Master Reynard: The History of a Fox

by Jane Fielding; J. C. Tregarthen

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.