A NARROW ESCAPE
I did not forget my master and settle down to my old out-door life
at once. Every morning for many days I visited the gate at the end
of the wood-path, and sat there or in the hedge beside it, straining
my eyes across the meadow in the hope that Jack might come back once
more. But never a sign of him or Harry did I see, and though, as the
leaves began to fall, it was quite easy to view the roof of the Hall
across the shrubberies, no smoke rose from the tall, twisted red-brick
chimney-stacks.
How good mother was to me in those days I well remember. She encouraged
me to tell her all I could of the Hall and its people, and all the
incidents of my captivity, and she alone of my family seemed thoroughly
to sympathize with me in my longing for my lost master.
Hazel, too, was very dear and good, and would listen with the greatest
interest to my long yarns. She was a sweet little thing in those days,
very small, but extremely well built and active, and, for a young
squirrel, of a peculiarly rich colour. Rusty, however, had little
sympathy with my longings. He was already a large, powerful squirrel of
an extremely independent turn of mind, and most extraordinarily bold and
fearless. Mother was in a constant state of anxiety about him, for he
would go off on long expeditions quite alone, sometimes not coming home
till nearly sunset, and ever since father’s death mother had been nervous
as a hare when any of her children were out of her sight.
As for me, I soon became thoroughly at home in the wood, and could climb
as well as either my brother or my sister, though I was at first by
no means so adept at taking shelter as the other two. I had grown so
accustomed to many sights and sounds ordinarily alarming to one of our
tribe, that mother had often to scold me for exposing myself heedlessly
to view on the rare occasions when people walked through the wood, and
she had to show me all over again the tricks of lying out flat on a bough
so that I could not be seen by passers-by, or of supporting myself on a
trunk beneath a sheltering branch when danger in the shape of a hawk
threatened from above.
The good and plentiful food with which I had always been supplied at the
Hall had made me fat and strong beyond what squirrels usually are at my
age. There was very little difference now between me and Rusty, though
originally I had been smaller. It was lucky for me that I had been turned
loose just at this special time of year, for autumn is, of course, the
squirrel’s harvest, and food was particularly plentiful that season. Nuts
were ripening among the yellowing leaves; acorns were to be had for the
picking; the beech-trees were full of mast, and when we tired of these
there were spruce-seeds and berries of every description.
Earlier in the year larch, fir, pine, and spruce tips had been our main
sustenance, but these were now getting dry and old, for it was past the
season of evergreen growth, and so we left them alone and fed almost
entirely on nuts and seeds.
About this time we had several days of soft warm rain, and after them
part of the horse pasture which adjoined the coppice on the other side
from the Hall was thickly dotted each morning with little white buttons,
which mother explained to me were mushrooms. We used to steal down
across the wet grass in the mornings, brushing through the gossamer
spiders’ webs till our chests and paws were white with them, and feast
royally on the tenderest and daintiest of the mushrooms, sometimes
getting terrible frights when the village children who came to fill their
baskets saw us, and clapped their hands to make us run.
Mother was a wonderful forager. I remember one morning how she stopped on
the bank where the beech-trees grow thickest, and after snuffing a moment
or two, began to dig rapidly in the soft, black, loamy soil. Presently
she nosed out some little round objects covered with a dark skin, and
pushed one over to me. Never have I eaten anything more delectable than
my first truffle. I can find them myself now as well as anyone.
Other fungi too were plentiful after that rain. Some grew under the
trees, some on rotten logs, others out in the open. Some were good to
eat—better even than mushrooms—but others were poisonous. Mother never
passed a new one without showing us which were fit to eat and which were
not. There was a brilliant scarlet kind which she warned us against
strongly; well I remember how she scolded me one day because just for
fun I pulled one up, and stuck it stalk down in a fork of a tree. I did
not repeat the experiment, for it left a bad taste in my mouth for hours
afterwards.
