Master Reynard: The History of a Fox

by Jane Fielding; J. C. Tregarthen

Summoning my untried powers, I wormed myself over the ground towards a single bush that screened me from the observation of most of the rabbits. Its shelter gained, I looked back and up to where three pairs of green eyes regarded my every movement, and then peeped with the utmost caution round the corner of the furze towards my prey. The bunnies were all there and thoroughly alert, and so disconcerting did I find their united gaze that I drew my head back to consider the situation. When I peeped again half their number showed their white scuts and went to ground, and the other half seemed prepared to follow their example.

Satisfied that direct approach was out of the question, I walked aslant the slope towards a piece of flat ground on a level with the warren, as though I were engaged on some engrossing pursuit in that direction. As I went I did not even squint at the rabbits, though it cost me an effort to look straight before my muzzle. My simulated detachment from my prey must, I felt sure, have excited the admiration of my dear mother, and so must the thoroughness with which I gave myself over to the antics that took me at first farther and farther away and then nearer and nearer to the few remaining rabbits, whose curiosity had got the better of their fears. The silly creatures were quite taken in by the capers I cut, and one at least realized his danger too late, for ere he could reach his hole I snapped him up and bore him up the hill towards the vixen.

Insignificant as the incident appears to me now, it was one of the greatest events of my life. Every fox is proud of his first skill, and I was no little elated by mine. Indeed, I felt I must make some sort of demonstration in honor of the occasion. Imagine me, then, a handsome young dog-fox, head erect, ears pricked, brush on end and well fluffed out, trotting along on the very tips of my toes with my first rabbit between my jaws, and you have a picture of me as I swaggered over the bare turf in the moonlight, before the eyes of my admiring mother and jealous sisters. I shall never forget the pride I felt nor the inner voice that kept whispering, "You are able to get your own living now, my boy, but don't be too highly elated!"

I got on rapidly after this my first experience. How could I do otherwise, with such a clever and painstaking little mother as I had to instruct me in the wiles and ways of our craft? In a short time I became expert not only in catching young rabbits, rats, moles, and mice, but in picking up the feathered prey that frequented fen and hillside.

Of course I met with many disappointments; pheasants, partridges and wild-duck often escaped my clutches when I already considered them mine. My failures were due chiefly to inexperience, but in a measure also to the intrusion of other foragers, who turned up at critical moments and ended for me the work of hours. On one occasion a hunted hare passed between me and a covey of partridges I was drawing up to; but the birds, who squatted in a circle with their heads outwards, as their custom is, did not rise until a pack of stoats came along on his line, and with their noisy yelpings broke the silence of the roosting-place. On another, the sudden appearance of a poaching cat defrauded me of a pheasant on the edge of the pine-wood; but that night I killed before the darkness faded, and had buried what I could not eat before the vixen raised the "dawn" cry.

After good hunting we used to romp home together over the furze-dotted land or across the fen, and from sheer high spirits vixen and cubs alike used to bound over the bushes or clumps of rushes and sags across our path. Week after week nothing happened to disturb our peace or excite our fears, but, for all our apparent security, we were never abroad at sunrise unless a thick fog lay over the land.

In those expeditions I used latterly to separate myself from the vixen on reaching the hunting-ground and seek my prey alone, rejoining her when she sounded the call to leave the trail or ambuscade. In this way I became more and more independent, and at times would turn a deaf ear to her summons. Twice I was so belated that the pools by the way reflected the rosy fore-glow of the dreaded sun as I scurried past them.

I may have spent a month in the vixen's company before I could make up my mind to shake off her authority and forage where I pleased. She was conscious that I chafed at the restraint which she considered necessary, and was no doubt prepared for the serious step I had resolved on. Nevertheless, when the night came, it was not without a sense of shame at breaking away from one who had been so tender and forbearing that I sidled past her where she sat outside the earth playing with my sisters. I had rather expected she would exercise her authority and call me back. Though she stopped her gambols and looked wistfully at me, she made no protest, and I passed on my way unchallenged; but I was glad when the bushes hid me from her sight and from the questioning eyes of my sisters, who seemed very much astounded at my going off alone.

Soon after crossing the stream I began to rehearse the plan I had surreptitiously formed in the earth. As it promised success, I decided to go through with it, though a darker night would have suited my purpose better. Clouds indeed there were, but white and fleecy, only slightly veiling the light of the full moon, which shone very brightly as it crossed the deep blue spaces between. The self-confidence I felt in the earth had been oozing out of me as I threaded my lonely way through brake and reed-bed, but it returned when, after trotting across the quaking bog that trembled under my light steps like a jelly-fish, I came at last in sight of the pool where I intended to lie in wait for wild-fowl.