The Animals of Farthing Wood

by Colin Dann

  The first thing he found was the animals’ sleeping-quarters, where the long grass had been flattened by their bodies. Shortly afterwards, he detected a narrow track through the first meadow, beaten down by many assorted pairs of feet. He barked a signal to Vixen, and they continued on their way.

  Using his sharp eyes and sense of scent, Fox was able to keep on his friends’ track. During the afternoon the two foxes left the last meadow behind them and found themselves on the open downland.

  Rather than press on until they caught sight of the other animals, Fox decided it would be better to look at once for a resting-place, and to make an early start again the next morning. Had he been able to foresee the consequences of this decision, he would have continued his journey that day, and all the following night too, even to the point of exhaustion.

  However, in the late afternoon, Fox and Vixen hid themselves in a thick growth of bracken, and dozed during the remaining hours to dusk.

  When at last it was dark, Fox was on his feet first. He stretched – first his front legs, and then his hind legs. He looked down at Vixen who was still napping. When he shyly nuzzled her, she awoke.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Very.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can rustle up for you,’ said Fox. ‘You stay here; I won’t be long.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ said Vixen, and smiled at him.

  Fox felt a warm glow spread under his skin, and he smiled back. Jumping over the fern-fronds, he ran off into the darkness.

  While Vixen awaited his return, a gentle shower of rain fell, sharpening the rich smell of bracken and the scent of grass, and producing an intoxicating fragrance of damp leaves and soil.

  Fox returned, carrying a generous supper in his jaws, and his fur sprinkled with glistening raindrops.

  ‘I’m sure we shall catch up with them tomorrow,’ he said as they ate. ‘I can sense we’re close.’

  ‘What a surprise they will have,’ said Vixen, ‘if they think that you were . . .’

  ‘. . . lost,’ finished Fox. ‘Oh, it’ll be so good to see them all again! Dear old Badger, and Owl, Kestrel, Toad – even Adder! They’re all my friends.’

  ‘You’re lucky to have so many,’ remarked Vixen. ‘I never did . . . not many . . . well, until you . . . turned up.’

  ‘And now you’ll have a lot more,’ promised the beaming Fox. His voice dropped. ‘That is, if you agree to come with me, as my mate.’

  ‘I’ll give you your answer tomorrow,’ said Vixen.

  The two foxes rose with the dawn and slaked their thirst at a cool puddle in a hollow of the ground. They were soon on the animals’ trail again. They had hot been travelling for long when Fox suddenly stopped and looked all round with a puzzled expression. Then he sniffed the ground closely, to the left and right of him, for some distance.

  ‘That’s very odd,’ he remarked. ‘The trail seems to divide here. They can’t have split up!’ He sniffed more closely. Then he shook his head. ‘No, the same scents run in each direction. For some reason they must have made a turn, and then doubled back. Perhaps something was after them . . .’

  ‘Could it have been a wrong turn?’ suggested Vixen.

  Fox looked up. ‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ he agreed. ‘The question is, which is the right way? If we take the wrong direction we’re going to waste a lot of time.’

  ‘There’s only one thing to be done then,’ said Vixen. ‘We must separate; I’ll go left, you go right. If you are on the wrong track, turn back as soon as you realize it, and catch me up. If I go wrong, I’ll do the same.’

  ‘Vixen, you’re wonderful,’ said Fox with admiration. ‘What an asset you could be to our party. Oh, if you would only join me!’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ said Vixen mischievously. ‘But I must wish you farewell for now.’

  ‘But not for long?’ begged Fox. ‘Now that I know you, I couldn’t bear to lose you.’

  ‘You may not have to,’ said Vixen with an impish grin as she turned away.

  Her reply put new heart into Fox, and he took his direction in a joyful mood.

  As he paced over the downland, following the familiar scent of his friends’ trail, he occasionally stopped and turned, expecting to see Vixen in the distance, running towards him. Then, as the gap widened and he still did not see her, he began to expect to find very soon that it was he who was on the wrong track.

