world.

My reader, when chance has taken you into the hunting-field, has it
ever been your lot to sit by on horseback, and watch the digging out
of a fox? The operation is not an uncommon one, and in some
countries it is held to be in accordance with the rules of fair
sport. For myself, I think that when the brute has so far saved
himself, he should be entitled to the benefit of his cunning; but I
will not now discuss the propriety or impropriety of that practice
in venery. I can never, however, watch the doing of that work
without thinking much of the agonising struggles of the poor beast
whose last refuge is being torn from over his head. There he lies
within a few yards of his arch enemy, the huntsman. The thick
breath of the hounds make hot the air within his hole. The sound of
their voices is close upon his ears. His breast is nearly bursting
with the violence of that effort which at last has brought him to
his retreat. And then pickaxe and mattock are plied above his head,
and nearer and more near to him press his foes,--his double foes,
human and canine,--till at last a huge hand grasps him, and he is
dragged forth among his enemies. Almost as soon as his eyes have
seen the light the eager noses of a dozen hounds have moistened
themselves in his entrails. Ah me! I know that he is vermin, the
vermin after whom I have been risking my neck, with a bold ambition
that I might ultimately witness his death-struggles; but,
nevertheless, I would fain have saved him that last half hour of
gradually diminished hope.

And Aaron Trow was now like a hunted fox, doomed to be dug out from
his last refuge, with this addition to his misery, that these hounds
when they caught their prey, would not put him at once out of his