THE FOX 



ledge of the underground house of many 

 portals where the vixen rears her cubs, 

 guard the secret as jealously as she and 

 her lord, from the unfriendly farmer, 

 poultry-wife, and bounty-hunting vaga- 

 bond, confiding it only to sworn breth- 

 ren of woodcraft, as silent concerning 

 it to the unfriendly as the trees that 

 shadow its booty-strewn precincts or the 

 lichened rocks that fortify it against 

 pick and spade. They never tell even 

 their leashed hounds till autumn makes 

 the woods gayer with painted leaves 

 than summer could with blossoms, how 

 they have seen the master and mistress 

 of this woodland home stealing to it 

 with a fare of field mice fringing their 

 jaws or bearing a stolen lamb or pullet. 



They watch from some unseen van- 

 tage, with amused kindliness,, the gam- 

 bols of the yellow cubs about their 

 mother, alert for danger, even in her 

 drowsy weariness, and proud of her imp- 

 ish brood, even now practicing tricks of 

 theft and cunning on each other. They 

 become abetters of this family's sins, 

 apologists for its crimes, magnifiers of 

 its unmeant well-doing. 

 271 