About this time my coat began to change. Squirrels that are born early
in the spring have fur of a greyish-brown hue very like the coats that
old squirrels put on in winter, but we, being June kittens, had summer
suits of red-brown without any ear tufts, or any hair on the palms of
our hands. First, my tail changed and grew darker, much heavier and
more bushy. It turned to a blackish-brown, quite different from its
previous bright chestnut-red hue. My coat, too, began, but more slowly,
to lose its ruddy tint, and to assume its winter colouring. I became dark
brownish-red on the head and back. My white under parts changed to grey,
which spread along my sides. It also grew longer, softer and warmer, and
my ear tufts began to show. During the summer a squirrel has but a few
hairs on the points of the ears, but winter brings a thick tuft a full
inch in length.
We squirrels have a strange peculiarity. We are the only living
creatures, so far as I know, who change our coats twice a year and our
tails once only. As I have said, we change our coats in spring and again
before the cold weather, but our tails once only—in autumn. A healthy
squirrel looks at his best in late September and early October, for at
that time his new brush is extremely bright, while his new grey-brown
coat is rich and long. Both fade during the cold weather, the fur
especially becoming during long frosts of a yellowish rusty hue. There
are, I believe, some squirrels, near relatives of our own, living in
Canada, who turn almost white in winter. But as—luckily for ourselves—all
we squirrels have the sense to sleep away most of the cold weather, we
have not the same need to conceal ourselves by assuming the colour of the
snow, as have Arctic hares and foxes and many other animals which are
obliged to work and forage for a living during the hard weather.
But I was talking about the good times we had that autumn and the various
delicacies we used to hunt. After the rain which brought such a crop of
mushrooms, we had a week of wonderfully warm, soft, hazy weather, but
then the wind switched round into the east, and for the first time in my
life I understood what cold was. It blew bitterly, with a hard grey sky,
and the trees being still full of leaves, the noise of the gale through
the coppice was one long roar, the great boughs swaying, creaking, and
complaining bitterly. Very glad we were, when night fell, to snuggle
all four close together in the hollow in the beech hole which mother had
selected as our abode after the destruction of our second nest! It was
a very convenient residence, considering that it was a ready-made one.
Some winter storm of years long past had torn away a large branch at its
junction with the trunk, and rain and weather had rotted the scar till at
last a hollow was left large enough to hold a dozen of us. Once it had
been full of water, but a green woodpecker boring its nest in the trunk
below, the moisture had drained away through the rotten fibres, and now
it was dry as a bone, and formed as convenient and comfortable a retreat
as any dreyless family of squirrels could possibly desire.
The gale lasted two whole days and nights, and then it cleared and left
a hard blue sky from which the small white flecks of wind-cloud vanished
one by one, and on the fourth morning we woke to find the grass white
with hoar frost and a keen tang in the air which filled us with a wild
delight in the mere fact of being alive. Rusty, Hazel and I sallied forth
and tore round and round like three mad things, flinging ourselves from
bough to bough, rattling up and down the huge trunk and wide-spreading
branches, playing all manner of practical jokes on one another.
Mother watched us indulgently, but when, quite out of breath, we at last
came back to her, she announced that the time had arrived to begin the
collection of our winter stores.
‘Now that you have no father,’ she said, ‘you must help me in the work,
for remember there is nothing worse than to be caught by bad weather
unprepared, and without many stores of food.’
That was the first real work that I ever did. It seemed odd, when we
reached the nut bushes at the edge of the coppice, not to choose the
plumpest nuts, and sit and eat them on the spot. I think, indeed, that
we all began by doing so, and mother did not interfere until we had each
had a good breakfast; but afterwards she kept us steadily to work. I
am afraid that we needed a good deal of superintendence to keep us up
to the mark, but mother set us such a good example that we were shamed
into doing our best. At first I was under the impression that we were to
carry all the nuts back to our beech-tree home, but mother laughed when I
suggested this, and told me that it was quite unnecessary to do anything
of the kind. After looking about a little, she chose a long hollow under
a gnarled old blackthorn trunk at the bottom of the hedge, and here,
and in other similar cavities, we stored a goodly supply. Towards noon
mother told us that that was enough for the day, and while she and Hazel
went back home, Rusty and I decided to go for a little round on our own
account.
