THE LAMB AND THE FOX. 163 



pursued him there does not exist a braver heart than 

 that over which the huntsman, cracking his whip to keep 

 the hounds at bay from it, is triumphantly crying " WHOO- 

 OOP!"* 



THE LAMB AND THE Fox. 



But the plot of our drama thickens. For on the green 

 carpet of our little theatre, on which so many actors have 

 been performing, there now lie tragically before us, as it 

 were side by side, the body of a swooned lamb, and the 

 carcase of a dead fox. Let us therefore for a moment 

 place each into one of the scales of Justice, to weigh 

 the relative specific gravities of these two tiny emblems 



* Some seasons ago the master of the Pytchley determined "to give to 

 the hounds" a fox that had run to ground in a narrow culvert commu- 

 nicating with the Reservoir at Maid well. 



To prevent the poor animal escaping from his doom, the hounds were made 

 to surround the mouth of the drain before the order was given to " lift up 

 the sluice." 



On the words being uttered the eyes of all the riders who encircled the 

 pack were, of course, concentrated on one point. A slight noise was heard, 

 some dead sticks appeared, followed by a violent rush of water, in the 

 midst of which, rolled up like an immense hedgehog, appeared the fox, who 

 no sooner got into daylight, than, before a hound could snap hold of him, he 

 jumped to the left, and, at almost the same instant, popping through the 

 only little hole in the thick hedge that bounded the drain, burst away, dis- 

 tanced the pack of enemies, quadruped and biped, that followed him, and thus 

 escaped a death from which nothing but his extraordinary quickness and deter- 

 mination could have saved him. 



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