Lives of the Fur Folk

by Maud D. Haviland

He galloped through thickets and crashed through briars, and as he ran he heard the pack give tongue on his line. Up till now he had not realised that the presence of the strangers in the wood boded anything evil to the Foxkind, but had simply avoided them because they were new to him and noisy. At last it dawned on him that he was pursued, and he experienced all the fears of the hunted. In his extremity he ran back to the thicket where he had slept, to seek his cunning mother's help. Several times he was obliged to go out of his way to evade hounds who were hunting up and down the wood; for it was the first time that many of the puppies had been out, and the experience had proved too much for their wits. Some four couple were unpleasantly close to Redpad's brush as he entered the thicket, but he dodged them, and ran straight to his mother's lair. It was still warm, but empty. Redpad made up his mind quickly. To his right the wood was less thick. Here and there grew an isolated oak or pine, and the hillside was covered with rocks and fern. A little way off there was a crag some forty feet high at whose foot rose a little stream. Redpad pattered up this to its source; and about six feet from the ground, half hidden by polypody ferns, found a cleft in the limestone. A rush and a scramble carried him into this retreat, which was just large enough to contain him; and the ferns had scarcely ceased to wave before the hounds broke out of the covert.

Redpad watched the huntsman put them into the patch of bracken. One worked one way, and one another, but they had no leader, for the old hounds were mostly down in the valley. And the longer they lingered, the staler grew the scent.

Suddenly a lemon-and-white hound on the bank of the stream lifted up his voice and announced that a fox had passed that way, and the rest rushed after him. Two men rode behind the hounds, and one said to the other, pointing out the pale one who had picked up the scent:

'That's a grand houn' in the makin'.'

'Ay,' said the other, 'an' he's as swate on a stale line as ever auld Pirate was before him. Hike! Hike to Ravager!'

The hounds hunted almost up to the crag, but the morning air was merciful, and drew the scent above their heads. However, the yellow puppy was not to be baulked. There was a narrow ledge which ran obliquely from the ground to the cleft where Redpad lay hidden, and up this he climbed. Redpad was watching the rest of the pack from between the fern fronds, when a joyous bay above his head proclaimed that he was discovered.

Redpad leaped from his hiding-place and darted away with the leading hound not a dozen yards from his brush. There was no time to turn or try any tricks—he ran for his life. He led his pursuers right across Knockdane, but it seemed as though there was a galloping horse in every path and ride, and a hound in every brake. In his extremity he turned to the moor. He raced up the steep hillside through clumps of solemn fir trees, where the tits twittered as though there were no such thing as man, and through beds of ivy and fern.

At last the long slope of the Big Meadow lay before him, and he gathered all his remaining strength for the dash over this danger zone. By the hedge stood a horse and rider who halloaed as he passed, but to fox ideas a man was far less dangerous than the hounds behind, and he took no notice. He galloped across the field and entered the clump of trees in the middle. Suddenly another fox leaped up and went away in front of him. It was Vix. She knew well who were following their line, and cantered at her top speed; but she was still heavy and drowsy after her full meal at dawn, and presently Redpad, tired as he was, overtook and passed her.

The pack was very close behind as they entered the narrow belt of woodland at the top of the field; but the hounds were all alone, for the thick hedge had stopped the horses at the bottom of the hill, and they had been obliged to go a long way round. Redpad's tongue was out, for he had run far through the wood that morning, and, besides, he was very frightened. Just in front of him loomed the high demesne wall. Redpad had leaped upon it, when he suddenly noticed a thick bush of ivy which overhung the coping to his right, and instead of leaping down the other side he crept into the ivy and lay there panting.

A second later Vix came up. Twice she leaped and twice she fell back, but the third time she gained the coping just as the hounds came up. They crowded over the wall on the scent, Ravager leading, and poured down the hill on the other side after the little red figure half a field's length in front. They were so close to him that one spring would have landed Redpad in their midst, but he lay like a stone, and they passed him by.