Lives of the Fur Folk Part 9

They are the lawful prey of any who can take them. If by any chance they escape death by their fellows, nothing remains but Starvation--a slower agony.

Grimalkin could not look into the future and see what Fate had in store for him, but perhaps he was all the happier for it. Mortified and baffled as he was at his defeat, he did not realise that a day would come when he must pa.s.s by the full-grown buck rabbit for the young and sickly, or later on prey on gra.s.s-mice which he now disdained. But this day was still far off. Loud called the March wind overhead. Grimalkin rose, and ceased to try and tear the darkness from his blinded eye. He was hungry, and his hunter's skill still remained to him. What he lacked in strength and endurance must be compensated for by cunning. He crept from his hiding-place, and stole silently down the path to his hunting grounds.

So pa.s.ses Grimalkin from this tale, through the grey trees, into the depths of the mysterious woods, where the race is only to the swift and the battle to the strong, and about which man can know nothing certainly.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF STUBBS THE BADGER

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BIOGRAPHY OF STUBBS THE BADGER]

CHAPTER I

THE TWILIGHT HUNTERS

The spoor was impressed deeply in the muddy ground where a stream ran by the path. The broad toes were well defined, and the punctures of the great digging claws had cut the clay. 'There's badgers in the auld earth again,' said Paddy Magragh, standing up.

It was a mild evening in March, with a grey sky streaked with faint reflections of the unseen sunset. Paddy turned to the right, up a track used more often by the Fur Folk than by man. There was a shallow pit here, and under the brim opened the mouth of a big burrow.

Generations of persevering diggers had lived and died there, and each had added his quota to the mound outside the hole, and excavated yet another chamber among the honeycomb of galleries tunnelled into the hill. However, for some years, the 'earth' had been empty, and the dead leaves had drifted thickly against the entrance. The rabbits had dug burrows about the place; and after a hard-pressed fox had taken refuge there, two winters before, Magragh himself had built up the 'set' with stones and earth, so strongly that fox-pads could not open it. Now, however, the barricade was sc.r.a.ped away, and leaves and gra.s.s littered the mound outside. Magragh looked up at the fading sky and turned homewards, but after a few steps he returned. Had Fate set him in another sphere, he might have been a great naturalist. As it was, although he had a profound knowledge of those of the Wild Folk who furnished 'shpoort' for himself and his fellow men, of the lesser breeds he was almost entirely ignorant. Nevertheless, the spirit of the true naturalist slept in him, unsuspected, and to-night, for once in a way, it awoke. He would not admit to himself that he desired to see the inmates of this burrow without chance of 'shpoort' or slaughter, but muttered shamefacedly: 'Shure, I'll watch a bit see would the craythurs come out to-night.' Those who spend much time alone under the free sky acquire this habit of soliloquy; indeed, after a while, each finds himself his own best company.

Paddy Magragh sat down under a tree, and watched the light fade from the surrounding bushes. The bats hawked to and fro, and a blackbird 'c.h.i.n.k-c.h.i.n.ked' in notes like the dripping of water. A rabbit came out of a hole hard by with his scut b.u.t.toned down, and slid away to feed, so softly that his footsteps never stirred the leaves; but he did not see Paddy Magragh, who, in his tattered coat and broken boots, looked as shapeless and as knotted as the old stump against which he leaned.

The woods were quite quiet but for the trickling of the little stream near at hand, and even the nibbling of the rabbit in the brambles was plainly audible.

When it was so dark that the shrews could only be located by their voices as they squabbled in the dead leaves, there came a rustle at the 'earth' mouth, and a striped snout was poked out. After the snout slid a long grey body--a shadow among the shadows--humped and clumsy, yet so silent that not a twig snapped under the heavy pads. Magragh sat with his hands clasped over his 'ash-plant.' The badger snuffed suspiciously, then waddled off by a little, well-worn path. A minute or two afterwards, from the stream, could be heard the sound of water lapped down a thirsty throat. Paddy was wise. He sat for another ten minutes. The silence grew more tense and the darkness deeper. Then, without any warning, a badger, larger than the last, scurried across the pit so quickly that Magragh's old eyes had barely caught sight of him before he vanished in the shadows.

'A pair o' thim,' said the old man, hobbling homewards.

