Chapter 10

"They be nice cubs," said the "whip" to the huntsman; "as nice a little lot as ever I clapped eyes on. If only they can give us such a doing as the old vixen gave us twice last December, they'll pass muster. Them Gwyddyl Valley foxes be always reg'lar fliers. Their meat ain't got too easy-like; that's why, maybe, they're always in working order. Any road, their flags o' distress (tongues) don't flop over their grinders without the hounds trim 'em hard on a straight, burning scent." "Well, we'll give 'em a good start, whatever happens," replied the huntsman; "here's two more bunnies for the larder. If the old girl shifts her quarters, find out her new "earth," and feed her well. I shouldn't like to be near the guv'nor if the young uns turn out mangy when we hustle 'em about a bit in the autumn."

The voices ceased, the furze-bushes were removed from the tunnel entrances, a cold, steady current of air filled the chamber and the passages, and the vixen knew that a way had been made for her escape. She was not, however, so foolhardy as to venture forth while the scent of her foes remained strong in the thicket; she lingered, in spite of extreme thirst, till the shadows of evening deepened perceptibly in her underground abode.

When the vixen stole out into the grass, the pale moon was brightening in the southern sky, and a solitary star glimmered faintly above the tree-tops. A thrush sang his vesper from the bare branch of an oak near by, and a blackbird, startled by the sight of a strange form squatting beside the brambles, sounded his shrill alarm and dipped across the clearing towards a clump of blackthorn bushes. As soon as she heard the blackbird's warning, the vixen vanished; but, presently reappearing, she trotted across the open space and sat beneath the thorns. For some minutes she remained motionless in the dark patch of shadow, listening intently; then, passing slowly down a narrow path, she reached a trickling streamlet that fell with constant music from stone to stone between luxuriant masses of moss and lichen; and there, at a gravelly pool among the boulders, she cautiously stooped to drink. With exceeding care, she now proceeded to make a thorough inspection of the covert. The night was so calm and bright that the rabbits were feeding everywhere on the margin of the thickets, but the vixen passed them by with nothing but a casual glance; her mind, for the present, was not concerned with hunting. After skirting the covert, she turned homewards by a pathway through the trees.

At the end of the path she paused, with head bent low and hackles ruffled along the spine--the scent of another vixen lay fresh on the ground. The peculiar taint told her a complete story. The strange vixen was soon to become a mother, and probably, in anticipation of the event, inhabited an "earth" close by. Casting about like an experienced hound, she picked up the trail, and followed it into a great tangle of heather, brambles, and fern, where the scent led, by many a devious turn, to the spreading roots of a beech, beneath which a disused rabbit warren had been prepared for the little strangers presently to be brought into the world. The dwelling place was empty.

Retracing her steps as far as the spot where first she had struck the trail, then turning sharply towards the clearing, the crafty creature hastened back to the "earth," determined to remove her cubs without delay to the newly discovered abode. One by one she bore her offspring thither, holding them gently by the loose skin about their necks, and housed them all before the dispossessed tenant returned from a slow and wearisome night's hunting. The evicted vixen, seeking to enter her home, speedily recognised that in her distressed condition she was no match for her savage, active enemy, and so, reluctantly retiring, took up her quarters in the artificial "earth."

Henceforth, through all the careless hours of infancy, till summer ended and the nights gradually lengthened towards the time of the Hunter's Moon, the stillness of the woodlands was never broken by the ominous note of the horn, or by the dread, fascinating music of the hounds in full cry. Three of the cubs grew stout and strong, but the fourth was a weakling--whether from injury at the hands of the huntsman or from some natural ailment was not to be determined. He died, and mysteriously disappeared, on the very day when the rest of the cubs first opened their eyes in the dim chamber among the roots of the beech.

