Early one morning, it must have been almost the last week in September, the peace of the oak-coppice was disturbed by a terrible clamour. It began with a single deep "Ough, ough, ough!" then another voice chimed in with rather a shriller note, and then another and then another, and then a whole score more joined them in one thundering chorus. And the Hind started to her feet in alarm, and led the Calf out of the wooded valley to the open moor above. There they stood listening; while the whole valley was filled with the tumult, as if a hundred demons had been let loose into it. Now and again it ceased for a moment, and all was still; then it began again with "Ough, ough, ough!"; and it was hard to say exactly where the sound came from, for one side of the valley said it would hold it no longer, and tossed it over to the other, and the other said it wouldn't hold it either and tossed it back, so that the noise kept hovering between the two in the most bewildering way. But after a short time the clamour drew nearer to the Hind and Calf, and presently out came one of the Fox-cubs, with his tongue lolling and his back crooked, looking desperately weary and woe-begone. He went on for a little distance, as if to go away over the moor, but soon stopped and flung back with desperation into the covert. And the Hind trotted gently away, anxious but not alarmed. "They are not after us, my son, I think," she said. Then the noise drew closer and closer, and out bounded a whole pack of hounds, with bristles erect and gleaming eyes, throwing their tongues furiously on the line of the Cub. They flashed over the scent for fifty yards, still yelling with all their might, and then they fell silent and spread out in all directions. Presently they recovered the line of the Cub, and turned back into the covert yelling louder than ever; but meanwhile two wild puppies had crossed the scent of the Hind and Calf and started after them as fast as they could run.
Then the Hind turned and fled and the Calf with her, as he had never fled before; but his poor little legs began speedily to tire, and he could not have held out for much longer, when suddenly he found himself poked down quick as thought by his mother's nose into a tuft of fern. "Lie still, my son, till I come back," she whispered; and so she left him. And there he lay panting, while the voices of the puppies came closer and closer to his hiding-place; but he never moved, for his mother had bid him lie still. Then they rushed past him with a wild cry, for his mother had waited to lead them after herself; and their voices died away, and all was silent. Presently he heard a dull sound, coming drum, drum, drum, louder and louder and louder; and then the earth began to shake, and a huge dark body seemed to be coming almost on to the top of him, but suddenly swerved aside just in time, and left him unharmed. Then the drumming died away, and after a time he heard a dismal yelping such as he had once heard before; but he did not know that it was a man and horse that had nearly galloped on to the top of him, and would have galloped quite on the top of him if the horse had not shied, nor that the man had given the puppies a thrashing for running a deer when they had been told to run a fox.
He was beginning to hope that his mother would soon come back, when he heard two voices quite unlike any that he had ever heard before, and saw riding towards him two people. One was a man with fair hair and blue eyes, and a face burned brown by the sun, and the other a girl, a year or thereabout younger than the man. She, too, had bright blue eyes, and very fair hair, and a very pretty face—at least the man seemed to think so, for he was always looking at it—though of course the Calf, having never seen such creatures before, could not judge if they were pretty or ugly. They came on till they were only at a little distance from him, and the man pulled up and, pointing to him, said very low, "Look." And the girl whispered, "What a little duck! I wish I could take him home with me." But the man said, "No, no, no. His mother will come and take him home presently, and the sooner we leave him alone the better she will be pleased." So they rode away, and he could hear them talking as they rode, for they seemed to have a great deal to say to each other. But what they talked about, and how they came to stay alone on the hill when the hounds were running down in the valley, is more than I can tell you.
Before very long his mother came back to him, and you may guess how glad he was to see her, and how she rejoiced to see him. After looking round to see that all was quiet, she led him away over the heather, and then down a very steep hill-side among stunted gorse and loose stones, hot and burning from the sun. "See, my son," she said, "this is the first time that you have been chased by hounds, but I fear that it may not be the last. Now, remember, no hound can run fast over this short gorse, for his feet are soft; while we do not mind it, for our feet are hard. And these loose stones are almost better for us than the gorse, for our scent hardly lies on them and they hurt a hound's feet almost as much as the gorse." So they went to the bottom of the hill, and there was a peat-stream singing its song; but all that the Calf could hear of it was this:—
I carry no scent, come here, come here;
I am the friend of the wild Red-Deer.
The Hind led him up a shallow for a little way, and then she jumped out on to the opposite bank and followed it upwards for a little way, and then she jumped into the water again and went down for a full hundred yards till they came to a comfortable shady spot, where they both left the water and lay down together. "Now, my son," she said, "here is another little lesson for you to learn. The song of the water is true; it carries no scent, and no hound can follow us in it unless he can see us. But a hound will always try the bank to find out where we have left the water; if we enter it up the stream he will try upward, and if we enter it down the stream he will try downward. So always, if you have time, try to make them work upward when you mean to go down, and downward when you mean to go up, as I have shown you to-day." And like a wise little fellow he took care to remember what she taught him.
They lay there together till the sun began to fall low, and then they rose and went down to the water to cross it. And there what should they see but a large shoal of little Fish with bright red spots, and bands, like the marks of a finger, striping their sides from gills to tail; for the stream was so clear that they could distinguish every mark upon them. The little Fish seemed to be very anxious about something, for they kept darting about, now spreading out and now all coming together again; and the Calf could hear them whispering, "Shall we ask her? Shall we, shall we?" And at last one little Fish rose, with a little splash, and said in a watery little voice:
"Oh! please can you tell us how far it is to the sea?"
"Why, my little fellow," said the Hind, "surely it isn't time for you to go to sea yet?"
"Oh, no," said the little Salmon, "for we haven't got our silver jackets yet. But we are so looking forward to it. Will our silver jackets come soon, do you think?"