CHAPTER II

THE HUNTERS

So this was the coming of Redpad to Knockdane. A whole book might be written about his early adventures, but as this is to be his history, I must pass them by to speak of those things which befell him as he grew older. It is sufficient to say that he entered on his career in the woods with two important assets--a good nose and a good mother; and these two will carry one of the Fur Folk far.

Vix kept her cub in an old rabbit burrow until he was old enough to hunt for himself. The first blood which Redpad ever drew was, strange to say, his own. One May evening he was playing by the mouth of the hole, when all at once a rustle in a bluebell bed attracted him. His instinct, which until now had lain dormant, awoke. He bunched his woolly legs together and bared his little milk teeth. The flower bells waved to and fro again--and Redpad cleared the intervening space with one bound, to land, pads extended, upon a sulky hedgehog. He crept whimpering back to his mother to lick his sore toes and meditate on one of the oldest saws of the Fox Folk, which runs: 'Never spring until your nose confirms your eyes and ears.'

The woods are at their loveliest in May, when the chestnut leaves spread out their cool fingers, and a filmy green veil of foliage is flung over the beeches' naked branches. In the long light evenings scores of rabbits grazed along the woodsides, and it was upon these that Redpad took his first lessons in hunting. He obeyed Vix and her signals implicitly, and therefore learned by imitation, which is the only form of pedagogy known in the woods.

One evening when the sun shot long slanting shadows across Knockdane, the foxes stole out to hunt. Between the woods and the river lies a flat meadow, and thither Vix led Redpad, the latter aping the carriage of his mother's brush to the best of his ability. She made him crouch down in the thicket twenty yards from the fence, but she herself crept forward. Although the bushes were too thick to allow her to see into the field, yet the air was full of that peculiar silence which means that many hearts are beating and many ears listening close at hand. But the senses of a fox are very keen, and above the murmur of the river over its pebbles, Vix could hear eager lips snatching and nibbling at the coarse grass, and many feet splashing in the dew. She crept forward until she could peep into the field, and saw a dozen rabbits feeding there. A fox has two methods of completing a 'stalk'--the spring and the rush. Vix preferred to spring Thug-like upon her victim, but in this case the prey was too far away, and she resolved to rush it. Cramping her limbs together she dashed through the fence and leaped at the bunny she had marked. She might as well have pursued a shadow. A dozen pairs of feet stamped a warning, and a dozen scuts scuttled into the bushes. There was a twang as some reckless rabbit stubbed his nose against the wire, and then the patter of feet darting in every direction.

Had Vix been hunting alone that evening she would have gone supperless, but as it happened, one rabbit chose that runway where Redpad crouched. It saw its danger too late and swerved--but the cub darted forward and rolled it over, almost turning a somersault in the vehemence of his rush. Vix came leaping through the bushes and tugged the kill away from him. He yielded it growling, but ultimately was permitted to demolish by far the largest share.

By such expeditions Vix taught her cub to know every lane, bank, and 'shore'[1] in the country round Knockdane, and this knowledge was very useful to him when later on he was obliged to hunt and be hunted by himself. Besides the rabbits, there were rats and mice to be had. Vix took Redpad down to Kilree Bog, where there are deep ditches choked with furze and bramble, and banks tunnelled through by burrows. Sometimes they went rat hunting by Paddy Magragh's farmstead at moonrise; but this was dangerous country, for in the yard dwelt a certain long-legged yellow dog with a keen nose and ready tongue.

[1] Shore = A covered drain.

September came, and in the fine warm weather the foxes spent most of their time above ground. Golden ragweed blazed in all the fields, and the swallows began to assemble for their journey south. Yellow sprays appeared among the dark leaves of the beeches, and Redpad attained proportions more in keeping with the size of his head. His white tagged brush was his great pride, his coat was shining with health, and he was remarkable for his forepads, which were many shades lighter than those of his mother; in fact, they were not black at all, but deep bay--hence his name. Not until he was full grown did his mother teach him how to hunt that swiftest and wariest of game--the hare. The stoat and the cat claim equal rights with the fox over rabbit, squirrel, and rat, but only the fox is strong enough to pull down the grown hare.

