CHAPTER XXII 



SOME HUMOURS OF THE HUNTING- 

 FIELD 



I HAVE no doubt that some of my readers know the story 

 which the late Bernal Osborne used to the tell. 



" A blacksmith, very early one morning, was going 

 through a plantation leading to a gentleman's house to 

 shoe some horses, and in the roadway a fox was sitting 

 with one fore-paw held up, his ears laid back, and his 

 brush draggled. He did not move, but looked up beseech- 

 ingly at the blacksmith, who stooped down, looked at his 

 foot, and found a gathering; so he took a horse-nail from 

 his box, pricked the part, and let the matter out. It gave 

 the fox immediate relief, and he nodded his head and trotted 

 off into the wood. The next morning when the blacksmith 

 opened his door he found a couple of fine fat fowls laid 

 there. He took them inside, and the next morning there 

 was a couple of good fat ducks, and this, begorra, sor, 

 went on for some weeks, and one day there was a fine 

 young goose. Well, sor, the last winter there was a farmer 

 out with the hounds, and when the fox broke covert, it was 

 this same fellow, and the farmer viewed him away, and gave 

 the ' Tally ho ! ' and it was this man's hen-roost that the 

 fox went to each night till he had cleared out most of the 

 poultry; and this was how the fox got upsides with his 

 enemy, and repaid his friend." 



This reminds me of one told by Mrs S. C. Hall, who, 

 when visiting a certain Tim Flanigan, was told that one 

 night a fox entered his cabin and coolly sat down by the 

 embers, lighted his pipe, and began smoking as naturally as 

 a man. The listener expressed her doubts as to its truth ; 

 and when Tim said, " The fox took up the newspaper 



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