Lives of the Fur Folk Part 7

About the time that Grimalkin's eyes intensified from their original pale kitten blue to the yellow of maturer cathood, it happened that Sir Charles returned from a three weeks' sojourn in the woods. His coat was sleek and glossy, and comfortable and contented was his face, as of one who had lived well for some time. The early autumn evening was drawing in after a still, misty day. Sir Charles squatted by the ashpit wall; and Grimalkin from the scullery steps noted with admiration how he drew his supple paw behind his ears after applying it to his tongue, and how he scientifically smoothed his sooty waistcoat. Suddenly he ceased his ablutions and gazed fixedly at the foot of the wall, las.h.i.+ng his tail lightly. Grimalkin, following the direction of his eyes, saw a tiny grey dot moving among the cobblestones. The black cat made a dart--springing out and back in two nimble bounds--then cantered across the yard with it in his mouth. He dropped it on the stones and watched it scurry for covert, but before it could reach it he headed it off and struck it with his paw.

Henceforth it ran round in little futile circles as though bewildered, and every time it scuttled out of striking distance he carried it back to the middle of the yard. Suddenly he caught sight of Grimalkin, crouched hard by with his eyes as round as a pigeon's as he watched this most fascinating game. The veteran breathed a low growl over his shoulder which made the kitten shrink hastily behind the doorpost; but the next minute he was peeping out again, staring with all his eyes, and no wonder, for, for the first time in his life, Grimalkin was witnessing the death-game which the cat kind play over their 'kill.'

At last the little grey beast would run away no more, but lay still, gasping; and even when its captor pushed it with his paw it did not try to escape. The black cat stood up and yawned--the sport was over.

Had it been a rat or a mouse he would have killed it outright and then feasted--but a shrew! Sir Charles was an old hunter, but since the long-gone day when he struck down his first rabbit, he had never tasted a shrew. He strolled away and left it where it lay. No sooner was his back turned than Grimalkin slipped across the yard and approached circ.u.mspectly. For him so far the animal kingdom had consisted of three divisions only: cats, men, and c.o.c.kroaches.

Evidently this was a fourth species, for, although not very much larger than a c.o.c.kroach, instead of being rust coloured it was grey, and its coat was furry like his own.

He touched it stealthily with his paw, but it did not move. Grimalkin was disappointed. He had liked to see it run about and struggle, and now it was so still; nevertheless there was something mysteriously alluring about it, and all unconsciously he began to leap and gambol round it even as the other cat had done. He gathered it up in his paws and flung it over his head, leaping after it and shaking it, but its nose only twitched feebly and it fumbled with its paws. By now it was nearly dark, and Cook, who had an idea that a cat of any age was necessarily possessed of a charm to scare away mice, came out to look for him. For the first time in his life Grimalkin turned and spat at her, lest she should intend to s.n.a.t.c.h his treasure from him. Then he darted with it into the kitchen, and took refuge under the dresser.

'Shure, he has a mouse cot at last,' said Cook, well pleased. She turned down the light, raked out the fire and left the room, locking the door behind her. Then Grimalkin crept on to the hearth, carrying his mouse with him. As a rule he drowsed happily all evening, for then there was peace in the kitchen, and no fear of heavy felt-shod feet descending upon his tail. To-night, however, he did not sleep, but sat and watched the glow of the embers slowly fade beneath a coat of white ash. Presently a cinder dropped with a crash, and that was a sign for the c.o.c.kroaches to come out. They ran to and fro in the shadows, and the red light turned their wing-cases to copper. Grimalkin often caught and ate beetles, but to-night he did not look at them, but wandered restlessly about the room. After one circuit of the walls he came back to the hearth again. The mouse lay where he had left it, and a bright red bead had risen among its fur. Grimalkin touched it stealthily with his tongue. It left a warm saline taste in his mouth--a taste he had never known before--the taste of fresh blood. He drew back licking his chops. All at once he felt afraid of this small still thing; but the taste of the blood mounted to his head like strong wine. The beetles still ran to and fro upon the hearth, but he did not look at them. He felt a vague indescribable yearning for something. He was not cold nor hungry, nor thirsty nor in pain, and yet he was not comfortable. Grimalkin did not know that it was the taste of the blood which had awakened this strange indefinable desire in him; nevertheless it was so, and an instinct was roused which would make it impossible for him to spend another night between four walls.