A week later he waited there again; waited until the woodc.o.c.k had settled down to feed, and the light was almost gone, leaving the pit so dark that his eyes saw nothing when his ears caught the rustle of a single hunter turning up the hill from the 'earth.'

'There's cubs wid'in,' opined Paddy Magragh.

Tunnelled ten yards into the hillside, up a narrow gallery to the right, and then down another, dug at right angles to avoid a rock proof against even a badger's claws, was the nursery; and here the cubs were born at the end of March. If Mother Badger had been wary before, she now increased her caution to an unheard-of degree. Even the distant shuffle of her mate's footsteps, as he went out to feed, was sufficient to rouse her to a rumbling growl. She herself never stirred outside the 'earth' until after midnight, and, even then, the 'wick-wick' of a wakeful throstle set her heart thudding.

It was the middle of April before Mother Badger took her cubs into the woods. She chose a starlit night--the badgers love the stars better than the moon--and led them to the burrow mouth. They crawled up the mound outside, and then flopped down to rest; for their longest journey hitherto had been across their nursery, and their short legs soon grew weary. Although the alternate tracts of their pied snouts were well defined, the black was washed over with chocolate colour; otherwise they were exact replicas of their parents.

Mother Badger did not dare to lead them far afield that night. As it was, once or twice she took alarm and hustled them underground.

However, the cubs did not trouble about the limitations of their bounds. The sand at the burrow mouth was light and dry, and they delightedly thrust their paws into it and scattered it about, just as children at the seaside dabble their feet in the water. The biggest cub found a rabbit sc.r.a.pe, and, thrusting in his nose, dug l.u.s.tily.

Presently one of his sisters came pus.h.i.+ng up and they fought viciously, rolling over and over to the bottom of the mound, with locked claws. This roused Mother Badger, who lay above the 'earth'

with one eye on her cubs and the other upon the woods. She waddled down and cuffed them; then brought them back, and licked and fed them tenderly. Long before dawn she took them below ground again; even before Father Badger had returned home, grunting, to his solitary dormitory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOMEWARD BOUND]

The next night, however, they went as far as the Hollow Field. Mother went first, and the cubs, their eyes fixed upon her s.h.a.ggy, b.u.mping quarters, followed her closely in single file. Her feet made no sound; but now and then one of the little ones, less used to tread where the least rustle aroused the whole woodside, snapped a twig. That was their first real hunting. Last night by the 'earth' had merely been play, but now they learned the science of smells, for a badger relies very greatly upon his nose. They learned that, as the night wore on, the scent grew stronger or fainter according to the dew-fall and the wind and the state of the ground, and to what different smells belonged. A strong taint blew aslant the hedge--that was fox. Mother Badger sampled it scientifically, and the cubs dutifully followed her example. The rabbit trails intersected one another in a labyrinth, but the badger has no dealings with grown rabbits, and they pa.s.sed these by. Every tree and herb and bird and beast has its own particular odour, and, as there is no directory of scent in the woods but that which each of the Fur Folk compiles for himself, the little badgers had to learn each separately.

Thus, follow-my-leader-wise, they entered the Hollow Field, and Mother Badger sought a likely spot where the babies might receive a first lesson in beetle-hunting. She dug up the turf, and grunted for her family to turn over the sc.r.a.pings. He who nosed deepest obtained the morsel--a dor-beetle, well-flavoured, and devoured with gusto with the condiment of Nature's providing.

Presently, the Mother Badger craned her long neck, and her little eyes twinkled. She had winded something else which would afford a very good object-lesson, besides supper, for the cubs. Each little one tiptoed up and sniffed in turn: it was an unknown smell, but good--decidedly good. 'Hunt it!' grunted Mother Badger, as plainly as grunt could speak. Listening, they heard needlets of sound, and the ghost of a rustle, as though some tiny thing thrust the gra.s.s-blades aside. The eldest cub went first. He located it, as he thought exactly, and snapped gingerly. He caught a mouthful of gra.s.s only, and the rest had no better fortune. Mother Badger saw that she must a.s.sist, or else her pupils would go supperless. She thrust in her snout, drew out a mouse, and dropped it before them. The cubs rushed in helter-skelter, and the eldest presently pushed his way out of the scrimmage with the rest of his brothers and sisters tugging and s.n.a.t.c.hing at the mouse which dangled from his mouth. He tore it to pieces, growling, and the others kept at a safe distance, for he was the biggest and strongest of the litter. After this they turned down the field to the pool in the middle, and here Mother Badger showed them another game. On the bank the meadow-sweet grew rankly, and hearing the familiar 'plop-plop' of a frog in the dew-soaked herbage, she set the example of chasing it. The cubs grew eager, and hunted with little squeaks and snorts of excitement. Frog was better than mouse, for it could not run from them so silently. Now and then there was a splash as some amphibian, more lucky than his fellows, dived through the crowfoots into the pond. When this occurred the cubs were puzzled--water was a mystery to them--but another frog was soon afoot, and the chase began again.

