"And we all knows that the HOSSES like it,
"And we all knows that the HOUNDS like it,
"And," after a long pause, "none on us, my lady, can know for certain, that the FOXES don't like it."
It may strongly be suspected, however, that they do not enjoy being hunted to death, and consequently that the operation, whenever and wherever it is performed, is, to a certain degree, an act of cruelty; which it is only hypocritical to vindicate by pretending to argue that Puggy has been sentenced to death to expiate his sins; for if, instead of robbing a hen roost, it had been his habit to come in all weathers secretly to sit on its nests to help and hatch the chickens, "The Times" newspaper would have advertised "hunting appointments" which would have been as numerously attended,—the hounds would have thrown off with the same punctuality,—and men and horses would have ridden just as eagerly and as gallantly to be in at the death of the saint as of a sinner, whose destruction all barn-door fowls, geese, turkeys, pheasants, and rabbits in his neighbourhood would certainly not be disposed to regret.
As regards, however, the hunted animal, as well as the creatures that hunt him, we will observe that the sufferings of a fox that is eaten up by hounds are probably not much greater and possibly a little less than those of the poor worm that on our hook catches the fish,—of the fish that catches the worm,—of the live eels that we skin,—or of the sheep and bullocks that are every day in thousands driven foot-sore to our slaughter-houses.
If our Arthingworth fox had taken in "The Times," the Waterloo covert, after all the preparations we have described, would most certainly have been drawn "blank." But while undertakers in scarlet, in black, and in brown coats, were expending many thousand pounds in preparations for his funeral, he, totally unconscious of them, was creeping within it, in the rude health and perfect happiness he had enjoyed in Leicestershire, his native county.
All of a sudden he hears disagreeable sounds, and encounters unpleasant smells, that sentence him without delay "to return to the place from whence he came." With elastic limbs, and a stout heart to propel them, "away" he starts. Everything he does evinces extraordinary resolution, determination, and courage. While the high-bred hounds that are following him over-top every hedge, he dashes through their boughs, thorns, and briars, as straight as an arrow from a bow. When, on reaching the "earth" he has been making for, he finds that it is stopped, instead of weakly dwelling there, "away" he again starts for some other cunning hidingplace. As he proceeds, his wind, but not his courage, fails him, until, on the pack approaching him, though any one of them would have yelped piteously had but one of his toes been caught in a trap, yet, so soon as the leading hound comes up, he pitches into him, and when the infuriated pack rush in upon him, he invariably dies in the midst of them, without the utterance of the smallest moan, sigh, or sound. In fact, within the breasts of all who have pursued him there does not exist a braver heart than that over which the huntsman, cracking his whip to keep the hounds at bay from it, is triumphantly crying "Whoo-oop!"[H]
The Lamb and the Fox.
But the plot of our drama thickens. For on the green carpet of our little theatre, on which so many actors have been performing, there now lie tragically before us, as it were side by side, the body of a swooned lamb, and the carcase of a dead fox. Let us therefore for a moment place each into one of the scales of Justice, to weigh the relative specific gravities of these two tiny emblems— the one of innocence, the other of guilt—as regards their utility to man.