“I wonder,” said the old hound, both vexed and puzzled, “if he has been headed back?”
Rubicon, who must have had a remarkably strong stomach, now jumped upon the steaming, reeking, stinking heap, and, plunging his nose under a loose portion at the top, drew out the fox by a hind leg. In an instant we flew to his assistance, and for the first and last time in my life, I helped to kill a fox on a dung heap.
“Well!” said our master, wiping his bald head, and looking as pleased as at any period that I ever saw him, “we wind up the season with a glorious finish. We were too far behind to see,” he continued; “but of course they must have viewed him into the manure.”
“No doubt, sir,” replied Will, “or he would most likely have beaten us.”
“It only shows,” rejoined the Squire, “to what improbable shifts a sinking fox will have resort. How often men’s brains are racked to discover the why and wherefore that a fox could have beaten their judgment and experience, when, perhaps, he may be close to their elbows without the smallest blame to be attached to either hounds or them for his escape.”
“Or merit to his craft and cunning, you might have added,” said Trimbush. “For when a fox sinks, not only his physical strength is expended, but his mental powers die with it. He is in such a mortal fright, that he cannot think; but like a blown chicken, pokes his head into the first hiding place which presents itself.”
As we were trotting quietly homewards, as proud as peacocks, I saw Trimbush tip Rubicon over the nose with his stern, and drew him from the body on one side of the road.
“Be candid,” said he, in a half whisper. “How was it that you made the fox out in that beastly manure?”
“I winded him,” rejoined Rubicon, with a sly grin.
“Pshaw!” replied the old hound. “It was impossible.”