Lives of the Fur Folk

by Maud D. Haviland

Two miles slipped by. Redpad kept up his best pace, for he felt instinctively that he had not increased his lead during the last half-mile, and the scent was good that day. He was in the best of condition and ran strongly, but he did not know the hiding-places in this part of the country as well as those of Knockdane, and was obliged to trust more to his legs and less to his wits than was his custom.

Presently he turned to the right and climbed the steep hillside to the moor. There was a big rabbit hole in his path into which he tried to creep, but just below the surface it narrowed, and he was obliged to back out with his coat full of dust and several precious moments lost. He could see the hounds—a pied patch on the fields below him. At that distance they appeared to be crawling along, but as a matter of fact they were racing at top speed. Just behind them rode a horseman on a great black horse, but the rest were further behind.

Redpad ran on steadily, for he could see Knockdane with its crest of trees in the distance. The moor was boggy, and he crossed patches of quagmire which trembled even under his light weight. A big grey heron burst out of a pool and swung skywards, and the snipe sprang up in every direction; but Redpad never paused and the hounds never checked, until the men began to wonder if their horses would hold out, and took what short cuts they might.

Three miles further on the moor sloped down to the tilled lands again. Redpad was cantering along a bohireen[3] when he suddenly came full upon a countryman mending a wall. The man sprang up and shouted, and a big yellow sheep-dog darted from his heel. Redpad cleared the fence at a bound, and went away over a turnip-field with the collie not half a dozen yards behind. The field was a wide one, and although he succeeded in shaking off his pursuer on the other side, yet the sudden effort told upon him. His tongue was out, and now and then his gallop dropped into a hurrying trot.

[3] Narrow lane.

By now he was in fields which he knew well, and tried all the familiar hiding-places one after another. There is a 'shore' by Kilmacabee and a badger set in Charlesfort Wood; but the rain had filled the former with water, and the latter was blocked up.

The early January evening began to close in when the home covert was still three miles away, but the scent lay stronger than ever on field and bog. Redpad was spattered with mud and his breath came in gasps, but he ran on gallantly over ploughed fields where the plover rose screaming at his approach, and over pastures where the sheep stampeded. Once he met a donkey-cart crawling down a road. The old woman in it screamed and waved her shawl at his approach, and obliged him to turn a hundred yards out of his way, but even a hundred yards is far to go when limbs are weary, and there is withal the certain knowledge that the pursuers are gaining ground. Nevertheless he could see Knockdane more and more clearly, and knew that there was only another half-mile, and the river to be forded, before he could lie down in the old 'earth.' Looking back he saw that the hounds, though tired themselves, were coming on faster than ever, and he knew that he must run his best if he would arrive at the ford by the old willow before them. His heart thudded as though it would burst its way through his ears, and his famous ruddy pads felt as though each were bound to the earth. More than once he lay down with closed eyes, and had he been a soft-hearted fox or a vixen he would have died there and then; but as he was as gallant a fox as ever ran before the hounds to a ten mile point, he rose stiffly and stumbled aimlessly forward again.

As he crossed the brow of the hill from whence the slope fell steeply down to the river, the sun came out over the shoulder of Knockdane and shone wanly on the flood pools in the meadows. The mists were already rising, and the great solemn woods on the other side lay in shadow. The waterhens feeding on the river bank scuttled away as he limped down to the water's edge.

The river was in full flood and rushed hurrahing seawards, carrying foam flakes and branches of trees in its coffee-coloured current. It filled its banks to the brim, and not a ripple was left to tell where the ford had been. The willow tree which grew beside the spot was partially uprooted and drooped into the water with its branches festooned with flotsam. Redpad paused bewildered, for never before had this ford failed him at his need. Just then the hounds broke over the brow of the hill and tore down the slope. Redpad saw them, and determined to make a desperate bid for freedom. Very slowly and stiffly he crept out along the horizontal trunk of the willow, and so into the smaller branches above the water, where a hound could not venture. The pack came up and crowded baying round the tree. Now and then one tried to follow along the trunk, but they were less nimble than a fox and slipped back into the water. Redpad lay crouched flat with his teeth bared, and no hound could reach him from below.

Presently two men rode down and dismounted from their tired horses. One was the man on the black horse who had ridden so well that day, and the other was the huntsman. The latter tried to climb out along the tree to Redpad, but it swayed so perilously that he was forced to return.