"Because we've just had a funeral, and that's the grave."
The gentleman whistled, but the fox-terriers were not trained like
Pincher, who was brought up by Oswald. The gentleman took a stride
through the hedge gap.
"What have you been burying--a pet dicky bird, eh?" said the gentleman,
kindly. He had riding breeches and white whiskers.
We did not answer, because now, for the first time, it came over all of
us, in a rush of blushes and uncomfortableness, that burying a fox is a
suspicious act. I don't know why we felt this, but we did.
Noel said, dreamily:
"We found his murdered body in the wood,
And dug a grave by which the mourners stood."
But no one heard him except Oswald, because Alice and Dora and Daisy
were all jumping about with the jumps of unstrained anguish, and saying,
"Oh, call them off! Do! do!--oh, don't, don't! Don't let them dig!"
Alas! Oswald was, as usual, right. The ground of the grave had not been
trampled down hard enough, and he had said so plainly at the time, but
his prudent counsels had been over-ruled. Now these busy-bodying,
meddling, mischief-making fox-terriers (how different from Pincher, who
minds his own business unless told otherwise) had scratched away the
earth and laid bare the reddish tip of the poor corpse's tail.
We all turned to go without a word, it seemed to be no use staying any
longer.
But in a moment the gentleman with the whiskers had got Noel and Dicky
each by an ear--they were nearest him. H. O. hid in the hedge. Oswald,
to whose noble breast sneakishness is, I am thankful to say, a stranger,
would have scorned to escape, but he ordered his sisters to bunk in a
tone of command which made refusal impossible.
[Illustration: "'WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?'"]
"And bunk sharp, too," he added sternly. "Cut along home."
So they cut.
The white-whiskered gentleman now encouraged his mangy fox-terriers, by
every means at his command, to continue their vile and degrading
occupation; holding on all the time to the ears of Dicky and Noel, who
scorned to ask for mercy. Dicky got purple and Noel got white. It was
Oswald who said:
"Don't hang on to them, sir. We won't cut. I give you my word of honor."
"_Your_ word of honor," said the gentleman, in tones for which, in
happier days, when people drew their bright blades and fought duels, I
would have had his heart's dearest blood. But now Oswald remained calm
and polite as ever.
"Yes, on my honor," he said, and the gentleman dropped the ears of
Oswald's brothers at the sound of his firm, unserving tones. He dropped
the ears and pulled out the body of the fox and held it up. The dogs
jumped up and yelled.
"Now," he said, "you talk very big about words of honor. Can you speak
the truth?"
Dicky said, "If you think we shot it, you're wrong. We know better than
that."
The white-whiskered one turned suddenly to H. O. and pulled him out of
the hedge.
"And what does that mean?" he said, and he was pink with fury to the
ends of his large ears, as he pointed to the card on H. O.'s breast,
which said, "Moat House Fox-Hunters."
Then Oswald said, "We _were_ playing at fox-hunting, but we couldn't
find anything but a rabbit that hid, so my brother was being the fox,
and then we found the fox shot dead, and I don't know who did it; and we
were sorry for it and we buried it--and that's all."
"Not quite," said the riding-breeches gentleman, with what I think you
call a bitter smile, "not quite. This is my land, and I'll have you up
for trespass and damage. Come along now, no nonsense! I'm a magistrate
and I'm Master of the Hounds. A vixen, too! What did you shoot her with?
You're too young to have a gun. Sneaked your father's revolver, I
suppose?"
Oswald thought it was better to be goldenly silent. But it was vain. The
Master of the Hounds made him empty his pockets, and there was the
pistol and the cartridges.
The magistrate laughed a harsh laugh of successful disagreeableness.
"All right," said he, "where's your license? You come with me. A week or
two in prison."
I don't believe now he could have done it, but we all thought then he
could and would, what's more.
So H. O. began to cry, but Noel spoke up. His teeth were chattering, yet
he spoke up like a man.
He said, "You don't know us. You've no right not to believe us till
you've found us out in a lie. We don't tell lies. You ask Albert's uncle
if we do."
"Hold your tongue," said the White Whiskered.
But Noel's blood was up.
"If you do put us in prison without being sure," he said, trembling more
and more, "you are a horrible tyrant like Caligula, and Herod, or Nero,
and the Spanish Inquisition, and I will write a poem about it in prison,
and people will curse you forever."
