MY LAST ADVENTURE
The animal which had just pushed its way out of the hollow recesses of
the hazel-roots resembled nothing so much as a weasel, but a weasel of
such giant proportions as I had never before dreamed of. From nose to
tip of tail it was nearly two feet long. The creature had a domed head,
with prominent eyes and widely arched eyebrows, giving it a strangely
sinister appearance. It was, in fact, though I did not realize this at
the time, no other than the rare and dreaded polecat, which keepers call
the foumart.
When I first caught sight of this monster I was sitting on a bough barely
a couple of feet from the ground, and so great was my amazement and
fright that for an instant I sat staring down into the glaring yellow
eyes, unable to collect my senses at all. Of a sudden the creature
launched itself upwards with almost the quickness and ferocity of a
striking snake. Its thin lips, curled back, showed two rows of close-set
white teeth, sharp as needles, and at the same instant an abominable
odour, like that of a stoat, but far more fœtid, nearly suffocated me.
Recovering myself just in time, I made one desperate spring, and
succeeded in reaching a twig out of reach of the brute’s jaws. But the
foumart had no idea of being so easily cheated of his meal. The branches,
thick and close-set, offered him an easy ladder, and to my horror and
alarm, he came after me with unexpected and startling speed. I completely
lost my head, and dashed away up to the top of the hazel-bush with a
recklessness inspired by terror.
In my haste I found that I had ascended, not the main stalk of the clump,
but another not so tall. The result was that the oak branch from which
I had dropped was now a long way above me. But a rustle in the foliage
below told me that my enemy was at my heels, and nerved me to attempt the
jump.
My claws just grazed the under side of the oak bough. I fell back, and
next moment had plunged with a splash into the swirling waters of the
swollen torrent.
The fall carried me far below the muddy surface, but next moment I
rose, gasping for breath, and struck out vehemently. I know that it is
popularly supposed that a squirrel cannot swim, but that when he wishes
to cross a river he launches himself upon a piece of floating bark, and
using his tail as a sail, ferries himself across. A squirrel, as a matter
of fact, is a very fair swimmer, and can, and does at a pinch, cross
wide rivers in this way. Though I had never tried it before, yet I found
myself quite able to keep my head above water; but a very short struggle
convinced me that it was foolishness to attempt to make head against the
fierce current of the flooded stream.
For I had fallen not into the placid backwater behind the nut-bush
island, but out into the edge of the main stream, and a cross current
catching me, had sent me swinging out into the very centre of the racing
river. For a few moments I beat the water desperately with all four paws
in a frantic effort to get back to the shore which I had left; but very
soon I exhausted myself so completely that I could fight no longer, and,
paddling feebly, was swept down-stream at a positively terrifying speed.
It was now late in October, and the water was very cold. Soon I began to
feel quite numbed. Besides this, I was horribly frightened, while the
pace at which the small whirlpools into which I was constantly flung,
spun me around, made me giddy, and added to the hopelessness of my
feelings. The whole experience was so horrifying that I may be forgiven
for confessing the terror I felt. Once or twice I saw tree-roots or
projecting points of high banks forming promontories which extended out
into the flood, and so long as strength lasted I made fierce efforts to
reach them. But in each case the current, rendered the more irresistible
by opposition, mocked my puny efforts and whirled me away out into the
centre again. Once a small log, floating almost submerged, overtook me as
I battled with the stream, and, catching me across the neck, pushed me
quite under water and drove over me. When I rose once more, my strength
was almost spent, and I felt that I could not much longer continue the
useless struggle.
I was sinking lower and lower in the water; my strokes were becoming more
feeble every moment, and it was only a question of a few minutes before
I must have sunk for good, when I suddenly caught sight of a long narrow
plank, evidently torn from some paling by the flood, sweeping down, end
on, beside me. With a last despairing effort I struck out for it, and
just before it had passed quite out of my reach, succeeded in scrambling
upon one end of it. It dipped beneath my water-logged weight, and the
current almost snatched me away. But, clinging with all my claws, I
managed to crawl along to its centre, and found to my joy that it would
support me.
But, even so, my position was extremely perilous. The way in which the
banks flew by showed how rapid was the rush of the flooded river. Suppose
the plank caught against any obstacle, it must at once roll over and
plunge me again into the water. Happily, however, this did not happen,
and though time and again it checked and quivered, I managed to retain my
hold, and so was swept along almost as fast as a man could run.
