290 THE SPORT OF KINGS 



be best gauged by the fact that hounds drew one 

 of the coverts within a short distance of his home 

 five or six weeks running, and never drew it blank. 

 To his honour be it said, though no fox-hunter 

 himself, he never either directly or indirectly 

 molested a fox. Nor do I think that he ever sent 

 in a bill for poultry, for the Master, who was a 

 farmer, and he were firm friends, and he was wont 

 to let him off with a grumble about what his 

 daughter said. So matters went on for a few 

 seasons, when one day I met him boiling over with 

 rage. The vocabulary was about exhausted in 

 abuse of foxes, and he threatened all sorts of 

 vengeance. "I would not care," thundered he, 



" for a few old hens and geese, but when the 



foxes come to take sheep it is more than flesh and 

 blood can bear." And straightway he produced a 

 bill a mile long in which he claimed damages for 

 something like fifteen sheep — full-grown sheep, 

 mind, not lambs. 



There was only one thing to do, and that was 

 to wait till he was pacified a little, and then 

 promise him that his claim should be taken into 

 consideration, and if the foxes had killed his sheep 

 he should be paid for them. But the foxes had 

 no more killed his sheep than I had, though he 

 took some persuading that that was the case. It 

 was in the year when the liver fluke worked such 

 destruction amongst the flocks of the country, and 

 though his was a healthy district, he had chanced 

 to buy a few sheep that were tainted. An odd 

 sheep or two had died, their death in all probability 

 being hastened by the extremely severe weather 

 which set in, and as they were on the edge of a 

 moor they were not missed for a day or two, 



