Part 4

What a simpleton I was at that time! The toot of the horn is as familiar to me now as the clatter of shod horses. I know, too, now what it portends; but at that moment, though fear was mingled with my curiosity, I should not have been very uneasy, save for the obvious anxiety of my mother. Not that she fussed about as if flurried, but I could see her alarm in her unusual alertness. When a cock-pheasant flew past and skimmed the brake that mantled the steep slope below us, her eyes followed it with an eagerness that seemed to demand from it the secret of its startled flight.

Again the horn sounded, this time from the neighborhood of the withered oak between us and the tor. Then I heard a horse galloping and saw a flash of scarlet at the foot of the slope where the pheasant had dropped in. What did it all mean? Were we foxes in any way concerned in the unwonted proceedings that were disturbing the great silence that had till then brooded over the cover? The suspense, the uncertainty, which the vixen's evident distress intensified, the vague sense of danger, were painful; but all doubts were soon dispelled, "Eloo in! Hi, Forester! Eloo in!" The rasping yell with which this was uttered betokened some sinister happening, though we looked in vain to the vixen, round whom my sisters gathered, to enlighten us as to its nature.

At this point my recollection is blurred, save for two things, the crashing noise in the brake and the flight of the vixen and my sisters along the watercourse, with the pack in pursuit. I shall always hear the one and see the other. If ever I was terrified in my life it was then; and between the clamor of the hounds and the thundering tread of a hundred galloping horses I was so bewildered that I knew not where to turn. But as the noise died away my nerves steadied, and, rising from my crouching attitude, I peeped through the furze to try to discover what was happening. For a long time I could see nothing in the deserted valley below; but, continuing my watch, I perceived the vixen and my little sister coming along the open bank of the stream, with the leading hounds in close pursuit and apparently gaining at every stride.

I am too old now to feel strongly as I did then, but still I am affected at the recollection of the vixen striving to save my sister by devices such as a partridge will employ to divert an enemy from its young. How the chase ended I could not see; but the sudden ceasing of the clamor made me fear the worst.

In the silence that succeeded I made for the cairn earth, expecting to get in there; but that, too, was stopped. Whilst I was debating what to do, I heard the huntsman's voice, and had scarcely regained my old station by the watercourse when the hounds opened on my line. They were coming towards me at a great pace. Without an instant's delay I was off, and, stealing down the long slope, reached the edge of the cover, where I checked my steps to look out and see that the coast was clear. Except the blazing sunlight, there was nothing in the bottom or on the bare slope beyond to scare me, and as the hounds were half-way down the hill, I committed myself to the open.

I had not got far when there was a scream, a human scream, fit to wake the dead. It startled me horribly, but did not cause me to deviate a hair's-breadth from the direction in which I had set my head. Near the brow I stopped and looked back at the crowd of dogs and horsemen. It puzzled me then, it puzzles me yet, to know why they should wish to kill me, but I had not a doubt that was their object. The clamor did not greatly terrify me at that stage of the chase, as I felt sure I should be able to elude my pursuers in the fen for which I was making.

I held about the same lead across the next valley and up the hill beyond, but the heat of the sun was beginning to tell on me before I reached the wide belt of rushes near the mere. When I had crossed it the hounds had greatly reduced the distance between us; I was beginning to flag, and the sanctuary I sought was nearly two miles away. The going was heavy over the marshland, where never a breath stirred, but I struggled on as best I could towards the islet of my favorite pool, spreading terror amongst grebe and hern along the silent ways I threaded.

At length I gained the pool, and as I left the finger of land jutting towards the islet and took to the water, I felt I was near an asylum at last. Vain hope! When I was barely half-way across an accursed magpie espied me, and came and hovered just over my head, making a loud chattering noise that the hounds must have heard. I looked straight before my muzzle, pretending to take no notice of the plague, and as soon as I landed, lay down in my old ambush that half concealed me from the exasperating bird. "The pest will surely hold his tongue now that I am in lair," thought I. But no; he chattered louder than ever, as if it delighted him to betray me to the pack, whose whimpering I could now hear. In my exhausted condition I was very loth to move, but, seeing that to remain there was certain death, I left my hiding-place and plunged into the water on the further side of the islet. My tormentor came with me, and never shall I forget his harsh, jeering cries whilst I swam to the nearest alders, and even whilst I made my slow way through the sparse thorns that ran up to the furze about the earth. Under the close brake I was free from the traitor, and it cheered me to be so near the sett and a safe refuge. As I followed the beaten track leading to it I was indifferent to my pursuers, for I felt sure that the badger must long ere this have opened a way in.

