224 THE FOX. 



ever, they failed to make their appearance at the door : but this did 

 not cause us any apprehension, as we knew that they were safe from 

 harm. On the morning after Reynard had made his desperate 

 descent into our elysium, one of the geese was missing, the keeper 

 having just sounded the alarm that there was a fox in the park. On 

 search being made, the remains of the Egyptian goose were found at 

 the foot of an aged sycamore tree ; whilst all around, the prints of a 

 fox's feet were visible in the snow. By their irregularity, we con- 

 jectured that Reynard had had tough work ere he mastered the 

 goose. There could be no doubt whatever but that he had been 

 exercising his vicious calling, and had made a dainty meal upon the 

 luckless bird. We were in a dilemma of no ordinary kind. The 

 state of the weather was too frosty to suit our sportsmen. Neither 

 dared we to open the park doors, lest proscribed enemies, such as 

 rabbits, &c., should gain admittance, and thus cause a second evil as 

 bad as the first. Nor could Reynard be allowed to enjoy any longer 

 his present position, as the remaining Egyptian goose, fowls, ducks, 

 and game, must inevitably have fallen a sacrifice to his unbounded 

 voracity. Wherefore, running the risk of our fox-hunters' high dis- 

 pleasure, and quite prepared to be considered by that part of the 

 Nimrod community (which sometimes does not see things in their 

 true light), as a modern Vandal, I signed old Reynard's death-war- 

 rant, to be put in execution without loss of time. Whereupon, a 

 spring-gun, by way of scaffold, with a heavy charge of buckshot (to 

 answer the purpose of a rope), was put down with studied science, 

 in order that a stop might be put to the intruder's career for ever. 

 As we read in the famous ballad of Chevy-Chase 



" Against Sir Hugh Montgomerie, 



So right the shaft was set, 

 The gray-goose wing, that was thereon, 

 In his heart's blood was wet." 



So was our implement of death pointed at Sir Reynard. A little 

 before two o'clock on the. following morning, a tremendous explosion 

 announced that the gun had gone off. Reynard, in his rounds, 

 having come in contact with the wire in ambush, fell dead as Mark 

 Antony, the contents of the gun having passed quite through his 



