220 THE FOX. 



dam, nor could the united discord (if I may be allowed the expression) 

 of hounds and horns, and merry men on foot, cause him to quit his 

 chosen quarters More than an hour was spent in chasing him to and 

 fro, but without success. Now he was on the edge of the wood- 

 then back again to its deepest recesses, and so on puzzling both 

 dog and man. I happened to be resting quietly on my horse, in one 

 of the rides, when old Reynard, panting and bewildered, with his 

 once handsome brush now wet and dirty, and his tongue lolling out 

 of his mouth, wished to cross the path; but on seeing me, he 

 stopped short, and stared me full in the face. " Poor little fellow," 

 said I to him, " thy fate is sealed ! thy strength has left thee ; in a 

 few minutes more, thou wilt be torn in pieces." He then shrunk 

 back again into the wood, as if to try another chance for life. The 

 noble lord now rode up to the spot where I was waiting, and said, that 

 as they could not force the fox into the open fields, he had made up 

 his mind to have it killed in cover, and that he had given the 

 necessary orders which, however, were not fulfilled, according to 

 my lord's intention, as you shall shortly learn. We were about two 

 hundred yards from the king's highway, when a butcher, who was 

 going on it, thought that he might tarry for a while and enjoy the 

 sport. So he and his dog got over the hedge, and came softly up to 

 where we had stationed ourselves. At that unlucky moment Rey- 

 nard made his appearance, so completely exhausted that I was 

 convinced his " last day's run was over." In a moment the butcher's 

 dog, a gaunt and over-fattened cur without a tail, flew at poor Rey- 

 nard, and killed him outright the hounds coming up just in time 

 to snarl and quarrel for his bleeding carcass, which they devoured 

 before the huntsman had made his appearance. Thus ended this 

 day's sport ; most certainly, its termination was humiliating. A 

 greasy butcher's dog, the lowest of its race, came up just in the nick 

 of time to give the death-blowaye, to accomplish which, the best 

 bred hounds in Christendom had spent the long-live day. 



" Ea turba, cupidine prsedse, 

 Per rupes, scopulosque, adituque carentia saxa, 

 Qua via difficilis, quaque est via nulla, feruntur." 



But so it sometimes happens. In our own ranks we have occur- 



