Part 24

Knowing that badgers are, as the country folk say, pwdu (pouty) creatures, likely to sulk at home for several nights if they consider it unsafe to roam abroad, I carefully examined the mound of earth and the beech-trunk near the "set," that I might learn whether the animals had been out of doors since my previous visit. On the soil, fresh footprints could be seen, their outlines clearly lit and deeply shadowed as the sun sank in the west, and, in some of the scratches on the beech, the pith had barely changed its colour from creamy white to the faintest tinge of brown. I concluded, therefore, that the badgers had been out, as usual, some time before the dawn. My eyes, however, were not sufficiently trained to detect any sure evidence of the recent movements of the vixen and her cubs.

Walking along the tracks, I chanced to notice that the path by which the vixen sought the shelter of the furze-brake branched off at a sharp angle, and led into the thicket at a bend that was hidden from my sight while I watched near the "set." Picking my way in a line straight through the tangle and parallel with this path, I came to an opening where the grass was beaten down for about six square yards--more particularly for two or three yards in the part nearest the spot at which the tunnelled run-way entered it. Along the margin of this open place, I could find no second entrance; everywhere at the foot of the surrounding gorse-bushes the long grass grew in an unbroken line, except close to the mouth of the run-way. There I found a shallow depression, not unlike the "form" of a hare, but longer and broader, and I determined to keep strict watch evening after evening, till I learned the reason for the occasional visits of the vixen and her cubs to the brake. But I little imagined that the secret would quickly be disclosed, for it was my belief that, should the vixen venture to the mouth of the "set" before the gloom was deepening into night, she would cross the line of my scent, and either move away from the direction of the furze-brake or return to her underground chamber. And yet previous experiences led me to hope that, if certain atmospherical conditions should prevail, the scent would probably become so weak that she would recognise no cause for alarm.

It was the work of a few minutes for me to make couch of grass and twigs behind a screen of broken furze-branches well in from the grassy opening. Then, by raising with a prong-shaped stake the grass I had trodden down, and by thrusting back the bramble-trails and fern-fronds I had brushed aside, I carefully removed as far as possible all traces of my visit.

I had scarcely settled down to watch and listen, when the faint snap of a twig reached my ears, and I saw that the vixen with her cubs had arrived on the scene. She walked around the enclosure, sniffing now and again in the grass, while the young foxes frisked and gambolled with each other, or trotted demurely by her side. She was at first suspicious, but for some reason she soon gained confidence; then she squatted in her lair, and surrendered herself, with patient motherhood, to be the plaything of her healthy, headstrong youngsters.

For more than a half hour I watched the happy family, the little ones climbing over the mother's back, and licking or biting her ears, her pads, her brush, or racing over the grassy plot, frolicking with each other till some little temper was aroused and play degenerated into a fight. In general, they behaved like wild children without a thought of care, yet they never went beyond the grass-fringe into the thicket, and to each low note of warning or encouragement from their dam they gave immediate attention. Sometimes the vixen bounded gaily about the edge of the gorse, stooping again and again to snap with pretended rage at one or another of her offspring. But for most of the time she remained in her lair, listening intently for the slightest sound of danger, and guarding the only approach through the bushes.

I longed to discover what she would have done had I suddenly come upon her and cut off her retreat, but I dared not move for fear of raising alarm. It is more than likely that, finding me in the path, she, snarling and hissing, would have dashed without hesitation into any part of the furze-brake, and her young would have followed with desperate haste and vanished at her heels within the shadows.

By-and-by she led her little ones back through the run-way, and when, a few minutes afterwards, I stole to the outer edge of the thicket, I saw the merry family stooping in a row beside the rill, and lapping the cool, delicious water, which refreshed them after their rough-and-tumble sport. From the rill they wandered off into the gloom beneath the beech-trees, and I, satisfied with having added to my knowledge of the life of the woods, returned homewards in the light of the rising moon.

II.

THE CRAG OF VORTIGERN.

One of the chief difficulties with which the naturalist has to contend while watching at night is the frequent invisibility of wild creatures among the shadows, even when the full moon is high and unclouded. The contrasts of light and shade are far more marked by night than by day; by night everything seems severely white where the moonbeams glance between the trees, or over the fields, or on the river, and the shadows are colourless, mysterious, profound; whereas by day variety of tone and colour may be observed in both light and shade, and every hour new and unexpected charms are unfolded in bewildering succession.