The shutter of the window was carelessly fastened, and a sudden draught of air blew it in. The lower half of the cas.e.m.e.nt was open, and the night wind bore in the rustle of the trees, and the sough of the breeze in the laurel bush by the wall--the laurel bush which formed a bridge from the yard to the woods, across which so many generations of cats had gone forth to their hunting.

Overhead the skies were cloudy, with here and there a befogged star.

The air swayed by the south wind was hot and heavy. Great moths and wheeling bats flitted by. From the ash tree the leaves fell now and then with a patter like a footstep. The woods came up almost to the doors of the house, and as Grimalkin listened, the piteous scream of a rabbit close at hand made his whiskers stiffen and his tail move. The roar of the river over the weir rose and fell, now low now loud, as the night wind carried it by. Grimalkin uttered an almost inaudible cry. The Night Longing, that mysterious power which draws all animals, wild and tame, gripped him. You may hear a dog howling the night-long by his kennel--the Night Longing which he cannot obey hangs heavy over his mind. When evening comes the purring tabby dozing by the fire rises and steals into the cold and darkness without. It is always the same. Man has taken them and tamed them, worked them and cherished them, but once in a while the woods call--the woods where their fathers were born and hunted and died--and they go. It is also certain that those among men who spend much time alone under the free sky, feel the Night Longing also, and obey it.

The sweet clean smells of the night called to Grimalkin to come. He did not know what this impelling force might mean. He could not know that for centuries this had been the hour for his ancestors to rise and go forth to the night's hunting. He only knew that, come what might, he must leap out into the darkness, over the garden wall and into the woods beyond. They filled the night with that vast silence which is full of movement. They were his inheritance. He came from the hedgerows and thickets, and thither he would return. Behind him lay the dark kitchen where the embers threw a glow over the dead mouse--the spoils of his first hunting; and in front of him were the woods and the night. Grimalkin poised himself upon the window-sill for a moment, then the Night Longing called again, and he leaped.

CHAPTER II

THE STEALTHY DEATH

In September daylight and darkness are equally divided. The days are still and mellow, with a blue haze which clings to the shadows of the woods; and at night the big moon rolls over the eastern mountains, and turns the fog in the valleys into a silver sheet.

All through the warm nights the Fur Folk come and go through Knockdane Woods, for the men sleep in the Great White House and no one disturbs them. Strange things happen at night under the trees of which humans have no idea; and one of the strangest of all in Knockdane is the tale of how Grimalkin the cat tried a fall with the Stealthy Death and escaped alive.

For many months Grimalkin had lived a dual life, spending part of the day at the Great White House, but wandering back to the woods at night. But as time went on, and his strength and cunning increased, his visits to men became fewer and shorter, and his absences stretched into days and weeks. No cat will stay by the hearth in early summer when the young rabbits are out, especially when the blood of semi-wild ancestors runs in his veins. The keepers grew to recognise Grimalkin and to hate him; and, indeed, he was recognisable enough--a huge grey tabby, strong enough to pull down a grown rabbit, and cunning enough to know a keeper with a gun from a prowling poacher like himself.

There are some nights on which, although they may seem eminently favourable to a mere human hunter, the Fur Folk do not stir abroad. On the other hand, there are others on which they come forth in their scores--the hunters and the hunted--and such nights are known in the woods as hunters' nights. It was such a night in Knockdane. The air was warm, but a little breeze was stirring, and one by one the leaves floated down on their fallen fellows with a rustle like a faint footstep. Big white moths whirred round the ivy blossoms and bats wheeled through the clearings. The moon rose early, and by the time the afterglow had faded she was high in the sky, casting long shadows across the Hollow Field.