I passed the large house down the valley, and beyond it the river
broadened, but still ran with almost unabated speed. Soon I had cleared
the wood, and was driving along between pastures which sloped steeply
upwards from bluff-like banks. Once I saw a drowned sheep caught in the
brambles under a curve, and shuddered to think how soon the same fate
might befall me. Field after field flew by, and once more the river
plunged into the shadow of thick trees, and then a new and terrifying
sound came to my ears. It was the deep, sullen roar of falling water.
Sweeping round a wide curve, I became aware of a long weir in front
penning the brimming river which foamed along its top, while through
the open sluice-gates the main stream plunged in a mass of yellow foam.
Now, indeed, I gave myself up for lost, for I saw that I could not hope
to survive the passage down that fierce fall. On like an arrow sped the
plank, straight for the centre of the opening, and all hope that it
might drift against the weir was gone, when, suddenly, with a jar that
almost flung me from my insecure perch, the front end of the plank struck
something hidden below the muddy water, probably a sunken stake, and
instantly was swung side on, jamming across the very mouth of the gates.
Gathering all my few remaining energies, I made a feeble leap, and more
by good luck than good management reached the top of the weir. Even then
my troubles were not over, for the weir was old and broken, and in places
the flood was actually foaming over its top. But after waiting a little
to recover my strength, I succeeded in jumping these gaps, and at last
struggled safely ashore once more.
I was soaked as I had never been in my life before, chilled to the bone,
so exhausted that I could hardly move, and yet intensely grateful to be
once more on firm ground. Luckily for me, the sun was still shining, and
the air mild and warm for the time of year; so I crawled up into a small
tree, and lying out on a branch on the sunny side, waited for my dripping
fur to dry a little.
My position was far from an enviable one. Here I was, in a strange wood,
far away from our winter-quarters, and separated from Walnut, without
food, friends, or a home. However, Walnut was luckily well able to look
after himself, and there was no doubt about finding food of some sort, so
I consoled myself with the thought that I would start as soon as possible
and make my way back to the river wood.
While I sat there sunning myself I was surprised and pleased to hear a
familiar gnawing sound in a neighbouring beech-tree, and suddenly there
came into view another squirrel, a handsome fellow with an uncommonly
light coat. I called to him, and he came across in a most friendly way.
He remarked on my dripping coat civilly, and I told him the story of my
misfortunes.
‘Ugh!’ he shuddered, with a glance at the foaming river, ‘I wouldn’t
take a swim in that—not for a coppice full of cob-nuts!’
We chatted for a while, and my new friend was good enough to show me a
nice lot of fir-cones, on which I made a much-needed meal. Then I told
him that I meant to go back up-stream to the river wood, and I suppose
I must have dilated on its attractiveness, for suddenly he proposed
accompanying me.
‘Like you,’ he said sadly, ‘I have lost my wife and all my family. I
don’t know what became of them. I was out one day feeding, and when I
came home they were all gone. There were footsteps below the tree, so no
doubt I have some ruffianly man to thank for stealing them.’
I was anxious to start at once, but the pale squirrel, who told me that
his name was Crab, begged me to share his quarters for the night and put
off my departure till the morning. Oddly enough, though very tired, I was
singularly unwilling to defer my start. However, he over-persuaded me.
And for him the delay proved sad indeed, though fortunate enough for me.
Crab’s quarters were in a very odd place—in the hollow head of a large
pollard willow not far from the water’s edge. I told him that I had
never before seen a squirrel live in a willow, and he explained that he
had adopted this refuge because the ground beneath was so wet and swampy
that it choked off human intruders. By degrees I found out that this wood
was simply at the mercy of tramps and other vagabonds who camped there in
numbers. Crab showed me the ashes of their fires alongside of the rough
cart-track which ran through the coppice, and the places where they had
cut wood to burn; evidently here was the other extreme from the Hall
grounds—a country utterly neglected by its owners. Not a rabbit was to
be seen, and Crab told me that, except for wood-pigeons and small birds,
there was hardly a living thing in the wood.
‘The gipsies even catch the hedgehogs, roast them in clay, and eat them,’
he said with a shudder.
‘And who are gipsies?’ I inquired, puzzled. I had never heard the word
before.
Crab shuddered.
