The Animals of Farthing Wood

by Colin Dann

  But now the greatest test of courage faced Vixen. For to ensure that a good number of the hounds followed her into the undergrowth, she herself would have to delay entering it until they were but a few feet from her. Otherwise their training would tell them merely to bypass this obstacle, surround it on the outside, and wait for their quarry to be forced into the open by their master.

  Her heart thudding madly, Vixen allowed her pace to slacken, gradually, until, as she neared the undergrowth, she had almost stopped moving. Now the hounds gave tongue to a new note, as if they sensed their triumph. Their baying became shriller in its excitement, and they increased their pace. Some of the bewildered hounds began to make straight for this corner of the wood as they saw and interpreted the leaders’ commotion.

  Vixen glanced behind and, despite herself, felt fresh waves of fear explode through her body. The hounds were almost on her! With a tremendous bound she leapt forward, and landed in the midst of a thick mass of fern. At once she began to inch and crawl her way through the intricate mass of stems.

  She heard the hounds scrambling after her, and knew that if she could just manage to pull her body through the tugging heap of undergrowth without trapping herself, she could almost certainly escape.

  As the minutes passed the confused and furious noise behind her told her that more and more of the foxhounds had penetrated the brambles and bracken. Angry human voices – calling voices – ordered the remainder of the pack away. Vixen continued to edge forward, at times with her stomach almost flat to the ground.

  A little more, a little further, and she would be free. She saw, through the tunnel of undergrowth, bright sunlight ahead, and an absence of trees. She was about to emerge on the other side of the wood! There were only a few feet of undergrowth remaining for her to pull her body through! Brambles had torn at her fur and skin, springy ferns had struck her face again and again, making her eyes stream water, but ahead was clear, open space. She struggled on.

  The next time Vixen looked up, her heart almost stopped. In that wide empty space of downland she had almost reached, she now saw a forest of horses’ legs, stamping the ground impatiently as their riders waited for her inevitable appearance. Between those legs were blazing eyes and open mouths – cruel, red tongues and bared, snapping teeth. Foxhounds!

  Despite her superb cunning, the humans had bested her. Realizing the futility of remaining in the confining wood, they had ridden back into the open, and moved round the outside of the trees to the very spot she had been working towards, unaware. They had taken with them those slower hounds which had been prevented from entering the undergrowth.

  Now Vixen saw her stupidity in underestimating the skill and experience of the huntsmen. Behind her the hounds who were struggling in fury through the brambles and ferns were inching closer. The game was up.

  23

  Fox to the rescue

  The noise of the Hunt had, of course, soon been picked up by Fox as he ran across the downland, hoping every minute to see some sign of his old friends.

  When the first yelps of the pack reached him he stopped dead, just as Vixen had done. His ears pricked up, and he sniffed the air cautiously. He judged the Hunt to be some distance away, but directly in the line of his present path.

  Like Vixen, Fox wanted to run as far as he could in the opposite direction – to keep running until those ghastly sounds became memories only. But he had already decided once that day, that to be reunited with his friends was his most important objective. Those friends, who needed him, were somewhere ahead, and not far from him.

  Now Fox realized that to reach them, he would have to run the risk of encountering the Hunt. He had one advantage. He was upwind from the pack, and if he made a wide skirting movement from his present course, he might well avoid detection.

  He looked behind him again, and stood for some moments, motionless, but there was still no sign of Vixen. Fox suddenly experienced a feeling that he might never see her again, but he immediately cast it from his mind, and set off on his decided route.

  As he ran on, the noise of the dogs and the hoofbeats of the horses became louder. Soon he heard the frenzied baying of hounds following a scent. For a moment Fox felt that selfish feeling of relief produced by the knowledge that it is another, and not oneself, in danger. Then he wondered whose scent they might be following.

  Fox had no doubt that there were a good number of foxes in the vicinity, any one of which might be the unfortunate animal now being pursued. He was thankful that Vixen was behind him, out of danger’s reach. But suddenly his protective instinct told him he ought to find her and make quite sure she was safe. After all, he did not know for sure where she was at that instant.