Vulp was the only male member of the happy woodland family. His indulgent sisters tolerated his bouncing, familiar manners as if they were born to be his playthings--he was so serious and yet so droll, so stupidly self-assertive and yet so irresistibly affectionate! He seemed to take his pleasures sadly, wearing, if such be possible to a fox, an air of melancholy disdain; and yet his beady eyes were ever on the lookout for mischief, and for the chance of a helter-skelter romp with his sisters round and round the chamber, or to the entrance of the "earth," where the sprouts of the green grass and the flowers of the golden celandine sparkled as the sunlight of the fresh spring morning flickered between the trees.

As yet, Vulp was unacquainted with the wide, free world. It seemed very wonderful and awe-inspiring, as he sat by the mouth of the tunnel in the shadow of an arching spray of polypody and, for sheer lack of something better to do, half lifted himself on his hind-legs to rub his lips against the edge of a fern, or to peep, with a feeling that his whereabouts were a secret, between the drooping fronds. His mother restrained his rashness; once, when he actually thrust his head beyond the ferns, she with a stern admonition warned him of his mistake; and he promptly withdrew to her side, frightened at his own boldness, but grunting in well assumed defiance of the imagined danger from which he had fled.

This, in fact, was the first lesson learned--that a certain sign from the vixen meant "No," and that disobedience was afterwards punishable according to the unwritten laws of woodland life. Another sign that he learned to obey meant "Come." It was a low, deep note, gentle and persuasive; and directly Vulp heard it he would hasten to his mother to be not only fed but also cleansed from every particle of dirt. Such toilet operations were not always welcome to the youngsters, and were sometimes vigorously resented. But the vixen had a convincing method of dealing with any refractory member of her family; she would hold the cub firmly between her fore-feet while she continued her treatment, or administered slight, well-judged chastisement by nipping her wayward offspring in some tender spot, where, however, little harm could be the result.

The cubs were ten days old when they opened their eyes, but more than three weeks passed before they were allowed beyond the threshold of their home. Then, one starlight night, their mother, having returned from hunting, awoke them, and, withholding their usual nourishment, gave the signal "Come." The obedient little family followed her along the dark passage, and ventured, close at her heels, into the grass-patch in the middle of the briar-brake. Vulp was slightly more timid than his sisters were; even at that early age he showed signs of independence and distrust. While the other cubs played "follow-my-leader" with the dam, he hung back, hesitating and afraid. Even an unusual show of affection by his mother failed to reassure him. A rabbit dodged quickly across a path, and immediately he stood rigid with fright. Hardly had he recovered before an owl flew slowly overhead. Enough! He paused, motionless, till the awful presence had disappeared; then darted, with astonishing speed, straight towards the "earth," and vanished, with a ridiculously feeble "yap" of make-believe bravado, into the darkness of the den. Confidence, however, came and increased as the days and the nights went by, till, at the close of a week's experiences, Vulp was as bold in danger as either of his playmates. He learned to trust his mother implicitly, and, in her absence, became the guardian of the family when some fancied alarm brought fear. He was always last in learning his lessons; but, as if to make amends, he always profited most by the teaching.

Happy, indeed, were those hours of innocence--filled with sleep, and love, and play. Till Vulp was six weeks old, he was wholly unconscious of that ravenous hunger for flesh which was fated to make him the scourge of the woodlands. Nevertheless, his instincts were slowly developing, and so, when on a second occasion the old buck rabbit that had frightened him in the thicket bolted before his eyes across the path, the little fox bristled with rage and, but for his mother's presence, would doubtless have tried to pursue the exasperating coney. Invariably, when the night was fine, the cubs gambolled about the vixen on the close-cropped sward beyond the den, climbing over her body, pinching her ears, growling and grunting, tugging at each other's brushes, and in general behaving just as healthy, happy fox-cubs might be expected to behave; while the patient, careful mother looked on approvingly--save when, uniting in one strong effort, they endeavoured to disjoint her tail by pulling it over her back--and smiled, as only a fox can smile, with eyes asquint and a single out-turned fang showing white beside the half-closed lip.