Working down the hedge, we came upon a patch of thick brambles from which
the blackberries were falling from over-ripeness. A greedy cock pheasant
below was simply stuffing himself with the fallen berries and those near
the ground. For a joke Rusty crept up quietly, and then, making a sudden
bound, alighted almost on the handsome bird’s head. Off he went with
a terrific whirr and flutter across the big meadow, and Rusty, with a
malicious gleam in his eyes, sprang back to my side.
Presently we found ourselves at the coppice gate, and instinctively
I stopped and gazed across the meadow towards the Hall. The wind had
brought many leaves down, and the long, low, red-brick building with its
steep tiled roofs, stood strongly outlined behind the thinning fringe of
its oaks and elms.
I don’t know whether it was the keen, brisk air, or what, but suddenly
the idea came to me to visit the old place once more, and on the spur of
the moment I suggested it to Rusty.
For a moment my brother looked blank. Adventurous as he was, the idea
of crossing more than a quarter of a mile of open grass land rather
staggered him. You know we squirrels will make journeys of any length
provided we can travel through the tree tops, and so long as a tree is
handy we have no objection to short trips across country from one to
another; but none of us care about open ground. We can run at a good
speed for a short distance, but there is no cover in grass. There we are
absolutely at the mercy of any hungry hawk, while weasels have a nasty
trick of popping out suddenly from rabbit earths or drains. Then, too,
there is no escape from the gun or rabbit rifle of any pot-hunting man or
boy, while poaching dogs or cats are another source of really desperate
peril.
However, Rusty was not the sort to think twice of danger, or to be
outdared by the brother whom he had secretly despised as a ‘tame’
squirrel. I saw his teeth set and a sudden sparkle in his eye.
‘All right,’ he remarked, and that was all. He was out of the hedge and
over the ditch before me, and leading the way at a great pace across the
pasture.
We did not keep to the path, but made off to the left, where an irregular
fringe of trees grew along inside the hedge which cut off the pasture
from the road leading between the Hall and the village. Great luck
attended us. Beyond a few rabbits we saw no sign of life, and when we
got close enough to the trees to take refuge if any danger approached I
breathed more freely, and I feel sure that Rusty was equally relieved.
Racing along among the rustling dead leaves, we crossed the brook near
the culvert under the road. The rivulet was so small that it was no
trouble to jump. Then we found ourselves in the park, and here we had
to take to the open again. The fine clumps of timber which dotted it
here and there were our islands of refuge, and we ran from one to the
other, the same good fortune attending us during our whole journey. From
the last tree we steered for the kitchen-garden wall, and keeping along
the bottom of this, reached the sunk fence. Once up this, and I was on
familiar ground.
A long narrow plantation of Kentish cob-nuts bordered the wall which
divided the kitchen-garden from the lawns, and in this we were soon
snugly ensconced.
‘My teeth! Did you ever see such nuts?’ exclaimed Rusty, staring in
wide-eyed amazement at the great russet-coloured cobs which hung in
profusion among the brilliantly tinted leaves.
‘Oh yes, I’ve eaten lots of them,’ replied I, with conscious superiority.
‘Try them. They’re uncommon good.’
Rusty needed no second bidding, but set to work, and cutting the tip off
one of the largest nuts, was soon discussing its fat, white kernel with
a gusto which proved that he thoroughly agreed with me in my estimate of
the quality of cobs. I joined in, and we made a most delicious luncheon.
From where we sat the lawn and part of the house were in full sight, and
all the time I kept a watch fill eye upon the clump of evergreens where I
had been used to play, in the hope that I might see the familiar figure
of my dear master in his rough tweeds, and his cap on the back of his
head, sauntering across the lawn.
Alas! there was no sign of him nor of any of the Fortescues. Had I known
it, half the length of England separated me from the nearest of my old
friends. After a time, however, some one did stroll out upon the terrace
walk. He was a complete stranger—a short, fat man, with red cheeks and
mutton-chop whiskers. He wore a grey bowler, tipped far back upon his
head, his thumbs were stuck in the armholes of his gaudy waistcoat, and
a long, black cigar was held between his thick lips. He was gazing round
him with a complacent air of proprietorship which in some indefinable
fashion annoyed me intensely.
