CHAPTER V

UNDER THE MOON

A little band of forewandered plover flapped southwards drearily. To the east the mountains were still encumbered with the great snowclouds which had driven over Knockdane an hour before, and converted Garry's Hill into a white sugar loaf. Now it was evening, and as the red sun sank, he flushed the fields with a dream-pink, while the moon struggled over the stormy hills.

Cuni hopped out into the cold air and shook each paw delicately, for the snow clung to them. Her eyes looked bigger and her ears longer than when we saw her last, for the cruel February weather, which spared neither the Fur nor the Feather Folk, had pressed the rabbits sorely. For weeks frost and thaw had alternated night by night, and slowly killed every green leaf and blade of grass. Sometimes cold rain fell and soaked the woods, at others snow came and covered them. Within five hundred yards of the warren there was not a tuft of grass large enough to make a 'form'; and the rabbits lay below ground in their damp burrows, and tried to deaden the hunger pain with sleep.

Although it was scarcely an hour since the snowstorm had blown by, Fluff-Button had already left Garry's Hill for the woods; and a neat trail--two little tentative punches of the forefeet over-passed by the bolder impression of the hind--indicated which path he had taken. Cuni followed him across the field. The snow was not more than two inches deep and the longest grass blades peered through it.

Knockdane Woods are surrounded by a mason-built stone wall six feet high; but in one spot the ivy, insinuating itself between the stones, has loosened them, and the smaller Fur Folk--the rabbits, rats, and stoats--have scratched a tunnel leading into the woods. Through this passage Cuni hopped, and passed from the bleakness of the white fields into an enchanted palace. Every twig and bough bore its burden of whiteness. The fir trees were converted into huge Christmas trees, and the beeches' branches were etched against a sky suffused with the illusive lilac reflections of the snow. There was an uncanny white glamour over the woods, and except for the distant roar of the unfrozen river rushing between its banks, a vast silence had fallen upon Knockdane.

Not far from the wall, in a clearing, there is a pool. It is black and stagnant, with banks overgrown with yellow pimpernel, water flags, and rushes; nevertheless many of the Fur Folk depend upon it for their water supply. To-night it was darned across with ice needles, and the silver 'cat-ice' round the edge crackled under Cuni's paws. As she expected, Fluff-Button was seated on the other bank taking a tonic. In winter when the grass is sodden and tasteless, rabbits are seized with a burning desire for strong astringent food, and they often wander far from their burrows to seek rushes, or the dry bark of saplings. To-night Fluff-Button gnawed the knotted roots of the wild iris, and as their bitterness burnt his mouth and made him sneeze, his nose quivered with pleasure. On any other night Cuni would have kept at a respectful distance from her lord; but to-night, in spite of the frost and snow, the Love Longing was beginning to awaken among the rabbit kind, and instinctively she felt that he would not repulse her. She approached him diffidently, and, instead of chasing her away, he merely glanced up and coughed. She squatted at his side and chiselled away at the iris roots, until the moon grew bright enough to light snow candles on every twig and bough.

So busy were they that they never heard the footsteps of Garry Skehan, when, half an hour later, he crossed the snowy hill to Knockdane, nor noticed how they paused at the spot where the double trail entered the wood. The woodcraft of Garry Skehan was of a rough and ready sort; for him wild creatures were divided into two broad classes--those which could be trapped and those which could not--but even he could tell that this was a rabbit run, and he chuckled over it. By and by he tramped away over the crisp snow, so softly that not even the drowsy pigeons overhead heard him.

Many of the Fur Folk passed outside the wall that night, and each one stopped to look at the place where Garry Skehan had knelt and scored the surface with his clumsy boots. First of all a rat came along, trailing his naked tail callously on the snow behind him. He gave one glance at the spot, and then hurriedly crossed the wall lower down. By and by a stoat passed. It is not in stoat nature to resist a hole wherever it may lead, and this one gingerly thrust in his nose; but at that moment he caught sight of something under his feet and drew back quietly. The mice came by and danced fairy quadrilles over the snow, but they also left the hole in the wall alone.

