CHAPTER I

THE SPRING RAINS

Vix found the old drain at the beginning of March. It was warm and roomy, and ran under the gate of the Plantation Field. Once upon a time, before the reservoir was built further up the hill, the stream which rose under St. Bridget's Tower had emptied itself through this drain into the bog; but that was many years ago, and now the moss and ferns grew thickly round the opening, and the grating at the further end was choked with rubbish. Nevertheless, because it was dry and lonely it suited Vix exactly, and the four cubs were born there towards the end of the month. They were blind, red, squealing creatures who groped and fought in the hot darkness to reach Vix and nuzzle at her side, and at first she spent most of the twenty-four hours among them; but as they grew bigger and needed more food she was forced to spend much time on hunting excursions. Fortunately, however, as rabbits were to be had for the picking up in Knockdane Woods over the hill, and mice and rats were plentiful in the bog, the neighbouring poultry yards were not too severely taxed and Vix's nursery remained undiscovered.

April was ushered in by a cool dark evening after heavy rain. The sunset was pale and stormy, blotted out by ragged clouds, and as Vix trotted home she heard the 'rail' singing up the river. The 'rail' is the name which the Fur Folk have given to the sound which is heard at night before a storm, and it is one of the most mysterious noises of the whole countryside. There may be no wind stirring at the time, but the Wild Folk hear the strange whining far away over the woods and bogs, and know that there is a gale blowing up from the sea.

Vix's path lay by the reservoir, and here, startled perhaps by some night noise among the rushes, she paused. The reservoir had been built many years ago when Paddy Magragh's father had plenty of money, and much stock which required water. He caught the little brook which trickled through Vix's drain from St. Bridget's Tower to the bog, and turned its course into the big cement basin, leading off the water by a sluice into a new channel. But the farm had fallen on evil days at the hands of Paddy Magragh, and the reservoir was choked with cresses and duckweed. Much rain had fallen this spring, and the basin was dangerously full. The sluice was shut fast, but the brown water squirted through the chinks and danced down the hill. The stream, all wild with joy of the great rains, brought down leaves and twigs in its rush, and waltzed them round and round in the plaited current until it heaped them against the ever-growing scum and debris at the sluice. By and by the branch of a tree came rolling along, and stuck fast. The leaves were driven against it until a high barricade was raised, and the water could only trickle through the sluice. Then Vix went home to her cubs, but the stream still poured into the basin from which it could find no outlet. There was only one flaw in the cement, and that quite a little one, patched with clay and willow withies, but the water--the brown, treacherous water--found it out, and worked silently and steadily all night. O a mad, merry miner is the water!

Hard after the 'rail' came the wind and the rain. Safe and warm below ground, the foxes heard the howling of the gale in the Plantation, and the steady splash of rain drops on the sodden ground; but the brick walls of the drain were still strong and water-tight. Paddy Magragh in his cabin also heard the storm roaring outside, and remembered that he had left the sluice of the reservoir closed; but he dismissed the thought with a characteristic 'time enough to-morrow.'

Vix was astir at daybreak the next morning. The wind still moaned in fitful gusts and brief rain-storms drove across the sky. There was a watery gleam in the east which told of the sunrise to be, and the fields were flooded. Vix reached the reservoir. It was full of turbid water which lipped to the very brim, and the clay which dammed up the broken wall was sodden and dripping.

As Vix watched, a strange thing happened. A lump crumbled outwards and a ripple of water ran down the slope towards the fence. It swelled a little as the hole grew larger, until it became quite a broad stream. It sang a merry little song to itself as it ran--so merry that a number of brother ripples hastened to join it. They crowded into the hole in such numbers, struggling to pass through, that suddenly the whole earthwork tottered and crumbled away, and the coffee-coloured flood leaped through the gap down the hill in the wake of the first ripple. Brawling, tumbling, spreading into shallow pools and splashing cascades, it raced down the field. The hedge barred its way for a moment, but urged by the rush behind, it rose, and crept between the hawthorns into the ditch on the further side. It was many a year since the stream had found its way down that ditch. It poured into its old bed joyously, and kissed the primroses with foam kisses before it drowned them in its cold ripples.

Not until the flood had entered the Plantation Field did Vix realise what it meant. Then she ran, faster than when the hounds were at her brush, straight to the drain where her four ruddy cubs lay in the torrent's path. The stream was perilously near them. It had carved a way for itself among the grass and brambles which choked the ditch, and sang to itself lustily on the way to the bog. Vix dashed underground, and, seizing the first of the warm whining creatures which she stumbled over in the darkness, she turned to fly. Too late! She was caught in a trap. The water burst into the drain, and surging to and fro to find an exit, it filled the tunnel to the roof. Vix, half drowned but still clinging to the cub, was battered to and fro. Something which was not driftwood was driven against her in the darkness; but though her mother-love was great she could not hold two, and it slipped past her. Twice she fought her head above water, and twice she was washed off her feet. The third time, gasping and choking, she gained the opening, struggled to land, and laid the dripping cub on the bank. But there were three more down there. Vix looked at the flood which plunged through the drain and into the field through the further opening, and that good instinct which bids the Wild Folk care first for that which is nearest conquered. She picked up the half-drowned cub, and galloped up the hill towards Knockdane.

When, three hours later, Paddy Magragh strolled by, the flood had subsided, and only a trickle filtered through the drain, which was half choked with rubbish. On the bank lay three little red bodies, and there were marks on the wet earth where strong frenzied pads had striven to dig down to the treasures hidden below.

That was all that Paddy Magragh ever knew, but that spring an old fox cared for her one remaining cub in the woods of Knockdane. And that cub was Redpad.