  Nevertheless, he plodded on faithfully, and eventually came across a sign that pointed without any doubt to the fact that his friends had indeed travelled his route. On reaching a patch of birch scrub he found that the scent he had been following all along continued past it. But a second scent, which smelt to him fresher than the other, led right into the scrub itself. It was not long before the smell of carrion made him stop and look around in alarm. A few yards away he saw a thorn-bush littered with bodies, amongst them tiny, new-born voles and fieldmice.

  As Fox moved nearer he noticed, to his horror, that two of the baby voles bore a striking resemblance to those with whom he had been travelling only a few days ago. Shocked, he noticed two adult voles, who a few days ago had actually been travelling with him, impaled on the cruel thorns. There was no doubt in his mind now – his friends had suffered some misfortune. Perhaps they had lost their way, or been split up?

  Fox felt he could not rest until he knew what had happened. He was convinced that at least some of his friends were very close, and he had to find them.

  He thought of Vixen. Surely she must have discovered by now that she was on the wrong track. He dashed out of the scrub, confident he would see her running towards him, but she was still not in sight.

  He was torn between retracing his steps to collect her, and leaving her to make her own way back to him while he pressed on in pursuit of the other animals.

  With each passing minute he was becoming more worried about the fate of his friends, and he felt that to double-back now would be to waste vital time.

  With a heavy heart, Fox decided in favour of his old friends from Farthing Wood. He picked up the trail again and followed it as swiftly as he could.

  When the scent Vixen had been following ended abruptly, she realized Fox had taken the correct trail, and that she must rejoin him as they had agreed.

  She sat down and pondered. Now was the time to make her decision. Did she wish to rejoin Fox or not? If she did, there was no time to lose. If she did not, then here was her chance to leave him without causing him the pain of rejection.

  It took Vixen but a few seconds to read her own heart. Of course she wished to rejoin him! He was kind, handsome and courageous. She wanted to go wherever he led. Yet still she did not move.

  While every muscle in her body prepared to spring her forward in the direction Fox had taken, her mind would not give the command. Something at the back of it told her she was losing her freedom. She had always been completely free. She had lived the life of the wild with only herself to consider, only her needs to satisfy. If she followed Fox now, that freedom – to go where she chose to go – would be lost.

  But in the end, Vixen’s heart decided the matter. At the moment that Fox, with anguish, decided not to go back for her, Vixen was already running after him.

  Sadly, her moment of hesitancy was to put her life, and that of Fox, in the gravest danger.

  22

  The hunt

  Fox had been quite correct in assuming that his friends from Farthing Wood were not far ahead of him.

  On that very morning Badger had led his somewhat dejected party out of their night shelter in a nearby ditch, on to the downland again.

  Their journey now took them up a rising piece of ground, the slope of which was very steep, and because of the voles and mice progress proved quite slow.

  Rabbit had begun to mingle with the other leading animals again, as the recent distressing event convinced him that his and the other rabbits’ part in the loss of Fox, was now forgotten.

  ‘You mig
ht be interested to know,’ he remarked to Hedgehog, ‘that if it weren’t for us rabbits, this grassland would all grow out of control. No sheep round here, you notice. What do you think keeps the grass nice and short like this?’

  ‘Cattle?’ suggested Hedgehog.

  ‘Nonsense! No cattle about. It’s rabbits!’

  ‘I always felt sure you creatures must have some usefulness,’ replied Hedgehog, ‘though I could never think what it might be.’

  ‘Hmph!’ snorted Rabbit. ‘More use than any hedgehog,’ he said witheringly.

  ‘On the contrary. The place would be overrun with insects and slugs if we didn’t find them so tasty,’ said Hedgehog.

  Rabbit’s argumentative nature was not equal to finding another retort, and he contented himself with muttering peevishly beneath his breath. Hedgehog left him and joined Weasel.

  Badger and Mole were in conversation. Mole had been dismayed to hear Badger’s gasping and panting as he plodded up the steep slope.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he thought to himself. ‘Here I am, on Badger’s back, and he’s finding it such an effort.’