  The realization of this struck Fox with the impact of a heavy blow. He felt dreadfully afraid, not for himself, but for his lovely companion who, it now appeared, he might have abandoned at the very time she needed his presence and protection the most.

  He wanted to run back then and find her at all costs. But what if she were not behind him? If she had been, surely she would have caught him up sufficiently to be visible in the distance at least? The awful thought that his beloved Vixen might at that very moment be the quarry of the hounds made Fox shudder with horror. The more he tried to shut the thought out, the more he became convinced that that was the dreadful truth.

  He raced back on to his old path, and made a bee-line for the direction of the Hunt. Fear lent wings to his feet. ‘I’m coming!’ he called, while knowing full well nobody could hear him. Then to Vixen he vowed in a low voice, ‘They won’t catch you while I’m still alive!’

  Soon he could see the wood, and the dogs plunging into it, the riders following more cautiously. For a few minutes they were out of sight, under the thick screen of the trees. Bound by bound Fox lessened the distance between them.

  When he had only a few hundred yards to run, he saw the scarlet coats emerging again from the darkness, and spurring on their horses as they raced round the side of the wood, taking with them a bunch of eager, dancing hounds.

  Fox saw them pause at a point on the east side of the wood, all of them looking down expectantly, and he set himself to run right into the teeth of danger.

  He seemed to feel no fear at all as he spurted across the springing turf towards them. His mind, his whole existence, was occupied with one idea – to save Vixen, whose scent at that moment he himself detected for the first time.

  They saw his coming with surprise, pointing and shouting their astonishment to each other. They had not expected a fox to appear from that quarter; and so headlong and fierce was his rush that the hounds themselves were taken aback, and gave way.

  Fox dashed straight between the impatient legs and hooves of the horses. The amazing sight of a wild animal actually running to meet them had quite thrown the hounds off balance. But with Fox’s russet back now turned to them, the hounds regained their composure.

  The horn blew, the dogs howled, and the horsemen prepared once more to give chase. None stayed to await the emergence of Vixen from the undergrowth. They were no longer interested in ambush, but only in the glory of speed, in skilful horsemanship, the feel of the wind dashing against their faces, the vibrations of thundering hooves: all the excitement and exhilaration of pursuit.

  Fox kept close to the trees, and continued to run round the perimeter of the wood. He felt strong, fresh and keen. He felt confident no hound could ever catch him. He. would show them what real running was!

  Nevertheless, he was not going to make it easy for them by staying in open country. Like Vixen, he realized the value of trees in impeding the progress of the hounds and, particularly, the horses and their riders. He entered the wood through a wide gap between the trees.

  Of course, the Master called off the dogs from following into the wood a second time. He was not going to have this tactic repeated, with its accompanying frustrations to pack and riders. However, by electing to stay on the outside of the wood, he was at a loss as to which direction
to take, as there was absolutely no knowing from which side the fox would appear again, and there was no way of surrounding the whole wood.

  In the end, he realized he was temporarily beaten. He would have to allow the hounds into the wood again; otherwise, what possible chance was there of getting his quarry to leave it?

  So under the trees they went again, baying continually. But the Master had lost this round of the battle. His indecision had given Fox a valuable lead, and he had already run through the length of the wood, and was now in the open again on the other side, going full-tilt across the grass towards a steep rise he saw ahead of him.

  In the meantime Vixen, who had of course been a witness to Fox’s heroic action of leading off her ambushers, found the coast clear again. Scrambling free of the thick undergrowth, she burst into the open only seconds before the hounds who had followed her into the brambles also broke free.

  And so the pack was now neatly divided into two sections, each giving chase to different foxes and each group unaware of the existence of the other. Here was a problem for any Master of Foxhounds, and the one concerned was at that moment following the hounds in the wood, ducking gingerly to avoid low branches and beginning, like the rest of the riders, to think it a very bad day’s hunting.

