lived all
his life among gentlemen in a hunting county, and had his own very
strong ideas about the trapping of foxes. Foxes first, and pheasants
afterwards, had always been the rule with him as to any land of which
he himself had had the management. And no man understood better than
he did how to deal with keepers as to this matter of fox-preserving,
or knew better that keepers will in truth obey not the words of their
employers, but their sympathies. "Wish them to have foxes, and pay
them, and they will have them," Mr. Sowerby of Chaldicotes used to
say, and he in his day was reckoned to be the best preserver of foxes
in Barsetshire. "Tell them to have them, and don't wish it, and pay
them well, and you won't have a fox to interfere with your game. I
don't care what a man says to me, I can read it all like a book when
I see his covers drawn." That was what poor Mr. Sowerby of Chaldicotes
used to say, and the archdeacon had heard him say it a score of
times, and had learned the lesson. But now his heart was not with the
foxes,--and especially not with the foxes on behalf of his son Henry.
"I can't have any meddling with Mr. Thorne," he said; "I can't; and I
won't."

"But I don't suppose it can be Mr. Thorne's order, your reverence; and
Mr. Henry is so particular."

"Of course it isn't Mr. Thorne's order. Mr. Thorne has been a hunting
man all his life."

"But he have guv' up now, your reverence. He ain't a hunted these two
years."

"I'm sure he wouldn't have the foxes trapped."

"Not if he knowed it, he wouldn't, your reverence. A gentleman of the
likes of him, who's been a hunting over fifty year, wouldn't do the
likes of that; but the foxes is trapped, and Mr. Henry'll be a putting
it on me if I don't speak out. They is Plumstead foxes, too; and a
vixen was trapped just across the field yonder, in Goshall Springs,
no later than yesterday morning." Flurry was now thoroughly in
earnest; and, indeed, the trapping of a vixen in February is a
serious thing.

"Goshall Springs don't belong to me," said the archdeacon.

"No, your reverence; they're on the Ullathorne property. But a word
from your reverence would do it. Mr. Henry thinks more of the foxes
than anything. The last word he told me was that it would break his
heart if he saw the coppices drawn blank."

"Then he must break his heart." The words were pronounced, but the
archdeacon had so much command over himself as to speak them in such
a voice that the