the sun had sunk below the hill, and golden valley lay in shadow and repose. zekiah, the miller, his work done at last, sat smoking his pipe on the bench by the door; the mill-wheel was at rest, and the stream was slowly refilling the nearly emptied pond where, from time to time, a wave in the shallows betrayed the movement of a trout. overhead a few swifts yet wheeled: but yellow-hammer, whinchat, blackcap, whitethroat, and long-tailed tit had sought roosting-places in the furze, and the magpie that haunted the mill had withdrawn to his perch in the hawthorn. for them the hour for rest had come; the moment when nocturnal creatures quit their retreat drew near. the bat was on the point of leaving the crevice under the eaves; the owl in the ivied scarp, the vixen in the earth overlooking the fowling-pool watched the shadows deepen, and still more impatient was the leveret, who already after a two nights’ absence was longing for a feast of clover. with the peeping of the stars he sprang from the form, leapt the stream at the inflow, and gaining the crest of the hill, made over the upland almost straight as a crow flies for his destination.
he was in the highest of spirits; the nearer he came to the field the more determined he was to show fight to the rabbits should they combine to drive him from it. the thought never entered his head that any other creatures would intervene between him and his feast, much less that before he could reach the feeding-ground he would be turned into a terror-stricken fugitive; yet so it proved.
on, on he sped until he reached the pasture adjoining the clover; he was within a stone’s throw of the gate when he heard the patter of feet on the other side of the hedge; his curiosity was aroused, and he stood still to see the creatures pass the gap a dozen yards to his rear. he expected to view a troop of rats, of which he had met many in the standing corn; to his horror it proved to be a family of polecats, moving so slowly in single file that, though there were only six in all, he thought the procession would never come to an end. all peered through the gap; the last actually stopped and scrutinised the leveret, but concluding that he was one of the many stones that littered the ground, galloped off after the others. it was a narrow escape, for had the leveret raised head or ears he must have been recognised and have drawn the bloodthirsty crew upon him.
the sight of the polecats had so frightened him that he was incapable of movement; it was some minutes before he had sufficiently recovered to continue on his way. near the gate he stopped and looked back, and once more after entering the field, but without seeing a sign of the enemy. then he cast his eyes vaguely over the field, the goal of his longing. not a rabbit was to be seen; the patch of uncut clover looked most tempting. did he hasten to nibble the succulent leaves? not at all: he never went near them; he moved away, urged by the impulse to put as great a distance as possible between himself and the polecats, for he felt sure they would follow his trail. all at once he broke into a panic-stricken flight, and kept it up as far as the barley-field, which had been cut in his absence. on the hedge by the tit’s deserted nest he stood and listened with ears erect. he expected to hear the whimpering chorus that he had once heard in the valley below, the cry that would confirm his fears. but there was no sound, not even a slight rustling of the medlar leaves. the silence, however, brought him no comfort. it could not dispel the dread which kept him wandering aimlessly about the oatfield like a thing awaiting its doom; so that he must have wasted half an hour before leaving by the gate at the lower corner and galloping across the long meadow where some bullocks glared at him as he sped past. in the small enclosure beyond he stopped to nibble one of the turnips growing there, but so nervous was he that the pigeon drinking at the woodland pool does not raise its head more often than he. his eyes are directed to the spot on the hedge where he had passed; for he is sure that the polecats before now have struck his trail.
his apprehension proved correct. the polecats had happened on his line amongst the furze above the mill-pool, and run it in the right direction from the first. more than once the mother, conscious of the wide circuit made by a hare, was on the point of abandoning the trail; but the sight of her kittens revelling in the scent got the better of her judgment and induced her to keep on. she led her young at the utmost speed they were capable of maintaining, arresting her steps only to scan each field she came to, in the hope of seeing and being seen by the hare, who she knew would be paralysed at the sight of her. she never dreamt that the hare had already seen her and was under the spell of her influence; though the knowledge could not have hastened the pursuit, inasmuch as the kittens were hurrying on as fast as their legs could carry them.
the distance that separated the hunters from the quarry was not great. when they entered the clover the leveret was only just leaving the oats; when they were crossing the barley stubble he was still nibbling the turnips; but he gained after that. for while the polecats were busy working out the tortuous line in the oats he forged ahead and gained high down, where he busied himself in laying a most intricate maze. he moved hither and thither criss-crossing the trail incessantly, knowing that his life depended on its intricacy. it was well that he was thoroughly absorbed in his task, for had he stopped and listened he could hardly have failed to hear the shrill cry of his pursuers as they bounded across the long meadow. on gaining the hedge-top they stood scrutinising the rows of turnips as if they expected to see the game there; and very odd they looked standing side by side on their hind legs, their eyes shining like glow-worms. but the quarry was nowhere to be seen, so presently mother and kittens leapt to the ground and resumed the full cry, which they kept up over the undulating field beyond, round the edge of the swamp, and below the pair of haggard thorns between which the pack passed.
