The Animals of Farthing Wood. Colin Dann

      

      First published in Great Britain 1979 by William Heinemann Ltd

       This edition published 2006 by Egmont UK Limited

       239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA

      Text Copyright © 1979 Colin Dann

       Illustrations copyright © 1979 Jacqueline Tettmar

       Cover illustration copyright © 2006 David Frankland

      The moral rights of the author, illustrator and cover illustrator have been asserted

      ISBN 978 14052 2552 6

       ISBN 1 4052 2552 1

       eISBN 978 17803 1298 9

       www.egmont.co.uk

      A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      For Janet

      Contents

       Cover

       Title page

       Copyright page

       Dedication

       Part One Escape from Danger

       1 Drought

       2 The assembly

       3 Toad’s story

       4 Preparations

       5 Farewell to Farthing Wood

       6 The long drink

       7 Two narrow escapes

       8 First camp

       9 Fire!

       10 Confrontation

       11 The storm

       12 Trapped!

       13 Pursued

       14 The copse

       15 The river

       16 A new leader

       17 Which way?

       18 The butcher bird

       Part Two Journey to White Deer Park

       19 Fox alone

       20 The vixen

       21 Vixen decides

       22 The hunt

       23 Fox to the rescue

       24 Reunited

       25 The celebration

       26 The motorway

       27 Some comforting words

       28 The deathly hush

       29 The naturalist

       30 The church

       31 The final lap

       Epilogue In the park

      PART ONE

       Escape from Danger

      1

      Drought

      For most of the animals of Farthing Wood a new day was beginning. The sun had set, and the hot, moistureless air was at last cooling a little. It was dusk, and for Badger, time for activity.

      Leaving his comfortable underground sleeping chamber, lined with dry leaves and grass, he ambled along the connecting tunnel to the exit and paused, snuffling the air warily. Moving his head in all directions, his powerful sense of smell soon told him no danger was present, and he emerged from the hole. Badger’s set was on a sloping piece of ground in a clearing of the wood, and the earth here was now as hard as biscuit. No rain had fallen on Farthing Wood for nearly four weeks.

      Badger noticed Tawny Owl perched on a low branch of a beech tree a few yards away, so he trotted over for a few words while he sharpened his claws on the trunk. ‘Still no rain,’ he remarked unnecessarily, as he stretched upward and raked the bark. ‘I