CHAPTER IV

HOW THE DEBT WAS PAID

All the following winter Redpad hunted in Knockdane. Several times the hounds came and he had to run for his brush, but it takes a great deal to catch a hardy Irish fox who is sound in wind and limb. When summer came he picked up plenty of young rabbits and grew fat. Paddy Magragh learned to recognise him, and designated him 'the big red felly.' Although he had been deprived of his mother so early, yet he learned by experience and instinct, those best of teachers, how to overcome or circumvent the wiliest of the wood creatures for his own ends. He established himself in the upper gallery of a badger's 'set.' The badger had cleaned it out for his own winter use, but Redpad discovered it one day, and adopted it. The badger was seriously annoyed and endeavoured to oust the intruder by every means in his power, but Redpad went on the principle of bowing to the storm. When the badger offered to fight him he discreetly sought quarters elsewhere; but no sooner had the rightful owner triumphantly freed the burrow from the hated taint of fox, than he returned. At last the badger grew weary of the contest. He took up his residence at the bottom of the earth, and left Redpad in undisputed possession of the upper gallery.

Winter came round for the second time, and by now Redpad had come to his full strength. Knockdane seldom sees hard frost or snow, but as a rule the south wind blows up a warm mist, and a steady rain drips through the leafless trees.

In December rabbit-traps were set in Knockdane, and Redpad was not long in finding them out. It was against regulations to set traps in the open, but Paddy Magragh, who was in charge of the trapping, was not particular; and Redpad's first introduction to a rabbit-trap was the snap of steel jaws on his toe. He wrenched himself free, but he walked lame for many a day afterwards, and he had learned his lesson. He soon found out that the trapper made his morning and evening rounds with fair regularity, and he arranged that his own excursions should be made accordingly. He trotted round the traps just in front of Magragh, and when the latter arrived, more than half of them contained nothing but a severed rabbit's head. This happened two or three times, and then Magragh, who knew nearly as much about wood ways as Redpad himself, reversed the order in which he visited the traps, and presently caught the thief red-handed.

'Every dog has his day, me fine lad,' muttered Magragh, hurling a fir cone after the white-tagged brush; 'but I'm thinking the hounds will have theirs before so long.'

After that Magragh lifted his traps to the other side of Knockdane, for which Redpad had no great liking, as there were more farmsteads in the neighbourhood, and consequently more cur dogs.

During the fine weather about Christmas time Redpad left the main woods, and hunted and slept in the thick hedgerows by the river below Knockdane. They were full of rats and rabbits, but were not a very safe resort, for it is one of the Sabbath amusements of the youth of those parts to go out with dogs, and hunt any outlying fox in the hedges. Redpad could outrun any dog in the country, but his slender limbs were no match for the more sturdily built terriers and sheep-dogs at close grips, so perhaps it was just as well that a cold snap drove him back to the woods again.

While the frost was on the ground Redpad was hungry and robbed hen-roosts recklessly. One night twelve hens roosted in an outhouse with a defective latch at John Skehan's farm. The next morning when the owner went his rounds, three corpses lay on the floor, and the rest of the fowls had disappeared; all but one broody biddy under a basket.

'Ye may go afther the rest, ye divil,' said John Skehan to this survivor bitterly, and dismissed her with a kick. His words were fulfilled more literally than he expected. She alighted cackling beyond the farmyard wall--a red shadow sprang up silently, and John Skehan had a glimpse of a white-tagged brush heading towards Knockdane along a path strewn with feathers. This was more than flesh and blood could stand, and Skehan set his dog after the thief. At first the dog gained on Redpad, who was weighted with the fowl, but presently the fox dropped his burden, and John Skehan chuckled at the thought that the robber would not profit by his raid. But Redpad increased his lead again, and then picked up another hen from behind a hedge. This happened twice, and every time he had to leave his booty to escape from his pursuer; but the third time he succeeded in carrying it in triumph to Knockdane. Afterwards it was found that those hens which he could not carry away he had deposited in caches along the path between Knockdane and the farm, in order to remove them at his leisure.

This misdeed hurried on the day of reckoning. John Skehan laid the tattered remains of his poultry before the proper authorities, and in consequence one day early in the year the hounds came to Knockdane. The best hound in the dog-pack that season was that Ravager who had been blooded on the morning when Vix had been hunted down, more than a year before. Redpad had met Ravager once before that winter, and had been obliged to resort to every trick he knew in order to circumvent that sagacious leader of the pack.

Of course Redpad found the 'earth' stopped when he returned home at daybreak, and he accordingly sought out a hiding-place which had already baffled his enemies several times. There was an ivy-grown fir tree which the wind had partially uprooted and flung against its fellows. It was quite easily climbed, and Redpad curled himself up in the ivy about fifteen feet from the ground. Here he slept very comfortably until noon, and then the familiar 'yowl-yowl' awakened him. For an hour or more he watched the hounds as they occasionally galloped past; and at last two men in pink coats rode along and halted under the very tree where he lay hidden. Presently a squirrel, passing through a neighbouring tree, looked down and caught sight of a fox sitting like an owl in an ivy bush. Nothing upsets a squirrel so much as curiosity, and a fox in a fir tree was something quite outside the experience of this particular one. He instantly desired to know a hundred things as to the why and wherefore of this strange occurrence, and in short was transformed into one tense note of interrogation.

