The
kitten had not been seen because it had left the hamlet. It had gone to seek
food and shelter in the spinney of birch and hazel down in the hollow below
the rookery. The spinney was difficult to reach for the ground dropped
steeply down from the lane, so the underbrush had not been cleared for many
years and the place was a wild tangle harbouring a number of animals in
relative safety. Here, in a fox earth they had appropriated from the owners,
lived a family of badgers.
The
last woodman to work in the spinney had built himself a hut of clapboard
roofed with hazel branches and moss. It had served to store his tools and
shelter him while he ate his lunch, but was a flimsy structure which should
have collapsed long ago. As it was, the wind could not reach it and the
denseness of the undergrowth held the rotten boards together.
The
woodman had made a pet of a grey squirrel that slept in his pocket while he
cut and bound the split hazels that would be made into hurdles for sheep
pens. The squirrel had its own entrance to the hut, a hole cut in the door
about six inches wide. Both the woodman and his pet had been long dead but
the hut had had a further occupant, a wild tom cat who lived there until,
having escaped all attempts by local chicken keepers to kill him, he had
died peacefully of old age. The hut still smelt of him and nothing but the
urgent need for shelter would have driven the kitten to enter it. But the
soft fur of a cat is a poor defence against the weather. Wind pierces it;
rain clings to it and chills the skin, making sleeping in the open a
torment.
The
kitten had been to the spinney before, hunting for wood mice, but had not
discovered the hut until now. The hole in the door was just large enough for
it to squeeze through, but it stopped halfway, its nose twitching in fear.
After a long pause it felt sufficiently reassured to slip through all the
way. The hut was certainly empty but it was far from weatherproof. Rain had
poured through the dilapidated roof and left puddles on the earth floor,
but at least the corners were dry, and offered a refuge from the frost and
snow. The kitten was tempted to stay and sleep, but hunger drove it out
again.
It
hunted for an hour without finding anything more satisfying than a few
sluggish beetles among the dead leaves. The woodmice were safe in their
holes under the tree roots. A few rabbits lived in the bramble thickets but
did not emerge till nightfall when they went to graze in the pastures across
the lane.
The
tops of the birches were thrashing and moaning in the wind but down below
in the underbrush all was so quiet that the sudden bark of a fox sounded the
louder and more startling. The kitten froze in fear. This was the first time
it had heard such a sound from near at hand. There had been foxes that
prowled around the farm, but the dogs chased them off before they could get
near the poultry yards. The kitten stayed very still, crouching behind a
fallen birch log so nearly the same colour as itself as to make it almost
invisible.
A
fox trotted into view carrying a half-eaten wood pigeon. Within a few yards
of the birch log it dropped the pigeon, lifted its head, barked again, and
was answered by the scream of the vixen. She ran to join her mate and
snatched up the remains of the pigeon. The sound of crunching bones reached
the kitten and aggravated its hunger; but it did not dare to move till the
foxes had gone. After a safe interval it crept out from behind the log and
went to the spot where the foxes had been feeding. There among the feathers
it found a small piece of flesh which it swallowed at a gulp. The tiny
morsel only made it more ravenous, but it feared to continue hunting while
the foxes were near so it returned to the hut to wait till they had gone
farther afield or back to their earth.
Unluckily
they had done neither. The pigeon was all that the pair of them had eaten
for two days and they were still too hungry to sleep. The vixen wandered
back to lick up a few drops of blood among the feathers, and in doing so she
picked up the trail of the kitten. The scent was one that was not unknown
to her and which she now found faintly exciting. She followed it to the
woodman's hut and peered in through the hole in the door. The hut had no
window and was too dark inside for her to see the kitten; but the scent came
strongly. She pushed her muzzle through the hole, sniffed and made a low
eager sound in her throat. The kitten, suddenly confronted by the fierce
mask with its gleaming eyes and teeth, backed into the farthest corner with
the fur rising on its spine, petrified with terror.
After
a moment or two the vixen, realizing that the hole was too small to admit
more than her head, drew back and went away. But she only went as far as a
clump of brambles a few yards down wind of the hut and settled there to wait
till the kitten emerged again. She had to wait a long time till its heart
ceased thumping and pangs of hunger forced it to take the risk. Even then,
it took the greatest care, peeping through the doorway, sniffing the icy air
for any message of danger. Failing to pick up the scent of the vixen, it
slipped silently through.
The
vixen now saw her quarry for the first time. It was a slightly bigger animal
than she had expected to see, and she hesitated before making her spring.
That moment's uncertainty saved the kitten. It fled like the wind with the
sharp muzzle and slashing jaws close behind; through the tangles of dogwood
and elder, over brambles and deadwood, so fast that it seemed to be
airborne. Instinct informed it that safety lay near human dwellings, so it
made for the lane leading to the hamlet, clawing and scrambling up the steep
bank, into the ditch and out again on to the iron-hard sandy surface.
It
was the second night of the storm. Dusk had fallen early and Ted Mostyn was
making his way home from the farm. Snow was driving into his face.
He
kept his head tucked down into the collar of his greatcoat and his eyes half
closed, so he did not see the kitten spring out of the spinney a few yards
in front of him, followed a moment later by its pursuer. But the vixen saw
him and she quickly slipped back into cover until the man had passed and
then padded away in the direction of the farm.
The
kitten continued its headlong flight in the opposite direction, buffeted
by the wind all the way. Reaching Miss Coker's cottage it leapt on to the
garden wall and from there into a pear tree, unaware that it was no longer
pursued. In its exhausted state it could not cling for long to the tossing
branches and was obliged to drop back on to the wall. From here it could
see, when a shaft of moonlight broke from the storm-wracked sky, the open
doorway of Miss Coker's coal shed.
The
door had been blown open and wrenched off its hinges by the gale and now lay
flat on the worn flagstones of the yard. Scarcely believing this stroke of
good fortune the kitten crept inside. Picking its way over the coal heap and
between the wheels of Miss Coker's bicycle to the rearmost corner of the
shed, it came upon an empty sack smelling of mice and old potatoes. On this
it curled up for the rest of the night, thankful to escape at last from the
torment of the wind and the wet.
When
Miss Coker came to fill her coal scuttle next morning, she was dismayed and
annoyed to find the door wrenched off, but as snow was now falling more
heavily she did not stop to investigate. She scooped up some coal and
hastened back indoors. She had not seen the kitten lying drowsing in the far
corner, sleeping off the effects of its fright.
WHAT'S
NEW? 