‘Brown men with traps and snares, and black-haired women with red
handkerchiefs and shining earrings. Terrible people! Cleverer than
keepers, and much more greedy. Pray you may not see any,’ he ended.
What Crab told me made me the more anxious to clear out of this
ill-omened spot, and next morning, as soon as the dew was a little off
the grass, we started. Crab did not know much about the way we had to
travel, but the river was our guide. What we both were chiefly afraid of
were open meadows over which we knew that we had to pass. However, I was
by now such a hardened wanderer that the risks of such a journey did not
trouble me greatly.
It was an ideal autumn morning, calm, with a warm sun shining out of a
blue sky, and the rain-washed air marvellously clear. Small birds chirped
and twittered in every hedge, but I could see for myself that what Crab
had told me was true. There was no game left in the whole country-side.
Even rabbits were very scarce. The fields, too, were neglected. They were
not half drained, so that the grass was rough, and patchy with clumps of
reeds. The hedges were untrimmed, immensely high, and yet full of gaps.
The lane running parallel with the river was scored with deep ruts which
brimmed with muddy puddles.
The tall hedges offered us excellent travelling, and we saw nobody except
a couple of farm-labourers striding along through the mud, their corduroy
trousers tied below their knees with string, and their short clay pipes
leaving a trail of strong-smelling blue smoke in their wake.
For half a mile or so we kept the hedge alongside the lane. Then the road
turned abruptly away from the river, so we left it, crossed a meadow, and
got into another hedge which seemed to lead us in the right direction.
It brought us after a time into a large leasowe sloping to the river.
This leasowe I remember as one of the most beautiful places which I
have ever seen. The ground, dropping sharply, was thickly studded with
clumps of alder and hazel, the tops of which had been cut at irregular
interval, while the roots had grown to enormous dimensions. Each clump
was surrounded by a tangle of blackberry and brier, making a thick,
impenetrable shelter. The leaves of these various trees were all in the
full splendour of late autumn tints, and contrasted brilliantly with the
green of the grass and the myriads of scarlet hips and haws; while there
were dotted about the leasowe a number of crab-apple trees whose scarlet
leaves and red and golden fruit gave a last touch of gorgeous colouring
to the whole scene.
There were a good many nuts, and we crossed leisurely from clump to
clump, now stopping to shell a nut, now to sample the crimson side of
a crab apple. I was tasting some over-ripe blackberries, many of which
contained the most delicious little white grubs, when Crab suggested that
it was time to push on, as we still had a long way to go, and the shadows
were almost at their shortest.
Between us and the far hedge was a widish interval of fairly open grass,
bounded on the upper side by a regular thicket of hazel. As we crossed
this open space Crab suddenly drew my attention to a very odd-looking
erection which stood in a sort of bay in the hazel-brush. I had never
seen anything quite like it before, and, our curiosity thoroughly
aroused, we moved slowly and cautiously towards it.
‘’Pon my claws, I believe it’s a pheasant coop,’ I said at last.
‘There are no pheasants here,’ replied Crab. ‘Besides, it’s got no sides.’
No more it had. I saw that plainly as we approached it more closely. It
appeared to be a sort of sloping roof made of pieces of rough planking,
and propped above a hole in the ground.
Suddenly Crab stopped short. ‘What’s this?’ he exclaimed. I did not wait
to explain. A delicious morsel of white bread lay before me, and I fell
upon it and gobbled it up promptly. It was more than a year since I had
tasted such a luxury.
‘Is it good?’ inquired Crab curiously.
‘Bet your back teeth it is,’ I said.
‘Why, here’s another piece! I’ll try it,’ exclaimed my friend. He did so,
and approved greatly. I found a third, and presently we were racing in
short dashes up the queer-looking erection to which a trail of bread led
directly.
Inside the dug-out hollow below the sloping roof the ground was white
with crumbs.
‘Crab,’ I said, after a good stare at the whole thing, ‘I don’t quite
like the look of it.’
‘Why, what’s the matter?’
‘I don’t know,’ I answered. ‘All I can say is, I don’t like it. I
wouldn’t go under the roof if I were you.’
‘Nonsense! Why should I chuck away the chance of a feed like this?’
Before I could object again he had jumped down and was busily engaged
with the bread. My mouth watered. I could see no sign of danger.
