And we decided that we would. H. O. wanted to go down to the village and
get penny horns at the shop for the huntsmen to wind, like in the song,
but we thought it would be more modest not to wind horns or anything
noisy, at any rate not until we had run down our prey. But his talking
of the song made us decided that it was the fox we wanted to hunt. We
had not been particular which animal we hunted before that.
Oswald let Denny have first go with the pistol, and when we went to bed
he slept with it under his pillow, but not loaded, for fear he should
have a nightmare and draw his fell weapon before he was properly awake.
Oswald let Denny have it, because Denny had toothache, and a pistol is
consoling though it does not actually stop the pain of the tooth. The
toothache got worse, and Albert's uncle looked at it, and said it was
very loose, and Denny owned he had tried to crack a peach-stone with it.
Which accounts. He had creosote and camphor, and went to bed early, with
his tooth tied up in red flannel.
Oswald knows it is right to be very kind when people are ill, and he
forebore to wake the sufferer next morning by buzzing a pillow at him,
as he generally does. He got up and went over to shake the invalid, but
the bird had flown and the nest was cold. The pistol was not in the nest
either, but Oswald found it afterwards under the looking-glass on the
dressing-table. He had just awakened the others (with a hair-brush
because they had not got anything the matter with their teeth), when he
heard wheels, and, looking out, beheld Denny and Albert's uncle being
driven from the door in the farmer's high cart with the red wheels.
We dressed extra quick, so as to get down-stairs to the bottom of the
mystery. And we found a note from Albert's uncle. It was addressed to
Dora, and said:
"Denny's toothache got him up in the small hours. He's off
to the dentist to have it out with him, man to man. Home to
dinner."