A great event occurred when the mother first brought home her prey that she might educate her youngsters in the matter of appetite and prepare them for an independent existence. The victim was an almost full-grown rabbit. Laying it down close to the entrance of the "earth," the vixen called her cubs, and instantly they rushed from the den, tumbling over each other in their haste, till they gained the spot where she was waiting. At that moment, however, they caught sight of the strange grey object in the grass, and, leaping back, bolted round to their mother's side. Then, feeling safe under her care, they cautiously advanced in a row to sniff the rabbit, and wondered, yet instinctively guessed, at the meaning of the situation. The vixen growled, and, picking up her prey, carried it to the bramble-clump. The cubs followed, making all sorts of curious noises in mimicking their dam, and evincing the utmost inquisitiveness as to the reason of her unexpected conduct. Presently, having succeeded in arousing their inborn passion for flesh, the vixen resorted to a neighbouring mound, and left her offspring in possession of the dead animal, on which they immediately pounced, tooth and nail. How terribly in earnest they became, how bold and reckless in their vain attempt to demolish the subject of their wrath! Vulp fastened his needle-like teeth in the throat, and each of his sisters gripped a leg, while together they jerked, strained, scolded, and threatened, till the mother, fearing lest the commotion would betray their whereabouts to some lurking foe, rated her noisy progeny and in anger drove them away. But as soon as she had gone back to her seat among the grass-bents, the youngsters returned to their work. Anyhow, anywhere, they hurled themselves on the dead creature, sometimes biting each other for sheer lack of knowing exactly what else they should bite, and sometimes simply for the excitement of a family squabble.

At last, their unwonted exertions began to tire them; then the careful vixen, desirous of bringing the lesson to its close, "broke up" her prey and divided it among her hungry children. They fed daintily, choosing from each portion no more than a morsel, and soon afterwards, exhausted by excitement and fatigue, and forgetful of their differences, were fast asleep, huddled together as usual in the roomy recess of the den. For a while the vixen remained to satisfy her hunger; then, having buried a few tit-bits of her provender, she also retired to rest; and silence brooded over the woodlands till the break of day set every nesting bird atune.

The vixen proved to be an untiring teacher, and the education of the cubs occupied a part, at least, of every night. The young foxes were growing rapidly, and accompanied their dam in her wanderings about the thickets. She never went far afield, food being easily procured at that time of year, particularly as in a certain spot additional supplies for the larder were frequently forthcoming because of the vigilance of the huntsman, whose one desire was to fit the cubs to match his hounds in the first "runs" of the coming season.

III.

THE CUB AND THE POLECAT.

The young fox's education, varied and thorough, steadily proceeded. Though the vixen-cubs were slightly quicker to learn, they were more excitable, and consequently did not benefit fully by each lesson. Vulp soon began to hunt for his own sport and profit. In the meadow above the wood he would sit motionless, his eyes fixed on the ground, till the voles came from their burrows to play beneath the grass-bents; then, with a quick rush, he would secure a victim directly its presence was betrayed by a waving stalk. With the same patience he would watch near a rabbit warren, till one of the inhabitants, hopping out to the mound before her door, gave him the sure chance of a kill. But in the wheat-fields on the slope his methods were altogether different. To capture partridges required unusual cunning and skill, and such importance did the vixen attach to this branch of her field-craft, that, before initiating her youngsters into the sport of hunting these birds at night, she instructed them diligently in the methods of following by scent, training them how to pursue the winding trail left by the larks that fed at evening near their sleeping places, or by the corncrakes that wandered babbling through the green wheat. Vulp's first attempt to capture a partridge chick resulted in failure. The vixen-cubs "fouled" the line he had patiently picked out in the ditch around the cornfield, and, "casting" haphazard through the herbage, alarmed the sleeping birds, and sent them away to a secure hiding place in the clover. But his second attempt was crowned with success, and he proudly carried his prey into a sequestered nook amid the gorse, where he enjoyed a quiet meal.

