[MASTER REYNARD]
The earth where I was born was far down the face of a steep cliff and opened on a sloping shelf of turf, from the edge of which the undercliff fell sheer to the sea. The entrance we used most was slightly above the level of the springy sward and led by a small tunnel to a roomy chamber where daylight never penetrated.
There on the bare dry ground the vixen laid us—my two sisters and me. If I was like the baby cubs I have since seen, I was born blind, my muzzle was blunt and rounded, and my coat as black as a crow, the only white about me being a few hairs in the tag of my tiny brush. Even at the time when I first remember what I was like my fur was still a very dark color and bore no resemblance to the russet hue of a full-grown fox.
This was a few weeks after my eyes were opened, when, after awaking from our first sleep, we were in the habit of sunning ourselves just inside the mouth of the earth. It was there, with my muzzle resting on the vixen's flank, that I got my earliest glimpse of the world. The turf was then almost hidden by pink flowers, over the heads of which I could see, between two of the pinnacles that bordered the ledge, the sea breaking on a reef where the cormorants used to gather at low water and stand with folded or outstretched wings until the rising tide drove them to the big white rock beyond.
So few things moved within our field of vision that every creature we saw afforded us the keenest interest. Sometimes during days together nothing stirred but the stems of the thrift and the surf about the reef, for the sky was cloudless when the hot weather set in. Now and again a red-legged crow came and perched on one of the pinnacles, crying "Daw, daw!" until its mate joined it, and then, all too soon, they took wing and flew away; at times a hawk or a peregrine would glide by and break the monotony of our life.
Our narrow green was dotted by five boulders, and one of these we could see from the earth. On this our most frequent visitor alighted. It was an old raven, who presently dropped to the ground, walked up to the remains of any fowl or rabbit lying near the heap of sandy soil which my mother had scratched out when making the earth, and pecked, pecked, pecked, until only the bones were left. Then, uttering his curious "Cawpse, cawpse!" he would hop along the ground, flap his big black wings, and pass out of sight. I feel sure that he saw us watching him, for his eyes often turned our way.
One afternoon, to our astonishment, a half-grown rabbit came lopping along, and stopped to nibble the turf at a spot barely a good spring from the vixen. She, usually very drowsy, half opened her eyes and turned her face towards the intruder, but she did not rise to her feet. We youngsters were beside ourselves with excitement, but were not allowed to scramble over her side to drive away this audacious trespasser on our private domain. This, I think, was owing to my mother's great anxiety on our account.
I have never known a vixen so determined that her cubs should lie hidden by day; but then we were her first litter. She would constantly warn us against venturing out whilst the sun was up. So particular was she that we were not permitted to expose as much as our muzzles outside the earth, though birds and rabbits moved about there freely. We could not understand the restriction, and I fear that we thought it unkind of her to confine us to a cramped, stuffy hole the summer day through, when we longed to be gambolling about the sward or basking in those warm corners under the boulders which retained some of their heat even after the sun went down.