A SENTIMENTALIST ON FOXES = 57 
his early years. What he wrote was the fox story— 
a hunting incident in the village that had deeply 
impressed his boy mind. The fox, hard pressed, 
and running for dear life, came into the village and 
took refuge in a labourer’s cottage, and entering 
by the kitchen door, passed into an inner room, 
and, jumping into a cradle where a baby was 
sleeping, concealed himself under the covering. 
The baby’s mother had gone out a little way, but 
presently seeing the street in a commotion, full 
of dogs and mounted men, she flew back to her 
cottage and rushed to the cradle, and plucking 
off the coverlet saw the fox snugly curled up by 
the side of her child, pretending to be, like the 
baby, fast asleep. She snatched the sleeping child 
up, then began screaming and beating the fox, 
until, leaping out of the cot, he fled from that 
inhospitable place, only to encounter the whole 
yelling pack at the threshold, where he was quickly 
worried to death. 
The editor was so pleased with the anecdote 
that he not only printed it but encouraged the 
little rustic to write other things, and that is how 
his career as a writer began. 
Now, albeit a sentimentalist, I would not say 
that the fox took refuge in a cradle with a sleeping 
baby and pretended to be asleep just to work on 
the kindly, maternal feelings of the cottage woman 
and so save his life, but I do say, and am pretty 
sure that not one of the Hunt and not a villager 
but felt that the killing of that particular fox was 
