CHAPTER II
THE HUNTERS
So this was the coming of Redpad to Knockdane. A whole book might be written about his early adventures, but as this is to be his history, I must pass them by to speak of those things which befell him as he grew older. It is sufficient to say that he entered on his career in the woods with two important assets—a good nose and a good mother; and these two will carry one of the Fur Folk far.
Vix kept her cub in an old rabbit burrow until he was old enough to hunt for himself. The first blood which Redpad ever drew was, strange to say, his own. One May evening he was playing by the mouth of the hole, when all at once a rustle in a bluebell bed attracted him. His instinct, which until now had lain dormant, awoke. He bunched his woolly legs together and bared his little milk teeth. The flower bells waved to and fro again—and Redpad cleared the intervening space with one bound, to land, pads extended, upon a sulky hedgehog. He crept whimpering back to his mother to lick his sore toes and meditate on one of the oldest saws of the Fox Folk, which runs: 'Never spring until your nose confirms your eyes and ears.'
The woods are at their loveliest in May, when the chestnut leaves spread out their cool fingers, and a filmy green veil of foliage is flung over the beeches' naked branches. In the long light evenings scores of rabbits grazed along the woodsides, and it was upon these that Redpad took his first lessons in hunting. He obeyed Vix and her signals implicitly, and therefore learned by imitation, which is the only form of pedagogy known in the woods.
One evening when the sun shot long slanting shadows across Knockdane, the foxes stole out to hunt. Between the woods and the river lies a flat meadow, and thither Vix led Redpad, the latter aping the carriage of his mother's brush to the best of his ability. She made him crouch down in the thicket twenty yards from the fence, but she herself crept forward. Although the bushes were too thick to allow her to see into the field, yet the air was full of that peculiar silence which means that many hearts are beating and many ears listening close at hand. But the senses of a fox are very keen, and above the murmur of the river over its pebbles, Vix could hear eager lips snatching and nibbling at the coarse grass, and many feet splashing in the dew. She crept forward until she could peep into the field, and saw a dozen rabbits feeding there. A fox has two methods of completing a 'stalk'—the spring and the rush. Vix preferred to spring Thug-like upon her victim, but in this case the prey was too far away, and she resolved to rush it. Cramping her limbs together she dashed through the fence and leaped at the bunny she had marked. She might as well have pursued a shadow. A dozen pairs of feet stamped a warning, and a dozen scuts scuttled into the bushes. There was a twang as some reckless rabbit stubbed his nose against the wire, and then the patter of feet darting in every direction.
Had Vix been hunting alone that evening she would have gone supperless, but as it happened, one rabbit chose that runway where Redpad crouched. It saw its danger too late and swerved—but the cub darted forward and rolled it over, almost turning a somersault in the vehemence of his rush. Vix came leaping through the bushes and tugged the kill away from him. He yielded it growling, but ultimately was permitted to demolish by far the largest share.
By such expeditions Vix taught her cub to know every lane, bank, and 'shore'[1] in the country round Knockdane, and this knowledge was very useful to him when later on he was obliged to hunt and be hunted by himself. Besides the rabbits, there were rats and mice to be had. Vix took Redpad down to Kilree Bog, where there are deep ditches choked with furze and bramble, and banks tunnelled through by burrows. Sometimes they went rat hunting by Paddy Magragh's farmstead at moonrise; but this was dangerous country, for in the yard dwelt a certain long-legged yellow dog with a keen nose and ready tongue.