The silence of the night at this time was painful. A dog-fox dared no longer call to his mate for fear of betraying his whereabouts to the hound, now abroad at all hours. I hardly dared sleep two days following, in the same place, lest in his wanderings he should have come upon my couch and be there awaiting me. I lived under a reign of terror, and the gloom that brooded over brake, tor, and fen spread to the higher moors, where the hound had once been seen. But, gloom or no gloom, I had to have food though every journey I made to the fen was at the risk of my life.
Generally I was through early enough to enable me, by hurrying, to be back in my couch in gorse or heather before dawn. One morning, however, I was so late that I decided to lie up for the day in the fen rather than risk crossing the moors after daybreak.
Through the mist that lay over the heart of the bog I could just make out the tall clump of rushes where I meant to lie up if the slough should yet prove firm enough to bear my weight. On striking the river, which was much above the previous summer's level, I waded into the water, and, to throw the hound out in the event of his following me, floated some distance with the current before landing on the opposite side. As I rustled through the flags and the belt of reeds, whose dew-laden plumes were sparkling in the first rays of day, a heron rose lazily and, skimming a reed bed, flew away towards the half-risen sun, leaving me, as far as I could see, the sole tenant of the silent marshland. Only the bare, flat quagmire now lay between me and my harborage, and, anxious to be hidden from sight, I lost no time in setting out across the treacherous surface.
I selected a line which seemed to promise the firmest footing, and stepped with all possible lightness. Yet, in spite of every care, I sank deep in places, and midway the crust was so thin that for a while I was in great danger of foundering. However, by putting forth all my strength, I was able, at last, to free myself from the clutches of the more liquid mire and reach the drier, sounder surface between it and the rushes. I was indeed glad to feel the solid ground under my feet once more.
Had I realized the peril before setting out I should not have attempted to cross. I ought, perhaps, to have turned back on striking the dangerous zone; but, once embarked on an undertaking, it is not in my nature to retreat, for there is that in a fox which makes him go through with his purpose at all hazards, though it may compel him to pass between the legs of the huntsman's horse or traverse a bog that threatens to swallow him up.
At last, exhausted and bemired, I entered the clump, whose shadow lay like a wide road across that part of the quagmire where it fell, and chose for my couch a tall heap of dead reeds just inside the wall of pale green stems. It seemed to have served for a nest of the captive wild swan, and had probably been floated to the spot by the subsiding flood.
To reach my bed I had to cross the stream which drained the pool within the dense ring of bulrushes; and as I waded through it a well-known scent reached my nostrils, and told me that the wiliest creature of the night had also sought this isolated retreat to hover in. I watched the sedgy islet whence the scent proceeded, expecting to get a glimpse of the otter couching there; but he lay low and did not expose a hair, despite the crackling of the reeds as I made my bed.
I was free now to attend to my toilet and prepare for the rest I so much needed. With my pads dirty as they were, sleep was out of the question; so I licked them and my legs as clean as I could, and, thus refreshed, soon dozed off, with a sense of security to which I had long been a stranger.