THE FOX. 223 



a fox. The base, unpatriotic deed, would doom the remorseless 

 perpetrator of it to everlasting exile in that region, known to all hon- 

 ourable Englishmen under the name of " Coventry." 



The reader shall now have a brief unvarnished account of what 

 took place here some four or five years ago. Justice to myself, and 

 to the pets which have the range of my park, forced me to become 

 the executioner of the largest and sleekest fox that perhaps was ever 

 seen in these Vandal regions of Yorkshire's West Riding district. 

 We have a park wall so high, that neither fox nor hound can sur- 

 mount it without assistance. There had been a snow-storm in the 

 morning; and, as the keeper was going his rounds, he observed a 

 sheep-bar, commonly so called, reared against the wall. Fearing 

 mischief from without, he requested the farmer to remove it during 

 the day, lest poachers or " varment " might take advantage of its 

 position, and thus find a commodious way over the wall into the 

 preserve, not of game only, but of many other animals. The farmer 

 said he would attend to the bar, but, somehow or other, he forgot to 

 do so, and thus the sheep, or stack-bar, remained just where it had 

 been placed. Although the night was cold and rainy, Reynard 

 found himself obliged to turn out of his den, and to cater for his 

 numerous family. Coming up to the bar in question, he mounted 

 on it, and thence sprang on to the wall itself. Seeing Paradise 

 below him, he must, no doubt, have longed vehemently to partake 

 of the dainties which he was sure it contained. In fact, having lost 

 his usual caution when out a prowling, he gave way to the tempta- 

 tion, and took a desperate leap into the park, which consists of two 

 hundred and sixty acres. All his movements were clearly visible 

 the next morning, by the- prints of his feet in the snow, which had 

 fallen in the early part of the night. Here, then, Reynard, by his 

 own rashness, became a prisoner for the remainder of his days a 

 voluntary exile into a little St Helena, where he lived and died. 



' A few years before this transgression on the part of incautious 

 Reynard, my friend, Mr Carr, of Bunston Hill, near Gateshead, had 

 made me a present of two very fine Egyptian geese. They were 

 great beauties, and wonderfully admired by everybody who saw 

 them. During the season of frost and snow, they were admitted into 

 the saddle-room at night, for the sake of warmth. Sometimes, how- 



