"What"s the hunting?" I asked.
"Never mind," said my father sharply. "No doubt you"ll find out in time, that is if you live through the shooting."
"What"s the shooting?" I began, but my father cuffed me over the head and I was silent.
I may tell you that my mother soon got over the loss of my brother, for just about that time she had four new little ones, after which neither she nor my father seemed to think any more about us. My sister and I hated those little ones. We two alone remembered my brother, and sometimes wondered whether he was quite gone or would one day come back.
The fox, I am glad to say, got caught in a trap. At least I am not glad now--I was glad because, you see, I was so much afraid of her.
THE SHOOTING
I was quite close by one morning when the fox, who was smelling about after me, I suppose because it had liked my brother so much, got caught in the big trap which was covered over artfully with earth and baited with some stuff which stank horribly. I remember it looked very like my own hind-legs. The fox, not being able to find me, went to this filth and tried to eat it.
Then suddenly there was a dreadful fuss. The fox yelped and flew into the air. I saw that a great black thing was fast on its forepaw. How that fox did jump and roll! It was quite wonderful to see her. She looked like a great yellow ball, except for a lot of white marks about the head, which were her teeth. But the trap would not come away, because it was tied to a root with a chain.
At last the fox grew tired and, lying down, began to think, licking its paw as it thought and making a kind of moaning noise. Next it commenced gnawing at the root after trying the chain and finding that its teeth would not go into it. While it was doing this I heard the sound of a man somewhere in the wood. So did the fox, and oh! it looked so frightened.
It lay down panting, its tongue hanging out and its ears pressed back against its head, and whisked its big tail from side to side. Then it began to gnaw again, but this time at its own leg. It wanted to bite it off and so get away. I thought this very brave of the fox, and though I hated it because it had eaten my brother and tried to eat me, I felt quite sorry.
It was about half through its leg when the man came. I remember that he had a cat with a little red collar on its neck, and an owl in his hand, both of them dead, for he was Giles, the head-keeper, going round his traps. He was a tall man with sandy whiskers and a rough voice, and he carried a single-barrelled gun under his arm.
You see, now that I am dead I know the use of these things, just as I understand all that was said, though of course at the time it had no meaning for me. Still I find that I have forgotten nothing, not one word from the beginning of my life to the end.
The keeper, who was on his way to the place where he nailed the creatures he did not like by dozens upon poles, looked down and saw the fox. "Oh! my beauty," he said, "so I have got you at last. Don"t you think yourself clever trying to bite off that leg. You"d have done it too, only I came along just in time. Well, good night, old girl, you won"t have no more of my pheasants."
Then he lifted the gun. There was a most dreadful noise and the fox rolled over and lay still.
"There you are, all neat and tidy, my dear," said the keeper. "Now I must just tuck you away in the hollow tree before old Grampus sneaks round and sees you, for if he should it will be almost as much as my place is worth."
Next he set his foot on the trap and, opening it, took hold of the fox by the fore-legs to carry it off. The cat and the owl he stuffed away into a great pocket in his coat.
"Jemima! don"t you wholly stink," he said, then gave a most awful yell.
The fox wasn"t quite dead after all, it was only shamming dead. At any rate it got Giles" hand in its mouth and made its teeth meet through the flesh.
Now the keeper began to jump about just as the fox had done when it set its paw in the trap, shouting and saying all sorts of things that somehow I don"t think I ought to repeat here. Round and round he went with the fox hanging to his hand, like hares do when they dance together, for he couldn"t get it off anyhow. At last he tumbled down into a pool of mud and water, and when he got up again all wet through I saw that the fox was really dead. But it had died biting, and now I know that this pleased it very much.
It was just then that the man whom the keeper had called Grampus came up. He was a big, fat man with a very red face, who made a kind of blowing noise when he walked fast. I know now that he was the lord of all the other men about that place, that he lived in the house which looked over the sea, and that the boy and girl who put me in with the yellow-toothed rabbit were his children. He was what the farmers called "a first-rate all-round sportsman," which means, my friend--but what is your name?
"Oh! Mahatma," I answered at hazard.
"Which means, my friend Mahatma, that he spent most of the year in killing the lower animals such as me. Yes, he spent quite eight months out of the twelve in killing us one way and another, for when there was no more killing to be done in his own country, he would travel to others and kill there. He would even kill pigeons from a trap, or young rooks just out of their nests, or rats in a stack, or sparrows among ivy, rather than not kill anything. I"ve heard Giles say so to the under-keeper and call him "a regular slaughterer" and "a true-blood Englishman."
"Yet, my friend Mahatma, I say in the light of the truth which has come to me, that according to his knowledge Grampus was a good man. Thus, what little time he had to spare from sport he pa.s.sed in helping his brother men by sending them to prison. Although of course he never worked or earned anything, he was very rich, because money flowed to him from other people who had been very rich, but who at last were forced to travel this Road and could not bring it with them. If they could have brought it, I am sure that Grampus would never have got any. However, he did get it, and he aided a great many people with that part of it which he found he could not spend upon himself. He was a very good man, only he liked killing us lower creatures, whom he bred up with his money to be killed.
