Grimalkin trotted quickly through the wood with the easy swing and depressed tail of a cat who knows where he is going. Every now and then he paused with uplifted paw as some twig fell with a crackle to the ground, or a patter of leaves told of game afoot, and the green light flickered in his eyes. The fence which separates the Hollow Field from the wood had run to waste for many years, before the blackthorns, each as thick as a man's arm, had been trimmed; and their roots had been undermined in every direction by rabbits. Inside the field the fence's foot was overgrown with tussocks of long grass, honeycombed by runways. It was easy to crouch in one of these until a young rabbit hopped within distance, and then a few soft steps—a pounce—and the kill. Grimalkin slid into the grass, which closed over his striped back and hid him.
The moon was bright as day. Further down the fence half a dozen rabbits were feeding; but the other side of the field, beyond which lay a beech wood, was deep in shadow. Shrill threads of sound from a neighbouring grass tuft meant that the field mice were squabbling among the fallen beech nuts; but Grimalkin only cocked one ear and tucked his paws away neatly against his chest. It was a hunter's night and he awaited nobler quarry.
A long hour passed. Then one of the rabbits sat up and kicked the ground uneasily, while the rest listened. A rabbit was cantering across the field towards them. She picked her way among the thistles, and stopped every now and then quivering. She did not seem in a hurry, and yet was apparently quite unaware of their presence. The other rabbits thumped suspiciously and scattered—there was something uncanny about the way this rabbit ran. She came straight towards Grimalkin; her eyes were wide and staring as she glanced behind her, and her limbs moved stiffly. Grimalkin drew himself together. As she lilted within a yard of him, he sprang and struck. The rabbit sobbed, and rolled over panting. Beautiful, lithe, cruel, Grimalkin leaped upon her and dealt the death blow, ere commencing the death-game which the cat kind always play over the stricken quarry. He stood listening for a moment, and a rustle in the grass made him pause. His ear caught the faint unmistakable sound of a hunter who hunts his quarry by scent, and who smells fresh blood near at hand. Down towards the rabbit stole a stealthy dark shape, sniffing as it came upon the line. Keen, the stoat, seldom misses his kill, and woe betide the beast who crosses his trail; he hunts for the joy of killing, and in the woods they call him in whispers, 'the Stealthy Death.' The stoat paused and saw the dead rabbit, and the cat standing over it with a wicked gleam in his small eyes. He squeaked once, and then—like a bent watch-spring loosed—flung himself upon his enemy. Had his fangs sunk where he intended—into the great arteries of the neck—Grimalkin would speedily have lain beside the rabbit; but he partially missed his hold, and fastening into the shoulder instead, clung there like a leech. Grimalkin felt the hot blood trickle down, and, wild with fear and wrath, he smote and bit desperately at the clinging death which hung upon his neck. He had never encountered an enemy who fought after this fashion. His claws ripped the stoat's flank. With a squeak, Keen shifted his hold from the shoulder to the throat, half throttling Grimalkin. The combat raged to and fro, the cat striking, spitting, writhing, and the stoat battered, torn, flung this way and that, but all the while burying his fangs deeper in his victim's flesh. The death which Keen deals is slow but very sure. The dog worries, and the cat tears his prey, but the stoat silently sucks the life-blood, until the quarry, struggle as he may, succumbs at last, with only four tiny wounds in the throat to show how his strength was drained away.
A battle on these terms could not last. Already the great cat was tiring—weakened by loss of blood and the weight on his neck. He rolled over exhausted, and although his claws tore feebly at his enemy, his eyes were half closed and his tongue lolled out. Keen knew that his time had come. He loosened his hold for an instant, instinctively seeking a fresh grip upon the great blood-vessels behind the ear. But that instant proved his undoing. Grimalkin, roused from his stupor by the prick of a new wound, rose with a sudden convulsive effort. His enemy was off his guard, and left his side exposed. Instantly Grimalkin buried his teeth in it. He held on grimly, crushing the life out of the slender writhing form until it ceased to quiver and throb, and hung limp. Then he flung it aside, and Keen, his white chest stained scarlet, lay stretched on the grass beside the dead rabbit.
Grimalkin did not stay to look at this, his record kill. It was no time to triumph. His life-blood had been drained freely, he felt weary and strangely weak. He crawled to the hedgerow, and sought an old lair of his, a deserted rabbit burrow. Dead leaves had drifted in, and it was dry and safe. Here Grimalkin lay and nursed his wounds, until the sunshine striking on the hedge side, and the singing of the flies over the grey and brown spots in the grass, brought home to him the fact that he was hungry, and must go out and hunt in the woods again.
CHAPTER III
'THE COLLARED BUCK'
On the northern slope of Knockdane there is a little glen whose sides are hung with ivy and aromatic ale-hoof, and which is so deep that even on the longest day of the year the sun can never climb high enough to shine upon its southern wall. The glen is strewn with limestone rocks, and at its head stands a twisted crab-apple tree. Beneath the roots of the latter there is a dry roomy chamber into which dead leaves have either drifted or been carried; for the Crab Tree burrow has been beloved of the Fur Folk ever since the tree itself began to bear a yearly load of wizened fruit. Some have used it as a den, some as a nursery, and many more as a sanctuary. Grimalkin adapted it to the first of these uses, and took up his abode there at the end of November.