Suddenly he took the cigar from his lips and shouted loudly, ‘Simpson!’ A
man with a bill-hook in his hand came hurrying round from the shrubbery
behind the house.
The stout man pointed to Jack’s and my pet clump of evergreens. ‘Those
shrubs are untidy, Simpson. They want clipping up. Get to work on ’em at
once!’ And, to my horror and disgust, Simpson began chopping and carving
away at the deodars and arbor vitæ, lopping all the boughs up a man’s
height from the ground, and turning the pretty shrubs into the stiff,
unnatural likeness of the toy trees in Jack’s youngest brother’s Noah’s
Ark.
Then, as I looked about me, I began to see that many things had been
changed. The laurels were cut close and flat; a number of fine limbs had
been sawn from the elms; several new beds of weird pattern had been cut
in the splendid century-old turf of the lawn; the gravel paths were all
fresh swept; everything had a painfully overtidy appearance.
Presently one of the drawing-room French windows was pushed open, and
a third person appeared on the scene—a boy about Jack’s age, but how
strangely different! He was short, like the elder man, and had the
appearance of having but just stepped out of a band-box. His cord
riding-breeches were as immaculate as his white cuffs and tall white
collar; his brown boots quite gleamed in the autumn sun, and he wore new
dogskin gloves. Strolling over towards his father, he began to talk, but
we were too far away to hear what they said. After a short time they both
turned and came across the lawn towards the kitchen-garden door.
‘I say, Scud, hadn’t we better hook it?’ suggested Rusty. But I was so
interested in these new people, who seemed to have usurped the place of
my dear Fortescues, that foolishly I replied:
‘No; they’re not coming near us. Keep still, and they’ll never see us.’
The pair had nearly reached the garden door when I heard the boy exclaim
something, and they changed the direction of their walk in the direction
of the hazels. A swish of bent branches shortly followed.
The distance from the garden door down to the angle of the garden wall
was not more than thirty yards, and I knew very well that, thick as
the bushes were, there was not a ghost of a chance of our remaining
undetected if they came poking about in this fashion.
‘Come on, Rusty!’ I muttered, and we at once made off as quietly as we
could. Unluckily for us, while the stout man was poking his head among
the branches, puffing and blowing as he did so like a broken-winded
horse, the boy had walked on down the path, and next moment his shrill
voice rang out:
‘I say, father, here are two beastly squirrels stealing nuts. Keep an eye
on ’em while I get my gun.’
He was off across the grass at a pace one would not have credited him
with, and we, aware that any attempt at further concealment was useless,
went off also at top speed.
What we both dreaded was the long open space at the bottom of the
kitchen-garden wall, where it abutted on the park. However, there was no
shirking it. If we stayed where we were we would be caught like rats in a
trap. It was Rusty who made the jump first out of the bushes and down the
sunk fence, and as I followed him I heard the fat man shouting hoarsely:
‘Quick, they’re running away!’
How we scuttled! Even a terrier would have had his work cut out to catch
us. There was no cover at all until we reached the far end of the long
line of wall, and we strained every nerve to gain the hedge which ran
at right angles from the end of it, separating the park from the road.
The distance was not much more than seventy yards, but it seemed like
a mile as we tore along. Fresh shouts behind us spurred us to almost
super-squirrel efforts. Hardly five yards were left when suddenly—bang,
and a sound like hail pattering on the ground behind us. Next second, and
with simultaneous bounds we were in the hedge, but before we could get
through it and into shelter on the far side the sound of another shot
rang through the calm autumn air, and this time with better aim. Leaves
flew in the hedge, and a sharp blow on the head sent me staggering,
nearly causing me to lose my foothold.
‘Come on, Scud. We must cross the road,’ called Rusty at that moment;
and with a fine jump he was across the ditch and out on the white, dusty
surface.
Recovering myself, I followed, and found that, though my head was
singing, I could still run as well as ever.