Alas! it had proved beyond his powers. The ground about the faggots was littered with the bits he had chopped off, but he had failed to effect an entry. Realizing my desperate position, I almost gave myself up for lost. Fortunately, in my extremity--and a fox's brain is never clearer than then--I wondered where the badger had bestowed himself. Where he could get I could get, and if I could only trace him I might, despite the stiffness of my limbs and the nearness of the hounds, even yet escape with my life.

Picking up his trail, I followed it along the base of the hill to a thicket, dense and matted as bramble, blackthorn and furze could make it. Through this I passed until I reached a small cave at the foot of a sheer wall of rock. The trail led inwards, and at the very back I came on my friend. He looked most vicious at first; but when he recognized the bedraggled cub before him, the expression of his venerable face quickly changed to one of compassion, and then again to hate as he heard the hounds, now running mute, crash through the undergrowth. It was an awful moment. It behoved me to find, and that instantly, some secure position out of reach of the infuriated pack. The leading hounds were at the mouth of the cave when, by a last effort, I gained a scanty ledge, almost too narrow for foothold, a little way above the badger's head. I was never in a more desperate position, but fear glued me to the spot; and better vantage-ground for viewing the fight that followed could not have been. "Keep cool," I shouted to my old friend as well as I could for panting; and before I could repeat my warning, the hounds were on him.

There are things which seem incredible unless witnessed; and I would not now submit the evidence of my own eyes did I not feel it my bounden duty to record the facts which redound to the fame of the badger and to the glory of the wild. But how is it possible to describe what happened so the picture presented may approach in vividness the savage scene I looked upon? I have seen the waves dash and dash again into a cavern, only to be as often rolled back till the tide had spent its force and left the cave as silent as at first. The inrush of the pack was like the on-coming of an irresistible wave; but the badger, with his back to the low arch, was not to be overwhelmed whilst he could keep his feet and ply jaw and claw. Only three hounds could get at him at a time; and when it came to deadly fang work, what were these soft creatures of the kennel to the most formidable beast of the brake? As fast as the badger could deal with them, hound after hound withdrew howling, till there was scarcely one of the twenty couple composing the pack on whom his terrible jaws had not closed.

While the fray was at its height the badger was at times partly hidden under his assailants, and thus arose no small danger to myself. One big brute of a hound there was who espied me where I stood, still as if carved in stone, save for my heaving flank and lolling tongue. This must have caught his eye, and time after time he leapt at me from the backs of the writhing mass below; but for want of steady foothold, he failed as often to reach me. The last time he fell he slipped between two hounds, and the badger had him at his mercy. It did my ears good to hear him howl; and no sooner did the badger let him go than he retreated over the backs of the hounds behind with a celerity which did credit even to his long legs. Through the creeper that half curtained the mouth of the cave I saw him take up his station amongst the rearmost ranks of those hounds who were baying their loudest from the brambles.

Shortly after this, one of two mounted men, whose progress was arrested by the thicket, jumped from his horse and plunged into the tangle. Only his hot face and bald head showed above the brake as he came slowly along, cracking his whip as best he could for the briers that reached to his neck and clung to his red sleeve. Whilst he fought his way through, the other kept screaming at the top of his voice: "Whip 'em off! The brute'll murder my best hounds!" The huntsmen had no difficulty in whipping off the crew of howlers outside; but it was no easy task to call off the staunch hounds that, despite the terrible punishment they were receiving, would have carried on the fight until they dropped from exhaustion. At last he succeeded, remounted his horse, and rode away with the other.

In the silence that ensued my position appeared to me still most unenviable. Would the badger, on whom I had brought all this trouble, avenge himself on me for the wrong I had done him? I tried to read his intentions, but he gave no sign. Presently he looked up at me, and in fear and trembling I returned his gaze. A wild light blazed in his black eyes, but no trace of rage against myself. Then I took courage, though obliged to look away from his blood-stained face, so horrible was the sight it presented. His must have been a noble nature to bear such punishment without resentment, and I am glad he never guessed my fears.

How I wronged this chivalrous old aristocrat in thinking it possible he could use his giant strength to crush the life out of a helpless cub! The old fellow was as friendly as though nothing had happened when, at last, falling rather than leaping, I came down from my perch to try to find relief from the cramp that was knotting my muscles. His awful panting had by that time somewhat subsided; but I was truly sorry to see him in such a deplorable state, and I suppose I showed it in my face, for he said: "Do not grieve on my account, little brother. I shall soon recover from my scratches."

My legs were too stiff to let me lie down, so I stood by his side whilst he licked his wounds and smoothed his ruffled coat, and at nightfall, when he left, I staggered after him as best I could. After drinking at a spring on the way, we came to the earth, from the mouth of which, as I rejoiced to see, the faggots had been removed. There the badger left me and went up the hill toward the farm-land over which he wandered nearly every night in search of food. At what time he returned I do not know, as I did not awake till late the following afternoon, when I was aroused from my deep sleep by the noise he made on resuming his excavations.

