A FOX TALE
When I ask children to tell me what they know about a fox, they almost always reply: 'He is a little red beast, very cowardly and cunning: he kills hens, and has a very bushy tail.'
This is all quite true; but Renard lives a very hard and extremely uncertain life; yet all the while is so dashing and gentlemanly, so quick and clever, that you must forgive him one or two faults.
He begins his life in a nice warm nest of hay, dry leaves and moss, at the bottom of a deep burrow, generally in a sandy bank. His mother tends him, fondles him, plays with him, as only a mother can; her one ambition being to keep him concealed from human sight. Once a man came by a particular burrow with his dog, hung about for some time near by, and then went away again. That night, Mother Fox took her little one up in her mouth by the nape of his neck, and set off to find a safer home. Hardly had she gone ten yards from her burrow when a dog jumped out of some bushes and gave chase.
Mother Fox flew like the wind over hill and dale, on and on, till her breath began to come in short, sharp gasps, and she felt she would soon have to turn and face her pursuer. But never once did she dream of dropping her little one and thereby saving herself; oh, no! cowardly as foxes are ever said to be, the mothers will alway die fighting for their young.
Happily for this mother, however, a long stretch of whin bushes just then, hove in sight, and, summoning up all her strength, she made a last spurt, and crept into the thick of them. The dog followed for a short distance, but evidently found the thorns too sharp for his thick nose and long flapping ears, for he soon retired, leaving Mother Fox gasping, but triumphant, with her little one safe and sound. She crept some way farther into the bushes to guard against pursuit, and there lay hidden till nightfall, when once more she stole stealthily out with her cub in her mouth, and made tracks for a hollow tree which she knew of in the neighbourhood. Reaching it in safety, she soon had a warm nest made in the dark recesses of the tree trunk, where little Renard lay for weeks eating and sleeping by turns, till he grew into quite a respectable fox. And what a merry little fellow he was! As playful as a kitten, and quite as active; gambolling all round and over his poor patient mother, burying his face in the furry depths of her brush, or, if she refused him that huge enjoyment, flying round and round in a mad race after his own, till he looked for all the world like a woolly spinning top!
But life is not all play, even to little foxes, and young Renard was awakened every night by a poke in the back from his father, who wanted his company on all nocturnal expeditions; for, strange as it may seem to us, foxes have lessons at night and sleep through the day, instead of having lessons through the day and sleeping at night. And sometimes little Renard was good at his lessons, and sometimes he was not. Very often, on catching sight of a pheasant or a partridge, instead of trailing his hind legs out behind him, as his father did, he would forget, and gallop full tilt at his prey, and yelp with excitement, expecting the bird to sit still and be caught! and not till the pheasant was whirring away high in the air would he remember that stealth and cunning alone will win a fox his daily bread.
Hitherto little Renard had known no sorrow, and it came to him very suddenly one night when he was out foraging with his father. They were creeping along together, keeping as much under cover of the long grass as possible, when Mr. Fox struck on a hare's trail, and off the two set with their noiseless gliding motion, their noses well to the ground, and their ears alive to every sound under the moon. All at once, when Mr. Fox was slinking under a gate, he began to back and wriggle as if trying to escape from some unseen power. Young Renard pulled up, watched the old fox anxiously for a moment, and then, seeing a dark form approach, he fled, thinking only of the safety of his own red skin.
Truth to tell, it was a poacher's net into which the old fox had fallen, and the more he struggled to free himself the tighter he became entangled. Instinctively feeling this, and hearing the poacher himself approaching, the cunning creature lay perfectly still in the hope, no doubt, of escape by feigning death. But the wary old netter was quite up to Renard's tricks; and seeing that his nets would be torn to pieces if he did not free the animal at once, he tried to loosen one end off the gate. Mr. Fox, however, thought the trap had been set for him, and was determined not to be taken in that way; so he snarled and bit at the man every time he came near the gate. Again and again the poacher tried, but at last, losing patience, he seized some heavy stones off a dyke close by, and pelted Mr. Fox till he died. 'And,' said the poacher afterwards, when telling the tale to his friend, 'it went sore against me killing that animal, for never a sound did it make from first to last.'