  However, Fox was not to have it all his own way. Strong as he was, he had made a grave mistake in heading for the grassy slope he saw ahead. For it was steeper than he had imagined, and a short way up he began to tire. His heart pounded horribly, his legs quivered, and his breath became more and more laboured.

  And now the hounds began to gain on him. They were out of the wood and, after their brief rest, they were running better. Had it not been for the start Fox had on them he would have been in a hopeless situation, for the hounds’ greater stamina made light of climbing the slope.

  For the first time Fox began to feel the likelihood of being caught, and at the thought of what that meant his blood turned to ice. He was only a little more than half-way up the slope, and now he could hear the hounds’ harsh breathing as well as their usual din.

  Then, as if in a dream, he heard well-loved, almost forgotten voices shouting to him in familiar tones from the top of the slope. Badger, Mole, Weasel, Hare, Tawny Owl, Kestrel, Adder, Toad, and all his other friends had been watching from the very beginning the fluctuations of the Hunt in unbearable excitement, little realizing until now that the poor pursued animal was their own beloved Fox. They had believed him dead, and now, when he was on the point of being restored to them, he was in greater danger of losing his life than ever before.

  It took the dazed Fox a little time before he could accept that what his senses were telling him was in fact real. He had found his friends again. Now everything would be all right.

  With renewed effort, he managed a final spurt and reached the top of the slope, staggering into the protective circle of his old friends. At once they led him into the copse where earlier they had themselves hidden from the Hunt.

  This time, however, the hounds were not passing by. The animals looked from Fox to the approaching yelling pack, and then back again. They saw Fox’s exhausted form sink to the ground. How were they to save him?

  ‘It’s . . . no good,’ the brave animal gasped. ‘I’m done for. I . . . can’t run . . . any more. Don’t . . . stay with me. Hide yourselves. It’s . . . me they want. Leave me!’ He rose on to his tottering legs and took a few steps away from them.

  They would not leave him.

  ‘We haven’t just found you to lose you again at once,’ said Badger. ‘Don’t worry, Fox! We shall win yet!’

  ‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’ shrieked the squirrels who had, of course, taken to the trees.

  Badger and the other animals, realizing their only chance was to fight to the death, instinctively surrounded Fox, and awaited the onslaught.

  In agonized silence, their mostly defenceless little bodies frozen in fear, they waited. The painful throbbing of their hearts seemed to each animal like a continual thunderclap. They continued to wait; every second that passed seeming as if it would be their last.

  Human shouts and galloping horses told them the riders had reached the top of the hill. Then the horn sounded, horribly close. Yet still no hounds appeared through the trees. They had even stopped barking.

  The animals could not understand what was happening. They could not move. There was nowhere safer to go. The unbearable tension began to feel worse than the fate they had all expected.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Kestrel,’ Badger whispered hoarsely, ‘put us out of this misery. Go and see what’s happening.’

  Even as Kestrel flew out of the copse, the animals heard more human cries, the hounds gave tongue again and, miraculously, these sounds and the horses’ hoofbeats became fainter.

  ‘They . . . they’ve gone,’ whispered Mole in amazement.

  ‘Yes.’ Fox’s weary voice came from the midst of them. He alone of all the Farthing Wood animals could guess the reason for the Hunt’s change of course. ‘It’s Vixen,’ he said.

  The animals looked at him for an explanation. Weary as he was, Fox was obliged to tell them of his meeting with Vixen, and how they had travelled together.

  ‘I thought I had saved her,’ he muttered, in a tone of utter despair.

  He had no time to say more. Kestrel was flying towards them in great excitement.

  ‘There’s another fox,’ he said quickly. ‘Some of the hounds were already following it. They must have broken off from the main pack that came up here. Now the Master has set all of them after it, and the horses are right behind. He stopped the hounds from coming in here – I don’t know why. I suppose the Hunt can’t chase two animals at once. Anyway, it’s our lucky day. We must get out of here at once, while there’s time. The other fox is making straight for this slope.’

  ‘Where else is there for us to go? We can’t possibly escape,’ said Badger. ‘How can our party outrun those dreadful hounds? They would tear us to bits.’

