couldn't
find anything but a rabbit that hid, so my brother was being the fox,
and then we found the fox shot dead, and I don't know who did it; and we
were sorry for it and we buried it--and that's all."

"Not quite," said the riding-breeches gentleman, with what I think you
call a bitter smile, "not quite. This is my land, and I'll have you up
for trespass and damage. Come along now, no nonsense! I'm a magistrate
and I'm Master of the Hounds. A vixen, too! What did you shoot her with?
You're too young to have a gun. Sneaked your father's revolver, I
suppose?"

Oswald thought it was better to be goldenly silent. But it was vain. The
Master of the Hounds made him empty his pockets, and there was the
pistol and the cartridges.

The magistrate laughed a harsh laugh of successful disagreeableness.

"All right," said he, "where's your license? You come with me. A week or
two in prison."

I don't believe now he could have done it, but we all thought then he
could and would, what's more.

So H. O. began to cry, but Noel spoke up. His teeth were chattering, yet
he spoke up like a man.

He said, "You don't know us. You've no right not to believe us till
you've found us out in a lie. We don't tell lies. You ask Albert's uncle
if we do."

"Hold your tongue," said the White Whiskered.

But Noel's blood was up.

"If you do put us in prison without being sure," he said, trembling more
and more, "you are a horrible tyrant like Caligula, and Herod, or Nero,
and the Spanish Inquisition, and I will write a poem about it in prison,
and people will curse you forever."

"Upon my word," said White Whiskers, "we'll see about that," and he
turned up the lane with the fox hanging from one hand and Noel's ear
once more reposing in the other.

I thought Noel would cry or faint. But he bore up nobly--exactly like an
early Christian martyr.

The rest of us came along too. I carried the spade and Dicky had the
fork, H. O. had the card, and Noel had the magistrate. At the end of the
lane there was Alice. She had bunked home, obeying the orders of her
thoughtful brother, but she had bottled back again like a shot, so as
not to be out of the scrape. She is almost worthy to be a boy for some
things.

She spoke to Mr. Magistrate and said:

"Where are you taking him?"

The outraged majesty of the magistrate said, "To prison, you naughty
little girl."

Alice said, "Noel will faint. Somebody once tried to take him to prison
before-