I found the body of a fox near the gap of a reclaimed field that had
recently been filched from our cover, and could see by the fang-marks
in his chest that he had been murdered. Now it was impossible that
old Shep should be the culprit. He was always asleep at midnight,
and bore a good character amongst us for utter harmlessness; yet
everything pointed to his guilt. A double trail led from the warm
carcass towards the farm buildings, and one was the trail of a dog.
I walked slowly up the hill, trying to unravel the mystery, and had
scarcely passed over the crest when a loud bay, very different from
old Shep's, broke the stillness of the night and explained everything.
Whilst I listened it was repeated again and again, and its meaning was
unmistakable. It was a warning to the fox from the new guardian of
the farmyard that the days of robbery without punishment were past,
and that a new régime had begun. I yapped no reply, for it was best
to let this dangerous customer believe that the fox he had killed was
a stranger to the district, and that none frequented the wild within
reach of his voice.
I was very miserable now. Putting all together, I was convinced that
the newcomer would prove a dangerous enemy; and yet I felt that I
ought to see him, for I recollected my mother's story of the fox who,
like the otter in the quaking bog, judged the jackass by his bray, and
suffered agonies until he cast eyes on him.
The opportunity offered a few days later without my seeking it. On a
lovely spring morning such as Nature often lavishes on her wildlings,
I lay stretched out amongst the scattered furze-bushes enjoying the
warmth of the sun, without a thought of any intrusion on the peaceful
scene. The lambs were bleating in the field next the dunes, the rooks
cawing in the leafing elms, and the farm-boy, whom I could not see for
the thicket of blackthorns at the foot of the croft, was singing the
drowsy song he sang always at his work. A magpie on the tallest of the
blackthorns seemed unusually interested in either the boy or his work;
but I thought nothing of that. Presently, however, to my surprise, it
began mobbing some creature. Then I rose to my feet, almost expecting
to view a fox, when, to my amazement, I saw a huge dog leave the
thicket and come into the open. It was the new hound, and the sight
of him made me catch my breath. What struck me most--for without it,
size and strength of jaw signify nothing--was the speed I read in his
long muscular limbs. He moved with an ease I had never seen in any
other dog. Had his hind-quarters sloped like mine, I should, like
the magpie, have taken him for a denizen of the wild; but the defect
betrayed him as the servant of man.
My curiosity was excited, and I would not steal away to the near
brake until I had discovered what his business was. It was of the
simplest. He stopped about half-way up the hill at a spot full in
the hot sun, turned round two or three times as I do to make my bed,
and laid himself down amongst the tussocks of grass. I watched his
bloodshot eyes blink in the blazing light; noted his restlessness,
the twitching of his cropped ears, and the quivering of his great
nostrils, even whilst he seemed to doze; studied his huge bull-terrier
head, raised when a yellowhammer settled on the golden bush behind
him; shuddered at the array of crowded teeth when he yawned.
He may have lain an hour amid the bright new herbage before the boy
whistled. His ears showed that he heard, but he took no further
notice. When the whistle was repeated he growled. Then the boy
screamed, as I have heard the huntsman scream after me; and the great
brindled brute leapt to his feet and bounded down the hill at a pace I
had not thought any creature capable of. I knew then that no fox could
get away from him in the open, or escape with his life when overtaken.
"No more stealing of old gobblers," said I under my breath as I slunk
away to the earth.
For some days I scarcely slept on account of the worry; and the more
I thought it over in the quiet of my kennel, the surer I felt that
this great restless hound would render life unbearable by invading my
cover. Was it likely that a creature pricked by pride of limb and of
fang would be content to wander within the narrow confines of a dozen
fields criss-crossed with trails, and never trespass on the environing
wilds to which the trails led? Impossible! Is there not an eternal
feud between the tame and the wild canine? This half-wild protege
of man, free to wander at will and wreak his vengeance on us hated
dwellers in the brake, able too by speed and strength to carry out his
fell designs, was certain, sooner or later, to follow the cursed scent
that lingers where we tread, and track me to my hidden lair.