  ‘Listen, Badger, listen,’ said Kestrel impatiently. ‘Don’t you see? They’re chasing the other fox, not us. As long as we get away from this copse, out of the path of the huntsmen, we’re safe. They’re bound to catch the other fox – it looks all in, though I’ve never seen such a fast runner before. Once it’s caught, their sport’s over for today.’

  ‘How can you be so callous?’ snapped Mole, who could see the groaning Fox, his head on his paws, weeping in the most pitiful way.

  ‘You wrong me,’ said Kestrel. ‘You wrong me, Mole. I loathe and despise this human trait of hounding smaller creatures to death, with large numbers opposed against one solitary animal. But, don’t you see, it’s the law of the wild. This poor fox is sacrificed today to the humans’ cruelty. But we can’t stop it. I wish we could. Surely you believe that? I’m thinking now of our own party’s safety. You can’t blame me for that!’

  ‘You want us to profit by another creature’s misfortune?’ said Mole.

  ‘No. I merely want us all to escape,’ said Kestrel, with a puzzled look. ‘Is that wrong?’

  ‘You mustn’t blame Kestrel,’ said Badger. ‘He’s thinking of us, and rightly so. He doesn’t understand the situation.’

  ‘What situation?’ Kestrel asked.

  ‘The other fox is . . . a female,’ explained Badger with some awkwardness. ‘She’s our Fox’s friend.’

  ‘Oh no! How awful!’ Kestrel exclaimed. ‘Fox, do forgive me. I didn’t know.’

  Fox was not able to reply.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Badger smiled kindly on his behalf. ‘You weren’t to know. I know Fox won’t hold it against you. But I’m afraid he’s quite overwrought.’

  ‘Look, Badger,’ Kestrel whispered, beckoning him aside. ‘Friend or no friend,’ he went on, when they were out of earshot, ‘I must say again, she will be caught. She’ll never keep ahead up this hill, not after all the running she’s already done. You must go now. Don’t you see? Time’s running out.’

&nbs
p; ‘I do see,’ Badger said gravely. ‘But we can’t leave without Fox. And he would never come with us, and desert her. He’s obviously lost his heart to this vixen, poor fellow. Just look at him now!’

  ‘Then it was a sorry day for our party when he did so,’ Kestrel remarked, as he looked at Fox’s pathetic form. ‘For it means we shall probably all suffer her fate.’

  ‘You are absolutely right in everything you’ve said,’ Badger agreed. ‘But we must stand by Fox now, come what may.’

  They returned to the other animals, and as they heard the noise of the Hunt approaching yet again, led on by Vixen, Fox, despite himself, could not remain hidden. He felt bound to share her fate. He got up, and moved to the edge of the copse to watch her last gallant efforts. Behind him were the rest of the party.

  She was nearer than he had expected her to be. Her head was drooping in the extremities of exhaustion, and her tongue lolled lifelessly from her open jaws. From where he stood Fox could hear her hoarse, racking gasps for breath. He shuddered to hear it. Somehow her legs kept moving. It was a mechanical action, with no conscious effort behind it. The leading hounds were only feet away, their blazing eyes already anticipating the kill.

  Amazingly, Vixen kept running. Inch by inch the hounds gained. She looked up, and Fox saw her glazed expression. Yet he knew she had seen him.

  For a few seconds, her pace quickened perceptibly. The hounds, snarling in anger, lost a little ground, but by now the first riders were level with them, led by the Master, who urged them on.

  Nevertheless, with each stride Vixen was drawing further away. The hounds, tiring rapidly, seemed to acknowledge that they were beaten. Their efforts were unavailing. Vixen was approaching closer and closer to Fox. Soon she was a matter of yards away.

  And then, in horror, the watching Fox saw the treachery of human nature laid bare. By any natural laws, Vixen had won this race. If there was any fairness to be had in the dealings of humans, who regarded the drawing of innocent blood as sport, then she deserved to go free. But the Master thought otherwise.