“Very well, Squire,” said Giles, “I’ll leave, and I hope you’ll find some one to serve you better. Meanwhile I didn’t shoot the dratted fox. At least I only shot her after she’d gone and got herself into a trap which I had set for that there Rectory dog what you told me to make off with on the quiet, so that the young lady might never know what become of it and cry and make a fuss as she did about the last. Then seeing that she was finished, with her leg half chewed off, I shot her, or rather I didn’t shoot her as well as I should, for the beggar gave a twist as I fired, and now she’s bit me right through the hand. I only hopes you won’t have to pay my widow for it, Squire, under the Act, as foxes’ bites is uncommon poisonous, especially when they’ve been a-eating of rotten rabbit.” “Dear me!” said the Red-faced Man softening, “dear me, the beast does seem to have bitten you very badly. You must go and be cauterised with a red-hot iron. It is painful but the best thing to do. Meanwhile, suck it, Giles, suck it! I daresay that will draw out the poison, and if it doesn’t, thank my stars! I am insured. Look here, a minute or two can make no difference, for if you are poisoned, you are poisoned. Where can we put this brute? I wouldn’t have it seen for ten pounds.” “There’s an old pollard, Squire, about five yards away down near the fence, which is hollow and handy,” said Giles. “Quite so,” he answered, “I know it well. Do you bring the—dog, Giles. Remember, it was a dog, not a fox.” Then they went to the pollard, and as Giles’s hand was hurt the Red-faced Man climbed up it, though Giles tried to prevent him. “Now then, Giles,” he said, “give me the fox—I mean the dog, and I will drop it down. Great Heavens! how this tree stinks. Has there been an earth here?” “Not as I knows of, Squire,” said Giles sullenly. Grampus stretched his hand down into the hollow of the pollard and dragged up a rotting fox by its tail. “Giles,” he said, “you have been killing more foxes and hiding them in this tree. Giles, I dismiss you at once and without a month’s wages.” “All right, sir,” said Giles, “I’ll go, and I prays you’ll find some one what will keep your hares which you must have, and your pheasants which you must have, and your partridges which you must have, without killing these varmints of foxes what eats the lot.” The Red-faced Man descended from the tree holding his nose and looked at Giles. Giles sucked his bleeding hand and looked at him. “Foxes are very destructive animals,” said the Red-faced Man to Giles, “especially when one shoots and keeps harriers.” “They are that, sir,” said Giles to the Red-faced Man, “as only those know what has to do with them.”