'It's no use, sir,' he said. 'I am afraid we can't reach him there. Shure, it's a pity for the hounds not to chop him afther all, afther the way they hunted him.'
'It was as fine a hunt as ever I saw,' answered the other. Then looking at Redpad's half-closed eyes, he added: 'But that fellow will never run again—he is dead beat, and it is a pity they did not run into the poor brute back yonder where he lay down. At all events he has cheated us of his brush, for he was as plucky a fox as I ever saw.'
With this, his requiem, in his ears, Redpad stretched out his muzzle on his pads and closed his eyes, as he had done many a morning in the old earth in Knockdane. The light of the after-glow lit up the bright coats of the two men and the tired hounds behind. They were only a few yards away, yet he knew that they could not reach him, and therefore paid no further attention to them. The water lip-lapped round the willow, and the roar of the flood deepened as twilight fell, and the night wind shivered in the aspens. A waterhen called, and a flight of wild duck, quacking softly, flew over the hill. Redpad straightened himself slowly—then he gave a lurch, and dropped into the water. The broad stream caught him, and swept him out into the midcurrent. He struggled a little, but the eddies bound down each tired limb, and the ripples broke against his closed eyes. The water, which had so nearly cut short his life in early days, was a good friend to him now. As his body was borne down the misty stream, away from the clamour of the hounds into the august silences of the night, the waves lapped gently over his head; and under their kisses, his spirit drifted quietly out to the Grey Fields of Sleep where the souls of the Fur Folk go.
There is no rain known there nor any sun, and no one is ever weary or hungry or afraid, but they lie wrapped in warm mists in a country where there is no noise nor bright light burning. They sleep on there and take their rest, knowing neither joy nor grief nor hope nor disappointment until time and space shall be no more.
The moon rose over the mountains, and the flood sang joyfully on its way to the tumbling waves in the estuary.