The days went by, however, and I was not molested; though night after
night, as I heard his threatening bay, I asked myself, How long shall
I be left in peace? When a fortnight passed without a sign, I began to
think that this sharer of man's hearth might, after all, be nothing
more than a noisy farmyard braggart, brave enough, perhaps, on grass
or plough-land, but afraid to trespass on the waste. Rudely was my
mistake brought home to me.
Now what I am going to tell is not something I have heard: I saw it
with my own eyes on the moor which rises from the head of the fen. I
was trotting along at the time, planning how best to work the ground
on such a still night, when a fox--a stranger to me--came over the
brow on my left, and dashed across my front at a gallop. At first
I thought he must have some game in sight; but as neither hare nor
leveret was to be seen, I could not help, in the absence of any
apparent reason for his conduct, imagining that he must be mad, like
a fox I once saw crossing the bar. Strange fancy, perhaps; but then,
what sane animal, and, above all, what fox, would waste his speed
after nothing? And what in the world was there for the fugitive to fly
from? Suddenly I thought of the hound, and as suddenly, just when the
fox had disappeared where the land dipped, I heard the thud of heavy
feet. Peeping between two boulders that concealed me from view, I saw
him come over the crest at the spot where I first caught sight of the
fox. He was running by scent, but at so tremendous a pace that I
feared the fox could not live before him.
His silence chilled me more than his loud bay; but though I could not
detect the faintest whimper, every moment there was a strange clicking
sound--a noise foreign to the moorland. When he came abreast of me
I saw it was caused by the broken chain that hung from his neck and
struck the steel collar he wore. In a twinkling the dusky fiend had
disappeared in the gloom, his head set for the tor. I listened. After
a time I heard him crash through a long bramble thicket. Then a long
interval. Then the owls, which had been very noisy, suddenly ceased
their midnight chorus. They were watching the tragic chase between
the boles of the pines. How it ended I never knew; but I am inclined
to think that the fox reached the rocks and escaped. If he had been
killed, the foxes which lodged on the western slope of the tor would
have forsaken their coverts, at least for a time; and this they did
not do.
That night it was useless to try to hunt, as I kept looking back every
dozen strides for fear the hound might be following me. At last I gave
it up; but I did not return along my usual trail, laid when the night
had no fear for me. I avoided open ground as much as possible, to
steal along tangled dips and gullies. Before crossing a ridge I halted
to peer through the darkness, fearful of seeing the sinister green
eyes that would apprise me of the hound's approach.
On reaching the double trail, I cleared it at a bound, as though it
had been a line of fire, and made for the river at the spot where it
spreads over the marshes; for I hoped by swimming it at its widest
part to add to the difficulties of the hound if he should follow me.
Although the precautions I took proved unnecessary, I mention a few of
them to show the fear the creature had inspired in me. After that I
used to foil the runs in the brake for the purpose of puzzling him if
he chanced to strike my night's trail and tried to trace me to my lair.
But of what avail were all my wiles against a creature so endowed? At
length the marvellous powers he possessed enabled him not only to find
my kennel, but to approach it so noiselessly as almost to surprise me
in my sleep. Had it not been for the slight rustling of the furze,
caused by his grim protruding muzzle, he must have taken me where I
lay as a fox takes a rabbit in its seat. As it was it was a close
call. Enraged at my escape, he came crashing after me. I led him to
the cover beyond the quarry, where the furze was close and stunted,
and where the runs were so small that he had to force a way along
them. In these unfavorable conditions I thought he would soon tire of
pursuit; but to my surprise he persisted hour after hour, despite the
stifling atmosphere of the brake on such a close, hot day. Could he
have driven me into the open I should have been at his mercy; I knew
this as well as he, and never gave him the chance he longed for.