There was nothing to suggest a trap. Why should not I also enjoy the
delicacies? I was on the very verge of following Crab’s example; another
second and I should have been alongside of him, when suddenly, and
without the slightest warning, thump! down came the wooden roof, and
Crab was a prisoner beneath it. At the same instant there was a crash
among the hazel-bushes, a sharp yelp, and a brown-faced, bare-legged boy,
accompanied by a large mongrel, dashed down upon me.
I was off like a flash, and by a desperate effort gained the nearest
tree—an ancient pollard oak—which stood quite by itself at some distance
both from the hedge and the hazel-bushes. The dog bounded high against
the rough trunk, but I was safely out of his reach, and, curling myself
into the smallest possible compass, crouched in the gnarled top of the
club-like head of the tree.
‘Watch him, Tige!’ shouted the boy, and the dog at once crouched silently
at the foot of the tree, while his master walked to the trap. From my
elevated position I could watch it all, and, what was more, see plainly
an old sand-pit behind the hazel-bushes, with a tent at the bottom of it,
two children playing outside, and a couple of ponies grazing near by.
Wrapping his hand in his cap, the boy cautiously seized hold of my poor
friend. I, of course, supposed that he meant to make a captive of him,
but, to my horror, the young fiend wrung the unhappy Crab’s neck, and
marched off with him back to the camp.
‘Wot you got, Zeke?’ came a gruff voice from the tent. ‘A partridge?’
‘’Tain’t no partridge. ’Tis a squir’l. ’E’ll ait fine.’
I saw the elder ruffian seize poor Crab’s dead body, and then, ‘Pity us
ain’t got another,’ he said. ‘Two on ’em ’ud mek a nutty stew.’
‘There’s another atop o’ oak—tree. Tige’s watchin’ un.’
‘Get un down!’ was the father’s order.
‘You’ll ’ave to come an’ ’elp me,’ said the boy. ‘’Tis too ’igh for me to
climb.’
‘Mother, you skin this un,’ called the elder man.
A sallow-faced woman took Crab’s body from him, and then he and his son
came up out of the pit towards the oak.
[Illustration: THE DOG BOUNDED HIGH, BUT I WAS SAFELY OUT OF HIS REACH.]
I gave myself up for lost. Remember, the tree was a pollard, and, having
been lopped not more than four or five years before, its branches were
thin and straight. They provided no cover at all. The crown from which
they sprung was not more than twenty feet above the ground. Once my
enemies climbed it, there was no escape; for if I ran out to the end of
a branch and dropped I should undoubtedly fall into the yawning jaws of
Tige the dog. But the instinct of self-preservation is strong. Casting
round me desperately, I saw a small crevice in the knotted trunk-top. At
first it seemed far too small to hold me, but somehow or other I forced
myself through, though I scored my sides as I did so. My claws met no
foothold, I made a grasp at thin air, and fell flop half a dozen feet,
landing upon a bed of soft, rotten wood. When my eyes became accustomed
to the gloom, I saw that the trunk was completely hollow for a man’s
height from the top. It was not quite dark, for the daylight leaked
through various small crevices, but there was no hole large enough for a
man to put his hand through.
The scraping of boots on the rough outside bark jarred the whole hollow
trunk. Presently I heard a voice from below: ‘Where be ’e, Zeke?’
‘Can’t see un, vather!’ cried the boy, who was by the sound on the crown
of the oak.
‘That vool Tige’s let ’im go.’
‘I’ll lay ’e ain’t,’ piped the boy.
‘Where be ’e, then?’
Silence and more groping up above. I began to hope that the hole through
which I had passed might escape the sharp eyes of the boy.
No such luck.
‘’E’s down inside, vather. ’Ere be th’ ’ole.’
‘Put thy ’and down an’ pull un out.’
The light was cut off from above.
‘Her’s all ’ollow inside,’ cried the boy. ‘I can’t reach un.’
‘Cut a stick an’ put un through.’
A pause, and presently a long bough came poking down, which I easily
avoided. But—worse luck!—the boy’s quick ears heard me moving.
‘He’s here, vather. I heard un. Tell ee what. Us’ll smoke un out.’
Memory flashed back to the poachers and the suffocated pheasants. Now,
indeed, I was lost. In helpless terror I heard them piling leaves and
twigs below the tree, and then the click of a striking match.
Blue fumes began to eddy through a knot-hole, but the bed of rotten wood
below me was so thick and damp that they passed over my head and I was
still able to breathe.