Grimalkin trotted quickly through the wood with the easy swing and depressed tail of a cat who knows where he is going. Every now and then he paused with uplifted paw as some twig fell with a crackle to the ground, or a patter of leaves told of game afoot, and the green light flickered in his eyes. The fence which separates the Hollow Field from the wood had run to waste for many years, before the blackthorns, each as thick as a man's arm, had been trimmed; and their roots had been undermined in every direction by rabbits. Inside the field the fence's foot was overgrown with tussocks of long gra.s.s, honeycombed by runways. It was easy to crouch in one of these until a young rabbit hopped within distance, and then a few soft steps--a pounce--and the kill. Grimalkin slid into the gra.s.s, which closed over his striped back and hid him.

The moon was bright as day. Further down the fence half a dozen rabbits were feeding; but the other side of the field, beyond which lay a beech wood, was deep in shadow. Shrill threads of sound from a neighbouring gra.s.s tuft meant that the field mice were squabbling among the fallen beech nuts; but Grimalkin only c.o.c.ked one ear and tucked his paws away neatly against his chest. It was a hunter's night and he awaited n.o.bler quarry.

A long hour pa.s.sed. Then one of the rabbits sat up and kicked the ground uneasily, while the rest listened. A rabbit was cantering across the field towards them. She picked her way among the thistles, and stopped every now and then quivering. She did not seem in a hurry, and yet was apparently quite unaware of their presence. The other rabbits thumped suspiciously and scattered--there was something uncanny about the way this rabbit ran. She came straight towards Grimalkin; her eyes were wide and staring as she glanced behind her, and her limbs moved stiffly. Grimalkin drew himself together. As she lilted within a yard of him, he sprang and struck. The rabbit sobbed, and rolled over panting. Beautiful, lithe, cruel, Grimalkin leaped upon her and dealt the death blow, ere commencing the death-game which the cat kind always play over the stricken quarry. He stood listening for a moment, and a rustle in the gra.s.s made him pause. His ear caught the faint unmistakable sound of a hunter who hunts his quarry by scent, and who smells fresh blood near at hand. Down towards the rabbit stole a stealthy dark shape, sniffing as it came upon the line.

Keen, the stoat, seldom misses his kill, and woe betide the beast who crosses his trail; he hunts for the joy of killing, and in the woods they call him in whispers, 'the Stealthy Death.' The stoat paused and saw the dead rabbit, and the cat standing over it with a wicked gleam in his small eyes. He squeaked once, and then--like a bent watch-spring loosed--flung himself upon his enemy. Had his fangs sunk where he intended--into the great arteries of the neck--Grimalkin would speedily have lain beside the rabbit; but he partially missed his hold, and fastening into the shoulder instead, clung there like a leech. Grimalkin felt the hot blood trickle down, and, wild with fear and wrath, he smote and bit desperately at the clinging death which hung upon his neck. He had never encountered an enemy who fought after this fas.h.i.+on. His claws ripped the stoat's flank. With a squeak, Keen s.h.i.+fted his hold from the shoulder to the throat, half throttling Grimalkin. The combat raged to and fro, the cat striking, spitting, writhing, and the stoat battered, torn, flung this way and that, but all the while burying his fangs deeper in his victim's flesh. The death which Keen deals is slow but very sure. The dog worries, and the cat tears his prey, but the stoat silently sucks the life-blood, until the quarry, struggle as he may, succ.u.mbs at last, with only four tiny wounds in the throat to show how his strength was drained away.

A battle on these terms could not last. Already the great cat was tiring--weakened by loss of blood and the weight on his neck. He rolled over exhausted, and although his claws tore feebly at his enemy, his eyes were half closed and his tongue lolled out. Keen knew that his time had come. He loosened his hold for an instant, instinctively seeking a fresh grip upon the great blood-vessels behind the ear. But that instant proved his undoing. Grimalkin, roused from his stupor by the p.r.i.c.k of a new wound, rose with a sudden convulsive effort. His enemy was off his guard, and left his side exposed. Instantly Grimalkin buried his teeth in it. He held on grimly, crus.h.i.+ng the life out of the slender writhing form until it ceased to quiver and throb, and hung limp. Then he flung it aside, and Keen, his white chest stained scarlet, lay stretched on the gra.s.s beside the dead rabbit.

