Part 2

In these conditions it was impossible to remain where we were, and that night my mother reluctantly decided to abandon our home and to lead us up the cliff. Would that she had taken us the moment the stars showed, instead of waiting until deep night; for the delay nearly proved fatal to us all. A fox's life is so short that he cannot forget even the groundless scares his fears make him the victim of, so it is not to be wondered at that the events of the night I am about to describe are almost as vivid to me still as at the time they happened.

My sisters had returned once more from the dried-up basin to which they had been some five or six times since sunset, and joined me where I lay near the mouth of the earth, waiting for the dew to fall and listening for the footsteps of the vixen who had gone to get ready the new lair. It was a beautiful night--the sea calm, and the surf about the reef alight with phosphorescence, whilst the furze-bushes and the clump of brambles near the reeds were dotted with glow-worms. There was even a solitary one on the drooping bracken above the entrance. A wind of summer strength stirred the withered herbage and murmured around the precipitous crags above our heads, but, save the boom from the great cave below when the tide rose, all was still. Suddenly, without warning of any kind, there came a flash of light from the cliffs above the sandy cove where we had eaten the jelly-fish. It died away and then returned, more brightly than before. It was not nearly so fierce as the lines of fire I had seen zigzagging the black sky on the afternoon of the heavy rain, nor was there any thunder with it as then, but there was a strange, crackling noise, as of animals crunching bones.

Immediately flames leapt in great tongues from the brambly thicket beyond the reeds. These drove us to the den; and there we crouched listening to the awful sound, which grew louder and louder. Soon a faint glare lit up a part of the earth as far in as the spot where two rocks narrowed the tunnel. Before this I was on the point of bolting; but now fear seized my limbs and I could not rise, could only crouch closer and closer to the earth like my sisters. Whilst we lay there huddled together and crying out for the vixen she returned, darkening the tunnel as she came towards us. Scarcely had she joined us when an evil-smelling fog rolled in, causing us to keep our muzzles close to the ground. Then the fire swept past the earth, lighting it up to the end where we lay. Panic-stricken though I was, I remember noticing how the smooth floor gleamed, and how curiously the light glowed on the vixen's fur. Suddenly the heat became less intense, and a current of fresh air entering the earth revived us as we lay panting at the point of suffocation.

The crackling and roar of the flames had long died away before we dared to quit our sanctuary, and when at last we ventured to the mouth of the earth, what a sight met our gaze! Our playground was charred, except for a narrow strip near its edge, and towards this a thin line of fire moved slowly, blotting out the criss-cross tracks we had worn between the boulders. A ring of sparks encircled the raven's perch, and crept higher and higher, consuming the lichen, and leaving bare rock in its train; where the brambles had stood was a heap of glowing ash; grasses and reeds had disappeared; in short, the place which had been our little world and of which we knew every blade and spray, was as nearly past recognition as a corn-field after harvest. Away towards the west great ruddy flames leapt from the furze brake and lit up sky and sea and headland with such a lurid light as I had never seen; whilst on the near slopes a hundred smaller fires flickered and died, to blaze again and re-illuminate the great piles of bared rock. Sparks falling from above showed that the ivy round the home of the magpies had not escaped; and as the birds had mobbed me most unmercifully that very day, I rejoiced in their misfortune.

The vixen, satisfied at last that she might venture forth, took up my puny sister, who was then unable to stand, and set out for the steep path by which she usually reached the top of the cliff. My other sister and I trod closely on her heels as she picked her way over the heated ground and skirted the glowing remains of the furze-bushes. In the ascent my pads were rather badly burnt and my fore-legs singed by a fire which suddenly broke out in some smouldering heather into which they sank. The glimpse I got of the face of the precipice showed that the ivy had lost all its leaves, the bared stems standing out plainly against the black fissures that seamed the great wall of rock besprinkled with sparks which in their fall resembled shooting stars.

When we reached the summit we could hear the magpies calling out, but, to do them justice, they were not mobbing us then. Once beyond the blackened ground we ranged up one on each side of the vixen, and after crossing fields of stubble and turnips and getting far beyond the reek of the burning, we caught the scene of the brook for which she was making. We struck it where it wound through marshy ground on the outskirts of a furze brake, and in a trice were up to our bellies in the delicious cool stream with our tongues hard at work. The water was cold and sweet; there was plenty of it, and we lapped and lapped as long as we could take in a drop. In all my life I never again enjoyed a drink like that, and the mud that stuck to my legs seemed to soothe the pain of the burns.