I heard the man swearing, and then he called to his boy:
‘Zeke, fetch t’ chopper. Us ’ll have to cut un out.’
Soon there came a pounding on the outside of the trunk which
reverberated through the hollow, jarring me horribly. The outer crust was
of no great thickness, and could not resist their blows for very long.
Rotten wood, bits of rubbish of all kinds began to rain down upon me
through the smoke which still hung about the hollow interior of the tree.
Thinking any fate better than dying like a rat in a trap, I climbed back
up the wall of my refuge in an attempt to reach the knot-hole again.
Half suffocated and completely dazed, I did manage to struggle up to
it, got my paws on either side and tried to force my way through. Alas!
A splinter broke away from the rough wood at the edge of the hole, and
pinned me helplessly. I could get neither forward nor back.
Fate was too strong for me. I gave up all hope, and ceased to struggle.
In another minute at most the boy would find me, and I should share poor
Crab’s fate. I heard a crash as the chopper broke through the bark below,
and Zeke’s voice:
‘Vather, ’e be up top again.’
Then it seemed to me that a miracle happened. Instead of the old fellow’s
voice, the crisp, curt tones that cut the air were those of my one-time
master, Jack.
‘Hi, you fellows, what are you about?’
Down dropped Zeke. There followed a crash among the bushes. A short
interval. Would Jack find me? I struggled again furiously, but in vain.
The splinter held me tight, and the only result of my efforts was
exquisite pain.
‘I wonder what those gipsy chaps were after?’ came Jack’s voice. ‘I’d
better have a look.’
Fresh sounds of scrambling, and all of a sudden my master’s face over the
edge of the gnarled oak crown.
‘Why, it’s a squirrel!’
Summoning all my remaining energies I gave a pitiful choked squeak, a
feeble attempt at the cry I used to call him with in the long-gone days
at the Hall.
‘What! No, it can’t be! It’s absurd! And yet’—Jack’s voice rose to a
shout—‘by Jove, _it is Nipper_!’ I felt his hand round me, his touch as
gentle as ever. ‘You poor little chap, how did you come here? And stuck
tight, too! Never mind, poor old Nipper boy. I’ll get you out all right.
Just wait a jiffy.’
Out came his knife, and with the utmost gentleness he cut the wood away
all round. In another minute I was free, and safe in his hand.
‘What, hurt, old chap? I must get it out.’ With wonderful tenderness and
deftness he pulled out the sharp splinter. ‘There, it’s not much. Only a
skin wound. How in the name of all that’s wonderful, did you come here,
half a county away from the Hall?’
As he spoke he slipped me into the pocket of his Norfolk jacket and
dropped quickly out of the tree.
When he took me out again we were in the terraced garden of the house
which I had seen by the river. Jack ran up the drive and burst into the
house, shouting at the top of his voice:
‘Harry, where are you?’
Next minute out ran his brother.
If ever I longed to be able to talk man-talk, then was the time! How
astonished they all were, for Mabel and Mrs. Fortescue soon joined the
boys, and were full of the same amazement at what they considered my
strange and mysterious reappearance. I always wonder if they knew how
much stranger I thought it at the time.
And yet it was simple enough. The house belonged to Mrs. Fortescue’s
brother, a wealthy bachelor whose hobby it was to travel all over the
world. It was he who had brought Lops, the flying squirrel, home from
Mexico, and Joey, the cockatoo, from West Africa. He had lent the
Fortescues his house, and there they were living, and there Jack had
joined them for one of his brief holidays.
As my old master took me up to his room that night, ‘Old chap,’ he said,
‘you and I are not going to part any more, even if I have to take you
back to London town.’
No more we have. He did take me back to London, but it was only for a few
weeks. For the Fortescues came into some money unexpectedly.
That is two years ago. Now we are back at the dear old Hall. The new
tenant with his band-box son, his ginger-whiskered keeper, his tame
pheasants and his barbed wire, are things of the evil past. As for me,
I live in honoured liberty in the Hall grounds. Last year I married
again, and I have three fine sons who are all nearly as fond of Jack and
his family as their father. Visitors come from a distance to see Jack’s
‘furry family,’ as they call us. We run in a body at his approach down
from the elm-trees to smother him with caresses.
Indeed, he deserves our love. Would that all other humans were as good to
squirrels as he is.
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
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