I now saw that Trimbush would get all the praise of discovering our fox’s hiding place, and felt greatly vexed with myself that I had not gone at once to the tree and thrown my tongue. The rest now clustered round the leader, who, managing to stick and cling to the ivy, got some dozen feet from the ground.
“He’s gone to tree, sir,” said Will Sykes, exultingly, as he threw himself from the saddle.
“That he has,” returned the Squire, scarcely knowing which to be—more astonished or pleased.
To the infinite surprise of the field, who came dropping up one by one, they saw the huntsman drag a fox by the brush from a hollow in the tree, and catching him by the neck to prevent the visitation of his grinders, hold him up over his head with a halloo that might wake the dead.
“Who-whoop, who-whoop!” cried Tom Holt.
“Who-whoop, who-who-whoop!” hallooed Ned Adams, in his good and choice voice, which always had the effect of working us into a frenzy.
“He’d give us a run now,” lisped a young gentleman in pink, “if he was turned down and had a little law given him.”
I could have bitten his head off.
A CURIOUS FINISH.