They jumped all three.
All four! The fox jumped, too.
He had a free try at the fence now. But he was weak. He fell back—licked his leg passionately and tried again.
He was over. Looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, he was limping between waving grasses across the strip of rank meadow that separated the snake-fence from the woods.
“Fair gude day to ye!” grunted Andrew. “But ye might say: ‘Bethankit’!”
The wild thing reached the wood-line, brush waving.
Suddenly, before the trees swallowed him—and the undergrowth—he half-halted, half-turned—shot a backward glance.
“He’s a gentleman,” cried Pemrose. “That did mean, ‘Thank you’!”
“He’s left me to mend a big tear in the lining of my coat,” said Una. “But, oh! how awful to be trapped.”