Young Renard had witnessed his father's fate from a safe distance, and ran off as soon as all was over to tell his mother. He found her busily scratching up their morning meal from the various larders round about: for foxes, you know, always bury their prey, and never keep more than one 'joint' (be it of bird or beast) in the same larder at the same time; they have game safes scattered for miles round in all directions, so that if one is discovered, they still have two or three other breakfasts or dinners waiting for them somewhere else.
Mrs. Fox did not seem to take her loss very much to heart—merely told young Renard that he would have to cater for himself and her now, and bade him hurry on with his breakfast.
His meal over, Renard sauntered about till he found a cosy place in a spruce covert wherein to rest. He tried this place and that, but none suited him: one was too humpy, another too deep, and a third full of pine, needles; but at last, after a great deal of thinking and poking, he twisted himself into a round woolly ball, curled his tail over his nose and slept soundly till dusk.
When he awoke, he remembered with a pang that he would have to do the hunting all alone that night, and for every night to come; and that, if there were any poachers' nets or gamekeepers' traps, he would be sure to fall into them, as now he had no one to reconnoitre on ahead.
He thought over all the birds and beasts which he liked best to eat, and decided that a nice fat chicken was really dearest to his heart. So away he went, as soon as it was dark, to a farmyard some five miles off. Arrived there, he was not long in discovering the hen-house, and, luckily for him, the hen-wife had left the small lower door open to admit three stray ducks who had not made their appearance at the usual locking-up hour. Renard was not slow to avail himself of this piece of good luck, and, creeping slyly through the hole, stood quite still for a minute or two to see if his entrance had been observed. It had evidently not, for there was the silence of sleep upon the unsuspecting fowls; so, cautiously, and with a beating heart, he softly scaled the ladder, and crept towards an open coop which was standing on the floor. There was a nice fat chicken inside, which stirred a little as Renard approached, and fearing it was going to wake up and cackle, he made a dash and grabbed it by the neck. The chicken struggled fiercely, one of its wings got caught in the bars of the coop, and the scuffling that ensued soon woke the whole roost. Then began such a cackling, and screaming, and quacking as Renard had never heard before, and he tugged at his chicken in a perfect frenzy of despair, expecting the hen-wife to appear every minute. At last he got free of the coop, and was just going to descend the ladder when the door opened, and a woman came in with a lantern. Renard saw in a moment that escape by the door was impossible, and instantly his fertile brain had planned a bold scheme. Still holding the chicken in his mouth, he stumbled on the top step of the ladder and rolled heavily to the bottom. The hen-wife ran forward, stick in hand, to put an end to the thief; but seeing he lay quiet in a huddled-up heap, she seized his tail, and dragged him towards the door. Imagine the shock poor Renard experienced when he felt his beautiful brush grasped by the sturdy hen-wife's fingers! and the terrible longing which came over him to turn and rend his captor. He restrained himself, however, when he saw he was being dragged towards the door; and when the hen-wife, feeling his stiff and lifeless body somewhat heavy, tumbled him into a thicket of nettles, he almost barked with delight. True, he had lost his chicken, but had gained in cunning, and cunning is honour among foxes.
Renard's exploits are too many and various to mention; but there is just one more you must hear about, because it shows he had pluck, as I think all foxes really have.
He was slinking along at dusk through some long grass, close in to a wood, when, snap! bang! and Renard was fast in a trap, caught by the leg. He tried dragging, pulling, and shaking it all in vain; the trap clung to his flesh with its iron teeth, and would not let go. After persevering for an hour or two, Renard gave up those methods, and tried another, beginning deliberately to gnaw off his own leg! Who shall say now that foxes have no courage? In a few minutes he was free of the trap—and free of his own leg too! He had to limp home as best he could, and there lay for several days in great pain, with the result that the larders became empty, and he had to live on frogs and weasels—anything, in fact, that he could catch in his burrow;
So, now, if any of you come across a three-legged fox, you will know why it is; and if you happen to catch him, don't keep him, for he is grown up. and grown-up foxes never tame.