One hot dark night the foxes awoke just before moonrise. Vix stretched herself and whined, and Redpad raised his muzzle, which was curled round into his brush. The burrow was pitch dark, but he felt his mother glide past him, and he rose and followed her. Outside they paused and sniffed the west wind appreciatively--the scent was good.

Vix turned down the hill, picking her way daintily through the fern and brambles, and Redpad followed. Fox language must consist of signs of the ears and whiskers, for it is noiseless. Nevertheless she conveyed to him whither they were bound. They trotted through Knockdane, scaled the high boundary wall, and gained the open country, which lay placid under the twilight of moonrise.

They hunted far afield that night. Two hours before daybreak they crossed the Killeen road and came to a wide brook. The moon was high in the sky, and every tree and bulrush on the bank was plainly visible. The sleepy cattle, chewing the cud under a willow, heaved themselves up with a grunt and herded together as the foxes loped past. They trotted up-wind in silence some hundred yards apart, ears alert to catch the least sound, brushes drooping. Then Vix suddenly put down her nose and broke into a canter, and as Redpad galloped after her, the warm wind bore the scent of hare to his nostrils.

The meadows were dotted with tall thistles and ragweed, so that, running close to the ground, the foxes could not see far ahead, but one of the axioms of the Wild Folk is: hunt with your nose, kill with your teeth, and let your eyes take care of themselves. The scent led them across the road into a bog. Here Redpad, who led the chase, lost the trail at the edge of a dyke and was thrown out, but Vix leaped over and picked it up on the other side. They crossed the bog at full speed, scaring a silent heron, who was fishing knee-deep in a pool, almost out of his wits. On the other side the trail led over a furze-clad hill, and here there were many other scents--fox, rabbit, badger and other hares--and the foxes separated. But Redpad, hunting to and fro like a beagle, worked out the line into the grass-lands again, and they crossed some stubbles where the sheep rushed together into a jostling stamping flock at their approach.

Hitherto the hare had kept her lead well, but now before dawn the scent clung persistently to the dewy grass, and the hunters began to gain ground. The chase bent round towards Knockdane once more, but the trail curved and twisted in turnings as intricate as those of a swallow. The 'false dawn' appeared over the mountains, and the air grew cooler. The foxes' tongues were out, and their flanks heaved, but they pressed on as keenly as ever, as first one and then the other picked up the failing scent.

Several times the hare had doubled back a short way and then leaped aside to baffle her pursuers; but Vix was cunning, and by casting to right or left, never failed to nose out the line.

At last they came to a field not very far from their starting point, and here they checked at fault. Redpad turned to the right, but Vix snuffled her way down the loosely built stone wall which bounded the field. Suddenly a hare leaped up almost under her feet, and hurled itself at the wall. It clung to the top for an instant and then, slowly stiffening, dropped back into Vix's jaws. The chase was over.

Redpad galloped back across the field, his coat wet with dew and his tongue flopping out. Vix was already crouched over her kill. At his approach she glanced at him suspiciously, and for the first time in his life she growled at him--not the low lazy growl of an old vixen to her riotous cub, but the deep menacing rumble of one grown fox to another. For this, Redpad's first long chase and kill, was, so to speak, the day of his coming of age. Vix's instinct told her that the change had come. He was no longer the red, woolly cub who had tugged at her side, but a full-grown fox able to fend for himself, and also able to snatch the kill from her had he so chosen. Hence she snarled at him; and it was another proof that Redpad had passed the days of cubhood that he did not fly at her throat, as he assuredly would have done had any other fox used him so, but only hovered near to devour such morsels as she rejected. For it is one of the laws of the Fox Folk that a he-fox shall never attack a vixen to snatch her kill from her. It is a wise and good law, as are all those which are observed in the woods.

When Vix had eaten her fill she rose and quenched her great thirst in a stream. But only a little remained for Redpad, and his hunger was scarcely appeased when they trotted back to Knockdane on the hill in the grey dawn.