Longmans, Green and Co. - 1932
Frances Pitt's Scotty is very different from the other tales I have read so far. It starts 'normally' enough, although this time we are in the Scottish Highlands. A keeper, McAndrew, is told to deal with a fox den as foxes were not wanted on the Highland grouse moors and deer forests. He shoots the father, Great Fox, and then - with the aid of his terrier, Sue, kills the mother and all of the cubs brought out of the den. Bar one. McAndrew had been asked to save a cub for a family up from the English Midlands. Thus it is that the Corseleys speed south with an extra passenger, saved for their 15 year-old daughter, Ann. She christens the small, grey-brown, and softly furry cub, Scotty. On passing through the Lake District, they stop at a friend's farm. Master of the local hounds, Spicer, hands over a Fell hound to see how he fares amongst the lowland packs of the Midlands. The whelp, named Cragsman, bonds with Scotty and for the next fifty pages they share an enclosure at the Corseley Manor House.
The author (1888-1964) was a British naturalist and a pioneer of wildlife photography. She wrote many books and articles in periodicals on the lives of countless wild animals by observations in the wild and in the process of raising and nursing injured animals. Titles such as Moses, my Otter (1927), Diana, my Badger (1929) and Katie, my roving Cat (1930), were later tales which followed her first book, Tommy White-Tag, the Fox (1912). It is therefore no surprise that the description of Scotty in captivity is so realistic. Scotty does escape, however, and manages to survive in Corseley parkland, fast learning the ways of the wild as he grows into young adulthood. However, it is hunting country and the Boxing-Day Hunt sees him being pursued, not just by the local hounds but by Cragsman. Scotty had grown into a fine example of the great Highland race. As he cantered on at a steady pace he looked, and in fact was, as big as a sheep dog. He swung along lightly and effortlessly, his wolfish action carrying him easily across the fields. Not only does he elude the pursuing hounds, but he keeps going for days and days - through the Black Country - no stars shown overhead, only dank vapours swirled smokily, but weird lights burned, or flashed intermittently on either side. A dreary wind sighed and moaned through wires and overhead trolleys, around chimneys and the hundred and one erections of a colliery and manufacturing district. The author, who lived in lovely rural Shropshire, clearly felt an affinity with Scotty's distaste of his surroundings.
The fox eventually gets to the Lakeland Fells, even meeting one of the last of the English pine martens on the way. Here he settled - at Ravens' Crag - where he filled out and developed, so that, always a large fox, he now became an enormous one and of more wolfish aspect than ever. Meanwhile, Cragsman, although an increasingly skilful fox-hunter, proved too individualistic for the Corseley Hunt and is returned to his Lakeland home. An inevitable showdown looms. The two Chapters, XXIV The Hounds Again and XXV Cragsman and Scotty, contain some of the best writing in the book and betray the author's personal knowledge as a Master of Fox Hounds and as vice-president of the British Field Sports Society. The chase ends with only Cragsman in pursuit; the hound follows the fox down the crag, from rock to rock, from icicle-festooned ledge to glassy rock-face and loses his footing to plunge onto a broad grassy ledge. Scotty smelt his face, the face of an old friend and a dire foe. By now thoroughly exhausted, the fox dashed through the group of human watchers and leaps into the open back of a lorry. It is bound for Scotland, where it stops to unload its cargo, allowing a by now recovered Scotty to leap out and race away!
Chapter XXVII is entitled The Return of the Wanderer and Chapter XXVIII Ben Dubh. Scotty has not only returned to Scotland but found his way, after many nights exploring the countryside, mountains and glens, lochs and burns, to his actual birthplace. Moreover, he is spotted by the very same McAndrew who had handed him over to Ann Corseley. Well, said McAndrew, well, who'd have thought it! As big a fox, or bigger, than the one I shot in the Black Corrie two years ago (Scotty's father), and I thought that was the last of the old breed. Scotty not only returns home, but pals up with a local vixen. The story ends: They lay there in comfort and when the vixen stirred Scotty roused himself and licked her gently - he was content at last.
Even allowing for the unlikelihood of getting a lift from the Lakes to Scotland and Cragsman being the hound to battle with Scotty on the Westmorland fells, the author carries the reader along with some verve. None of the other animals met (and usually killed by Scotty) are named; and fox hunting is described in neutral terms. Even the 15 year-old Ann finds it 'normal' to rear a fox cub and ride to hounds. The many illustrations, by Persis Kirmse, are finely drawn and support the text admirably.
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