This incident took place in the spring of 1897, at French's Farm,
Netherfield, near Battle, Sussex. This farm lies in the midst of the
chicken-raising district, and it was at the time in the occupation of
Mr. W. A. Williams. Mr. Williams, among his other farm operations,
reared thousands of chickens, which the travelling higglers would
collect and fatten for the market. Most of these chickens were hatched
in an incubator and reared by aid of a foster-mother--which latter, by
the way, is not a motherly old hen, as some might suppose, but a sort
of box lined with flannel. Sometimes it is merely an old coop.
[Illustration: MOTHERLESS AND INQUISITIVE.]
The farm was surrounded by woods, and at first many chicks were lost
by raids of foxes. To check the foxes, Mr. Williams washed the coops
well with carbolic acid, and let his dogs loose at night. This was
effectual. Mr. Williams's tailless sheepdog "Satan" and a spaniel
bitch had many a moonlight fox hunt together. Satan, by the way, was a
peculiar dog, very quiet, but a game fighter when roused.
[Illustration: ONLY THREE LEFT.]
[Illustration: BEYOND THE WIT OF MAN OR DOG.]
For a time the chickens prospered, and then, one morning, Mr. Williams
found but three left out of some twenty-five fresh-hatched the day
before. It was very odd. Mr. Williams couldn't understand it, and
his dog Satan seemed equally puzzled. The chicks had been turned out
in excellent health the day before, twenty-five inquisitive, little,
fuzzy activities, all agog to examine the world. Now there were but
three, and not a scrap or a fragment of fluff left to suggest what had
happened.
[Illustration: "WHAT! NO RATS?"]
[Illustration: "THE DOG? NONSENSE; LOOK AT HIM!"]
The thing occurred again and again, and the mystery was dense as ever.
It couldn't be foxes, because they almost always kill a few for the
sake of killing, and leave them lying about. Was it rats? No, there
were no rats, said the rat-catcher who was called in. But still the
disappearances went on, and morning after morning fifteen or twenty of
yesterday's chicks were not to be found; and the door of their coop was
opened, or knocked down. If it were a human thief, why did he leave
any at all? And besides, a man entering the yard at night would have
been pounced on by the dogs at once. At last, in desperation, a friend
suggested that perhaps the sheepdog knew something of it. But that was
altogether unlikely--one had only to glance at him to see it. He was
always a kindly guardian--almost a parent to the motherless chicks. He
was chained up just outside the farm-house door all day, with a brood
of happy chicks ever in his kennel and his food-pan, and, indeed,
hopping all over him fearlessly, and nothing they could do ruffled
his placid temper or changed his benevolent aspect. So the mystery
continued, and was deep as ever.
[Illustration: LISTENING.]
Till one morning it happened to be necessary for Mr. Williams to rise
just after dawn, and as he did so he looked out of his bedroom window.
There stood Satan, the sheepdog, listening intently at the house door.
As he listened and his master watched, there presently came along a
batch of young chicks. Plainly the door of their coop had been opened
again, and they had been let out. And then Mr. Williams gasped. For
straightway the dog turned and calmly began snapping up the chicks,
bolting them whole, as Mr. Williams expresses it, "like oysters."
He had thus disposed of eight or nine in rapid succession, when Mr.
Williams made a noise at the window, and the dog instantly fled.
[Illustration: GULP! THE MYSTERY SOLVED.]
That day Mr. Williams took particular care to move the chickens near
him as he lay by his kennel, and to watch. But, no--the cunning rascal
would take no notice of them at all. They ran and tumbled all about
him, but he let them run. He was a hypocrite, consummate and proved,
and he left the farm that evening.
[Illustration: