The Fox
A ! " said the. fox, " we learn very quickly. We _ are taught these things as soon as we are able to tumble about in the sun. I have never forgotten what my mother said to me."
He snapped at a fly. " She- said, ' When you are older you will love the sun in the grass and the keen air no less than you do now. But there are other things in life. The gentlemen of .the county will put, on their red .coats and mount gleaming horses, and will hunt. you.,with _You must run from them. You will run from thein. You will be frightened. But you must give them a good run, and they will say, " Ah ! that's a stout fox ! " and some other day they will hunt you again to kill, for the gentlemen of the county need the blood of animals. You need not complain. Foxes must die. This is their natural death, unless they are caught in those traps which common men put down for the pestilential rabbits. Remember, behave like a sportsman, and after you have given them a good run they will let you alone until another. day.' " He pricked up his red ears.
" There's a sound on the wind."
There was a sound on the wind, a distant grumbling, and the faint, elfin bray of a horn.
He snapped at another fly, and winked.
" Excuse me," he said, " I really must be off !'" He lifted up his forefoot, and sniffed the air. Then he was away over a great ploughed field with the hounds in full cry. He turned left-handed into a field of kale and cut across the railway lines. Thence, down into a valley. He stopped for a breather, and watched the hounds straggled out on the hill like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, all brown and white, then he headed for the dykes and led them over water. After that he doubled back, and ran along the railway embankment for half a mile, crossing it by Mr. Dove's farm.
He had given them a fine run. Now he must get back to his spinney. He turned right-handed, circled a hill, and put on a burst of speed across an open field. But by now he was frightened. His ears were laid back, his tail trailed on the ground, and his red coat was a dull brown with sweat. He had given them a forty-minute run, and some of the pack were beaten. He must get to the spinney, and there they would let him rest in peace.
He made a supreme effort, and jumped a wire fence.
" He's a stout fox ! " said the master, as be reached the spinney. " Such a run ! " So, with heart almost broken, and trembling with tiredness, the lover of the sun in the grass lay in. his earth.
But the gentlemen of the county dug him out and murdered him. D. STUART JER VIS•
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