Grimalkin did not stay to look at this, his record kill. It was no time to triumph. His life-blood had been drained freely, he felt weary and strangely weak. He crawled to the hedgerow, and sought an old lair of his, a deserted rabbit burrow. Dead leaves had drifted in, and it was dry and safe. Here Grimalkin lay and nursed his wounds, until the suns.h.i.+ne striking on the hedge side, and the singing of the flies over the grey and brown spots in the gra.s.s, brought home to him the fact that he was hungry, and must go out and hunt in the woods again.

CHAPTER III

'THE COLLARED BUCK'

On the northern slope of Knockdane there is a little glen whose sides are hung with ivy and aromatic ale-hoof, and which is so deep that even on the longest day of the year the sun can never climb high enough to s.h.i.+ne upon its southern wall. The glen is strewn with limestone rocks, and at its head stands a twisted crab-apple tree.

Beneath the roots of the latter there is a dry roomy chamber into which dead leaves have either drifted or been carried; for the Crab Tree burrow has been beloved of the Fur Folk ever since the tree itself began to bear a yearly load of wizened fruit. Some have used it as a den, some as a nursery, and many more as a sanctuary. Grimalkin adapted it to the first of these uses, and took up his abode there at the end of November.

Frost and snow seldom come to Knockdane before January. During the close of the year the weather is damp and mild; rain drips relentlessly upon the sodden ground; and the scarlet and orange agarics in the moss are the only things which flourish. One morning in mid-December Grimalkin went hunting among the bramble thickets of upper Knockdane. The whole place was traversed by an elaborate system of runways, the geography of which was accurately known to the rabbit people alone. A warm mist lay over the woods, distilling into great drops on every gra.s.s blade and twig ere dripping to the saturated ground. Indeed, it was hard to tell which was the most water-logged--the earth or the air. Like all his race, Grimalkin hated the wet, and he shook his head impatiently as the water trickled inside his ears. The air was so damp and heavy among the briars that there was little or no scent, so that when a rabbity waft came to his nostrils he knew that the trail must be fresh. He turned down a side alley, and suddenly came face to face with the most amazing rabbit which he had ever beheld. It was large and grey, but the strangest thing about it was a broad white stripe which pa.s.sed completely round its neck and ended in a pointed gorget. The rabbit was squatting with its ears flattened and its eyes half closed, and in this att.i.tude the strange collar stood out round its neck in so uncanny a fas.h.i.+on that Grimalkin paused doubtfully. Suddenly fear leaped into its eyes--its ears sprang up vertically, and just as Grimalkin cramped himself together for a rush, the strange rabbit wheeled round and burst out of the 'form.' Grimalkin pulled himself up abruptly, for he was too experienced a hunter to give chase; but even in that brief s.p.a.ce he had time to remark that its tail was not carried in the usual jaunty rabbit manner, but was depressed like that of a hare.

That was the first time that Grimalkin met the Collared Buck rabbit of upper Knockdane. The Collared Buck, like the lost Incas, was the last of his race. Years before, a whole colony of white-necked rabbits had lived in the hedgerows outside the wood, but their ornament had proved a fatal guide to foxes and stoats, and this winter the sole survivor lived in Knockdane, a hermit and a solitary. He had his headquarters in a burrow in the elder thicket above Grimalkin's glen; but as in that wet season, like many other of the holes in Knockdane, it was often full of water, he was obliged to 'lie up' in the woods, whether he liked or not. Very early in the morning, after moonset, he went out to feed in the sheep field by a well-worn track; but, as soon as the 'false dawn' appeared, he returned to the wood, and made a 'form' in some patch of fern or bramble, where he pa.s.sed the day. Grimalkin the cat never wasted his time over rabbits unless there was reasonable chance of success, and although he often crossed the Collared Buck's hot trail he never turned aside to follow it. Sometimes indeed he caught a glimpse of the Buck himself lilting across a clearing in the starlight, or feeding with a wary eye fixed on covert; but this rabbit's remarkable appearance was only equalled by his cunning, as indeed Grimalkin soon saw for himself.

