CHAPTER III

FIRST BLOOD

Vix lay under a bush with her brush curled round her nose and eyes. Only her ears, ever wakeful and alert, kept watch while she slept. It was six o'clock, and a still misty morning with a heavy dew over everything. Close by lay Redpad with his nose on his pads; but he slept more lightly than Vix, for he had eaten less than she had done after their hunting. Thus he was the first to wake at the sound of a yelp in the valley. He sat up with a whimper and looked at his mother. He expected her to leap up, but she only stretched out her forelegs lazily and closed her eyes again. Perhaps her heavy meal at dawn had blunted the senses which as a rule gave her such timely warning of danger. Redpad could neither see nor smell anything suspicious, but those noises had convinced him that all was not right. He cast a last look at Vix, and then trotted away among the bushes.

Presently he met an old badger plodding along. The badger was glancing back every now and then at the sound of a 'yow-yow-yow' in the valley; and by and by a hare scudded past in a panic. All the while the clamour was drawing nearer, and was interspersed with whip-cracking and shouts. It all sounded very loud and alarming to Redpad, who was accustomed to the stillness of the woods, and he decided to move on. He was cantering along a ride when suddenly, on turning a corner, he came full upon a horseman. The man stared at Redpad, and Redpad stared at the man for a few seconds, and then the former leaped into the bushes; but as he fled he heard a view-halloa behind him.

He galloped through thickets and crashed through briars, and as he ran he heard the pack give tongue on his line. Up till now he had not realised that the presence of the strangers in the wood boded anything evil to the Foxkind, but had simply avoided them because they were new to him and noisy. At last it dawned on him that he was pursued, and he experienced all the fears of the hunted. In his extremity he ran back to the thicket where he had slept, to seek his cunning mother's help. Several times he was obliged to go out of his way to evade hounds who were hunting up and down the wood; for it was the first time that many of the puppies had been out, and the experience had proved too much for their wits. Some four couple were unpleasantly close to Redpad's brush as he entered the thicket, but he dodged them, and ran straight to his mother's lair. It was still warm, but empty. Redpad made up his mind quickly. To his right the wood was less thick. Here and there grew an isolated oak or pine, and the hillside was covered with rocks and fern. A little way off there was a crag some forty feet high at whose foot rose a little stream. Redpad pattered up this to its source; and about six feet from the ground, half hidden by polypody ferns, found a cleft in the limestone. A rush and a scramble carried him into this retreat, which was just large enough to contain him; and the ferns had scarcely ceased to wave before the hounds broke out of the covert.

Redpad watched the huntsman put them into the patch of bracken. One worked one way, and one another, but they had no leader, for the old hounds were mostly down in the valley. And the longer they lingered, the staler grew the scent.

Suddenly a lemon-and-white hound on the bank of the stream lifted up his voice and announced that a fox had passed that way, and the rest rushed after him. Two men rode behind the hounds, and one said to the other, pointing out the pale one who had picked up the scent:

'That's a grand houn' in the makin'.'

'Ay,' said the other, 'an' he's as swate on a stale line as ever auld Pirate was before him. Hike! Hike to Ravager!'

The hounds hunted almost up to the crag, but the morning air was merciful, and drew the scent above their heads. However, the yellow puppy was not to be baulked. There was a narrow ledge which ran obliquely from the ground to the cleft where Redpad lay hidden, and up this he climbed. Redpad was watching the rest of the pack from between the fern fronds, when a joyous bay above his head proclaimed that he was discovered.

Redpad leaped from his hiding-place and darted away with the leading hound not a dozen yards from his brush. There was no time to turn or try any tricks--he ran for his life. He led his pursuers right across Knockdane, but it seemed as though there was a galloping horse in every path and ride, and a hound in every brake. In his extremity he turned to the moor. He raced up the steep hillside through clumps of solemn fir trees, where the tits twittered as though there were no such thing as man, and through beds of ivy and fern.

At last the long slope of the Big Meadow lay before him, and he gathered all his remaining strength for the dash over this danger zone. By the hedge stood a horse and rider who halloaed as he passed, but to fox ideas a man was far less dangerous than the hounds behind, and he took no notice. He galloped across the field and entered the clump of trees in the middle. Suddenly another fox leaped up and went away in front of him. It was Vix. She knew well who were following their line, and cantered at her top speed; but she was still heavy and drowsy after her full meal at dawn, and presently Redpad, tired as he was, overtook and passed her.

The pack was very close behind as they entered the narrow belt of woodland at the top of the field; but the hounds were all alone, for the thick hedge had stopped the horses at the bottom of the hill, and they had been obliged to go a long way round. Redpad's tongue was out, for he had run far through the wood that morning, and, besides, he was very frightened. Just in front of him loomed the high demesne wall. Redpad had leaped upon it, when he suddenly noticed a thick bush of ivy which overhung the coping to his right, and instead of leaping down the other side he crept into the ivy and lay there panting.

A second later Vix came up. Twice she leaped and twice she fell back, but the third time she gained the coping just as the hounds came up. They crowded over the wall on the scent, Ravager leading, and poured down the hill on the other side after the little red figure half a field's length in front. They were so close to him that one spring would have landed Redpad in their midst, but he lay like a stone, and they passed him by.

'Head them off if ye can, Mike,' yelled the huntsman, galloping up. ''Tis an auld fox!'

'It was not, then! Didn't I see him cross the path below, an' he a cub?'

'Don't stand there arguin', ye fool! Nip round to the gate above, for she's bet, an' we've none too many in this country.'

They galloped away, and the 'yowl-yowl' of the pack died away over the moor.

* * * * *

Redpad lay among the ivy until the morning mists cleared away; and the croon of the woodpigeons was the only sound which broke the stillness. Then he leaped from his sanctuary and crept down the hill. He sought for his mother high and low, through thickets and rocks, but he could not find her; and when the autumn moon rose he wandered to and fro and yelped for her, but she never came back again to Knockdane.

Nevertheless woodland grief is as short-lived as it is poignant, and before September had given place to October, Redpad hunted in Knockdane and robbed the Ballygallon hen-roosts contentedly alone.