"Don't you remember, Mr. Runciman, about the end of last March?"
"Of course I remember," said the landlord. "Just the end of the
season, when two vixens had litters in the wood! You don't suppose
Bean was going to let that old butcher, Tony, find a fox in
Dillsborough at that time." Bean was his lordship's head gamekeeper
in that part of the country. "How many foxes had we found there
during the season?"
"Two or three," suggested Botsey.
"Seven!" said the energetic landlord; "seven, including
cub-hunting,--and killed four! If you kill four foxes out of an
eighty-acre wood, and have two litters at the end of the season,
I don't think you have much to complain of."
"If they all did as well as Lord Rufford, you'd have more foxes
than you'd know what to do with," said the doctor.
Then this branch of the conversation was ended by a bet of a new
hat between Botsey and the landlord as to the finding of a fox in
Dillsborough Wood when it should next be drawn; as to which, when
the speculation was completed, Harry Stubbings offered Mr. Runciman
ten shillings down for his side of the bargain.
But all this did not divert the general attention from the
important matter of Goarly's attack. "Let it be how it will," said
Mr. Runciman, "a fellow like that should be put down." He did not
address himself specially to Mr.
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