38 REV. JOHN RUSSELL 



On another occasion in the same locality, 

 but not in the same church, snow lying deep on 

 the ground, the clergyman was reading the 

 second lesson, when a man opened the church 

 door, and, with a loud voice, proclaimed, "I've 

 a got 'un ! " and immediately withdrew. But 

 he had sounded the well-known note ; every 

 farmer and labourer who possessed a gun soon 

 followed him, and, within a couple of hours, 

 brought to the village inn a fine old fox, dug 

 out and murdered in cold blood. 



As in Cornwall, so formerly in the forest of 

 Dartmoor ; Tom French, the once notorious 

 vulpicide, was wont to say of a fox, "'Tis a 

 nasty varmint, I tell 'ee, and aufght to be killed 

 on a Sunday, so well as on a week-day;" a 

 doctrine he was not slow to practice, especially 

 when a fall of snow gave him the chance : — 



"While faithless snaws ilk step betray 



Whar he has been . " 



Burns. 



