FullReads

“Still he may be obliged to do so, Hare.”

“Oh! no, people like that are never obliged to do anything they do not like. It is only poor things such as you and I, Mahatma, which must suffer. I can see that you have had a great deal to bear, and so have I, for we were born to suffering as the Red-faced Man was born to happiness.”

“Go on with your story, Hare,” I repeated. “You are becoming metaphysical and therefore dull. The time is short and I want to hear what happened.”

“Quite so, Mahatma. Well, Grampus came up breathing very heavily and looking very red in the face. He held his hat in one hand and a large crooked stick in the other, and even the top of his head, on which no hair grew, was red, for he had been running.

“What the deuce is the matter?” he puffed. “Oh! it is you, Giles, is it? What are you doing, sir, looking like that, all covered with blood and mud? Has a poacher shot you, or what?”

“No, Squire,” answered Giles humbly, touching his hat. “I have shot a poacher, that’s all, and it has given me what for,” and he lifted the body of the fox from the water.

“A fox,” said Grampus, “a fox! Do you mean to say, Giles, that you have dared to shoot a fox, and a vixen with a litter too? How often have I told you that, although I keep harriers and not fox-hounds, you are never to touch a fox. You will get me into trouble with all my neighbours. I give you a month’s notice. You will leave on this day month.”

“Very well, Squire,” said Giles, “I’ll leave, and I hope you’ll find some one to serve you better. Meanwhile I didn’t shoot the dratted fox. At least I only shot her after she’d gone and got herself into a trap which I had set for that there Rectory dog what you told me to make off with on the quiet, so that the young lady might never know what become of it and cry and make a fuss as she did about the last. Then seeing that she was finished, with her leg half chewed off, I shot her, or rather I didn’t shoot her as well as I should, for the beggar gave a twist as I fired, and now she’s bit me right through the hand. I only hopes you won’t have to pay my widow for it, Squire, under the Act, as foxes’ bites is uncommon poisonous, especially when they’ve been a-eating of rotten rabbit.”

“Dear me!” said the Red-faced Man softening, “dear me, the beast does seem to have bitten you very badly. You must go and be cauterised with a red-hot iron. It is painful but the best thing to do. Meanwhile, suck it, Giles, suck it! I daresay that will draw out the poison, and if it doesn’t, thank my stars! I am insured. Look here, a minute or two can make no difference, for if you are poisoned, you are poisoned. Where can we put this brute? I wouldn’t have it seen for ten pounds.”

“There’s an old pollard, Squire, about five yards away down near the fence, which is hollow and handy,” said Giles.

“Quite so,” he answered, “I know it well. Do you bring the–dog, Giles. Remember, it was a dog, not a fox.”

Then they went to the pollard, and as Giles’s hand was hurt the Red-faced Man climbed up it, though Giles tried to prevent him.

“Now then, Giles,” he said, “give me the fox–I mean the dog, and I will drop it down. Great Heavens! how this tree stinks. Has there been an earth here?”

“Not as I knows of, Squire,” said Giles sullenly.

Grampus stretched his hand down into the hollow of the pollard and dragged up a rotting fox by its tail.

“Giles,” he said, “you have been killing more foxes and hiding them in this tree. Giles, I dismiss you at once and without a month’s wages.”