My little sister was able to follow us now without assistance, but the vixen, who was exhausted with carrying her so far, went at a walking pace between the stems of the furze and kept looking back to see that she was keeping up with us, though she took no notice whatever of my other sister who was going on three legs, or of myself whose poor feet were so tender that I hardly dared touch the ground.

Emerging from the furze we came upon a circle of turf, where we caught sight of at least a dozen rabbits scurrying to the holes that honey-combed the ground at the foot of a high cairn. One of these had been enlarged, as the heap of fresh earth showed, and into it the vixen led us to a dry and sweet-smelling den, where she left us, to procure food. In there it seemed as still as death to us who had had the roar of the sea in our ears all our lives, but the lair was very comfortable, and roomy enough for us to stand side by side whilst the vixen distributed the rabbit she presently brought us. We found, too, on curling ourselves up, that, big as we were, we could lie close together without trespassing on the tunnel as we had latterly done in the cliff earth. So, as we were thoroughly weary, we soon forgot the dangers we had passed and fell asleep, our mother lying between us and the opening, as was her invariable custom.

I was startled out of my sleep by a stamping overhead, caused by the rabbits in the heart of whose burrow we were lying. The noise, which broke out again and again just as I was on the point of dropping off, irritated me so much that at last I got on my hind-legs, thrust my muzzle into the hole in the roof, and breathed loudly through my nostrils. This snorting was not without result, for after the stampede that followed there was quiet for a long time. Nevertheless the tiresome creatures had spoilt my day's rest and, try as I might, I could not doze off again. My sisters slept through it all, and the vixen showed no sign of being disturbed, except that she half opened her eyes when the rabbits scampered over the spot where she lay. It was very early, as I could tell by the scent of the furze that stole along the tunnel and almost overpowered the flavor of rabbit, from which the den was never quite free. To pass the weary hours I licked the mud off my legs, which still smarted, and, whilst I did so, thought of our narrow escape, and wondered in a vague way whether fires were to be numbered amongst the regular troubles of a fox's life.

At length the vixen roused herself, and when the coolness and smell of the air warned her that the sun had set, she rose and led us forth, not for our usual gambols, but, as it proved, for our first lesson in hunting. I suspected something unusual was afoot the moment she ordered us to follow her across the stream, whither she had taken us to drink; and the further we got from the earth, the more excited I grew at the prospect of the adventures before us. It was most exhilarating to be wandering over the broad, high country, which, in comparison with our ledge at the foot of the precipice, seemed like the roof of the world. For nights and nights past I had yearned to accompany my mother on her rounds, and the unexpected gratification of my intense longing thrilled every fibre of my being. So great was my excitement that I quite forgot not only a loose milk tooth that had been worrying me, but even the tenderness of my poor pads, on which I had with difficulty limped to the drinking-place.

The vixen ran steadily some dozen paces in front, and side by side we cubs followed in her train, noiselessly as shadows. It fascinated me to watch her lissom movements as she stole along, and to note the ripples that ruffled her smooth coat when she crossed the broken ground. We had passed over one hill and were breasting the next beyond before I began to wonder what we were going to see and how soon, and then, without warning, she reared on her hind-legs, listened with ears erect, and pounced on something in a patch of rushes, in which she buried her long muzzle. The next instant she came trotting back to my little sister, and gave her the mouse she held between her lips. Her quick hearing had detected its movements in the undergrowth.

But mousing was apparently not the chief business of the night, for, without dwelling, she stepped across the dried-up runnel which the rushes fringed, and headed for the craggy ridge above. In her progress up the steep slope she kept scanning the ground to right and left of the trail as if she expected at any moment to see the prey she was in search of, and when near the crest, she crouched and crawled forward with the utmost caution. With breathless excitement we wormed our bodies along in her wake, as though we had been trained to it. But we had not; we were imitating her instinctively, and kept our distance as faithfully as the shadow of her brush that darkened the moonlit ground in front of us.

On reaching the ridge I could not help shifting my gaze to glance at the wide marshland below us, so strikingly unlike any scene my young eyes had looked on. Here and there on the level expanse sheets of water and a winding stream shone like silver, and from the great reed-beds about them came a soft voice like the murmur of waves on a distant beach. This was the expression of a stolen instant, and no sooner were my eyes back on the vixen than she sank to the ground as though she had suddenly lost the use of her legs. We did the same. This pleased her, as I could tell by the expression of satisfaction in the eager face which she turned slowly towards us and as slowly withdrew, brushing aside as she did so the dry bents that rose a good way up her long ears.

At first I wondered what she had found, as the only living things visible to me were some rabbits far below on the lip of a funnel-shaped warren. But presently over her head I saw the tips of the ears of a rabbit quite close to us, and my heart began to thump as it had perhaps never done before. The sight of the living prey had awoke in me the dormant spirit of the hunter that has hardly slumbered since; and not in me only--my sisters were evidently as excited as I was, for their brushes were lashing mine as wildly as mine did theirs.