One crisp January day Grimalkin was taking a sun-bath in the fork of a large beech tree, when a sudden 'bang-bang' apprised him that men were in the wood, and that they were there with intent to slay. Grimalkin regarded men with more hatred and less fear than did the Fur Folk themselves, for his early days by the fireside had made an indelible impression upon him; but he was aware of the limitations of human discernment, and knew that if he remained where he was he would be reasonably safe. The reports of the guns came nearer, and presently a pair of jays flew overhead, squawking to all the birds within earshot that it was time to move on. In front of the beech tree the trees grew more spa.r.s.ely, and the ground was enc.u.mbered with a low growth of fern and bramble. By and by the shooting party came out of the covert and advanced slowly up the glade. Grimalkin, blinking down from his coign of vantage, saw rabbit after rabbit bolt from its 'form' only to turn a somersault and collapse into a palpitating heap. Just below the beech tree there was a thick patch of briars, broken up by numerous pa.s.sages and clearings. Grimalkin, unlike the men below, had a bird's-eye view of the place, and just before the line of beaters came abreast of it a rabbit hopped out of a runway. His white necklet proclaimed that he was the Collared Buck. He sat up upon his curious hare-like tail, and peered through the bushes. Just then another shot was fired, and a luckless rabbit close by crawled screaming through the fern. The Collared Buck made up his mind--he rolled over limply upon his back and lay still. The beaters came up and began to whack the bushes, but he never twitched a whisker, and he might have escaped notice altogether had not one man caught sight of his white gorget gleaming in the gra.s.s, and walked over to pick up, as he considered, the dead rabbit. The Collared one lay like a stone until a hand was put out to seize him, then he suddenly leaped sideways and ran for his life. Bang! bang! bang! he bolted down the whole line of guns, and each fired as he pa.s.sed; but although the shot clipped twigs from the bushes all round him, he ran on unscathed. Just out of shot he paused, and then quietly and deliberately crept down an adjacent burrow, leaving the sportsmen the poorer of self-respect and cartridges.

After this the weather became fine and warm, and the rabbits used to come out of their burrows to take sun-baths. Three times Grimalkin saw the Collared Buck basking outside his hole above the glen, with his legs sprawled on the dry leaves, and his eyes blinking blissfully in the heat. Three times did Grimalkin then attempt to stalk his prey, and three times did the Buck take alarm, and hop underground with insulting leisure. The desire to circ.u.mvent the Collared Buck became an obsession with Grimalkin. He spent hours at a stretch watching the burrow mouth; all in vain. He often caught a glimpse of the white collar, or saw the drooping scut flit into the bushes, but he never gave chase on these occasions, for he knew well that in a race he was no match for a rabbit, and that his skill in hunting depended less upon his legs than upon his patience. So the Collared Buck fed nightly in the fields, and arrogantly chiselled his mark upon the old willow tree which is the trysting place of the buck rabbits in spring, and upon which each sets the imprint of his teeth.

Earlier in the autumn Grimalkin had lived princ.i.p.ally upon the squirrels who squabbled among the beech-mast, but as the season advanced, Koutchee, who, though a noisy meddlesome fellow, is no fool, grew wary, and the suspicion of a barred tabby tail twitching in covert was sufficient to send him scuttling up a tree. Henceforth Grimalkin lived chiefly upon thrushes. The ripening of the haws brought in hordes of missel-thrushes, redwings, and blackbirds, who tore at the crimson berries and littered them over the countryside with the wasteful profusion of the Feather Folk who take no thought for the morrow, and then came, full cropped and drowsy, to roost in Knockdane. At dark Grimalkin used to creep beneath the bushes which were weighted down with the sleepy birds, and took his toll. The redwings were his favourite game, for it was possible to strike one down silently; whereas no sooner did he miss a spring at throstle or blackbird than the whole wood knew of the occurrence. Creeping in the darkness among the locked laurel stems, Grimalkin often knew that he was not the only hunter abroad. Sometimes as a cloud came over the moon, a blackbird 'spinked' agonizedly, and then all at once the whole hillside seemed to spring into rus.h.i.+ng whirring life as every bird within earshot dashed out. There would be dire confusion for a few minutes until the flock settled in another thicket, and then the patter of pads tiptoeing away told that the fox was also hunting that way that night.

