left
ear, and pressed me under water. For all my frantic struggles, I was
half drowned when I succeeded by a desperate effort in disengaging
myself from his grip. Rising close to him, I seized his neck through
the thick coat of feathers that protected it, and hung on. The
commotion that followed baffles description. With one wing--for the
other lay helpless--he lashed the water and spun around in circles,
taking me with him. It would have been better to let go than be
carried by the strong current I knew not whither; but in such a case a
fox can never resolve to relinquish his hold, and it was fortunate for
me that, before I had been taken out into the middle of the mere, my
teeth slipped off the smooth oily feathers.
I had had enough. Exhausted and benumbed, I made for the ice, now a
long way off, and fighting the current with all my strength, had got
at length within a few yards of the jagged edge when, to my horror,
I heard the swan coming up, and gaining on me at every stroke. I did
my very utmost to reach the ice, but in vain; he was on me before
I could land. Again I was immersed; twice I planted my feet on the
edge, only to be pulled back. I had caught a Tartar, and escape seemed
impossible; even if he did not drown me, I feared I should be sucked
under the ice. The thought of losing my life roused me to a supreme
effort. With gnashing teeth I turned on my persecutor. My onset must
have terrified him, for he quailed before it and retreated a few yards
into the mere. With the help of my brush I whipped round, gained the
rough edge, and, putting forth my last bit of strength, dragged myself
on to the ice, and fell, utterly spent, just beyond his reach.
For a time I lay there motionless, but by-and-by fear moved me to
turn my head and look for my enemy. There he was, proudly swimming up
and down before me with blood-stained breast and drooping wing, still
defiant. It was the most humiliating moment of my life. Presently
I rose and shook myself, but to no purpose. My bedraggled coat had
frozen, and hung stiffly on me. I exchanged looks of vengeance with
my terrible foe and slunk away.
What a weary journey it was over the snow! How I floundered through
the deep drift that separated me from my cover, and how glad I was to
reach the friendly shelter of the brake! It was good to be screened
from the eyes of the countless wild-fowl who had watched the fight,
and whose cries had sounded like jeers as I tottered across the wide
ice-field. There is little bark left in a fox when the quacking of
ducks disconcerts him and makes his brake a welcome refuge.
I sat down under the furze, brushed the bloody feather from my muzzle
and licked my paws, which had been cut by the sharp-edged ice in my
mad struggles to get out of the water. Though dawn was some two hours
off, I had no heart for any more hunting; so I made for my lair, which
I reached by way of the brambly thicket above the quarry, and, after
shaking my coat again, crept to where my snug kennel lay under its
double roof of gorse and snow. There, hidden from all eyes and from
the bright lights of the frosty sky, I curled up in the cup of dry
spines with my brush about my nose, and heedless of the gale that
raged above but could not reach me, forgot my troubles in sleep.
The hounds drew the tor wood once, and only once, after the thaw, and
did not pay a single visit to our brake, though the earth was stopped
three times before the end of the season. The explanation is probably
to be found in the heavy rains which flooded the fen and made the
country unfit for hunting; big pools were found where none were seen
before, and the springs which broke out in many new places, together
with the surface-drainage of rain and melted snow, not only kept them
full, but seemed to turn every bit of spongy ground into a quagmire.
Left to myself, I was as happy as a fox can be, and, forgetting the
hardships I had passed through, looked forward with pleasurable
anticipation--as, indeed, every wilding does--to the golden days of
summer, when troubles are few and delights many. Yet the tamarisks had
hardly begun to feather before there was brought into the countryside
a hound which proved the most terrible enemy that ever shadowed my
life.
That the farmer had need of a more watchful guardian for the poultry
yard than old Shep I knew well enough from the serious losses he had
sustained. Besides fowls and ducks, even geese and turkeys had been
carried off, some by day under cover of mist and drizzling rain, but
mostly at night. I had seen foxes returning from that direction with
birds in their mouths; I had actually come on the caches, both inside
and outside our brake, where they had buried what they could not take
away; and this wholesale plundering caused me great anxiety, because
I knew it would lead to reprisals. But I never dreamt in my most
troubled moments of the scourge that was being prepared. Even had I
known that old Shep was to be superseded and another farm-dog put in
his place the news would not have alarmed me in the least, because of
the contempt I felt for the few specimens I had seen. But I was now to
learn that there are farm-dogs and farm-dogs.