The rabbit meanwhile winded danger and, as its nostrils showed, kept sniffing the air to try and locate it. When it succeeded, its eyes fell, not on a stealthy enemy thirsting for its blood but--so sudden was the vixen's change of attitude and demeanor--on a harmless, playful fox rolling on her back as I had seen her roll in utter guilelessness a hundred times. The rabbit started, as well it might, and I expected to see it dive into its hole; but, marvellous to relate, instead of seeking safety it regained its composure and resumed its nibbling on an almost bare patch, towards which the assumed frolics of the vixen and the slant of the ground were leading her. Then, with one of the lightning-like rushes which made her look a blurred mass even to our quick eyes, she was on it, and when she faced us the rabbit's head and hind-quarters hung limp as she held it across her mouth.

On witnessing the kill we cubs jumped to our feet, eager to partake of the first course of our supper. But when we attempted to take it from her mouth, to our amazement the vixen snarled at us as she had never done before. My little sister, to whom she had always been so tender, was the last to try, and, incredible as it may seem, the vixen turned on her like a fury.

Nothing but my desire to record faithfully the impressions of that time would make one own that I considered my mother unnatural and cruel in denying food to the weakling among her cubs. If the water which had cooled our parched throats the night before scalded us we should not have been so taken aback as by this sudden change of conduct on her part. It was simply incomprehensible. Had something outside our knowledge caused her to turn against us? If not, what did she mean by her harshness?

It did occur to me that this unaccountable behavior might be feigned, and that presently she would drop the rabbit at our feet and be again the affectionate mother she had always been. Indeed, I watched her out of the corners of my eyes from the spot to which I had retired, expecting to see her snarl relax into a grin. But in this I was disappointed, for, on reaching a ledge below, to which we followed her at a respectful distance, she devoured every bit of the luscious morsel before our eyes, though she knew well enough that we were ravenously hungry. The delicious smell of the hot entrails which the wind brought us put the keenest edge on my appetite--already sharp set by the previous night's shortness--and with the strong craving to satisfy it came the novel thought of satisfying it with a rabbit of my own catching. The bunnies were still playing about on the edge of the warren, and whilst the vixen kept shifting her gaze from them to me, licking her blood-stained lips, the lesson she wished to teach suddenly flashed upon me, and the explanation of her conduct was complete. She was saying as plainly as could be: "There is your prey. I have shown you how to catch it. Go and get your own supper." I required no further prompting. Then and there I began my first stalk under the eyes of all I loved in the world.

Summoning my untried powers, I wormed myself over the ground towards a single bush that screened me from the observation of most of the rabbits. Its shelter gained, I looked back and up to where three pairs of green eyes regarded my every movement, and then peeped with the utmost caution round the corner of the furze towards my prey. The bunnies were all there and thoroughly alert, and so disconcerting did I find their united gaze that I drew my head back to consider the situation. When I peeped again half their number showed their white scuts and went to ground, and the other half seemed prepared to follow their example.

Satisfied that direct approach was out of the question, I walked aslant the slope towards a piece of flat ground on a level with the warren, as though I were engaged on some engrossing pursuit in that direction. As I went I did not even squint at the rabbits, though it cost me an effort to look straight before my muzzle. My simulated detachment from my prey must, I felt sure, have excited the admiration of my dear mother, and so must the thoroughness with which I gave myself over to the antics that took me at first farther and farther away and then nearer and nearer to the few remaining rabbits, whose curiosity had got the better of their fears. The silly creatures were quite taken in by the capers I cut, and one at least realized his danger too late, for ere he could reach his hole I snapped him up and bore him up the hill towards the vixen.

Insignificant as the incident appears to me now, it was one of the greatest events of my life. Every fox is proud of his first skill, and I was no little elated by mine. Indeed, I felt I must make some sort of demonstration in honor of the occasion. Imagine me, then, a handsome young dog-fox, head erect, ears pricked, brush on end and well fluffed out, trotting along on the very tips of my toes with my first rabbit between my jaws, and you have a picture of me as I swaggered over the bare turf in the moonlight, before the eyes of my admiring mother and jealous sisters. I shall never forget the pride I felt nor the inner voice that kept whispering, "You are able to get your own living now, my boy, but don't be too highly elated!"

I got on rapidly after this my first experience. How could I do otherwise, with such a clever and painstaking little mother as I had to instruct me in the wiles and ways of our craft? In a short time I became expert not only in catching young rabbits, rats, moles, and mice, but in picking up the feathered prey that frequented fen and hillside.

