| [4] | Saffron is much used in Cornwall for colouring cakes. |
| [5] | A pennyworth of holly. |
| [6] | On Flora day, the 8th of May, dancing takes place in the streets of Helston. |
| [7] | It was formerly the custom to illuminate the church towers on Christmas Day. |
CHAPTER X
THE FIENDS OF THE WILD
Unrelenting as the frost seemed on Christmas Day, it yielded the next night but one to a warm westerly wind, the thaw setting in before dawn. When Andrew crossed to the bullock-house, water was dripping from the barn, by noon bush and boulder were beginning to show on the hill, at nightfall runnel and stream were chattering along their courses. The sound of running water cheered the birds at roost on branch and spray; it cheered the hare too, who kept snuffing the warm breeze that relaxed the icy fetters on the stream and melted the snow clogging his fur. Within forty-eight hours the balls of snow had completely disappeared, leaving him as light as a feather for his gallop over the moorland, where his path was marked by the spray which he spurned from the shallow pools. The splashes seemed to be caused by some ricochetting missile, so fleet were his movements: surely in all his life he never sped more swiftly than then.
But though he revelled in the exercise of his unencumbered limbs, he had a keen eye to his safety: the most wily of hunted creatures could not have been more alert and vigilant than he. Once from the solitary rock, again and again from knoll and barrow he surveyed the waste to learn whether any enemies were in sight, for he was well aware of their famished condition, and understood that they would employ the greatest stealth in attempting his capture. He kept a sharp look-out for Grey Fox, carefully examining every object that excited his least suspicion, and in his great dread of a stoat pack he repeatedly scrutinised the surface for the sinuous living line that would apprise him of its approach.
Once he thought he detected the eerie serpentine movement characteristic of the stoat; but he was mistaken, the three packs which infested his beats were miles away at the time. Though all were terrible scourges to the animals that supplied them with blood, the most formidable, on account of the sagacity and endurance of its leader, was the pack, numbering fourteen in all, whose main stronghold was the Lamorna cliffs. Even this pack was in peril of famine because of the wariness and scarcity of prey.