There are some things which I would gladly be silent about, but which are necessary to the completeness of my story.

Chief of these are the grievous losses on that day's cub hunting. My little sister and--sadder still--my dear mother were killed by the hounds. It was best they should die together, for the cub was so dependent on the vixen, and the vixen so inseparable from the cub, that I am sure they could not have lived happily apart. Our common trouble drew my surviving sister and myself closer to each other, and for a few weeks we lived together in the earth, though we went our several ways at night, and very seldom hunted in concert.

The close of this period is marked by an event of great moment to myself, which, though it does not redound to my credit, must be told in some detail.

It is necessary first to state that for some reason the hounds gave up coming to our country, and that in their place a murderous gang of ruffians infested the district, and by traps, by poisoned carcasses, by terriers, by digging and by filling the earths with smoke, succeeded in destroying nearly every fox in the countryside. Fortunately our earth proved impregnable to the spade and proof against smoke; whilst the badger made such havoc with the dogs that were sent against us that, after two determined but futile assaults, we were left in peace. For a time we had to exercise the utmost caution in avoiding the numerous traps, which were artfully concealed in the runs leading from the earth; but afterwards these were removed, and we might roam without molestation over our desolate wilds.

Hares had been all but exterminated, and rabbits and wild-fowl so shot down and thinned that it was hard to get a living, and at last my necessities tempted me to that most perilous of undertakings, a raid on the poultry of the neighboring farm. Besides the everlasting crowing of the cocks, I had heard the noise made by the flocks of housed turkeys, geese, and ducks, as I returned at dawn from the empty warren on the dunes; and this had set me longing for them.

I did not enter lightly on this my first foray, which I knew to be fraught with danger. My plans were laid with the fullest deliberation, and in the deep silence of my den I carefully thought out every step in my expedition. One of the strong points of a fox is attention to details. We go over and over every turn, we weigh every chance, and try to foresee every contingency. Indecision and flurry are not in our nature; we know what we are going to do, and we go coolly through with it. Our best-laid schemes may and do miscarry at times; nevertheless, with the overconfidence of cubhood, I really thought that the precautions I meant to take excluded all risks to my skin. Why, I had mapped out in my brain every inch of the incursion; I had selected the best way of approach; I was prepared with the safest line of retreat; and, what is of no small moment, I had arranged for the disposal of the kill, which was likely to be a big one.

Eager as I was to realize my sanguine expectations, I twice postponed my visit, hoping for the cover of a storm that threatened; but on the third night, though the weather had cleared, I resolved to defer the raid no longer. The crescent moon was just above the hill when I stretched myself at the mouth of the earth and set out to put well-matured plans into execution. I walked up the rugged hillside with all the circumspection and gravity becoming a great undertaking, and stayed awhile on the crest to reconnoitre the scene of my operations. The farm-house, the outbuildings, the yards, were all silent. No foot stirred, no bark of dog broke the stillness which brooded over the rugged slope, the smooth fields, and the endless waste of sand beyond.

Satisfied that the coast was clear, I made my way down the hill by a path my pads had laid--for I was on my trail leading to the dunes--and, keeping to the shelter of a hedge of blackthorns, reached the wall under the elms. Over it I crawled to the lower yard where the big pool is. Its muddy edge was white with stranded feathers, and so was the track leading past the mowhay, where rats were rustling in the straw. But I left them behind, and with stealthy stride reached the scene of action. A cock, unsuspicious of my presence, crowed in the first house I came to, but the door was a new one, and a weasel could not have got under it; so I passed in disgust to the next shed, which contained the turkeys. But if the hen-house was effectually closed, the turkey-house was hermetically sealed, and I thought that the farmer must be a cruel brute not to give the poor birds better ventilation.

"They would be but dry eating, even if I could get them," said I, as I crossed the deeply-rutted road to the big house where my nose told me the geese were shut up. This building boasted a tall chimney, which made it look quite lofty; but it was on a small hole in the bottom of the door, from which came the goodliest of smells, that I fixed my attention, and without a moment's delay I set about enlarging it. The wood round it was very rotten, but I could not make the opening as big as I wished, on account of a piece of iron which was fastened across the door on the inside, some five or six inches above the level of the ground. Whilst I was at work the cackling inside was deafening; and when, by a furious effort, I squeezed my way in, I found myself in a veritable pandemonium. I really think that geese take their troubles more noisily than any birds in the world, except, perhaps, guinea-fowls; and I, who love quiet, would have left them severely alone if I could have got at the fowls or the turkeys. Their clumsy wings, too, can make you see stars if they catch you fairly across the eyes, as theirs caught me more than once before my work was done.

Now it is one thing to slay in hot blood, another to tell at your ease what happened. I will merely say that the lust for slaughter was strong in me, and that in a short time all the flock but one lay dead on the stone floor.