Of course I met with many disappointments; pheasants, partridges and wild-duck often escaped my clutches when I already considered them mine. My failures were due chiefly to inexperience, but in a measure also to the intrusion of other foragers, who turned up at critical moments and ended for me the work of hours. On one occasion a hunted hare passed between me and a covey of partridges I was drawing up to; but the birds, who squatted in a circle with their heads outwards, as their custom is, did not rise until a pack of stoats came along on his line, and with their noisy yelpings broke the silence of the roosting-place. On another, the sudden appearance of a poaching cat defrauded me of a pheasant on the edge of the pine-wood; but that night I killed before the darkness faded, and had buried what I could not eat before the vixen raised the "dawn" cry.

After good hunting we used to romp home together over the furze-dotted land or across the fen, and from sheer high spirits vixen and cubs alike used to bound over the bushes or clumps of rushes and sags across our path. Week after week nothing happened to disturb our peace or excite our fears, but, for all our apparent security, we were never abroad at sunrise unless a thick fog lay over the land.

In those expeditions I used latterly to separate myself from the vixen on reaching the hunting-ground and seek my prey alone, rejoining her when she sounded the call to leave the trail or ambuscade. In this way I became more and more independent, and at times would turn a deaf ear to her summons. Twice I was so belated that the pools by the way reflected the rosy fore-glow of the dreaded sun as I scurried past them.

I may have spent a month in the vixen's company before I could make up my mind to shake off her authority and forage where I pleased. She was conscious that I chafed at the restraint which she considered necessary, and was no doubt prepared for the serious step I had resolved on. Nevertheless, when the night came, it was not without a sense of shame at breaking away from one who had been so tender and forbearing that I sidled past her where she sat outside the earth playing with my sisters. I had rather expected she would exercise her authority and call me back. Though she stopped her gambols and looked wistfully at me, she made no protest, and I passed on my way unchallenged; but I was glad when the bushes hid me from her sight and from the questioning eyes of my sisters, who seemed very much astounded at my going off alone.

Soon after crossing the stream I began to rehearse the plan I had surreptitiously formed in the earth. As it promised success, I decided to go through with it, though a darker night would have suited my purpose better. Clouds indeed there were, but white and fleecy, only slightly veiling the light of the full moon, which shone very brightly as it crossed the deep blue spaces between. The self-confidence I felt in the earth had been oozing out of me as I threaded my lonely way through brake and reed-bed, but it returned when, after trotting across the quaking bog that trembled under my light steps like a jelly-fish, I came at last in sight of the pool where I intended to lie in wait for wild-fowl.

Although I had taken a short cut over the treacherous morass to forestall the duck, I feared that they might have settled in the water before I reached my ambush, and it was with eager eyes that I scanned the surface from a clump of rushes on a finger of land that jutted a little way into the pool. All was well! Not a bird floated on the open water between the beds of lilies or in the lanes between the floating grasses. The only things that caught my eye were a moorhen and the trail of light she left behind her as she swam the gloomy water, which was shadowed by some alders.

Crossing the baked and cracked mud left exposed by the sunken pool, I entered the water, swam over to the islet, and secreted myself on the margin of a tiny creek just above a line of stranded feathers. There, screened from the keen eyes of flighting wild-fowl, I began my vigil with all the hope that waits on inexperience. Crouching beneath my ambush, I heard a few distant cries, which came, I should think, from birds feeding on the edge of the tide. So faint were they as to be audible only when the fitful breeze lulled and the tall, feathery reeds about the pool ceased rustling.

Presently, from the water between two lily-beds a silvery fish jumped thrice in quick succession, as if pursued by some invisible foe; of the latter I saw no sign, unless its presence was indicated by a swirl in the water near where the fish fell. The long silence which followed was broken at last by a swish of wings--an inspiriting sound after the tedious wait--and some wild-fowl wheeled in a wide circle above my head before settling on one of the many pools that glistened on the wide marshland below them. As I lost the sound, I feared that the birds had dropped in elsewhere, but round they came again, and, with a splash that made me tingle with excitement, a mallard and three ducks alighted on the water midway between the islet and the reeds. They were evidently ill at ease, though they seemed to me so secure that I could not imagine what they could be so suspicious of--certainly not of the peregrine that harassed them at sunrise; and at the time I knew nothing of the monster pike that tenanted the pool, and took toll of feather as well as of fin. Could it be that they had got some inkling of my presence? I crouched absolutely motionless whilst their restless eyes searched the tangle on the island, and when they stared at the patch where I was hiding I scarcely dared to breathe.