"Go on with your story, Hare," I said; "when I see this Red-faced Man I will judge of him for myself. Probably you are prejudiced about him."
"I daresay I am," answered the Hare, rubbing its nose; "but please observe that I am not speaking unkindly of Grampus, although before I have done you may think that I might have reason to do so. However, you will be able to form your own opinion when he comes here, which I am sure he does not mean to do for many, many years. The world is much too comfortable for him. He does not wish to leave it."
"Still he may be obliged to do so, Hare."
"Oh! no, people like that are never obliged to do anything they do not like. It is only poor things such as you and I, Mahatma, which must suffer. I can see that you have had a great deal to bear, and so have I, for we were born to suffering as the Red-faced Man was born to happiness."
"Go on with your story, Hare," I repeated. "You are becoming metaphysical and therefore dull. The time is short and I want to hear what happened."
"Quite so, Mahatma. Well, Grampus came up breathing very heavily and looking very red in the face. He held his hat in one hand and a large crooked stick in the other, and even the top of his head, on which no hair grew, was red, for he had been running.
"What the deuce is the matter?" he puffed. "Oh! it is you, Giles, is it?
What are you doing, sir, looking like that, all covered with blood and mud? Has a poacher shot you, or what?"
"No, Squire," answered Giles humbly, touching his hat. "I have shot a poacher, that"s all, and it has given me what for," and he lifted the body of the fox from the water.
"A fox," said Grampus, "a fox! Do you mean to say, Giles, that you have dared to shoot a fox, and a vixen with a litter too? How often have I told you that, although I keep harriers and not fox-hounds, you are never to touch a fox. You will get me into trouble with all my neighbours. I give you a month"s notice. You will leave on this day month."
"Very well, Squire," said Giles, "I"ll leave, and I hope you"ll find some one to serve you better. Meanwhile I didn"t shoot the dratted fox.
At least I only shot her after she"d gone and got herself into a trap which I had set for that there Rectory dog what you told me to make off with on the quiet, so that the young lady might never know what become of it and cry and make a fuss as she did about the last. Then seeing that she was finished, with her leg half chewed off, I shot her, or rather I didn"t shoot her as well as I should, for the beggar gave a twist as I fired, and now she"s bit me right through the hand. I only hopes you won"t have to pay my widow for it, Squire, under the Act, as foxes" bites is uncommon poisonous, especially when they"ve been a-eating of rotten rabbit."
"Dear me!" said the Red-faced Man softening, "dear me, the beast does seem to have bitten you very badly. You must go and be cauterised with a red-hot iron. It is painful but the best thing to do. Meanwhile, suck it, Giles, suck it! I daresay that will draw out the poison, and if it doesn"t, thank my stars! I am insured. Look here, a minute or two can make no difference, for if you are poisoned, you are poisoned. Where can we put this brute? I wouldn"t have it seen for ten pounds."
"There"s an old pollard, Squire, about five yards away down near the fence, which is hollow and handy," said Giles.
"Quite so," he answered, "I know it well. Do you bring the--dog, Giles.
Remember, it was a dog, not a fox."
Then they went to the pollard, and as Giles"s hand was hurt the Red-faced Man climbed up it, though Giles tried to prevent him.
"Now then, Giles," he said, "give me the fox--I mean the dog, and I will drop it down. Great Heavens! how this tree stinks. Has there been an earth here?"
"Not as I knows of, Squire," said Giles sullenly.
Grampus stretched his hand down into the hollow of the pollard and dragged up a rotting fox by its tail.
"Giles," he said, "you have been killing more foxes and hiding them in this tree. Giles, I dismiss you at once and without a month"s wages."
"All right, sir," said Giles, "I"ll go, and I prays you"ll find some one what will keep your hares which you must have, and your pheasants which you must have, and your partridges which you must have, without killing these varmints of foxes what eats the lot."
The Red-faced Man descended from the tree holding his nose and looked at Giles. Giles sucked his bleeding hand and looked at him.
"Foxes are very destructive animals," said the Red-faced Man to Giles, "especially when one shoots and keeps harriers."
"They are that, sir," said Giles to the Red-faced Man, "as only those know what has to do with them."
"Put the other in, Giles," said the Red-faced man, "and when you have time, throw some soil on to the top of the lot. This place smells horrible. And look you here, Giles," he added in a voice of thunder, "if ever I find you killing a fox upon this property, you will be dismissed at once, as I have often told you before. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Squire, I understand," answered Giles, "and I"ll see to the burying of them this same afternoon, if the pain in my hand will suffer it."
"Very well," said the Red-faced Man, "that"s done with--except the cubs.
As you have killed the vixen you had better stink the cubs out of the earth. I daresay they are old enough to look after themselves--at any rate I hope so. And now, Giles, we must shoot some of these hares when we begin on the partridges next week. There are too many of them, the tenants are complaining, ungrateful beggars as they are, seeing that I keep them for their sport."