Again the Fox Cub was puzzled. His muzzle wrinkled dubiously, his ears twitched and puckered, he barked (a new accomplishment), he mewed (a newer habit still), and then, since sound proved futile, he sank from his hindquarters forward slowly, grounded his nose between his paws and stared.
This was the queerest happening of all. Queerer than the briar's queer flutter; and the shower of pink petals from it; and the glint of savage little eyes half-way up it; and the savage little chestnut face behind them. Queerer than the scream from the sky; and the rotten elm-branch dancing bough to bough; and cannoning against the trunk; and shattering at his feet. Queerer than the swish through the nettlebed—swish of a purple snaking shadow, which might have been mere bird, had the trail of it been clumsier, or its ripple more fretful.
Again the Fox Cub was Puzzled
Birds he had known since teething. Mother had brought them often; Father less often—scraggy, thin-necked, towsled things, yet mostly of fine flavour; finer than rabbits certainly (except quite baby rabbits); finer, too, than frogs; or lizards; or mice; or snails; or any of the myriad crawl-by-nights on which young teeth gain confidence.
The Fox Cub stared round-eyed towards the bracken. It certainly was moving—moving in waves which spent themselves abruptly, moving in spins and eddies. Now and again great swathes of it sank downward.
The Fox Cub froze to stone. His muzzle hardened; his ears drooped flat; only his tail (his brush was yet to come) twitched half in interest, half in apprehension.
The bracken started midway down the slope, in straggling, wayward patches. These quickly joined in an unbroken mass, and, on the level ground, gained full luxuriance. A cart-track twisted through them, half of it clear to eyes above, half intercepted.
Beyond, the ground crept up once more—bracken gave place to bramble, bramble to coppice, coppice to the sky.