It was really Isabel's idea. But it must be admitted that the Foxes
took it up with remarkable promptitude. How it reached them is
uncertain, but maybe the little bird that nests outside her nursery
window knows more than we do.
The idea owed its inception to my attempt at explaining the
pink-coated horsemen depicted on an old Christmas card. I did my best,
right up to and including the "worry," in which Isabel joined with
enthusiasm. Then she went to bed.
But not to sleep. As I passed by the open door I heard a small
excited voice expounding to a lymphatic dolly the whole mystery of
fox-hunting:--
"And there was a wood, and there was a smell. And all the peoploos
on '_normous_ huge high horses. And _nen_ all the hound-foxes runned
after the smell and eated it all up."
A fortnight later, taking a short cut through the Squire's coverts, I
sat down to enjoy the glory of woodland springtime. "There was a wood
and there was a smell." There certainly was; in fact I was all but
sitting upon an earth.
All this is credible enough. Now I hope you will believe the rest of
the story.
A dirty sheet of paper lay near Reynard's front doorstep. Idly
curious, I picked it up. Strange paper, a form of print that I had
never seen before; marked too with dirty pads.
It was a newspaper of sorts. Prominent notices adjured the reader to
"Write to _John Fox_ about it." The leading article was headed
"AN APPEAL."
"Foxes of Britain!" it began; "opposed though we have always been to
revolutionary politics, a clear line is indicated to us out of the
throes of the Re-birth. The old feudal relations between Foxes and
Men have had their day. The England that has been the paradise of the
wealthy, of the pink-coated, of the doubly second-horsed, must become
that of the oppressed, the hunted, the hand-to-mouth liver. In a
word, we have had enough of Fox-Hounds; henceforth we will have
Hound-Foxes."
Then the policy was outlined. Foxes could not hunt hounds--no; but
they could lead them a dog's life. They had been in the past too
sporting; thought too little of their own safety, too much of the
pleasure of the Hunt and of the reputation of its country.
Henceforth the League of Hound-Foxes would dispense justice to the
oppressors. No more forty-minute bursts over the best line in the
country; no more grass and easy fences; no more favourable crossing
points at the Whissendine Brook; no more rhapsodies in _The Field_
over "a game and gallant fox."
A Hound-Fox would be game, but not gallant. He would carry with him
a large-scale specially-marked map, showing where bullfinches were
unstormable; where the only gaps harboured on the far side a slimy
ditch; where woods were rideless; where wire was unmarked; where
railways lured to destruction--over and through each and every point
would the Hound-Fox entice the cursing Hunt.
As for the Hounds, they feared no obstacles, but they hated mockery.
_They_ should be led on to the premises of sausage factories; through
villages, to be greeted as brothers-in-the-chase by forty yelping
curs; into infant-schools (that old joke), where the delighted babes
would throw arms around their necks and call them "Doggie," until both
men and hounds would begin to question whether the game were worth the
candle.
Therefore let every eligible vulpine enroll himself to-day as a
Hound-Fox. They must be dog-foxes, rising three or over, of good
stamina, with plenty of scent, intelligent and preferably unmarried.
The League Secretary was ---- (here followed the name, earth and
covert of a well-known veteran).
There was other matter, of course. A "Grand Prize Competition--A
Turkey a Week for Life!" was announced. A humorous article on
Earth-Stoppers and, on the "Vixens' Page," a discussion as to the
edibility of Pekinese.
Absent-mindedly I crumpled up the astounding rag and thrust it down
the hole.
* * * * *
I arose stiff, bemused. The hot March sunshine and the song of
birds had left me drowsy. A glance at my watch showed me, to my
astonishment, that was tea-time. So I made my way home.
The reception of my story was as cold as the tea. They weren't such
fools, they said, as to believe it. So, knowing your larger charity,
dear Mr. Punch, I send it to you.
And I shall await that retrospective article in some Maytime _Field_,
entitled "A Season of Disasters."
* * * * *