Thus, night by night, they learned field-craft, and gradually grew to know the geography of the woods, with every pool and thicket and pathway.

At the top of Knockdane there are three or four acres, which are so rock-enc.u.mbered, and so overgrown with heather and bracken, that an occasional broken-topped fir or oak sapling is the only tree which will grow there. Here and there a narrow path twists through the fern, and the industrious rabbit people, who live among the rocks, keep the gra.s.s on those spots close and green. Above this, the hill grows steeper till it meets a grey crag which drops sheer down from the fir wood, whose brow, s.h.a.ggy with gorse and ling, overhangs the place. The Fur Folk all visit this wilderness. The rabbits and squirrels love it, because the gra.s.s and fir-cones there are good, and the blood-hunters follow them thither. There the badgers went one evening at sunset, and feasted on the great worms which were tempted out by the coolness of the night, and on the pignuts in the clearings. After their surfeit the cubs could scarcely waddle among the bracken, for their tight little bodies brushed the stems on either side. Under the crag they stopped to drink, where the water dripped from the height above; and as five badgers guzzling in the mud made much commotion and splas.h.i.+ng, Mother Badger never heard the thud of approaching feet until they were almost on the top of her party. She grunted of danger, imminent and serious, and gathered her cubs together. Dinny Purcell had made a short-cut through Knockdane, on his way home from a meeting of the local branch of the Gaelic League at Whelan's 'public'; and, as the proceedings had terminated agreeably with some toasts to the success of the League, Dinny felt valiant enough to defy any number of ghosts.

Mother Badger stood on the other side of the little marsh, and growled thunderously; but Dinny did not hear, and stumbling and cursing, knee-deep in mud, came on. The cubs glided into the fern, but the old badger stood her ground. She had never met her match where strength was concerned, therefore she did not trouble to use her teeth, but set her snout against the intruder's legs and shoved.

'Holy Mother--it's the divil,' hiccoughed Dinny Purcell, crossing himself; and he tried to run faster, but Mother Badger growled and thrust again.

'Give over,' muttered Dinny, fuddled with drink, and striking out timorously with his stick, he thwacked Mother Badger's s.h.a.ggy coat, and thereby incited her to charge again. Dinny would gladly have taken to his heels, but as his feet were stuck fast in the mud it was impossible; and sobered by superst.i.tious fears, he remembered his match-box, and fumbled for it. Mother Badger was normally placid and slow to wrath, but this man's presence so near to her cubs angered her. She caught the top of his boot--it was well for Dinny that her fangs missed his leg--and bit it. Just then he found his matches, and struck one. It was hot--bright--pungent, such as she had never winded before. She backed hastily, but as what a badger has seized that will he hold as long as there is breath in him, she ripped the boot from top to sole. Dinny yelled, and dropping the match, which fell sputtering into a puddle, he swung himself on to an adjacent rock and tucked up his legs. 'It's the divil, an' he runnin' like a pig,' he groaned.

But Mother Badger had no mind to fight for fighting's sake. Had she not feared for her cubs, she would have fled at once from a creature who could summon that hot, bright mystery at will. She withdrew cautiously in her tracks, and one by one her cubs followed her from rock or heather tuft where each lay. Once in the darkness, beyond the reek of whisky and the dreaded voice of man, they breathed more freely; and they b.u.mped along in single file down to the beech and bramble woods which lie by the Hollow Field, and which from bud-time to leaf-fall are seldom visited by men.

But, from that day to this, Dinny Purcell swears that the devil met him that night in Knockdane, in token of which he shows his split boot-leather; and for every time of telling, the devil increases so much in size and ferocity.