  Then, aloud, he said, ‘If you stop for a moment, Badger, I’ll get off.’

  ‘Don’t be silly . . . not much . . . further,’ panted Badger.

  ‘Please, I’d like to walk for a change,’ said Mole.

  ‘Not worth stopping now,’ replied Badger. ‘Wait till we get to the top.’

  This was just what Mole was trying to avoid, so without speaking further he leant to one side, and slid down Badger’s coat, finally dropping the last few inches to the ground.

  ‘Ow! Don’t tug so, Mole!’ complained Badger. ‘You just stay put.’

  ‘Oh dear, he thinks I’m still on his back,’ Mole said to himself, and hurried in his attempt to keep up with the larger animal’s strides.

  He heard Badger continuing to talk, but he had already dropped behind so much he could not hear what his friend was talking about. He dared not make it obvious that he had played a trick on him, for it would only make Badger look foolish. So Mole, as he struggled upwards, bellowed, ‘Yes, Badger,’ and ‘No, Badger,’ or ‘Just as you say, Badger,’ at intervals, hoping Badger would not discover him.

  Mole’s pace was so slow that gradually all the other animals, including the mice and voles, passed him. In the end he was left cursing his own misplaced good intention of lightening Badger’s load, while he watched the rest of the party leaving him further and further behind as they mounted the steep slope.

  He knew that Badger would be very cross indeed when he reached the top and found he had been talking to himself for most of the way. As Mole’s eyesight was so very poor he eventually lost sight of the other animals altogether, and this made him feel as if he were climbing the hill completely alone.

  Supposing they left him behind? He reassured himself quickly. That could not happen. Badger, or somebody, would notice he was not with them. Badger would come back for him. But by the time he was missed, they might be miles ahead! No, no, surely they would pause for a rest at the crest of the rise?

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ Mole wailed, as he inched his way upwards. ‘I’m always causing trouble! If I had only done as Badger said, this wouldn’t have happened.’

  Suddenly his small velvet-clad body froze to the ground. His sensitive feet and acute hearing had caught a series of vibrations. The vibrations strengthened. Mole knew it was not the light tread of his friends that he could sense. The vibrations were too many, and too loud. They increased at a tremendous rate.

  Then Mole heard voices – human voices – and the excited bark of dogs. At the moment they were still distant, but with every second the noise, and the thudding of the ground, increased.

  Mole looked round in horror. Of course he could see nothing. But that tremendous din, that thud! thud! thud! approaching so swiftly, the scattered barks and human cries, could mean only one thing. The sound that every creature of the wild, however great or small, dreaded beyond all else. The sound of the Hunt!

  For a moment Mole’s senses reeled in panic. He was terrified, not for himself, but for his friends – particularly Badger and the hares. He knew he could dig himself to safety in a matter of seconds, and in any case the Hunt was not interested in such small quarry as he represented. But what about the others?

  With all his strength, and the added speed of fear, Mole hauled himself up the hill after his friends.

  He was almost at the top when the first of the dogs appeared, cutting across the side of the hill. Others followed, tongues lolling. Mole sighed thankfully as he watched them make their way down the slope. His friends on the summit were safe.

  The scarlet coats of the huntsmen, and the black coats of the women riders came into view on bay, black and grey horses. But the animals were at a mild canter, and Mole realized that the hounds had not yet found a scent; their pace was far too leisurely, and their cries, though excited, were without any trace of that awful frenzy that typified, more than anything, the terror of the Hunt for wild creatures.

  At the top of the hill Mole found a small spinney, and from the confines of the trees in hesitant pairs, or singly, appeared the forms of his friends.

  ‘Oh, Mole! You’re safe!’ cried Badger. ‘Whatever made you do it? We all thought you were lost again.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Badger,’ Mole said contritely, ‘but I did it for a very good reason. Please believe me. It was for your sake.’

