Lives of the Fur Folk

by Maud D. Haviland

HOW THE DEBT WAS PAID

All the following winter Redpad hunted in Knockdane. Several times the hounds came and he had to run for his brush, but it takes a great deal to catch a hardy Irish fox who is sound in wind and limb. When summer came he picked up plenty of young rabbits and grew fat. Paddy Magragh learned to recognise him, and designated him 'the big red felly.' Although he had been deprived of his mother so early, yet he learned by experience and instinct, those best of teachers, how to overcome or circumvent the wiliest of the wood creatures for his own ends. He established himself in the upper gallery of a badger's 'set.' The badger had cleaned it out for his own winter use, but Redpad discovered it one day, and adopted it. The badger was seriously annoyed and endeavoured to oust the intruder by every means in his power, but Redpad went on the principle of bowing to the storm. When the badger offered to fight him he discreetly sought quarters elsewhere; but no sooner had the rightful owner triumphantly freed the burrow from the hated taint of fox, than he returned. At last the badger grew weary of the contest. He took up his residence at the bottom of the earth, and left Redpad in undisputed possession of the upper gallery.

Winter came round for the second time, and by now Redpad had come to his full strength. Knockdane seldom sees hard frost or snow, but as a rule the south wind blows up a warm mist, and a steady rain drips through the leafless trees.

In December rabbit-traps were set in Knockdane, and Redpad was not long in finding them out. It was against regulations to set traps in the open, but Paddy Magragh, who was in charge of the trapping, was not particular; and Redpad's first introduction to a rabbit-trap was the snap of steel jaws on his toe. He wrenched himself free, but he walked lame for many a day afterwards, and he had learned his lesson. He soon found out that the trapper made his morning and evening rounds with fair regularity, and he arranged that his own excursions should be made accordingly. He trotted round the traps just in front of Magragh, and when the latter arrived, more than half of them contained nothing but a severed rabbit's head. This happened two or three times, and then Magragh, who knew nearly as much about wood ways as Redpad himself, reversed the order in which he visited the traps, and presently caught the thief red-handed.

'Every dog has his day, me fine lad,' muttered Magragh, hurling a fir cone after the white-tagged brush; 'but I'm thinking the hounds will have theirs before so long.'

After that Magragh lifted his traps to the other side of Knockdane, for which Redpad had no great liking, as there were more farmsteads in the neighbourhood, and consequently more cur dogs.

During the fine weather about Christmas time Redpad left the main woods, and hunted and slept in the thick hedgerows by the river below Knockdane. They were full of rats and rabbits, but were not a very safe resort, for it is one of the Sabbath amusements of the youth of those parts to go out with dogs, and hunt any outlying fox in the hedges. Redpad could outrun any dog in the country, but his slender limbs were no match for the more sturdily built terriers and sheep-dogs at close grips, so perhaps it was just as well that a cold snap drove him back to the woods again.

While the frost was on the ground Redpad was hungry and robbed hen-roosts recklessly. One night twelve hens roosted in an outhouse with a defective latch at John Skehan's farm. The next morning when the owner went his rounds, three corpses lay on the floor, and the rest of the fowls had disappeared; all but one broody biddy under a basket.