Free Gods of the Morning by John Lister-Kaye Page B

smiling toothily, all amiably chatting, all excited at the prospect of a good day.
    Every now and again a hound would stray too far and a whipper-in would call him back, ‘Thrasher, git orn in!’ Their riders immaculately turned out, handsome, heavy-boned horses with huge glossy flanks champed impatiently at their bits, froth dribbling to the ground. Leather boots and saddles creaked through air thick with the tang of hoof oil, Stockholm tar and the rich stable savoury of fresh horse dung. Steel shoes stamped impatiently as the more excitable horses fidgeted, anxious to be off. ‘Steady, Damsel, steady now!’
    It was colourful and friendly and had about it an air of old country stability and of things unchanged and unchallenged in a pre-mechanised landscape of ponds and ditches,of hand-laid hedges around small fields and cows still milked by hand. Its people all knew each other and seemed to me to belong to the countryside in those days, to be immersed in it and shaped by it, no one out of place. The master called for ‘Hounds please!’ The horn sliced through the gossip and, to the clatter of shod hoofs on tarmac, the pack moved off.
    I remember leaning on a gate next to an old character in leather gaiters and a tatty serge jacket with a collar ripped to the ticking that might once have been a postal or railway uniform. In silence we watched the horses streaming across a hillside two fields away on the far side of a little valley. We could hear the thin wail of the horn and the belling of hounds somewhere in a deep wooded covert to our left. A shout went up from some foot-followers in the field immediately below us. The fox had broken cover and was streaking across open ground, heading right. I jumped up and made to run off in the direction it was taking.
    â€˜Hold ’ard, boy!’ the old man called out, waving his pipe and pointing its stem to the field. ‘’E’s comin’ back.’
    I stopped. ‘What d’ you mean?’ I asked, puzzled.
    â€˜â€™E’s runnin’ up wind to lead ’em on. ’E’ll double back in a minute, you’ll see. ’E’ll come right by ’ere.’ He jabbed his pipe at the gate and the lane. I waited and watched. The fox crossed the field and sped on out of sight. Just as I was wishing I had ignored the advice and followed the fox, I glimpsed him again as he turned along a dense thorn hedge, ran swiftly up to the field beside the lane, then turned again downwind, heading back towards our gate. He passed only a few feet away, that fox, a russet streak with a bright whitetip to his tail, hearts racing, his and mine, his fired with adrenalin, mine with all the pulsating excitement of the moment. Then he stopped, looked back, black ears tilted to the yelping hounds in the valley below, and silently slid away through the hedge and into the lane. He turned downhill and sped off out of my sight.
    That old countryman knew the ways of the hunted fox. Years of watching had taught him what tricks foxes employ when pressed: doubling back, crossing water to diffuse scent, climbing haystacks, even jumping onto the back of moving farm trailers unbeknown to the tractor driver – the tales are endless and often tall. It’s how they came to earn the reputation of sly and cunning. I was glad to learn from him and the fox that day.
    It’s easy to say, ‘I know the ways of the fox. I know what he’ll do.’ The old man did know: he knew exactly what the fox was likely to do because he’d seen it all so many times before. I respected him then and I respect him now, but it would be wrong to suggest he knew the natural history of the fox. We are so often arrogant in our androcentric analysis of the world around us. What we see we think we understand and we seldom give a thought for what we don’t see. We piece together our glimpses, like a jigsaw cut to fit the image of our own perceptions. Then we give it