A Donkey in the Meadow Read Online Free PDF

said it doubtfully. I was prepared for Jeannie to say that one didn’t leave a donkey in charge of a car while one went inside a pub.
    ‘All right, but I’ll stay with her. We have to get her out of the Land Rover before it is dark. We can’t be long.’
    I had good reason to stop at the Turnpike. Jack Edwards, the landlord, had been a gamekeeper for most of his life, and whenever Jeannie and I wanted experienced advice on a section of country life he could be relied upon to supply it. A few weeks before, for instance, we had called in to see him about a dying fox we had found in the lane a few hundred yards from the cottage.
    Foxes and badgers are numerous around Minack, and often in the early morning we can lie in bed watching a fox through the window nosing about the field opposite. We pretend to ourselves, and we may be right, that we can identify each one. This particular spring there had been two dog foxes we had watched, one whose territory seemed to be the field opposite, the other who spent his time in a neighbouring one. I would watch them through field-glasses stalking a mouse in the grass, alert and ears cocked, a pause before the pounce, then the attack and the spreadeagling of legs like a cat. We were amused when the attempt misfired. There was the same posture of disappointment, then the same nonchalant pretence that failure did not matter which we had seen so often displayed by Monty and Lama.
    One of these two, the one in the neighbouring field, appeared to be younger than the other. He seemed to be bigger, a better sheen on his coat, and his brush was huge. He was also more adventurous and we would often watch him slink over the hedge before darkness fell, then up and over and along the track that led away from the cliff country into the hinterland. And then in the morning we would watch him return, tongue hanging out, a tired fox, and we would wonder how many miles he had travelled; and of the angry conversation someone at that very moment might be having about a fox that had raided the poultry during the night.
    One evening soon after dusk we were still bunching daffodils in the packing shed when we heard a scream up the lane as wild as that of a hyena. Then another and another, such a cacophony that it was as if there had been a collision of screams. After ten minutes, during which time there were momentary silences and a gradual lessening of the noise as it moved away up the lane, I said to Jeannie that we had better go and find out what had happened. We did not really expect to find anything. We were just being curious.
    We had gone halfway towards the farm at the top without seeing anything and were about to turn back when my torch shone on what looked like a dog curled up in the middle of the lane. As we walked closer it began to move, dragging its body towards the ditch; and we saw it was a fox. There was nothing we could do except to leave it without it being frightened by the sight of us. We saw that its front paws were terribly mangled and it could not possibly go far whatever its other injuries. We left it lying in the ditch and half an hour later when I returned it was dead.
    The following morning through our bedroom window we saw the field opposite was empty, but the neighbouring one had its usual occupant, the splendid-looking young dog fox. As we watched, it jumped over the hedge into the field which hitherto had been forbidden to him, and began wandering around as if he owned it. The same thing happened morning after morning, and so we concluded that he had fought and killed his rival, and he was the new king of the territory.
    In due course I had described the episode to Jack Edwards. I also told him that a trapper I knew had said that our conclusion was wrong. The trapper maintained that a young badger had been the killer. Who was right?
    ‘When the fighting was going on,’ asked Jack Edwards, ‘did you hear any grunting noises?’
    ‘None at all.’
    ‘Badgers grunt when they