One evening Grimalkin was prowling on such an excursion along the edge of the wood. Just in front of him a deep drain, cut straight through the hedgebank, opened into the field. This cutting was a favourite path of all the Fur Folk, and its muddy bottom was trampled by many feet, from the splay pugs of the badger to the fairy spoors of the rats. It was for the latter that Grimalkin waited, under a fern stub. Famine had gripped the rats with the rest of the Wood People, and drove them out to feed on the rotting beech-mast far from their holes. The blackbirds were arguing together loudly as they settled down in the laurels for the night; nevertheless through all the din Grimalkin detected a distant scurry and patter of feet. His practised ear soon recognised that the oncoming steps belonged to a running rabbit, and just behind he caught the galloping rustle of some pursuer. Grimalkin the cat feared neither fox nor dog, and he knew that the smaller folk all feared him and turned aside from his path; so that, with a glance to locate a convenient tree in case of emergency, he remained where he was. The bushes suddenly parted and out sprang the Collared Buck. His ears were laid down and his eyes showed the whites as he glanced behind him. He came straight as an arrow for the drain; not until he was almost upon it did he catch sight of Grimalkin, and at that moment Redpad the fox came leaping upon his trail. The Collared Buck saw that he was in a trap. He was yet three yards from the bank when he jumped, but the force of his rush was with him and carried him into the drain. At the same instant the cat's claws tore his flank, but the smart merely spurred him to further efforts. He changed feet nimbly, and shot through the hedge far out into the field beyond. Grimalkin alighted on the ditch bottom in a smother of dead leaves, not three feet from the fox's nose. He put his back against the bank, and his eyes looked ugly as he breathed a menace. The fox stopped dead, and they glared eye to eye while one might pant a score of times. Then the fox dropped his eyes uneasily.

He dared not face the great cat's scimitar claws in the narrow path, and he slid cautiously back in his tracks out of striking distance before leaping into the bushes.

Grimalkin caught a rat and a bird that night, and at dawn went back to his lair. He licked his muddy coat dry, and being full fed and comfortable for the first time for many days, he sang a low song to himself, which made the little mice, among the ivy at the cave's mouth, cower and hide. But by and by the purring ceased, and Grimalkin, thoughtfully watching the dim light on the floor, growled softly at the recollection of the baulked spring in the hedge bottom; and in his dreams that night--for the Fur Folk often dream--his claws worked softly as though he had struck them into the kill.

After that Grimalkin watched the hedge bottom for two nights, but the Collared Buck was wary, and went out to feed by another way. On the third evening he came again, but a breath of wind warned him in time of his enemy's presence. This happened once or twice, and then Grimalkin grew tired of a fruitless vigil in the damp ditch and laid other plans.

One January night Grimalkin came out of his cave, and stealing across the glen, climbed the opposite wall. It was dark under the trees, but a white blur in the shadows guided him to the mouth of the burrow in the elders. Very very cautiously he sniffed at the place. All was well. The Buck had not yet gone out. Grimalkin squatted down within striking distance, tucked his paws away cosily in front of him, and waited.

An hour pa.s.sed--there was a stir in the burrow, and the Collared Buck crept out, his white throat a beacon in the starlight. So swiftly that it seemed as but one movement, Grimalkin took half a dozen quick steps and leaped, but even as he did so the big rabbit stamped a sudden alarm. They rolled over together, Grimalkin bearing down his prey as a tiger will a deer, but the latter was frenzied with fear, and in his agony launched a desperate kick which caught Grimalkin upon the point of the nose. As he staggered back he felt the rabbit slip from between his claws. The Collared Buck bounded away among the elders, stamping an alarm at every stride, until his dancing white collar disappeared among the bushes. Grimalkin sat up and wiped the blood from his face. He realised that another point had been scored against him.

