A BRUSH WITH FATE. 205 
lightly up it, jumped again, straight and high, 
and—vanished. 
On came the hounds. Up on to the roof 
of the shanty they streamed, over it, down 
again, all round about, and were dumb. They 
had lost their fox utterly. He seemed to 
have simply faded into thin air, and gone out ; 
and, the dusk already approaching, the hunts- 
man called the dogs off and took them home. 
That night a gamekeeper, going to the 
shanty for a lantern, was almost startled out 
of his senses, on unlocking the door, by the 
apparition of a fox within, who charged out 
between his legs as soon as the door was 
opened, and evaporated into the night. 