Not an instant did I waste before setting about the next step in my projected night's work, the removal of the biggest bird to the dune I had chosen for my cache. I hoped to take all--it could be done--but I would make sure of the best. My grandest victim was the gander. I had pulled him out from under two geese, and was bearing him over the bodies of the flock towards the door, when, to my horror, I saw that the hole had been stopped from the outside.

While the killing went on I had been deaf to everything, and I believe that a wagon might have passed through the yard without my noticing it. But now I became alive to every sound. I dropped the gander and listened. At first I could hear nothing but the thumping of my own heart, still affected by the speed of the kill; but presently the silence was broken by the sound of a man's footsteps on the stones at the back of the house. A few minutes later I heard the heavy tread on the roof, whereat I fell into a state of abject terror, which caused me to run round the walls like a rat in a trap.

My enemy did not remain long, and when he came down he made for the farm-house, muttering as he went. Now, thought I, is the moment to regain my freedom. Escape by the door seemed out of the question; a small paneless window through which I could see a single star was hopelessly beyond my reach; but a third outlet, the chimney, remained, and by it I might find deliverance.

Here I met with an unexpected, but not insuperable, difficulty; for a foot or so up, the flue was choked with old nests. I closed my eyes whilst I pulled them down; but the suffocating dust, which there was no draught to carry away, compelled me to return every now and again to the floor to breathe. This inconvenience, however, was a mere trifle, and after drawing a few breaths I returned to my work. It cheered me to hear the debris falling, and to know that every stroke of my fore-paws brought me nearer to my liberty. Imagine my dismay, then, on discovering, after all my toil, that a flat stone capped the chimney and prevented my escape. Though it smelt abominably, I made frantic efforts to remove it. I pawed it, I bit it, I tried to raise it with the top of my poll, with my arched back, but place myself as I might, I could not find a position that enabled me to get good purchase owing to the width of the chimney. Had it been half an inch narrower, I might have managed to dislodge the stone, heavy though it was, for I had felt it yield a little when I made my greatest effort. But there was no result from what force I could use, and seeing that I was only wasting time and strength, I scrambled down the flue to the heap of fallen rubbish, which gave way under me and spread out over the floor.

The geese lay as I had left them. It was a big kill, and no mistake. The floor was white with birds, and in places they were two deep. As became a dog-fox I had done my work well, and the birds were all dead except one, which raised its head now and again in the far corner under the window. I had not the least inclination to touch it again, and though I must have been very hungry, I did not think of eating. I was in a trap; I knew it, so did my enemy, and I knew that he knew it. That he would return at daybreak I felt sure, and that he would kill me I had little doubt. At the very thought I grovelled with fear among the bodies of my victims, until the determination to live aroused me to fresh exertions. In my desperation I tried to bite away the nails that studded the sound wood about the hole by which I had entered; I tried to dig my way under the door, but I did not succeed in dislodging a single stone. Oh for half an hour of my friend the badger! I made frantic, unavailing leaps at the open window; I cruised round and round the walls until I must have travelled miles; time after time I scrambled up the chimney, only in the end to resume my aimless rounds. At length, weary with my endeavors, continued through many hours, I lay down again, panting, amongst the geese.

The stillness of that dead-house was profound. Outside, too, all was still, save for the soughing of the wind in the leafless elms. This was the voice of an old friend, and it soothed me somewhat till it brought back to my mind the picture of the reeds bending over the rippled surface of my favorite pool. At the thought of my freedom in the fen I jumped to my feet and tried again and again, without success, each possible outlet, and then once more lay down with heaving side and lolling tongue to wait for the end.

Presently a cock crowed; and at last dawn peeped through the window, and found me a more pitiable object than the old goose who squinted at me every time she raised her blood-stained head. It would be day soon, but as yet the light was gray. It was the hour that had ofttimes surprised me in the midst of my hunting, and hurried me across the misty fen to my kennel in the brake; the hour when every carnivorous creature of the night steals by hidden ways to his retreat, and conceals himself from the cruel eye of day.

As the light grew stronger I found myself rising involuntarily to my feet to return to the earth, but the strong walls compelled me to stay and await my fate. Soon a pale, rosy light suffused the sky, and presently the first beam of sunshine came in at my window and fell on an old spider's web stretched over a hole in the wall of the chimney. I envied the owner of the web: I envied the dead geese: I would at that moment have been even the broken starling's egg lying there on the waste-heap, or the skeleton of a fly dangling at the end of the gossamer.

I heard a door slammed and the noise of footsteps. They were deliberate, heavy, merciless, and they were approaching the door behind which I stood listening. Just when I expected to see it slightly opened, and was on the point of shamming dead, there was a loud kick against it which upset my plan and made me rush up the chimney.