The wild creatures of the night often seem to be aware of their invisibility in the gloom, and of the risk they run while crossing open spaces towards trees and hedgerows where an enemy may lurk awaiting their approach. A fox is so familiar with his immediate surroundings that, till his keen senses detect signs of danger, he will roam unconcernedly hither and thither in the dark woods near his "earth," frolicking with his mate, or hunting the rabbits and the mice, or sportively chasing the wind-blown leaves, as if a hound could never disturb his peace. The fox knows the shape of each tree and bush, and of each shadow thrown on the grass; he notes the havoc of the tempest and the work of the forester. When the wind roars loudly in the branches overhead, or the raindrops patter ceaselessly on the dead herbage underfoot, or the mists blot out the vistas of the woods, he seldom wanders far from home, for at such times Nature plays curious tricks with sound and scent and sight, and danger steals upon him unawares.

The hunted creatures of the night so dislike the rain, that during a storm Reynard would have difficulty in obtaining sufficient food; but down in the river-pools below the wood, fearless Lutra, unaffected by the inclement weather, swims with her cubs from bank to bank, and learns that frogs and fish are as numerous in the time of tempest as when the moon is bright and the air is warm and still.

Since my earliest years of friendship with Ianto the fisherman and Philip the poacher, I have regarded night watching in the woods or by the riverside as a fascinating sport, in which my knowledge of Nature is put to its severest test. By close, patient observation alone, can the naturalist learn the habits of the creatures of the night; and if it should be his good fortune to become the friend of such men as I have mentioned he would find their help of inestimable value.

To Ianto and Philip I owe a debt of gratitude, of which I become increasingly conscious with the passing of the years. I could never make them an adequate return for their kindness; but I am solaced by my recollection that I was able to comfort such staunch old friends when they were passing into the darkness of death--haply to find, beyond, some fair dawn brighter than any we had together seen from the hills around my home. Often, as I write, I see them sitting in the evening sunlight of my little room; often, in my garden, I see them walking up the path attended by my dogs that now are dead; often, in the river valley, whether I wander by night or by day, I see them at my side.

Ianto and Philip were always eager to help me by every means in their power, but Philip, because of the risk to my health, would never invite me to accompany him when the night was cold and stormy. One afternoon, as Ianto and I were returning home from the riverside, the old fisherman remarked: "I met Philip last night, sir, and he wants you and me to come along with him for a ramble to the woods above the Crag. He's got something to show you; I think it's an old earth-pig that lives in the rocks. What do you say to joining me by the church as soon as you've had something to eat? Then we'll go together as far as the bridge, but I'll leave you there, for I've got a little job on hand that'll keep me till sundown, I think. You'll find Philip at the 'castell' (prehistoric earth-work) above the Crag, and I'll wade the river and be with you again sometime 'between the lights.' Keep to cover, or to the hedges and the lanes, and look about you well, most of all afore you cross a gap, and when you're going out of cover or into it. Nobody must have a chance of following you to-night to the Crag; so, if you meet a farm labourer sudden-like, make off to the furze by the river farm, and double back through the woods. You'll get to Philip early enough. He's going to net the river after we leave him. It's a game I don't care much for--maybe because I've given it up myself--but I've promised to do something aforehand, that, if Philip didn't want you particular, he'd be bound to do hisself. That's why I'm to leave you at the bridge."

I was tired after a day's hard fishing, but I readily fell in with the arrangements my two old friends had made. On the way to the bridge, Ianto gave me further instructions. "If, when you're nigh the Crag, sir, you happen to come across a farm servant, or even if you think, from seeing a corgi (sheep-dog), that a farm servant is near, get right away, and, as soon as you're sure nobody knows where you are, give that signal I taught you--four quick barks of a terrier with a howl at the end of 'em. Philip'll understand. But if everything goes well till you get to the Crag, make that other signal--the noise of young wood-owls waking up for the night--and Philip's sure to answer with a hoot. Then let him come up to you; but, mind, don't you go to him."

A little mystified by Ianto's last injunction, I crossed the bridge, passed through a succession of grassy lanes that for years had fallen into disuse, picked my footsteps cautiously through the woods, and arrived without adventure at the top of the Crag.

Getting down into the oak-scrub, I stood within the deep shadows at the base of the great rock, and gave the signal--a harsh, unmusical cry, such as a hungry young owl would utter at that time of the evening.

The cry had scarcely gone forth, when I was startled by a voice from some hollow quite close to my side: "I'm Philip. Don't move--don't speak. A man's watching you from the blackthorns at the top of the wood. He hasn't seen me. Don't look his way, but walk along the path below, and when you reach the end of the wood turn up and hide in the cross-hedges, so that you can watch him if he comes out anywhere in the open. And, mind, don't let him see you then. If he goes back to the farm, give the signal again; or, if I give two hoots, one about ten seconds after the other, come to me, but don't pass this place. The fellow isn't of much account, but we must get rid of him before I can stir. He's kept me here for the last half-hour."

