Master Reynard: The History of a Fox

by Jane Fielding; J. C. Tregarthen

If his efforts looked hopeless, the journey before us was certainly disagreeable. I shall not soon forget that crossing of the fen, which, as bad luck would have it, was as free from mist as the gilded crests of the tor that seemed to stare at us belated creatures of the night, abroad at such an uncanny hour. The vixen took advantage of every bit of cover within easy reach of the bee-line to the cairn earth, for which she was making; but for all that, there were many exposed places that could not be avoided, and there the cruel sun had us at his mercy, and blinded us with his naked rays. Nor were we alone in our misfortune. Half-way over, at a spot where the glittering pools lay thickest, we met a vixen and four cubs heading straight for our sett. She, too, was all anxiety; and seeing this, I began to wonder why the stopping of an earth should occasion such widespread consternation.

My mother traversed the mossy spaces between the pools at the utmost speed of the weakly cub by her side, whilst my sister and I followed a little to one side, so as to avoid treading on the long, terrifying shadows they cast. On coming within sight of the earth she stopped suddenly in her stride, and as she did so my astonished eyes lighted on the object which had arrested her steps. It was the enemy—it was man. I recognized him at first sight, unlike though he was to the being I had vaguely imagined. There is no reason for surprise that I did. For what beast of the field or wild stands erect with such ease on his hind-feet, or has face, fore-paws and ears as bare of fur as is the skin of a mangy fox? Moreover, I caught his scent; and it was the same scent as had tainted the stone on the cliff, that tainted the faggots—evidence hardly less convincing than the steady gaze of his eyes and the shout he raised. At the awful sound we turned tail and melted into the brake.

Round and round the great furze cover we stole, until I thought that the vixen would never come to a standstill; but at last she chose for sanctuary a tangled corner near a runnel, and there, amidst the russet bracken, my weary sisters curled themselves up and fell asleep.

Whether the vixen slept at all I cannot say, but I do not think she did, for she was wide awake when I dropped off, and she was all eyes and ears when I was startled out of my sleep by three noisy wood-pigeons overhead. As we looked at one another across the tiny stream, a strange sound reached me from the direction of the wood below the tor, or, it might be, from the tor itself. It was a high-pitched note, very penetrating, and a little like a cock's crow, though differing from it even more than a curlew's whistle does from an otter's. The instant I heard it I knew that it came from no bird's throat, but whence it came I could not tell.

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.