A SENTIMENTALIST ON FOXES 59 
hind legs, his fore-feet pressed against the door 
and his ear at the keyhole, listening to the dulcet 
sounds. The fox rolled on the floor, frightened and 
confused by the light; then, picking himself up, 
dashed out, but before going twenty yards he 
pulled up and looked back just when the gun was 
at my friend’s shoulder. There had been no time 
for reflection, and in a moment Reynard, or 
Robert as we sometimes call him, was on the 
ground bleeding his life out. 
I did not like the end of his story, and I fancied, 
too, from his look that he rather hated himself for 
having killed that particular fox and regretted 
having told me about it. 
In another instance which remains to be told, 
the fox, in England this time, who had got into 
trouble, and was in dire danger, was saved not 
once, but twice, just because there was time for 
reflection. It was told to me at Sidmouth by an 
old fisherman well known to the people in that 
town as “ Uncle Sam,” a rank sentimentalist, like 
myself, to whom birds and beasts were as much 
as human beings. It chanced that in 1887 he was 
occupied in collecting materials for a big bonfire 
on the summit of Barrow Hill, a high hill on the 
coast west of the town, in preparation for Queen 
Victoria’s first Jubilee, when one day, on coming 
down from his work, he met a band of excited boys, 
all armed with long, stout sticks, which they had 
just cut in the adjacent wood. 
Uncle Sam stopped them and told them he 