Towards the end of May the cubs were weaned, and henceforth they hunted less with their parents, and more often alone, or in couples.

In this litter of four there were two sows and two boars, of which one was the little badger who has. .h.i.therto been referred to as the 'eldest cub,' but because his legs and likewise his snout were short and stumpy, even for a badger, he was afterwards known in Knockdane as Stubbs. It is he with whom this history deals.

The young ones opened the other galleries of the old 'earth,' and slept in dormitories away from the nursery. But in June, when the nights were short, and the badgers sometimes went hunting before the sun was well set, and stayed out until the dawn had broken over the hills, now and then it happened that morning overtook one of the family far from home, and, blinded by the early suns.h.i.+ne, he was obliged to seek some hide-up for the day.

By August, Stubbs was almost full-grown, and his knowledge of field-craft was profound. He could detect a nest of young rabbits hidden any distance underground, and once he had located the place, no power on earth could hinder him from digging them out. He would work all night, dislodging stones and shovelling earth, if at the end there was a chance of a meal of rabbits. If, during his task, the unfortunate doe-rabbit came home, he paid no attention to her. She might stamp as much as she pleased at the stumpy tail protruding from her nursery--nothing would turn Stubbs aside from his purpose. He could also locate truffles six inches underground--the big k.n.o.bby ones which grow under oak trees, and the little potato-like ones which smell so strong, and are found under laurels in Knockdane. Besides this, he could wind a man a quarter of a mile away, and he knew every 'sh.o.r.e' and rock and tree in Knockdane.

The badger's daily round is more monotonous than those of most of the Fur Folk. He is too large greatly to fear any other beast, and he is so wary that he seldom comes in collision with man. Year in, year out, from spring to autumn, autumn to spring, his comings and goings follow the set rules of his ancestors. Now and again, however, a badger is born to a more stirring career, and such a one was Stubbs.

In September the badgers lived well, and their sides grew sleek and round. They dug up the bykes of the orange-bellied b.u.mble-bees, regardless of their stings, and guzzled over the sticky sweetness of the honeycomb. Later they visited the crab-trees, and spent many a blissful hour scrunching the sour pippins, and dropping the pieces about the gra.s.s, for the badger is an untidy feeder.

At the end of the month the 'earth' was littered down in preparation for the winter's Big Sleep. The whole family were still living under one roof, so to speak, but as they mostly occupied galleries far apart, it was almost more like a hotel. More than half a badger's life is spent in sleep--profound, blissful sleep, in a world of great silences and deep shadows. In October came a night with frost nip in the air, and a damp mist. Stubbs felt the chill in his bones as he crept to the entrance of the 'earth'; nevertheless, because he was hungry, he went out. Shortly afterwards his brother came up, snuffed the wind, stretched himself and yawned--then, because he was sleepy, and the night undesirable, he waddled back again and slept the clock round. The next night the rest did likewise--why hunt when they were not hungry? There are few winter nights in Knockdane that are not either cold or wet, and such nights the badgers eschewed. Now and again they went out for a few hours, but in the small hours when the morning frost set the gra.s.s in the meadows crackling with rime, they grunted disgustedly and returned to bed.

The whole family--parents and young ones--slept through December without ever stirring out, for snow was on the ground most of the month; but in January I know not what mysterious influence, creeping underground, knocked at the closed doors of the badgers' brains, and told them that the frost was gone and the night was warm. Stubbs woke first, and groped his way out. The air was mild and damp, and the roar of the river was borne to him as, rain-laden, it plunged over the weir. The dead leaves were moist and limp, and overhead a foggy moon peered through the bare trees. He trotted stiffly down the woods and visited his old haunts, but, go where he would, he could find nothing to eat but a few sodden mushrooms. An hour later he returned, wet and chilled, and lay down in his dormitory to suck his paws meditatively, until sleep overtook him again. His head dropped on his forepads, and, with a sigh, he fell into a slumber which lasted, with few waking hours, until the Spring Longing came to the woods, and roused him with the rest of the Fur Folk.

Spring nights are stormy with driving rain-showers, but under the trees the Fur Folk are sheltered from the bl.u.s.tering winds, and come and go from dusk to dawn; for the day on which the first throstle sings is the beginning of the new year in the woods.

