156 FISHING IN RIVER, STREAM, AND LOCH 



objections ; but, generally speaking, a healthy senti- 

 ment draws the line between " field-sports/' properly 

 so called, and their bastard kindred, where the 

 victim had no chance and his pluck was cruelly 

 exploitee by his persecutors. 



Say the fox has a mauvais quart d'heure after 

 the exhilarating edge has been taken off his first 

 burst of excitement, and he finds that he is really 

 racing for his life. Up to that time, and with the 

 exception of an occasional breather, the sly and 

 jovial freebooter has been living on the fat of the 

 land. Of what a sum of sorrows has he not been 

 the cause in the course of his maraudings on the 

 neighbouring poultry-yards and rabbit-burrows ! 

 How many melancholy bereavements have been laid 

 to his door ! His nocturnal trail has been strewn 

 with tattered plumage, and there is a very Gehenna 

 of bleaching bones round the earths where he relaxes 

 towards the gloaming among his ravenous cubs. 

 At last the hour of retribution has come and who 

 shall say that he has not been working for his fate ? 

 Had it not been for the gourmandise that had 

 sleeked his coat and thickened his wind, he might 

 have carried off his brush undraggled with all the 

 honours of the chase. As it is, the pace and scent 

 have been so good that his sufferings are at an 

 end before he has well realised them. He has died 

 the death that would have been desired by his 

 human counterparts our Scotch Highland caterans 

 and Border reivers and has breathed his last in the 



