the dogs after him?"

"Yes."

"Did they get him?"

"No. He is a wise old fox. He lives up beyond the Crossroads garden. Dr.
Brooks thought when they came there to live that he would go away but he
hasn't. You see, it is his home. The hunters here all know him, and they
are always glad when he gets away."

Brinsley agreed. "There are so few native foxes left in the county that
most of us call off the dogs before a killing--we'd soon be without sport
if we didn't. An imported fox is a creature in a trap; you want the sly
old natives to give you a run for your money."

Little Francois, dark-eyed and dreamy, delivered an energetic opinion. "I
think it is horrid."

Peggy, less sensitive, and of the country, reproved him. "It's
gentleman's sport, isn't it, Mr. Brinsley?"

"Yes. To me the dogs and horses are the best part of it. The older I grow
the more I hate to kill--that's why I fish. They are cold-blooded
creatures."

Peggy, leaning on his knee, demanded a fish story. "The one you told us
the last time."

Brinsley's fish story was a poem written by one of the Old Gentlemen,
hunting now, it was to be hoped, in happier fields. It was an idyl of the
Chesapeake:

"In the Chesapeake and its tribute streams,
Where broadening out to the bay they come,
And the great fresh waters meet the brine,
There lives a fish that is called the drum."

The drum fish and an old negro, Ned, were the actors in the drama. Ned,
fishing one day in his dug-out canoe,

"Tied his line to his ankle tight,
To be ready to haul if the fish should bite,
And seized his fiddle----"

He played:

"But slower and slower he drew the bow,
And soft grew the music sweet and low,
The lids fell wearily over the eyes,
The bow arm stopped and the melodies.
The last strain melted along the deep,
And Ned, the old fisherman, sank to sleep.
Just then a huge drum, sent hither by fate,
Caught a passing glimpse of the tempting bait. . . .
. . . . One terrible jerk of wrath and dread
From the wounded fish as away he sped
With a strength by rage made double--
And into the water went old Ned.
No time for any 'last words' to be said,
For the waves settled placidly over his head,
And his last remark was a bubble."

The children's eyes were wide. Peggy was entranced, but Francois was not
so sure that he liked it. Brinsley's hand dropped on the little