As the light grew stronger I found myself rising involuntarily to my feet to return to the earth, but the strong walls compelled me to stay and await my fate. Soon a pale, rosy light suffused the sky, and presently the first beam of sunshine came in at my window and fell on an old spider's web stretched over a hole in the wall of the chimney. I envied the owner of the web: I envied the dead geese: I would at that moment have been even the broken starling's egg lying there on the waste-heap, or the skeleton of a fly dangling at the end of the gossamer.
I heard a door slammed and the noise of footsteps. They were deliberate, heavy, merciless, and they were approaching the door behind which I stood listening. Just when I expected to see it slightly opened, and was on the point of shamming dead, there was a loud kick against it which upset my plan and made me rush up the chimney.
Then the door was unbarred and opened.
"All dead, are 'ee?"
"Aye, all dead."
After a pause the newcomer added:
"You're as putty a lot ever I reared; in another month you'd have been ready for market, and I looked to 'ee to pay part of the rent."
Then in a voice like thunder he bawled out:
"Where art thee, Master Reynard? Ah, thee scoundrel, thee needn't try to get out by the chimbley! thee'rt wastin' thy precious time. I'll help thy lordship through the front door in a minute. An'rew, bring the sack here."