The Farthing Wood Collection 2 by Colin Dann

Author:Colin Dann
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446480755
Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK

The Fox Cub

Bold

—— 1 ——

The Real World

The summer sun shone, wide and warm, on the countryside. The fox cub Bold saw the broad horizon lit by its golden rays and narrowed his eyes against the glare. He felt he stood in the midst of a new world. The rolling downland and its scattered coverings of woodland and bracken were spread before him and around him.

‘This is the real world,’ he whispered to himself. ‘The wide, wild natural world.’ In all the expanse the only movement to be detected was the restless flight of a bird here and there or the lazy waving of greenery caused by the slightest of breezes. The cub repeated his phrase to himself in a delighted murmur – ‘the real world, the real world …’ The spirit of adventure that had filled him as he had stepped outside the limits of the Nature Reserve where his family lived sharpened to a new pitch. He leapt forward and raced across the turf, glorying in his own health and vigour. His eyes sparkled, the blood sang in his veins – he felt as free as the air.

From a tree-top a solitary magpie was watching. ‘Here’s a topsy-turvy creature,’ it muttered. ‘A fox out parading in the daytime for all to see, and a young-one too. His parents didn’t teach him stealth. Humph!’ he rasped. ‘He’ll learn the hard way, I suppose.’

Bold was not fooled by the temporarily empty landscape. His father had told him enough about life outside the haven of the Park for him to appreciate its dangers. And who knew more of such things than his father, the fox from Farthing Wood? For he had travelled across this country, leading his assorted band of animals and birds from the destruction of their old woodland home to a new future in the protected Reserve. On the journey all the creatures, strong and weak alike, had been bound by a sworn oath – a pledge to help and defend each other. This had continued after their arrival in the Reserve and had been maintained by them all ever since. But Bold relished his feeling of complete independence. He had confidence in the strength of his body and, as for his character, well, his parents had not chosen his name for nothing. The narrow limits of White Deer Park were not for him. He had decided to live the True Wild Life – accepting its thrills and its perils alike.

A bank vole started in his path and went scurrying away through the grass stems. Bold checked his headlong career. But it was some moments before he reminded himself that any game, big or small, was now prey to his hunting skill. He owed no loyalties, no allegiances here. No animals in the real world were bound by the oath. By the time he set off again the little beast had disappeared from sight. Bold made no attempt to hunt for it, deciding it was probably already cowering inside its bolt-hole.

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