But no one heard him except Oswald, because Alice and Dora and Daisy were all jumping about with the jumps of unrestrained 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 overruled. 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.
‘And bunk sharp, too’ he added sternly. ‘Cut along home.’
So they cut. The white-whiskered gentleman now encouraged his angry 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 honour.’
‘YOUR word of honour,’ 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 honour,’ he said, and the gentleman dropped the ears of Oswald’s brothers at the sound of his firm, unswerving tones. He dropped the ears and pulled out the body of the fox and held it up.
The dogs jumped up and yelled.