In the end I wearied him out, and none too soon, for I was almost
spent before he relinquished the chase. I had escaped, but my dread of
the fiend was greater than ever--so great, indeed, that I never went
near the brake again as long as he lived.
The silence of the night at this time was painful. A dog-fox dared
no longer call to his mate for fear of betraying his whereabouts to
the hound, now abroad at all hours. I hardly dared sleep two days
following, in the same place, lest in his wanderings he should have
come upon my couch and be there awaiting me. I lived under a reign of
terror, and the gloom that brooded over brake, tor, and fen spread to
the higher moors, where the hound had once been seen. But, gloom or no
gloom, I had to have food though every journey I made to the fen was
at the risk of my life.
Generally I was through early enough to enable me, by hurrying, to
be back in my couch in gorse or heather before dawn. One morning,
however, I was so late that I decided to lie up for the day in the fen
rather than risk crossing the moors after daybreak.
Through the mist that lay over the heart of the bog I could just make
out the tall clump of rushes where I meant to lie up if the slough
should yet prove firm enough to bear my weight. On striking the river,
which was much above the previous summer's level, I waded into the
water, and, to throw the hound out in the event of his following me,
floated some distance with the current before landing on the opposite
side. As I rustled through the flags and the belt of reeds, whose
dew-laden plumes were sparkling in the first rays of day, a heron rose
lazily and, skimming a reed bed, flew away towards the half-risen sun,
leaving me, as far as I could see, the sole tenant of the silent
marshland. Only the bare, flat quagmire now lay between me and my
harborage, and, anxious to be hidden from sight, I lost no time in
setting out across the treacherous surface.
I selected a line which seemed to promise the firmest footing, and
stepped with all possible lightness. Yet, in spite of every care, I
sank deep in places, and midway the crust was so thin that for a while
I was in great danger of foundering. However, by putting forth all my
strength, I was able, at last, to free myself from the clutches of the
more liquid mire and reach the drier, sounder surface between it and
the rushes. I was indeed glad to feel the solid ground under my feet
once more.
Had I realized the peril before setting out I should not have
attempted to cross. I ought, perhaps, to have turned back on striking
the dangerous zone; but, once embarked on an undertaking, it is not in
my nature to retreat, for there is that in a fox which makes him go
through with his purpose at all hazards, though it may compel him to
pass between the legs of the huntsman's horse or traverse a bog that
threatens to swallow him up.
At last, exhausted and bemired, I entered the clump, whose shadow lay
like a wide road across that part of the quagmire where it fell, and
chose for my couch a tall heap of dead reeds just inside the wall of
pale green stems. It seemed to have served for a nest of the captive
wild swan, and had probably been floated to the spot by the subsiding
flood.
To reach my bed I had to cross the stream which drained the pool
within the dense ring of bulrushes; and as I waded through it a
well-known scent reached my nostrils, and told me that the wiliest
creature of the night had also sought this isolated retreat to hover
in. I watched the sedgy islet whence the scent proceeded, expecting to
get a glimpse of the otter couching there; but he lay low and did not
expose a hair, despite the crackling of the reeds as I made my bed.
I was free now to attend to my toilet and prepare for the rest I so
much needed. With my pads dirty as they were, sleep was out of the
question; so I licked them and my legs as clean as I could, and, thus
refreshed, soon dozed off, with a sense of security to which I had
long been a stranger.
I slept soundly, without the horrid dreams of the previous weeks,
and was awakened at last by the hum of insects. A year before, when
I often lay in the fen, my ears would not have noticed this loud
undertone of noonday life; but latterly I had, for the most part,
kennelled in the moors, where were only noiseless butterflies and
lizards, silent as sphinxes. I was not really sorry to be disturbed,
for it was delightful to lie there, vaguely conscious of the warmth
of the sun and looking about me in a drowsy way. I turned my blinking
eyes now to the distant mere, sparkling at the end of a vista in the
reeds, now to the hoary summit of the tor seen against the blue sky,
and again to the water-insects at sport on a small pool just beyond
the black shadow which had crept up well-nigh to the foot of the
bulrushes.
