The lagging fox understood him
when, grinning his fear and fatigue, he drew himself painfully
through the furze. So did the hounds, athirst for his blood. Buck-
skinned gentlemen, no less, found him affable and full of
information--about anything and everything in the world except the
line of the hunted fox. "Oh, come," he said once, "don't ask me to
give him away. You're fifty to one, to start with; and the fact is I
passed him my word that I wouldn't. I'll tell you what though. You
shall offer me a cigarette. I haven't smoked for six days." Which was
done.
His powers with children, his charm for them, his influence and
fascination, which in course of time made him famous beyond these shores,
arose out of a chance encounter not far from his hut. Three boys, breaking
school in the nesting season, came suddenly upon him, and paled, and stood
rooted. "Come on," he said, "I'll show you a thing or two that you've
never seen before." He led them to places of marvel, which his speech made
to glimmer with the hues of romance: the fresh grubbed earth where a
badger had been routing, the quiet glade where, that morning, a polecat
had washed her face. He brought them up to a vixen and her cubs, and got
them all playing together.
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