meanwhile the leveret, his task well done, was on the point of leaving the downs. he was perhaps a score yards from the gate when the cry he had been so long expecting fell on his ears and rendered him all but helpless. some hares would have lain down and awaited their fate; others would have squealed and hastened it; but the leveret’s courage was high, and, stifling the cry which sought for utterance, he battled as best he could against the paralysing weakness that assailed him, and dragged himself yard by yard towards the gate. suddenly the cry ceased: the polecats had come on the maze, and in silence devoted themselves to the business of unravelling it. with the cessation of the blood-curdling chorus the leveret’s power gradually returned; he drew farther and farther away, seemingly all uncertain as to his goal. at one moment he headed for the form on the hedge; at another for the mound where he had sat once or twice when the wind was northerly; but in the end he set his face for the form by the pool, and to this direction he kept. the polecats, maddened by the delay, had been displaying a feverish energy in their attempt to discover the true line. each worked independently of the other, and not a kitten looked to the mother for guidance. theirs was indeed a difficult task: no pack of harriers would have accomplished it without aid of man; yet the wildlings, with a persistence that would not be denied, after two hours’ search succeeded in recovering the line by which the leveret had left the field.
strangely enough the discovery was made by the smallest of the litter, who, after raising the cry of “found,” sat on his haunches and gazed about him, as if he expected to view the game. he continued to sit even after his mother had taken up the trail, but presently fell into his place at the end of the long file and joined in the full-tongued chorus. increased speed now marked the pursuit. the pack was running for blood, and running as they knew against time, for night was yielding to the grey dawn. already the cocks were crowing, and soon a farm boy was heard calling the cows. at other times the polecats would have stopped, perhaps slunk away to cover; now they gave no heed, no more indeed than to the ruddy sky that told of the coming sun. true that, save for the occasional cry of a kitten, they had ceased their whimperings; otherwise they behaved as if it were the dead of night, going from corner to corner of even the biggest fields, and when at last they came to the mill-lane, following it with a daring that wild creatures rarely display.
the miller’s wife caught sight of the polecat as it leapt from the wall, and then watched the spring of kitten after kitten till she was almost tongue-tied with amazement. at last she screamed out: “zekiah, zekiah, there’s a passel of fitchers under the window; they’re running something, i’m sure they are. wust ’ee, jump out and mob them, thee lie-abed, they’ll take no notice of a woman.” whereupon the miller sprang out of bed, thrust his head through the open window, and shouted: “ah, you bold, imprent varmints, ah! . . . you stinking old night-trade. be off wi’ ’ee. ah! ah! ah!”
heedless of the rating, the pack made for the bank of the pool and found another maze awaiting them there. this discouraged the kittens, as their movements showed. but their mother knew that this maze was the hare’s last ruse, that he was squatting near; and surely she must have communicated this knowledge to her young, or why should they have suddenly thrown off their lethargy and displayed the almost fiendish activity they did? in an instant the bank was alive with their undulating forms. they darted in and out amongst the sedge; they swam the ditch and twisted about amongst the stems of the withies; again and again they gathered at the spot where the squire had first stood to fish; for from there the leveret, by a long leap, had gained the pool and swum to the opposite bank. it was the sheet of water that had decided him to make for the form amidst the rushes, and there he was sitting, motionless and helpless.
luckily he could see nothing of the black, restless creatures, not even their arched backs or raised heads; but the smell of their rank bodies polluted the air, so he knew they were there defiling with their presence the sweet tranquillity of the scene. the absence of all trace of scent near the water, however, baffled the polecats. they could not trace the hare beyond the take-off place, and the clouded water where he had stirred the mud in the shallows contained no message for them.
the growing light was beginning to cause uneasiness to the band; nevertheless one of them proceeded to draw the farther bank; it was the tiny fellow who had recovered the line on high down. twice he approached the edge of the pool as if he intended to swim to the other side, but withdrew, made along the bank, crossed at the inflow and at once began questing amongst the rushes. nearer and nearer he came to the helpless prey, was indeed close on it when the magpie, returning to the thorn by the withies, espied him and forthwith set up the most irritating and persistent chatter. the polecat was greatly disconcerted by the mobbing of the bird, and presently, unable to endure the insults longer, leapt at it where it fluttered just beyond his reach. maddened by failure he kept on springing at the black-and-white pest till he came to the hatch, up which he climbed to the cross-piece and, careless of both hare and bird, sat there listening to the miller, who was now abroad.
the footfall of the miller and the noise he made in pulling the faggots out of the furze-rick caused the polecat little disquietude; but the moment zekiah began whistling “pop goes the weasel,” he leapt to the sward and bounded after his mother, already in full retreat with the rest of the litter, towards a deserted quarry where she had decided to pass the rest of the day.