Philip ceased speaking, and I walked carelessly down the wood, pausing here and there to peep through a patch of undergrowth and to satisfy myself that the man at the top of the wood had not moved. When outside the wood, I turned rapidly up the hill and found an excellent hiding place among some brambles on a thick hedge. From this spot I could command a view of the meadows above the wood, and could easily retreat unseen if the farm labourer happened to come towards me.

I watched patiently for twenty minutes or so, then heard Philip's welcome signal from a fir-spinney on the far side of the Crag, and hastened to his side. In reply to my question as to what had become of the man who had watched from the blackthorn thicket, he pointed to the opposite hillside, where a dim figure could be seen ascending the ploughland in the direction of a distant farmstead. "I expect to be able to show you a badger to-night," he said, "but of course I'm not sure about it. A badger's comings and goings are as uncertain as the weather. But first we'll climb further up the hill. You were asking me about the leaping places of the hares: I know of one of these leaping places, and I think I know of two hares that use them and have lately 'kittled' in snug little 'forms' not far away. We must hurry, else the does will have left the leverets and gone to feed in the clover. You go first. Wait for me in the furze by the pond on the very top of the hill."

When Philip had rejoined me on the hill-top, he rapidly led the way to the fringe of the covert, where he pointed to a low hedge-bank between the gorse and a peat-field partly covered with water. "Hide in the hedge about ten yards from this spot," he said, "so that you can see on either side of the bank, then watch the path on this side." With a smile he added: "This isn't a bad locality for a fern-owl. So, if you happen to hear the rattle of that bird, you'll know the hare has started from her 'form.'" Then, turning quickly into the furze and taking a bypath through the thickest part of the tangle, Philip left me, and, soon afterwards, I moved to my allotted hiding place.

Before I had waited long, the cry of the fern-owl reached me with astonishing clearness from an adjoining field. Presently, I saw a hare emerge from the gorse and come along the path towards me. At the exact spot indicated by the poacher, she paused, and then with a single bound cleared the wide space between herself and the hedge. With another bound she landed on the marsh beyond, where she splattered away through the shallow water till a dry reed-bed was reached on a slight elevation in the marsh. There she was lost to view; the rank herbage screened her further line of flight.

A minute afterwards, the fern owl's rattle once more broke on the quiet evening, now from a few fields away to my right. For some time, I closely watched the open space around the hedge-bank, but no animal moved on the path. Suddenly, however, I thought I detected a slight movement in a bracken frond beside the furze. It was not repeated, and I had concluded that it signified nothing, when, to my amazement, I caught sight of a second hare squatting in the middle of the path near the bracken. How she came there I was unable to understand; for some time my eyes had been directed towards the spot, and certainly I had not seen her leave the ferns. She seemed to have risen from the earth--something intangible that had instantly assumed the shape of a living creature. She took a few strides towards my hiding place, but, exactly where the first hare had leaped, she turned sharply at right angles to the path, and with a long, easy bound sprang to the top of the hedge-bank; then with another bound she flung herself into the marshy field. Making straight for the reed-bed, she, too, was soon out of sight.

All that thus happened appeared to be the outcome of long experience; the adoption by the hares of a more perfect plan to mislead a single enemy pursuing by scent could hardly be conceived. A pack of hounds, "checking" on the path, would in all probability have "cast" around, and, sooner or later, would have struck the line afresh in the marshy field, but a fox or a polecat would surely have been baffled, either at the leaping places or where the hares had crossed through the shallow water.

Man's intelligence, united with the intelligence, the eagerness, the pace, the endurance, and the marvellous powers of scent possessed by a score of hounds, and then pitted against a single creature fleeing for its life, should well nigh inevitably attain its end. Nature has not yet taught her weaklings how to match that powerful combination. And so a naturalist, in studying the artifices adopted by hunted animals, should be interested chiefly as to how such artifices would succeed against pursuers unassisted by human intelligence. I am inclined to believe that even a pack of well-trained harriers would have been unable to follow the doe-hares I have referred to, unless the scent lay unusually well on the surface of the marsh.

I stayed in the covert awhile, but when the call came for me to rejoin Philip I hastened to the field in which he was waiting. I told him what I had seen, and, together, we paid a visit to the doe-hares' "forms." One of the "forms" lay in a clump of fern and brambles near the corner of a fallow, the other on a slight elevation where a hedger had thrown some "trash" beside a ditch in a field of unripe wheat.

While we stood in the wheat-field, Philip remarked: "We mustn't stay long before going back to the Crag; but I'll call the doe I sent you from this 'form,' and perhaps you'll see one of her tricks to mislead a fox as she returns home. She's very careful of her young till they're about a fortnight old, though soon afterwards she lets them 'fend' for themselves. We'll hide in the ditch, and I'll imitate a leveret's cry. But I mustn't imitate it so that she may think her little one is hurt, else she's as likely as not to come with a rush, and you won't see how she'd act under ordinary circumstances."