Presently, tiring of the view, I was about to drop asleep again, when
I heard a noise which, if it had been less violent, I should have
thought to be caused by an animal shaking itself. It was followed by a
commotion on the river-bank, and then, to my horror, the hound burst
through the reeds. He had followed my trail to that point, and guessed
where I was, for he kept looking at the clump, and even at the part of
it where I was crouching. He threw up his nose and sniffed the air,
as I could see by the working of his gleaming nostrils; but there was
no wind to carry the scent across the morass--not enough, indeed, to
stir he light feathery tops of the reeds behind him.
Soon he advanced to the very edge of the bog and looked longingly at
the clump, as if he were eager to reach it but dared not risk the
crossing. At last, after running up and down the edge several times,
apparently in search of a hard place, he decided to brave the danger,
and with cat-like steps, ludicrous to watch in such a monster, began
the perilous passage. He was soon up to his knees, and the deeper he
went the greater my excitement grew. Every instant I expected to see
him sink out of sight. So sure of it did I feel that I almost ventured
to show myself and fling at the fiend the reproaches that crowded to
my tongue. But though his progress was very slow, he was inch by inch
reducing the distance that separated us.
Before long he was near enough for me to hear the sucking noise made
by the slough as it reluctantly released its grip on the long muscular
legs. He did not pick and chose his way, or deviate by a reed's
breadth from the straight course that would bring him to the gap
in the belt of rushes made by the overflow. Now he was on the most
treacherous part of the quagmire, which shook with the struggle he
made to keep his head above the surface. With dilated pupils I watched
what must be his last efforts. I noted the rise of the mire on his
collar, till at last it rose no farther, but still he came on; and
then I noticed the liquid mud raised in front of him like the ripple
in front of a swan. Wading he must have been, though he looked exactly
as though he were swimming; and his great red tongue lolled out with
the frantic exertions.
When he got nearer his feet must have found the bottom, for his
shoulders rose free of the surface; and I saw his hair bristle as
though something had suddenly angered him. He had scented me or the
otter, or both; and in his haste to add to the number of his victims,
he ploughed through the last score yards of mud like a mad creature.
Along the muddy bed of the overflow he toiled step by step; and the
instant he entered the pool, I rose to my feet, doubtful whether to
stay or retreat, and paused to listen before committing myself.
At that moment I heard a sullen plunge, then another, as two otters
dived into the pool. Thinking there was safety in numbers, I decided
to remain in hiding rather than trust to my slight chance of escape
across the bog. The wild struggles of the hound told me he had viewed
the otters; but he must have lost them again for presently all was
very quiet, though I could hear him at times nosing the rushes and
ferns round the pool, as if in search of them. My eyes were as alert
as my ears, and soon caught a heave on the surface of the overflow and
the gleam of an otter's back as the creature rounded the shallow bend
leading to the river. A few seconds later I saw the other otter glide
noiselessly away, and then a great fear seized me as I realized that I
was left alone with the hound.
Scarcely were my eyes back on the pool before he landed on the islet,
where he stood with the water dripping from his brindled coat, whilst
with nostrils raised he sniffed the air. As I watched him through the
stems, I became aware that he winded me; and when I saw him take to
the water and head straight; for my hiding-place, I stole silently but
swiftly away and, fearful of trusting to the muddy bed of the stream,
committed myself to the bog.
I trod its treacherous surface as lightly as I could, but because of
the smallness of my feet I kept breaking through the crust, and made
only slow progress. Nevertheless I succeeded in getting farther than
I expected before the hound sighted me. As soon as he did he burst
through the rushes and, making a tremendous spring, landed within a
few yards of where I was struggling with the mire.