"Upon my word," said White Whiskers, "we'll see about that," and he
turned up the lane with the fox hanging from one hand and Noel's ear
once more reposing in the other.
I thought Noel would cry or faint. But he bore up nobly--exactly like an
early Christian martyr.
The rest of us came along too. I carried the spade and Dicky had the
fork, H. O. had the card, and Noel had the magistrate. At the end of the
lane there was Alice. She had bunked home, obeying the orders of her
thoughtful brother, but she had bottled back again like a shot, so as
not to be out of the scrape. She is almost worthy to be a boy for some
things.
She spoke to Mr. Magistrate and said:
"Where are you taking him?"
The outraged majesty of the magistrate said, "To prison, you naughty
little girl."
Alice said, "Noel will faint. Somebody once tried to take him to prison
before--about a dog. Do please come to our house and see our uncle--at
least he's not--but it's the same thing. We didn't kill the fox, if
that's what you think--indeed we didn't. Oh, dear, I do wish you'd think
of your own little boys and girls if you've got any, or else about when
you were little. You wouldn't be so horrid if you did."
I don't know which, if either, of these objects the fox-hound master
thought of, but he said:
"Well, lead on," and he let go Noel's ear and Alice snuggled up to Noel
and put her arm round him.
It was a frightened procession, whose cheeks were pale with
alarm--except those between white whiskers, and they were red--that
wound in at our gate and into the hall, among the old oak furniture and
black and white marble floor and things.
Dora and Daisy were at the door. The pink petticoat lay on the table,
all stained with the gore of the departed. Dora looked at us all, and
she saw that it was serious. She pulled out the big oak chair and said:
"Won't you sit down?" very kindly to the white-whiskered magistrate.
He grunted, but did as she said.
Then he looked about him in a silence that was not comforting, and so
did we.
At last he said:
"Come, you didn't try to bolt. Speak the truth, and I'll say no more."
We said we had.
Then he laid the fox on the table, spreading out the petticoat under it,
and he took out a knife and the girls hid their faces. Even Oswald did
not care to look. Wounds in battle are all very well, but it's different
to see a dead fox cut into with a knife.
Next moment the magistrate wiped something on his handkerchief and then
laid it on the table and put one of my cartridges beside it. It was the
bullet that had killed the fox.
"Look here!" he said. And it was too true. The bullets were the same.
A thrill of despair ran through Oswald. He knows now how a hero feels
when he is innocently accused of a crime and the judge is putting on the
black cap, and the evidence is convulsive and all human aid is despaired
of.
"I can't help it," he said, "we didn't kill it, and that's all there is
to it."
The white-whiskered magistrate may have been master of the fox-hounds,
but he was not master of his temper, which is more important, I should
think, than a lot of beastly dogs.
He said several words which Oswald would never repeat, much less use in
his own conversing, and besides that he called us "obstinate little
beggars."
Then suddenly Albert's uncle entered in the midst of a silence freighted
with despairing reflections. The M. F. H. got up and told his tale: it
was mainly lies, or, to be more polite, it was hardly any of it true,
though I suppose he believed it.
"I am very sorry, sir," said Albert's uncle, looking at the bullets.
"You'll excuse my asking for the children's version?"
"Oh, certainly, sir, certainly," fuming, the fox-hound magistrate
replied.
Then Albert's uncle said, "Now, Oswald, I know I can trust you to speak
the exact truth."
So Oswald did.
Then the white-whiskered fox-master laid the bullets before Albert's
uncle, and I felt this would be a trial to his faith far worse than the
rack or the thumbscrew in the days of the Armada.
And then Denny came in. He looked at the fox on the table.
"You found it, then?" he said.
The M. F. H. would have spoken, but Albert's uncle said, "One moment,
Denny; you've seen this fox before?"
"Rather," said Denny; "I--"
But Albert's uncle said, "Take time. Think before you speak and say the
exact truth. No, don't whisper to Oswald. This boy," he said to the
injured fox-master, "has been with me since seven this morning. His
tale, whatever it is, will be independent evidence."
But Denny would not speak, though again and again Albert's uncle told
him to.
"I can't till I've asked Oswald something," he said at last.