He chattered tentatively--the fox did not move. Then he chattered defiantly, but still there was no sign. He hopped near and dared the fox to chase him, but Redpad knew better than to stir. Then the squirrel grew almost beside himself with passion. He kicked the branch on which he sat, he scolded until the woods rang, he jibbered with rage. Three jays came up to see what the fuss was about, and added their voices to the commotion. At last it grew so loud that even the dull human ears of the men under the tree remarked that something unusual was going on. They looked up--saw something red stir in the ivy and--'By Jove!' said the younger; and his halloa sent the squirrel leaping away.

Five minutes later a council was held under the tree.

'Who will climb up and fetch him?' asked the master; but the 'boys' standing round only grinned and shook their heads.

Then old Paddy Magragh, who loved the foxes of Knockdane for the sake of the sport which the foxes begot, said: 'An' if I fetch him down to yez, will yer anner see that he has fair play and a good start?'

'Yes,' said the master; 'you shall turn him down yourself.'

So Paddy began to ascend the tree with a sack in one hand and his coat wrapped round the other. When he was about half-way up the tree he came face to face with Redpad, and the fox looked up with a snarl, but he could retreat no further up the trunk. Magragh crept closer and held out his coat. Quick as lightning Redpad buried his double row of ivory fangs in it. But it was too thick for them to reach the hand inside, and Magragh, seizing him by the back of the neck, tumbled him into the sack.

Redpad was let loose in the middle of the Big Meadow. When the sack-mouth was opened, he went away like an arrow without a glance behind.

'Good luck to yez,' said Paddy Magragh, 'for, begob, 'tis a great hunt ye'll give them to-day.'

It is a true saying that a bagged fox will not run far, but this was not so with Redpad, for he knew every inch of the country, and besides, he had not been long enough in the sack to grow cramped. He flew over the short grass, and as he cleared the demesne wall he heard the pack open behind him. To the south lay Carricktriss with its rocks and heather blue in the distance; down in the plain there was Sutcliffe's Gorse, surrounded by wet fields where the horses would sink fetlock deep at every step, and hedges impenetrable to anything but a blackbird. However, Redpad had made up his mind where he was going, and set his mask resolutely towards the east. Four miles of meadow-land lie between Knockdane and Kiltorkan Hill, but Redpad had a map of the country in his head, and he knew that no covert in the country was a surer refuge for a hunted fox. He slipped across a grass field where a couple of hobbled goats bucketted away at his approach; and, taking just the same line which Vix, his mother, had chosen for her last race for life eighteen months before, he galloped over the bog.

Most of the fences were wide-topped banks with a 'grip'[2] on the further side, and Redpad took them with an easy spring on and off. He was running with a good lead over a marshy field when he met with his first check at the highroad. A train of 'side cars,' 'ass cars,' and pedestrians, nearly a quarter of a mile long, were slowly proceeding to a funeral at Ballycarnew. Redpad could not cross the road under their feet, and was obliged to make a long detour which brought the hounds considerably nearer his brush--so much nearer indeed that presently he ascended a little knoll covered with furze to see if a certain drain was open. Although he did not know it, Vix in her extremity had also tried to reach this hiding-place, and she too had found it blocked. But Vix had been too exhausted to run any further and had turned to face the hounds in the field beyond, whereas Redpad was still fresh and with strength to spare.

[2] Ditch.

He looked back at the pack working out his line in the fields below him, and saw that Ravager was at their head. The horsemen had been stopped by a wire fence, and were following far behind. For the first time Redpad felt a little anxious. The scent was evidently good that day, and Kiltorkan was still more than two miles ahead. He quickened his pace and tried the old old trick of running through a herd of cattle in order to foul the line. This checked the hounds for a moment, but Ravager cast forward, and presently they came on faster than ever.

Redpad was still running strongly, but his tongue was out and he was coated with mud. He skirted two or three farmsteads, forded a brook where he paused to gulp a mouthful of water, and then climbed a long gradual slope. At the top he paused and looked back. He saw that Ravager with two couple of the best hounds was working some fifty yards ahead of the rest of the pack, and that some distance in the rear rode a man in pink. Kiltorkan was about half a mile away, but at its base ran a thin shining line of railroad. The Fur Folk of Kiltorkan care little for the noisy, fussy train which pants down to Waterford twice a day. They have found out long ago that it is only formidable in its own place, and is hedged in in some mysterious way by the wire fence on either side of the embankment.

Whether Redpad had any preconceived plan in his head as he raced to the railway I cannot say, but as soon as he climbed the bank on to the metals he heard a low roar, and round the distant curve the mail train swung into view. The hounds were now very close behind, for the pace for the last half-mile had been terrific. A cunning scheme came into Redpad's brain. He raced madly up the track towards the oncoming train. Belching forth smoke, and shaking the ground with the thunder of its rushing wheels, it had fewer terrors for him than the hunters behind. It was a hundred yards off--fifty--thirty--Redpad leaped aside and let the roaring monster hurtle past him, but the hounds, running blindly on the hot scent, never saw the danger. As Redpad leaped down the embankment the engine-driver saw what would occur and jammed the brakes to the groaning wheels, but it was too late. There was one yell, which rose above the clatter of the train, and then all was over.

Redpad struggled up the hill with his heart thudding against his ribs. At the summit there was a cairn of stones strong enough to defy pick and spade. Before slipping inside he looked back. The remainder of the pack were huddled together in the field below the railway. The train was at a standstill, and a group of men stood on the track looking at something lemon-and-white which lay without moving at their feet.

Redpad knew that he had nothing more to fear that day. If he had been a philosopher he might have reflected upon the saw that 'every dog has his day'; but as he was only a fox he crept into Kiltorkan Cairn to pant and bite thorns out of his pads.