Читать книгу The Biography of a Silver-Fox; or, Domino Reynard of Goldur Town - Ernest Thompson Seton - Страница 8

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HE new home of the Foxes was a mile away, and not on a hilltop, but down by the river, the broad Shawban, where it quits the hills and for a time spreads out in peaceful pasture-lands. Here in a great hollow facing the stream on a slope that was bordered by rocks all interbound with aspen roots and birch was the new-made den. Two granite slabs of rock were wardens of the gate, for the Foxes still believed that in the rocks lay their safety. That earlier den was a hillside in the pine-woods, this in a little aspen vale; the pine-tree soughs and sighs; the aspen twitters or shivers and rattles aloud, while the river goes singing and tinkling. Ever after that day of fear, the pine-song was an evil memory, even as now the aspen and the river sang together a song of peace.

Sloping away from the den door was a long, smooth sward. Passing by banks of bramble and bracken, it dropped to a sedgy bay, where the river paused to smile and purl. This green slope was the training-ground of the three, and here was played, not once, but fifty times, that summer that old scene of the home-coming hunter laden with food. The ground was beaten with the battling of cubs and the stamping of tiny feet in mimic fight. But the little Foxes were growing fast now, the eldest fastest of all, and as he grew, his coat and the mark across his face turned daily darker.

The parents were now training them for the hunt. They were almost weaned; their food was that of grown-up Foxes, and they had in a way to find it for themselves. Father and mother would bring the new kill, and leave it not at the door, but in the woods, fifty yards away, a hundred yards away, and more, as the young grew stronger, and then encouraged by mother’s churring “All-well” call, they rushed forth for a very serious game of “seek or go hungry.” How they raced about in the bramble cover, how they skimmed and circled on the grassy banks and peered with eyes and noses into every hole! How they tumbled gleefully over one another when the breeze brought all at once a little hint or whisper, “Come this way,” and how well they learned at length to follow the foot-tracks of father and mother at full speed till it brought them to the hidden food!

This was the beginning of the life-game for them, and in this way they were taught the real hunting. The old ones provided abundantly, and it seemed as though all had an equal chance; but there are no equal chances in life: ‘to him that hath shall be given.’ The oldest cub was the brightest, strongest, and ablest, so he was the one that could best find the hidden food and therefore was best nourished; his always were the choicest and largest morsels. He grew faster than the others; the difference in their size and strength was daily more apparent, and in yet one more way they grew apart. His baby coat, a dull, dark gray, grew darker. When brother and sister began to show the red and yellow of their kin, he showed daily a deeper tinge, which already on face and legs was black.

It was late July now. The old ones had not only labored tirelessly to feed the young on the fat of the farms, but had also been vigilant to ward off all danger. More than once the ringing note of the dark Hound sounded near their dale, and never failed to give the creeps to the dusky cub; but each time one of the old Foxes had gone to meet the foe, and had served him with some simple trick that sent him home defeated. They found this so easy among the river rocks that they grew over-confident; they despised their clumsy enemy, till one day while the cubs—the dark one, the slim sister, and the little brother—were rollicking about the glade in search of father’s latest kill, the brindled Hound burst in upon them. His sudden roar struck terror in their hearts. They scattered, but the little brother was not quick enough; the great jaws snapped and crunched his ribs, and the mongrel Hound carried him away, pausing once or twice to break the slender bones or grind in his bloody jaws the tender, woolly fur, but still bearing the body, till in the farm-yard he dropped it at his master’s feet, and looked expectant for the praise that did not come.

Troubles never come singly. The father Fox was trotting home at dawn next day with a new-killed duck when a clamor of Dogs sent him round by a way that he had never explored. It led to a high-fenced lane that he could not scale without loosing the duck, so he kept on; but the Dogs were behind him now. He rushed, alas! into a barn-yard, into the home of another Dog, and there he died the death.

But his family knew only that he never came home, and their mourning, however real, had none of the poignancy of that which comes to those who have seen the loved one’s tragic end. Thus the mother and her two cubs were left in the den by the aspen bank, and the widow took up the burden without fear. Her task was, in truth, nearly done. With August the young began to follow her on long hunts and to find their own food. By September the sister was as big as the mother, and the dark brother was much taller, as well as stronger, and clad in a coat of black. A strange feeling now sprang up between the sister and brother, and then between mother and son. They began to shrink from the big, splendid brother and at length to avoid him. The mother and daughter still lived as before,—for a time at least,—but some subtle instinct was at work to break the family bond. The tall, black Fox and they were friends when they met, yet all three seemed to avoid a meeting. So now that he was swift and able to care for himself, Domino left the old aspen dale, with its gentle memories and the river-song, and drifted away in the life of a Fox that is alone.