CHAPTER V
THE SHEEP SLAYER
The temptation came late in February, for that is famine time in the country-side. The rabbits were alert, and it was difficult to stalk birds successfully when the leaves were off the trees. In three days Redpad had only picked up a starved rat and a sick pigeon, all skin and bone, and on the fourth day he caught nothing at all. His sides had fallen in, and his haunch bones stood out. At last he went to the moor; but although he hunted there for a long while, he did not even see a field-mouse. The sun had set when he returned to Knockdane, and the stars came out, one by one, in the steely sky. It was going to freeze. Redpad jumped a wall into a little field, where withered fern grew more plentifully than grass, and across which the sheep stampeded. These were the ewes with young lambs, and they wheeled into a jostling flock at his approach. Redpad never looked at them as he skirted the field. He was well used to sheep, but so far, in his opinion, their only use was to foul his line for the hounds. Also, even had he been so minded, he could scarcely pull down a lamb under the hoofs of the dams, for collectively the old ewes were formidable. Therefore he did not give them a second thought until he came to the far side of the field, when a little cry in the fern made him pause with pad upraised. He snuffed his way cautiously under the wall; and there, sheltered by a boulder from the cold wind, lay a newly dropped lamb. It was one of a couple, but being sickly, it had not risen and followed the dam to the rest of the flock as its fellow did. It was too weak to stand, and could only lie and shiver as the fox crept up. Redpad was ravenous—starving, in fact—and far and near the countryside was empty in the night. The old ewe was not at hand; nothing watched him but the hungry stars overhead. He seized the lamb by the shoulder, and it did not even bleat as he swung it over the wall, and cantered with it to Knockdane. That night, for the first time for many days, Redpad was full-fed, and slept soundly.
The theft might have remained undiscovered, but unluckily the sheep belonged to Jack Skehan; and twice a day, during the lambing time, he went along a certain path in Knockdane to visit the flock. The next morning, when on his usual round, his dog ran on ahead, and presently returned carrying the woolly leg of a lamb. On the path were unmistakable traces of Redpad's last night's meal; and worst of all, in the soft earth where he had drunk from a puddle, were the plain prints of pads. There was no doubt who had done the deed.
Jack Skehan himself was not kindly disposed to the Hunt, and he threw out dark hints as to his future plans. However, he had no opportunity of carrying these into effect, for Redpad did not visit the sheep again after his one theft. What with one thing and another, his luck began to turn. He picked up two or three snared rabbits and other trifles, and the press of famine was over for a time.
However, a week later, he was patrolling the fir wood at the top of Knockdane. It was a still night, mild for the season, with a crescent moon struggling behind a mass of little sheep-backed clouds. Presently he heard a businesslike patter of feet on the fir needles, and snuffing, that his nose might confirm his ears in correct fox fashion, he winded a dog. Redpad hated dogs only one degree less than men, and slipped quietly away into the shadows. The footsteps paused undecidedly at the spot where he had turned aside, then passed on.
Shortly afterwards, Redpad was scaling the demesne wall, when a distant rumble of hoofs startled him. The ground slopes away gently from the end of the wood, over the fields, and then rises again to meet the moor. Hence, from the wall, Redpad could look down into the field where the sheep dwelt. He saw the whole flock—a grey mass in the twilight—collected in a corner; and listening, it seemed to him that he heard a shrill yelp. However, it was not repeated, and as he winded nothing unusual, for the night air was damp and chilled the scent, he continued his way. Night after night he went to the moor by the same path—over the wall, and across the little field where the sheep grazed among the stones. Here he suddenly crossed a line from which the Fur Folk usually turn—the line of fresh blood; and among the dwarfed gorse he found the body of a young lamb. At that moment the sheep stampeded, and one lamb, breaking from the flock, bounded hither and thither among the rocks with the agility of despair. As it leaped, something small and dark sprang beside it. There was a wicked snarl, a piteous stifled bleat, and the lamb was dragged headlong into the furze. Redpad waited no longer, but cantered back to the wood. If something was worrying the sheep, this was no safe place for him.