Читать книгу The Biography of a Silver-Fox; or, Domino Reynard of Goldur Town онлайн | страница 6

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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.