The day was well begun. Why did the throstle pipe overhead? Why did the daffodils dance in the breeze? Why was the Spring Longing so insolently apparent in every bud and bough, and why did they flaunt it so heartlessly in his face? Could they restore a darkened eye, or rejuvenate weakened limbs? Thus might have mused Grimalkin of Knockdane, who was king there no more. It had come at last, a cold hand which grips man and beast alike, certain and irremediable. Old Age was stealing fast behind him. And old age means more to the Fur Folk than to human beings. When their strength once declines ever so slightly, they must go to the wall to make room for stronger hunters. They are the lawful prey of any who can take them. If by any chance they escape death by their fellows, nothing remains but Starvation—a slower agony.
Grimalkin could not look into the future and see what Fate had in store for him, but perhaps he was all the happier for it. Mortified and baffled as he was at his defeat, he did not realise that a day would come when he must pass by the full-grown buck rabbit for the young and sickly, or later on prey on grass-mice which he now disdained. But this day was still far off. Loud called the March wind overhead. Grimalkin rose, and ceased to try and tear the darkness from his blinded eye. He was hungry, and his hunter's skill still remained to him. What he lacked in strength and endurance must be compensated for by cunning. He crept from his hiding-place, and stole silently down the path to his hunting grounds.
So passes Grimalkin from this tale, through the grey trees, into the depths of the mysterious woods, where the race is only to the swift and the battle to the strong, and about which man can know nothing certainly.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF STUBBS THE BADGER
CHAPTER I
THE TWILIGHT HUNTERS