Luckily there was not a soul in sight, so we crossed the road in safety,
plunged through the opposite hedge, and found ourselves in a plantation
of young larches about twenty feet high. Through these we went as hard
as ever we could pelt, until, quite exhausted, we came to rest somewhere
in the thickest depths, and, climbing into one of the largest trees, lay
panting and tired out on an upper bough. For a minute neither of us could
move; then suddenly Rusty, glancing at me, exclaimed:
‘Why, Scud, you’re hurt!’
‘Yes, something hit me,’ I answered faintly.
In a moment the good fellow was licking my wounded head. A pellet of
shot, it seemed, had glanced along my skull, cutting the skin and going
right through one of my ears. The wound bled a good deal, but it was not
a serious one, and after I had got my breath back, and after my heart
had ceased thumping as though it would burst, I felt very little the
worse, and announced that I was quite ready to start home. But Rusty,
more cautious, refused to move.
‘That fellow with the gun may be waiting in the road for us,’ he said.
‘Much better stay here a bit. The shadows are still short, and we shall
have plenty of light for our journey home.’
His advice seemed good, so we waited where we were for an hour or more.
My wound stopped bleeding, but my head was very sore. It was not,
however, so badly hurt as my feelings. That I should have been shot at
and nearly killed in the garden of the Hall seemed beyond belief, and
what made it worse was that I had impressed on Rusty over and over again
that whatever the dangers in our coppice, the Hall grounds, at any rate,
were a safe refuge. One thing I was deeply grateful for—that he had not
been harmed. With all the intensity of my squirrel nature I hated the
intruders who had put the insult upon me. How I longed that Jack might
have been there to take vengeance on our persecutors!
[Illustration: CLIMBING INTO ONE OF THE LARGEST TREES, WE LAY PANTING AND
TIRED OUT.]
Rusty, good fellow that he was, forebore to add to my self-reproaches by
any remarks about what had happened. When I made some sort of apology
for bringing him into trouble, he merely smiled, and, licking his lips,
said:
‘I shan’t forget those nuts in a hurry. Wouldn’t mother like a few of
them!’
At last, when the shadows were beginning to lengthen towards the east, we
made a move. Under Rusty’s direction we worked back very quietly through
the plantation to the edge of the road, and took a careful survey from
the top of the tallest tree. All was still, the only sounds that broke
the quiet of the windless autumn afternoon being the scrape of Simpson’s
saw as he lopped away branches from the Hall trees, and the distant
‘Gee!’ and ‘Haw!’ of a ploughman at work in a field to the right of the
larch plantation.
We crossed the road again, and resolved that though the distance was
considerably greater, we would stick to the hedge all the way, and not
trust ourselves again to the open grass. Fortunately for our peace of
mind, the road along the side of which we were forced to travel was quite
deserted, and, keeping as much as possible in the centre of the hedge,
we slipped along at best pace. Of course, it was not by any means easy
travelling, for in places the quickset was so thick and close that we
were forced to take to the ground for short distances. Ground near a
hedge is always most dangerous, for an old hedgerow, especially one with
high banks either of earth or stone, is the chosen home of the stoat and
the weasel, and both these bloodthirsty little terrors are quite as much
at home among the branches of a thick hedge as even a squirrel.
More than half of our journey was covered in safety, and when we reached
and crossed the brook we began to feel as though we were almost home.
But we were not to escape without further adventure. A little way past
the brook, just as we were nearing the timber which I have mentioned as
running in an irregular row along the inside of this part of the hedge,
there came a piece of holly so thick and close-cropped as to be quite
impenetrable except very close to the ground. It would really have been
wiser to have cut out across the field to the nearest of the trees, but
we had had such a scare that we shirked the open. Rusty, leading as
before, had got half-way through the holly, when I saw him stop short,
and then, with a little warning cry, make a quick bound upwards into
the thickest heart of the holly. At the same moment the tangled ivy
which covered the bank below became alive with little beady eyes and
snake-like, sinuous forms. We had run right into a whole pack of weasels
hunting together, as is their custom on autumn afternoons.
