24 THE LIFE OF A FOX 



spared, those hundreds of hunters would become so 

 many keen shooters — how could the game-preserver 

 then keep up his stock as he did before ? And 

 where Avould the wealthy capitalist rent his manor ? 

 After this unlucky adventure I resolved in future 

 to sleep with one eye open, and not without reason. 

 I had scarcely recovered from the injuries which I 

 had suffered, and had just settled in my kennel one 

 morning about daybreak, coiling myself up for the 

 usual snoose all day, and sticking my nose into the 

 upper part of the root of my brush — the reason by 

 the bye why the hairs there are generally seen to be 

 standing on end or turned backwards — when I was 

 startled by the voice of John Foster, whose name 

 has been mentioned before : " Eloo in ; e-dhoick, 

 e-dhoick, in-hoick, in-hoick." Disturbed by the 

 unaccustomed sounds, I rose upon my fore-legs, and 

 pricking up my ears listened for a moment or two, 

 when I heard the rustling of the hounds running 

 straight towards me, being led on by the scent that 

 was left in the track of my feet, which parts, 

 especially when heated by running, seem to leave 

 more scent than any other part of the body. Thus 

 the same organ becomes at once the means of in- 

 viting pursuit, and of escaping it. Off I went — the 

 awful tongue of an old hound ringing in my ear, 



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