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“He took the scared and frightened fowls to the window, and when they looked out, they saw to their horror their guardian Flaps sniffing at the dead bodies on the ground outside.

“‘Who would have thought it!’ said the hens, in an awe-stricken whisper.

“‘You may thank me,’ said the fox, ‘for my presence of mind in bolting the house-door when he ran out, or no one knows how many more he would have killed! If you will take my advice, you will send him about his business; and if you will put me in his place, I can assure you that you shall be protected in quite another manner.’

“‘Hi! open the door,’ cried Flaps, who saw something was wrong; ‘you’ve got another King Stork, I’ll be bound.’ But though he rattled and shook the door, no one unbolted it. ‘Ah!’ sighed Flaps, ‘before long the whole pack of idiots will be killed and eaten.’ So he scratched open an old hole in the wall that had been stopped up, and crept in. He arrived just in time to hear the old hens giving orders that no more eggs were to be given him, and that the door was to be kept bolted, in order that he might be obliged either to leave the place or to starve.

“They were all talking at once, and so eagerly, that no one noticed the dog come up behind them. He gave one spring and seized the fox by the throat. The attack was quite unexpected, but the fox fought, writhed, and wriggled like an eel, and just as he was being borne down, he made one desperate snap, and bit off the dog’s ear close to the head.

“‘Well, my ear is done for, but so is this blood-thirsty villain,’ said Flaps, looking down at the fox, which lay dead at his feet; ‘and as for you, you pack of ungrateful fools, one ear is quite enough to listen to you with. Here have I been your faithful comrade for all these years, and yet you believe that I have turned murderer in my old age on the word of this rogue, who did the evil deed himself last night.’

“Now that the panic was over, the fowls felt heartily ashamed of themselves for having been deceived by the fox, and done Flaps such great injustice. So they all asked his pardon, and the feast which they held to celebrate their deliverance from the fox was even more magnificent than the last, and it went on for two whole days.

“Hencastle was en fete for a time, but it was a very short time. For the mice were no less glad than the fowls that their enemy was dead; and now that both he and the owl had disappeared, they came out fearlessly at all hours of the day, and lived a life quite free from trouble and care.

“Not so the fowls. What was to be done with the ever-increasing colony of corn-stealers? The more the fowls meditated, the more the mice squeaked and played about, and the more corn they dragged away into their holes. There was even a rumour that some one meddled with the eggs.

“There was nothing for it but to dispatch the three messengers a third time, with directions to be more vigilant and careful than before. Away they flew, farther than ever. The first chance of help that arose was from a couple of cats and a kite, who seemed likely to perform the required work, but the cocks declined to accept their aid, feeling that the Hencastle had suffered too much already from two-winged and four-legged protectors.

“At length the messengers reached a bit of waste ground close to a village, and there they saw an extremely grimy-looking gipsy sitting on a bank. He knocked the ashes out of his black pipe, and muttered, ‘I’ve the luck of a dog! Here am I with a lot of the best mouse-traps in the world, and I haven’t sold one this blessed day!’