This wild leap of his saved me. Had he been content to follow at his
best pace, the chances are that he would have caught me before I
could reach the bank of the river; but now, through the violence of
his fall, he was so deeply embedded that I gained many yards before
he could extricate himself. Indeed, by the time he had done so I
had reached the more liquid part of the morass where I had all but
foundered at sunrise. With the double danger threatening me, I exerted
myself even more than then; but, madly as I struggled, my progress
was not nearly as fast as that of the hound, now overhauling me. It
was horrible to hear this murderous fiend whimpering and whining in
his eagerness to get at me, and to feel that I was scarcely advancing
at all. I was like a fox in a nightmare, only I was never more wide
awake in my life. Fright however kept urging me on, and to my joy I at
last felt firmer ground under my feet.
The bank gained, I turned my head for an instant, and saw my pursuer
seemingly stuck in the treacherous mud-belt; but I did not waste
precious time watching him. That he still reckoned me his I felt sure;
that I should escape I had little hope; nevertheless, I meant to do my
utmost to save my life. I galloped down-stream close to the water's
edge, took the otter's path across the neck of the bend, swam the
river, and on landing plunged into the great reed-brakes.
On, on I went at my full speed, driven by mortal fear. I knew I was
not yet out of danger. Here a wild-duck rose in affright, there a
moorhen scurried out of my way; but I kept straight on past clumps of
osmunda ferns and flags, and across backwaters till at last, after
swimming a maze of water-ways, I came to the grassy promontory that
flanks the inflow of the river into the mere.
For a moment I stood there irresolute. Should I take to the water or
trust to the bordering reeds? Whilst I hesitated, I thought I heard
the hound coming, and the next instant dropped into the stream.
Partly by swimming, but chiefly by the aid of the current, I succeeded
in reaching the nearest islet of the little archipelago that studded
the rippled expanse. There I hoped to find refuge from my relentless
pursuer.
I had arrived only just in time, for, peeping through the sedgy growth
that covered my hiding-place, I saw the hound gallop to the end of the
promontory and stand gazing over the wide surface. Then he withdrew to
the brake that rose like a lofty wall about the mere. I could trace
his progress by the rising of the wild-fowl whose sanctuaries he
invaded, and later by the glimpse I got of the angered swan swimming
defiantly across the narrow opening of a big creek about which the
array of reeds was densest. I saw no further sign of the brute that
had so rudely violated the summer peace of the fenland, but wisdom
seemed to dictate that I should look elsewhere for a more peaceful
home.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Page 12: Changed "night" to "nights."
(Orig: And how short those night were!)
Page 20: Changed "crusing" to "cruising."
(Orig: crusing restlessly up and down the turf)
Page 23: Changed "noes" to "noses."
(Orig: turned up our noes at such food)
Page 37: Changed "exhilirating" to "exhilarating."
(Orig: It was most exhilirating to be wandering)
Page 40: Changed "thristing" to "thirsting."
(Orig: stealthy enemy thristing for its blood)
Page 42: Changed "lucious" to "luscious."
(Orig: every bit of the lucious morsel)
Page 53: Changed "malard" to "mallard."
(Orig: a loud quack the malard disappeared)
Page 53: Changed "mallord" to "mallard."
(Orig: How he enjoyed the mallord,)
Page 67: Changed "nothinginess" to "nothingness."
(Orig: dwarf into nothinginess the annoyances)
Page 71: Changed "manteled" to "mantled."
(Orig: skimmed the brake that manteled the steep slope)
Page 74: Changed "pursurers" to "pursuers."
(Orig: I should be able to elude my pursurers)
Page 76: Changed "rocognized" to "recognized."
(Orig: he rocognized the bedraggled cub)
Page 81: Changed "grievious" to "grievous."
(Orig: Chief of these are the grievious losses)
Page 92: Changed "be" to "he."
(Orig: killed by the pack; be was the man who,)
Page 103: Changed "waching" to "watching."
(Orig: It was bitter work waching with the gale in your teeth,)
Page 132: Changed "pursurer" to "pursuer."
(Orig: and saw my pursurer seemingly stuck)