REDPAD THE FOX 
the field. The hedge barred its way for a moment, 
but urged by the rush behind, it rose, and crept 
between the hawthorns into the ditch on the 
further side. It was many a year since the stream 
had found its way down that ditch. It poured 
into its old bed joyously, and kissed the primroses 
with foam kisses before it drowned them in its cold 
ripples. 
Not until the flood had entered the Plantation 
Field did Vix realise what it meant. Then she ran, 
faster than when the hounds were at her brush, 
straight to the drain where her four ruddy cubs lay 
in the torrent's path. The stream was perilously 
near them. It had carved a way for itself among 
the grass and brambles which choked the ditch, 
and sang to itself lustily on the way to the bog. 
Vix dashed underground, and, seizing the first of 
the warm whining creatures which she stumbled 
over in the darkness, she turned to fly. Too late ! 
She was caught in a trap. The water burst into 
the drain, and surging to and fro to find an exit, 
it filled the tunnel to the roof. .Vix, half drowned 
but still clinging to the cub, was battered to and fro. 
Something which was not driftwood was driven 
against her in the darkness ; but 
though her mother-love was great 
she could not hold two, and it 
