aster. When he walks across
the park at dusk, he likes to take his wife with him, and on such
occasions he looks like a quiet workman out for a stroll with the
missus. He sometimes puts his arm round the lady's waist, and the couple
look so very loving and tender. It would never do to take the raking,
great deerhound; but the innocent little fawn dog naturally follows her
master, and looks, oh! so demure.

The lady wears a wide loose cloak, which comes to her feet, for you must
know that the mists rise very coldly from the hollows. Then these two
sentimentalists wend their way to a secluded quarter of the vast park,
and presently the faithful fawn mysteriously disappears. She moves slyly
among the bracken, and her exquisite scent serves to guide her
unerringly as she works up wind. Presently she steadies herself, takes
aim, and rushes! The rabbit only has time to turn once or twice before
the savage jaws close on him, and then the fawn makes her way carefully
towards Darby and Joan. She takes advantage of every shadow; she never
thinks of rashly crossing open ground, and Darby has only got to stamp
twice to make her lie down. She sneaks up, and, horror! she gives the
rabbit to Joan. Now under that cloak there is a useful little apparatus.
A strong strap is fastened under Joan's armpits and over her breasts.
This strap has on it a dozen strong hooks. Joan slits away the tendons
of the rabbit's hind legs from the bone, hangs the game on one of the
hooks, and the lovers wend their way peacefully, while the family
provider glides off on another murderous errand. When four or five hooks
are occupied, the lady walks homeward with the demure dog, Darby goes
and drinks at The Chequers till about eleven, and then the
mouse-coloured deerhound is taken out to do her share.

The fond couple were sitting on a bench under a tree, for Joan had
fairly tired under the weight of no less than nine rabbits which were
slung on her belt. The lurcher stole up, and quietly laid a rabbit down
at Joan's feet; then a soft-spoken man came from behind the tree, and
observed--

"I am a policeman in plain clothes, and you must go with me to the
keeper's cottage."

But Darby, the wily one, rose to the occasion. The dog is trained to
repudiate his acquaintance at a word, and when he said, "That's not my
dog; get off, you brute!" the accomplished lurcher picked up the rabbit
and vanished like lightning. Nevertheless the policeman led off Darby,
and