The cub was fully six months old before he knew the precise difference between stale and fresh scent, or between the scent of one creature and that of another, and how to hunt accordingly; and several years, with many dangers and hair-breadth escapes, were destined to pass before he became expert in avoiding or baffling the numerous enemies--chiefly dogs, and men, and traps--that threatened his life. And yet, during the first few months of his existence, he gained sufficient knowledge for the needs of the moment; and when August drew on towards the close of the summer, and he was three parts grown, he had so extended his nightly rambles that the "lay of the land" was familiar for miles around the covert. His outdoor existence--for now he was wont to sleep in a lair among the gorse and the bracken, instead of in the stuffy "earth"--gave him strength in abundant measure, while his scrupulously clean habits, the care with which he removed even the slightest trace of a burr from his sleek, brown coat, and the plentiful supplies of fresh food which he was able to obtain, naturally preserved him from mange and similar ailments to which carnivorous animals are always prone. For the present, indeed, life meant nothing more to him than the sheer enjoyment of vigorous health, at home by day amid the grateful shadows of the bushes and the trees, or basking in the sun, and abroad at night in the cold, clear air of the dewy uplands.

Just as sportsmen occasionally meet with a run of ill-luck, when for some apparently unaccountable reason they either fail to find game, or fail to kill it, and, to intensify the annoyance, an accident occurs that leaves a bitter memory, so Vulp, during one of his long rambles over the countryside, failed entirely to find sport, and gained a decidedly unpleasant experience. If only his mother had not taught him that in a season of scarcity a weasel might reasonably be considered an article of food! One summer night, as he started on his usual prowl, the covert seemed strangely silent. With the exception of a solitary rabbit that bolted to its burrow when the young fox crossed the clearing, and another that disappeared in similar fashion when nothing more than a slight crackle of a leaf betrayed Vulp's whereabouts near a bramble-clump, every animal had apparently deserted the thickets. So, leaving his accustomed haunts, he crossed the furze-clad dingle, and watched near a large warren in the open. But there, again, not a rabbit could be seen. A field-vole rustled by over the leaves; the cub made a futile effort to capture it, stood for an instant listening to its movements, then thrust his nose into the herbage in another vigorous but vain attempt; the vole, like the rabbits, had sought refuge underground. An owl, that had frightened the cub about five months before when first he ventured outside his home, rose from the hedge, and flew slowly down the valley with a little squealing creature in her talons; she, at any rate, had not hunted in vain.

At last Vulp struck a fresh line of scent which, though particularly strong and uninviting, he took to be that of a weasel. It was mingled with the faint odour of a field-vole that, doubtless, had been pursued and carried away by its persistent enemy. The cub followed the trail, hoping to secure both hunter and victim, but it soon led him to a hole in the hedgerow, and there abruptly ceased. He was about to turn from the spot, when the eyes of the supposed weasel suddenly gleamed at the mouth of the hole, but disappeared when the presence of the cub was recognised. The fox, retreating to a convenient post of observation behind a tuft of grass, settled down to await his opportunity. A few minutes elapsed, and the pursued creature came once more in sight. It appeared like a shadow against the sky, lifted its nose inquiringly, quitted the burrow, sat bolt upright for a moment, then, reassured, proceeded towards the covert on the opposite side of the path. With a single bound, the cub cleared the grass-tuft, reached out at his prey, missed his grip, bowled the animal over, and, turning rapidly, caught it across the loins instead of by the throat. Unfortunately for himself, the fox had made a slight miscalculation. With a scream of rage and pain, the polecat--for such the creature proved to be--turned on the aggressor, and instantly fastened its formidable teeth, like a steel trap, on his muzzle. Vulp had been taught that his fangs, also, were a trap from which there should be no escape, and so he held on firmly, trying meanwhile to shake the life from his victim. He pressed the polecat to the ground, and frantically endeavoured to disengage its hold by thrusting his fore-paws beneath its muzzle; but every effort alike was useless. A scalding, acrid fluid emitted by the polecat caused the lips and one of the eyes of the cub to smart unbearably, and the offensive odour of the fluid grew stronger and stronger, till it became almost suffocating. At last the polecat convulsively trembled as its ribs and spine were crushed in the fox's tightening jaws, its teeth relaxed their hold, and the fight was over.

