"He's got in by the old ice drain," said Flurry, addressing himself sulkily to me, and ignoring Miss Sally. He had not the least idea of how absurd was his scowling face, draped by the luxuriant hart's-tongues that overhung the doorway.
The padlock yielded, and the opening door revealed a low, dark passage, into which Flurry disappeared, lugging a couple of hounds with him by the scruff of the neck; the remaining two couple bayed implacably at the mouth of the drain. The croak of a rusty bolt told of a second door at the inner end of the passage.
"Look out for the steps, Flurry, they're all broken," called out Miss Sally in tones of honey.
There was no answer. Miss Sally looked at me; her face was serious, but her mischievous eyes made a confederate of me.
"He's in an awful rage!" she said. "I'm afraid there will certainly be a row."
A row there certainly was, but it was in the cavern of the ice-house, where the fox had evidently been discovered. Miss Sally suddenly flung Moonlighter's reins to me and slipped off his back.
"Hold him!" she said, and dived into the doorway under the overhanging branches.
Things happened after that with astonishing simultaneousness. There was a shrill exclamation from Miss Sally, the inner door was slammed and bolted, and at one and the same moment the fox darted from the entry, and was away into the wood before one could wink.
"What's happened?" I called out, playing the refractory Moonlighter like a salmon.
Miss Sally appeared at the doorway, looking half scared and half delighted.