  Badger could say nothing more. He merely gave Mole an affectionate, understanding nuzzle.

  ‘Did you see . . . the . . . Hunt?’ Mole faltered.

  ‘We heard rather than saw,’ said Weasel. ‘We buried ourselves among the trees.’

  ‘I fervently hope no foxes are abroad today,’ said Toad.

  The other animals all turned to him, the eyes of every one of them showing that they were occupied with the same thought.

  Suddenly a startling new cry was borne to them on the breeze. The hounds were giving tongue in a wild, unearthly baying. The animals rushed in a body to the edge of the slope and peered down.

  They saw the hounds now racing over the downland, the riders galloping after them with coat-tails flying, in the direction of a small wood.

  ‘They’ve picked up a scent,’ said Tawny Owl grimly. ‘Some poor creature’s got the race of his life ahead of him.’

  It was in fact the unfortunate Vixen, on her way back to join Fox, who had attracted the interest of the pack. In an attempt to make up for lost time, she had taken a short cut through a wood, expecting to be ahead of Fox when she emerged on the other side of the trees.

  Halfway through the wood, she heard the hounds. Her first thought was that they were on the track of Fox, and she was engulfed by a feeling of mingled horror and helplessness, so much so that she stopped stock still.

  Then, in mounting waves of terror, she heard the baying and the galloping coming nearer, and she knew that it was she they were after!

  Her first reaction was to turn about and run back the way she had come. Then, in a moment of startling clarity, she realized that, once in the open again, she would have little chance. By far her best manoeuvre would be to remain in the wood and, amongst the close-knit trees and saplings and shrubs, to zig-zag, feint and double-back, in and out and around the undergrowth and groups of trees, so that she would tie the hounds up in knots and break up the pack, while the horsemen would be constantly impeded by the low branches. Then, when she had got them into such a state of confusion that they would waste many priceless minutes extricating themselves, she would streak for the nearest edge of the wood, and with the lead she would have earned, race so fast across country that she stood a fair chance of losing them for good.

  With wildly beating heart, Vixen forced herself to stay still until the first hounds should reach the wood and locate her. While all her senses and every nerve screamed at her to run, to fly, she retained an outward composure.

  The horrible, deafening baying grew nearer . . . nearer . . . n
earer . . . Soon she could even hear the jingling of the harness of the first horses. Then, with a crash, a shock, the hounds were into the wood, sending clouds of leaves, twigs and mould into the air, and trampling down undergrowth and seedlings beneath their furious feet.

  Away spurted Vixen, away from their baying and their gaping mouths, away from their gleaming fangs. She ran under the taller trees of beech and oak, and dived into a thick shrubbery of elm and holly bushes. The hounds followed her.

  Emerging swiftly from this, Vixen made a complete circuit of the shrubs, so that she was in effect then behind the leading hounds. With a swift glance she saw the main body of the pack threading its way through the trees on her right. She rushed off towards a thick stand of birch saplings, slowed enough as she entered them to make sure the hounds followed her direction, and then looped her slim body first round one trunk, then another, in and out, with the suppleness of a snake.

  She heard the hounds yelping frustratedly as they attempted to push their bigger, stouter bodies between the close-packed saplings, and she heard the curses of the riders who had ventured into the wood as shoulders were buffeted, or heads assailed by the protruding branches of large trees.

  She broke from the group of saplings, and ran exultantly into the more open part of the wood. Her plan was proving successful. Now she saw ahead a thick screen of brambles and ferns. If she could once enmesh the maddened hounds in its clinging prickles and stems, she would still have breath and strength enough to run out of the wood and race far and fast across the open downland.

  She had achieved her main object of separating the hounds. They were coming after her singly now, or in pairs, with long gaps between them. Others were barking in bewilderment, trapped amongst the saplings; some that had broken free had lost considerable energy in doing so, and their continued baying was at half-strength. Some again had lost all sense of direction and were sniffing the air, or unthinkingly following the lead of other hounds and becoming in turn entangled in the shrubbery.