An hour later as Grimalkin was pa.s.sing the well-worn track to the Sheep Field, dawn was breaking, and a fine rain began to fall. He followed a path among the furze bushes, and on turning a corner caught sight of a rabbit in the gra.s.s. He stalked it scientifically, and from nearer covert looked at it again. There was no doubt but that it was the Collared Buck. He was lying p.r.o.ne upon his chest as though for a sun-bath, and apparently had noticed nothing amiss. But why should he bask when rain was falling? Grimalkin was uneasy. The Fur Folk fear what is unusual; nevertheless because he was hungry, and his enemy so close, he sprang. His claws sank deep into the white collar, but the Collared Buck neither moved nor gasped. His body was warm and limp, and round his neck, although Grimalkin never noticed it, was twisted a wicked strand of bra.s.s wire. It never occurred to Grimalkin to question how his long-sought quarry had died. He drew himself up and his tail swayed with triumph. The Collared Buck lay beneath his claws and old scores were repaid. He began to play the death-game which the cat kind always play over the kill. First of all he touched the rabbit with his paw, daring it to rise up and run from him; then, as though to make surety doubly sure, he leaped upon it and struck again. While there is life in bird or beast they will struggle from the death-play blindly, but the Collared Buck lay placidly still with the rain draggling his fur and his eyes staring. Even his sensitive nose never quivered; for, although Grimalkin did not know it, the wire round his neck had long ago choked the breath in his throat. Next Grimalkin rolled upon the ground, and drawing the limp form towards him, licked its fur and caressed it, while he sang a song praising its strength and cunning, and vaunting his own superior skill as a hunter. The wrens in the furze scolded and flew away, for few of the lesser folk are bold enough to stand by while Grimalkin plays after the kill. He gambolled to and fro like a kitten for the joy of feeling the strong muscles swell in his limbs; and growling, he dared any of the Wood People to s.n.a.t.c.h his prey from him. So absorbed was he in his game that he never heard a step on the close turf, and only when a blackbird chuckled an alarm did he look up to see Paddy Magragh standing watching him, with a bundle of rabbit snares in his hand.

Then all make-believe was at an end. Should he, Grimalkin, Cat-King of Knockdane, give up his kill? He growled menacingly, and dragged at the body, until the peg round which the wire was twisted, already loosened by the rabbit's death-struggles, was pulled out of the ground.

'Drop it, ye thafe,' shouted Paddy Magragh, flinging his stick at the cat. It missed its mark, and Grimalkin merely glared as he dragged his kill towards the bushes a few yards away. Magragh had lost his cudgel, but he strode up to kick his antagonist aside with his heavy boots.

However, Grimalkin turned upon him with such a ferocious snarl that he drew back, for no leather would have been proof against those teeth.

By the time he had fetched his stick, Grimalkin, tripping over his burden, had almost gained the bushes. He gave chase instantly, but Grimalkin had never yet abandoned his prey, and only trotted the faster. They reached the bushes simultaneously. The earthstopper struck out brutally with his stick and knocked aside Grimalkin, who rolled over and over half stunned; but then Magragh lost his advantage, for he rashly stooped and laid hold of the rabbit. In an instant, with a strangled yell, Grimalkin's teeth met in his wrist. He sprang back with an oath as the blood trickled down.

'Begob! there's something not right wid that cat,' he muttered fearfully, stepping aside. 'And the rabbit is a quare one. 'Tis a drop o' holy wather, not a stick, ye'd want for the likes o' him, I'm thinking.'

So without further interference Grimalkin returned to the limp body of the Collared Buck and dragged it laboriously into the bushes. Once protected by the kindly furze thorns he crouched down panting, lest another attack should be meditated, but it did not come; and presently he heard the earthstopper's heavy tread on the turf as he walked away.

Then indeed Grimalkin's triumph was complete. He had even outwitted man himself, and robbed him of his kill. He turned to the rabbit once more, and played out the death-game to an end before returning to his lair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRIMALKIN]

CHAPTER IV