The badgers came out with the rest, but they were lean with long fasting, and their toes were tender with much drowsy sucking. Stubbs went through the elder trees, whose buds were growing big and purple, and he dug up and ate the wild arum tubers. They were very bitter and burning to taste, but a badger's palate is not a delicate one, and he devoured them greedily. Besides, there was nothing else left to eat in the woods, for, during the recent famine time, they had been patrolled up and down by bird and beast.

In March, Mother Badger had another litter of cubs in the old nursery, but there were fewer grown badgers in the 'earth' at this time, for the younger boar cub of the previous season had been 'stopped' out one February night, and had never come home again--perhaps the Carkenny hounds knew why. Stubbs lived a bachelor life by himself at one end of the 'earth.' Even now he was scarcely thoroughly awake after his long sleep, and on any cold or wet night he lay abed. By April, however, he felt better, and put on flesh; and it was then that he finally broke with his family. One night he went round by the Heronry where grew Father Badger's 'Claw-Clapping' tree, a young wych-elm. Father Badger used to resort thither to polish his long digging claws and to scratch himself, and his feet had patted down a little track round the roots.

Stubbs went up to the sapling, and began, with great satisfaction, to chisel off strips of bark, for he was proud of his claws. He grunted contentedly, and rubbed his s.h.a.ggy sides up and down--and, the next minute, heavy as he was, he was sent flying head over heels; for Father Badger had come along, and was wroth to find his place usurped.

For the first time he realised that, during the Big Sleep, the cub had become a full-grown badger almost as strong as himself. Therefore he challenged; and it was a sign that Stubbs had arrived at adult badger estate that he accepted his father's challenge. They ran at one another, growling ferociously, but they did not use their teeth, only thrust with their snouts; for it is the law of the Fur Folk that two of a kind shall not fight to the death, and it is a law that is not often broken. However, Father Badger was the older and the heavier, and, although a year later Stubbs would have been fully his match, he drove his son away. After that Stubbs did not return to the 'earth'

among the elder trees, but led a nomadic life in the woods for some weeks, sleeping in a dry drain or old rabbit-hole, and at night wandering miles abroad over the countryside. In those days there was a drouth in Knockdane, and the streams dried up. It was serious for the badger people, for they were often obliged to search very far afield for water. Sometimes a shower fell, but never enough to fill the springs. At such times the badgers resorted to a hollow in a path, along which horses had pa.s.sed in winter when the mud was deep. Now, after a shower, each hoof-mark was a clay goblet of water, and the badgers' thirsty red tongues used to lick out the contents gratefully.

One close night in May, Stubbs went down to the Great White House, where the men live. The Great White House stands on a little oasis of open gra.s.s, but the woods come up close round, and the rabbits trespa.s.s under the very windows. In the field round, the men have planted roots which are new to badger palates, and some of them are very good. Stubbs sampled them all. Some were narcissus and hyacinth, evil-tasting and slimy, and he threw them aside. Others, the crocus and tulip, were better; but best of all were the snowdrops, which were sweet and nutty, and of these Stubbs ate all he could find. At last he ventured quite close to the walls of the house. Faint notes of music beat from one of the windows, and these made Stubbs raise his head suspiciously. All at once it seemed that eyes were watching him from the shadow to his leeward side--mysterious eyes, eager yet timid. He grunted, and dug up another bulb, but the sensation of being watched grew stronger. Instinctively he knew that it was not an enemy who spied upon him thus--rather the contrary. He could neither see, hear, nor wind anything unusual, but that mysterious sense which is perhaps the parent, not the outcome, of the other senses, told him that the watcher was hidden under the oak tree to his right, and that he would do well to pursue it thither. Suddenly the shutters of a window were thrown open, and a golden beam of light was flung across the darkness.

It lit up the rough bark of the oak tree on the lawn, and at the foot of the latter, blinking resentfully in the light, Stubbs saw the owner of the watching eyes. In a second or two the light was shut off, and the music grew m.u.f.fled again; but Stubbs thought no more of bulbs, for he heard the patter of feet which scampered back to the wood, and gave chase.

Perhaps she did not run very fast, at all events he soon came up with her. In size she was less than himself, but judged by badger standards her charms were surpa.s.sing. Also she did not repulse him, for she came from the Ballinakill 'earth' outside Knockdane, and had dwelt mateless for many days.