As the moon rose higher the frost began to bite, and the snowflakes, which had hitherto dropped rhythmically from the branches, were welded firmly together; while every leaf upon the ground was so crisped with rime that it crackled under the touch. Fluff-Button and Cuni, having made a scanty meal of such bramble leaves and ferns as remained green, turned homewards. Cuni went first, for her mate dallied behind to scratch his whiskers against a tree trunk. She came to the hole in the wall and hopped inside, for among the stones and mortar was hollowed a little chamber. There was a thin wind blowing, which had drifted the snow against the opposite opening and blocked it up, but the drift was not thick, and crumbled away when Cuni thrust her nose against it. The field was a white blank, marked with inky shadows below the trees, and not a living thing was in sight.

With one comprehensive hop Cuni alighted in the drift, and at the same instant something seized her hind leg. 'When in doubt, skip!' is the rabbit maxim, which she obeyed instantly, but she was rudely jerked back into the snow, and the grip on her leg tightened. She whisked round to see her foe, and behold there was nothing there. Cuni was terrified. She began to struggle desperately, but although the enemy's clutch tightened, there was nothing to be seen but a long strand of copper wire on the snow. Just then there was a rattle of stones, and Fluff-Button hopped through the wall. He noticed nothing amiss, and seeing that the snow was scraped away all round he began to munch the frozen grass blades. In some measure his presence reassured Cuni. She ceased to struggle, and in the perfect bliss of her mate's proximity almost forgot the mysterious enemy that held her.

Meanwhile the face of the night was changed. A snowstorm came up and drove tiny stinging flakes over the woods. They sifted into the rabbits' coats until Fluff-Button hopped inside the wall, shaking his ears. Cuni tried to follow, and although that unknown _something_ clutched her again, yet it permitted her to creep just inside the hole. Her body prevented the entrance of the driving snow, and Fluff-Button came and snuggled against her warm vest, while his twitching whiskers left soft 'butterfly kisses' on her nose. In the mother-instinct, which is as easily awakened in the woods as among men, Cuni forgot that Fluff-Button was the King-Buck whose will was law in the warren, and only remembered that he was cold and came to her for warmth. She disregarded the snow which chilled her from without, and licked him with her warm tongue as tenderly as if he had been a sleepy suckling in the nesting burrow.

The snowstorm passed and the rabbits came out again. The moon sailed up a sky as black and mysterious as a forest pool; and drowned the stars, until only one great white one survived, and blinked down like a wicked eye. Fluff-Button hopped away evidently expecting his mate to follow him, and was much perplexed to find that she was unable to do so. He sniffed her all over carefully, beseeching her to accompany him. Cuni tried her best, but in vain, and lay down panting. Fluff-Button became seriously annoyed. He was not used to disobedience, and it must be told that he kicked his mate hard with his strong hind leg. Finding that this did no good, he became alarmed. Wild creatures hate and fear the unknown, and Cuni's predicament was a most uncanny thing to rabbit ideas. Fluff-Button hopped away and began to feed doubtfully on an old turnip rind some thirty yards off, and took no notice of his mate's signals and struggles.

At last Cuni lay still and watched him. Nature is kind to her wild children, and after the first biting coldness of the snow sends a blessed lethargy which soothes away the pain. Cuni was fast drifting into this dreamy state when her senses suddenly returned to her and she sat up alertly. Silhouetted against the white field stole a lithe form--pads which made no noise, eyes gleaming faintly red, ears cocked forward towards the prey ahead of him in the snow, while the moonlight laid a long grotesque shadow behind. The fox was thin and weak with famine, and his whole attention was riveted upon Fluff-Button, who sat with his back turned. He began to stalk his victim as noiselessly as a cat, taking advantage of every ant-hill or snowdrift to screen himself.

There are two laws which have been given to the rabbit kind in the hour of danger. One is, 'Squat and be still'; and the other is, 'Scoot, if you will, but let your fellows know it.' A few rabbits obey the first all their lives; but the majority--Cuni among the number--'scoot' on an alarm, but as they run they stamp upon the ground that their friends may hear and do likewise. However, Cuni was wounded, and her wise instinct bade her lie still, and then the fox would pass her by. With frightened fascinated eyes she watched the dark form slide over the snow, clapping flat if the unconscious Fluff-Button chanced to move.

