Master Reynard: The History of a Fox

by Jane Fielding; J. C. Tregarthen

My mother, whom the loud snarl had brought in hot haste to my side, was very angry with me for trespassing on the badger's private quarters instead of following her into the part of the sett she had appropriated. No doubt it was a foolish thing to intrude on the privacy of so powerful an animal; but I had no occasion to regret my misconduct, for the badger, far from resenting it, became my best friend. Every morning after that I used to peep at him; but instead of creeping in stealthily, as I had done at first, I walked in as if I were going to my own den, and to apprise him of my approach gave a stifled bark on reaching the turn by the rock, beyond which a short length of straight tunnel led to his lair. Though I seldom neglected to warn him of my coming I believe it was unnecessary, as he got to know my light footstep so well that he did not take the trouble to raise his head on the rare occasions when I forgot to signal my approach. Sleepy though he always was after his night's round, he never failed to wink at me with the eye that was uppermost. Sometimes he would wink twice; but beyond that he never got.

He must have been a good fellow, this distinguished member of the oldest family amongst animals, to put up with these dawn visits of a fox who was still under the partial tutelage of his mother. I have often wondered why he did so, but never been quite sure. If I may give my reason—and be it understood that it involves no slur on the badger's fame—I should say it was because of his friendless state. I say, "friendless," inasmuch as he was never seen in company with the only other badger in the countryside, the one that dwelt on the cliffs; and he kept quite aloof from the other creatures of the wild.

I have always felt proud that he should have thought me worthy of the least consideration; but this did not make me blind to his faults. I don't refer to his living on beetles and wasp-grubs, nor do I mean the trick of sleeping with one paw in his mouth, or the queer way he had of running back-wards into the earth, at which little game I once surprised him; no, I am thinking of a bad habit from which we suffered much annoyance, and which I am very loth to mention, much less dwell on. But it must be stated, and at some length, on account of my story; it was this: he could not keep his claws from digging.

What made his offence ten times worse in our ears was that as far as our vulpine wits could enlighten us—and we discussed the matter again and again—there was no necessity for his self-imposed labor. Any reasonable creature would have thought the sett was more than complete, inasmuch as the part of the hill it tunnelled in all directions was like a vast honey-comb. It held quarters for a whole swarm of badgers; and yet the old fellow must needs keep burrowing farther and farther in, opening out more chambers and galleries, as if it were not commodious enough for his individual requirements. Of course he was free to add to the accommodation of the sett, whether he really did feel cramped for room or only imagined that he did; nevertheless we foxes accounted it a grievance to have to put up with the din he made in digging, which, as it reverberated along the hollow ways, resembled the rumbling of thunder more than any other sound, and prevented us from getting a wink of sleep in the long, dragging hours during which it lasted.

This was only the first stage of the annoyance. A more serious trouble was the way the great heap kept on increasing with the excavated soil that he fetched out by the barrow-load about once a week on the average, generally in the small hours of the morning when we were away foraging. The enormous mound made us hang our heads in shame every time we passed in and out. And as if this were not enough to betray us to our enemies, on our return home one morning we found his great bed lying atop of the pile, which now looked like a haycock in the midst of the brake. At the sight of this my mother lost her temper, and heaped such unrestrained abuse on the badger that I could not keep my jaws closed. It pains me to this day to remember that I dared reply to her; but how, when my old friend was attacked in such bitter terms, could I honorably keep silence? That day I had to be content with the draughty corner of the den, apart from my mother and sisters, who edged away from me as if I were mangy. I spent miserable hours lying there; but about noon the vixen walked over to me, licked my face with her hot tongue, and curled up by my side. These tender attentions soothed my injured feelings, and I soon fell into a peaceful sleep.

I do not reproach the badger for changing his bed, I cannot reproach him for his cleanliness, and I have no wish to disparage his great industry; my object is to set down the truth, and I think that this corpulent creature had to make work to keep his fat down and, even in times of famine, to dig willy-nilly to prevent his claws growing into his flesh.

Of course, had the matter of digging by day, in which lay the sting of the underground annoyance, been brought to an issue, we foxes had not a shadow of right on our side; because we knew that the earth belonged to the badger by right of excavation, and that we were there on sufferance only as long as he found us tolerant and agreeable. We did well to endure what we could not cure, for, had it come to a quarrel, to a conflict with tooth and claw, the badger could have made mincemeat of our whole party without sustaining a scratch. So we prudently refrained from making any comment in his hearing, and, as he could read nothing from my looks, he had not the faintest suspicion of the grumbling to which I had to listen, or of the difficult part I had to play to keep on good terms with my family.

So things went on until a common trouble befell both the badger and ourselves, and immediately following it, calamities so dire as almost to dwarf into nothingness the annoyances of which so much had been made.

We had frequented the sett for perhaps a month, when, on returning early one morning from hunting on the moors, we found, to our astonishment, the entrances to the earth blocked and the badger shut out. Thought I, "This misfortune to himself and to us is the result of his misdoings," and I fully expected to see the vixen pour out the vials of her wrath; but, to my surprise, all she did was to cruise up and down in a fever of anxiety, with a watchful eye on the desperate efforts the badger was making to remove the faggots jammed into the hole. Failing to remove them by tugging, he began to bite through the thick, tough stems as though they were reeds; and in my inexperience I thought he would soon succeed in chopping a way in. But whoever had placed the faggots there had done his work too well for the entry to be hurriedly effected, so that gray dawn found the badger but little advanced with his stubborn task and us cubs roaming restlessly about, eyeing him at his work.

The only time I got in his way he turned his nervous face and snarled at me as though I were a stranger. Seeing what deadly earnest he was in, I gave him a wide berth, and sat on the top of the heap with my brush to him, blinking at the sky that was now all read as if the cliffs were a-fire far, far away beyond the fen. Every now and again, when the vixen came my way, I caught her casting uneasy glances towards the east, and the instant the glaring rim of the sun showed, she stole away and we in her train, leaving my old friend biting and pounding in his apparently hopeless toil.