Sickened by the pungent smell, and with muzzle, lips, and right eye burning horribly from his wounds and the irritant poison, Vulp hastily dropped his prey, and ignominiously bolted from the scene of the encounter. Soon, however, he stopped; the pain in his eye seemed beyond endurance. He tried to rub away the noxious fluid with his paws, but his frantic efforts only increased the irritation by conveying the poison to his other eye and to his wounds. He rolled and sneezed and grunted in torment; he drew his muzzle and cheeks to and fro on the ground, wrestling with the great Earth-Mother for help in direst agony. He could not open his eyes; he stumbled blindly against a tree-trunk, and at last became entangled in the prickly undergrowth. This was Nature's method of succour--she forced her wildling to remain quiet, in helpless exhaustion, till the pain subsided and life could once again be endured. Panting and sick, the cub lay outstretched among the thorns, while the tears flowed from his eyes and the froth hung on his lips. Presently, however, relieved by the copious discharge, he recovered his senses, and, miserably cowed, with head and brush hanging low, returned before dawn to the covert. But the vixen in fury drove the cub away; the scent still clung to him, and rendered him obnoxious even to his mother. In shame he retired to a dense "double" hedge of hawthorn, where he hid throughout the day, till he could summon sufficient courage at dusk to hunt for some dainty morsel wherewith to tempt his sickened appetite. But before taking up his position above the entrance to a rabbit warren, he drank at the brook, dipped his tainted fore-paws in the running water, and, sitting by the margin, removed from his face, as far as possible, the traces left by the previous night's conflict. Repeatedly, at all hours of the day and the night, he licked his paws and with them washed his wounded muzzle and inflamed eyes; but so obstinately did the offensive odour cling to him that a fortnight elapsed before the last vestige of the nuisance disappeared. Meanwhile, he narrowly escaped the mange; and, to add to the discomfort of his wounds, he experienced, now that his mother's aid was lacking, some difficulty in obtaining sufficient fresh food.

At length he recovered, and new, downy hair clothed the wounds and the scratches on his muzzle and throat. Sleek and strong once more, he was welcomed as a penitent prodigal by the relenting vixen, and, having in the period of his solitary wanderings learned much about the habits of the woodland folk, was doubtless able to assist his mother in the future training of the vixen-cubs.

In that luckless fortnight he had acquired a taste for young pheasants, had picked up a few fat pigeon-squabs belonging to the last broods of the year, and had sampled sundry articles of diet--frogs, slugs, snails, a young hedgehog or two, and a squirrel that, overcome with inquisitiveness, descended from the tree-tops to inspect the young fox as he dozed among the bilberries carpeting the forest floor.

Another incident occurred, to which, at the time, the cub attached considerable importance. He had killed what seemed to be a large, heavy rabbit, which, though evidently possessed of a healthy appetite, was almost scentless, and differed in taste from any he had hitherto captured. He was not particularly hungry, so he buried the insipid flesh, and resolved never to destroy another rabbit that did not yield a full, strong scent. Shortly afterwards, when, under the eye of the bright August moon, Vulp and the vixen were hunting in the wheat-fields, he detected a similarly weak scent along the hedgerow, and learned from his wise mother it was that of a doe-hare about to give birth to her young, and therefore hardly worth the trouble of following. The vixen further explained that, except when other food was scarce, creatures occupied, or about to be occupied, with maternal cares--even the lark in the furrow and the willow-warbler in the hole by the brook--were far less palatable than at other times. The cub was also told how, just before he came into the world, the hounds had chased his mother from the thicket, and how old Reveller, the leader of the pack, had headed the reckless puppies, and, rating them for their discourtesy, had led them away to scour another part of the covert.