'Lie still,' whispered Instinct, numbing her limbs with fear, 'he will never see you.' But the Angel who works for the good of the race, and who sacrifices his units that his tens may be saved, cried: 'Stamp aloud and warn him, no matter what it may cost.' The two impulses struggled together in Cuni's heart, and the fox cramped his limbs together for the final rush.

'Thump!' It was a very feeble little sound, muffled by the soft snow. 'Again!' cried the stronger Angel, and summoning up all her strength, Cuni stamped again. This time Fluff-Button heard. Without as much as a glance behind, he bolted for the wall, leaped over his mate, dashed into the tunnel, and the scurry of his steps died away.

The fox checked abruptly; he knew that in the woods he had no chance against a cunning buck rabbit, and if Cuni had lain still perhaps all might have been well. Unluckily panic seized her, and, stamping again and again, she struggled for her freedom. The fox saw her and began to stalk anew, for there seemed something uncanny about this rabbit, and he dared not risk a rush too soon. Cuni forgot her pain, she forgot her fear and even that desire to live which is so firmly implanted in each one of the Fur Folk, in her overmastering rage at the thing which held her. With tooth and claw she attacked the peg round which the wire was twisted, but the frost had bound it firmly to the snow. Ah! a last spasmodic jerk wrenched it up, and trailing a broken leg, Cuni crept into the wall--free. Alas! just the other side she was brought up with a jerk. The peg was wedged between two stones, and she was as much a prisoner as ever, although just beyond the fox's reach. She heard his stealthy pads scrunch on the snow the other side of the wall, and then he found the hole. He lay down on his side and thrust his head into the opening; and when he snorted, Cuni felt his hot breath on her whiskers. He began to whimper eagerly, and scrape at the loose stones and mortar. He worked his shoulders further and further in, and the little chamber was filled with dust. Presently he drew back--his cunning wits had told him of a better way. Just here the wall was too high to leap, but further down it was lower, and there he could climb over. Cuni heard his footsteps tiptoe away, and then her Guardian Angel whispered that her teeth were sharp and pointed out a way to freedom--but not the cost. She listened to the counsel, for the desire to live burnt fiercely within her and her leg was twisted and useless now, a mere encumbrance. There was a short, sharp struggle, and the snare and its captive were parted indeed. Stiff and numbed, she crept away among the trees.

Twenty yards further on there was a clearing where the snow lay soft and deep. Here Fluff-Button's trail could be seen plainly, and the wide tracks showed that he had crossed it at full gallop. Cuni set out to follow it, plodding along in the muffling snow, and stumbling into drifts at every step. The woods were dead--neither Fur nor Feather Folk stirred--and Fluff-Button's solitary trail alone broke the blankness before her; but whereas his consisted of four regular punctures, that which she left beside it had three only, and, in place of the fourth, a red stain. She dared not pause, for the twilight was full of a horror which was all the greater that it was nameless and but dimly realised--the fear of the hunted when strength fails. The shadows seemed full of shining eyes and crouching forms which would spring if she lay down, for she did not know that the fox had already given up the quest, and left her alone.

The snow was soft and deadly cold. It clogged her limbs like so much clay, and the very air was so chilled that she seemed to draw her breath in nothingness.

Still Fluff-Button's trail ran forward towards the Pine Tree burrows, which are warm and deep, and down which no fox can pass; and Cuni stumbled on blindly, for it is the instinct of the Fur Folk when maimed or sick to death to seek some hiding-place where not even the stars can spy upon them.

Presently she fell into a deeper drift, and because she was too tired to struggle out, she lay still. It was good to rest awhile before setting out once more, and feel the pain and fear slip away before the blessed peace which stole over her. The snow now seemed so warm and dark that she believed herself in the Pine Tree burrows, and nestled down as contentedly as if she leaned against Fluff-Button's soft coat. Her nose ceased to quiver as her breath came more and more faintly, and her big brown eye closed; while her spirit drifted further and further away, until it silently crossed the borderland into the country from which there is no return.

A cloud blotted out the moon and wrapped the woods from end to end in the vast silence of snow. Great flakes as big as pigeon's feathers floated down into the clearing. The double trail was covered up, and the drifts piled higher and higher, until not even the tip of a dark ear peeped out to show where little Cuni lay.

STORIES FROM THE LIFE OF GRIMALKIN THE CAT