I was after him like a flash, but the brutes had seen us, and came
swarming up the close-set stems, hard at our heels. Under ordinary
circumstances we could have cleared them in half a dozen bounds, but here
we were at a shocking disadvantage. Above our heads the holly was like
a wall, and it was all we could do to force our way through the stiff,
glistening, dark-green leaves. I remember plunging along desperately,
almost mad with fright, my eyes half-shut to protect them from the sharp
prickles, and my nostrils full of the horrible, musky odour of our eager
pursuers.
Then suddenly I was out of the darkness and on the top of the hedge,
scratched, breathless, my wounded ear bleeding again. But where was
Rusty? I could not see him, and a horrible fear almost numbed me. Just
in front the branches were shaking, but it was too thick to see what
was happening below. Anxiety overcoming terror, I made a dive forward
into the tangle from which I had just escaped with much difficulty, and
almost as I did so there came Rusty’s head out of the thicket. His eyes
were bright with fright, and he dragged himself forward slowly, as if
something were pulling him back. Instantly I saw that a weasel had him
by the tail, its sharp teeth buried in the thick, long hairs. Without
thinking twice, I plunged down and snapped with all my might at the
fierce brute’s head. My long front teeth sank deep into the back of his
neck, and I felt them grate on his skull. His jaws opened and he fell
backwards, knocking over the next of the pack in his fall.
Relieved of the weight, Rusty shot upwards, and with half a dozen
tremendous bounds was out of danger. As I followed him, a third weasel
gained the top of the hedge, and, throwing its long body high into the
air, like a snake in the act of striking, tried its best to seize me. I
heard its needle-like, white teeth snap and caught a glimpse of its red
eyes gleaming fiercely; but I was too quick for it, and, as it fell back
disappointed, I was off in Rusty’s wake at a speed that defied pursuit.
Regardless of concealment, we tore along the top of the hedge until level
with the trees, then, turning off to the left, reached the timber, and so
from tree to tree towards the coppice.
The sun was just setting when two worn-out, scratched, frightened, and
very disreputable-looking squirrels reached the old beech and made
humble confession to their mother of all that had happened to them
during that adventurous day, and, after a thorough good scolding, were
at last forgiven and permitted to sup on beech-mast and curl up with the
rest of their family snug in the heart of the great beech trunk.
After this day I found that Rusty treated me with far more consideration
than he had ever shown before. He dropped his jeers about ‘tame’
squirrels, and showed in his silent way that he was pleased to have my
company in his wanderings abroad. I forgot to say that, though his brush
looked a little lopsided for a time, the hair soon grew again, while my
wound healed rapidly; but I still have a small hole through the left ear
where the shot passed, to remind me of my narrow escape.
For the next few weeks mother kept us very busy, helping her to collect
winter stores. These consisted almost entirely of hazel-nuts, acorns, and
beech-mast, all of which were very plentiful. We made small hoards in
many different places, a very necessary precaution, for if—to use Jack’s
expression—we were to put all our eggs in one basket, we should stand a
very good chance of starving in hard weather. There are plenty of thieves
in the woods. Rats and mice are the worst—absolutely conscienceless,
both of them. Then there are the nut-hatches, who have a wonderful trick
of ferreting out nuts hidden in holes in timber. Again, snow may cover a
ground-hoard too deep to reach it, or even hide it altogether, so that
it is impossible to find it at all. People who abuse us, because we
occasionally do a little pruning among the tips of the evergreens, should
remember that we are the greatest planters in the country. I suppose
that quite one in three of the ancient oaks that England is so proud of
have sprung from acorns hidden by squirrels in autumn, and either lost
or not needed during the winter. So, too, have countless beech-trees and
nut-bushes, and not a few pines and firs into the bargain.
As we worked at our stores we often met others of our race intent upon
similar business. The nuts of our coppice were famous for a long way
round, and were so plentiful that there was enough for fifty families if
they cared to come for them. We enjoyed seeing these visitors, and had
great games with them.
And so day by day, as the leaves fell and the night frosts became more
frequent and more sharp, we worked and played and generally enjoyed life
quite undisturbed by any outside interference.