Alice said, 'Noel will faint. Somebody once tried to take him to prison before--about a dog. Do please come to our house and see our uncle--at least he's not--but it's the same thing. We didn't kill the fox, if that's what you think--indeed we didn't. Oh, dear, I do wish you'd think of your own little boys and girls if you've got any, or else about when you were little. You wouldn't be so horrid if you did.'
I don't know which, if either, of these objects the fox-hound master thought of, but he said--'Well, lead on,' and he let go Noel's ear and Alice snuggled up to Noel and put her arm round him.
It was a frightened procession, whose cheeks were pale with alarm--except those between white whiskers, and they were red--that wound in at our gate and into the hall among the old oak furniture, and black and white marble floor and things.
Dora and Daisy were at the door. The pink petticoat lay on the table, all stained with the gore of the departed. Dora looked at us all, and she saw that it was serious. She pulled out the big oak chair and said, 'Won't you sit down?' very kindly to the white- whiskered magistrate.
He grunted, but did as she said.
Then he looked about him in a silence that was not comforting, and so did we. At last he said--'Come, you didn't try to bolt. Speak the truth, and I'll say no more.'
We said we had.
Then he laid the fox on the table, spreading out the petticoat under it, and he took out a knife and the girls hid their faces.
Even Oswald did not care to look. Wounds in battle are all very well, but it's different to see a dead fox cut into with a knife.
Next moment the magistrate wiped something on his handkerchief and then laid it on the table, and put one of my cartridges beside it.
It was the bullet that had killed the fox.
'Look here!' he said. And it was too true. The bullets were the same.
A thrill of despair ran through Oswald. He knows now how a hero feels when he is innocently accused of a crime and the judge is putting on the black cap, and the evidence is convulsive and all human aid is despaired of.
'I can't help it,' he said, 'we didn't kill it, and that's all there is to it.'
The white-whiskered magistrate may have been master of the fox-hounds, but he was not master of his temper, which is more important, I should think, than a lot of beastly dogs.
He said several words which Oswald would never repeat, much less in his own conversing, and besides that he called us 'obstinate little beggars'.
Then suddenly Albert's uncle entered in the midst of a silence freighted with despairing reflections. The M.F.H. got up and told his tale: it was mainly lies, or, to be more polite, it was hardly any of it true, though I supposed he believed it.
'I am very sorry, sir' said Albert's uncle, looking at the bullets.
'You'll excuse my asking for the children's version?'
'Oh, certainly, sir, certainly,' fuming, the fox-hound magistrate replied.
Then Albert's uncle said, 'Now Oswald, I know I can trust you to speak the exact truth.'
So Oswald did.
Then the white-whiskered fox-master laid the bullets before Albert's uncle, and I felt this would be a trial to his faith far worse than the rack or the thumb-screw in the days of the Armada.
And then Denny came in. He looked at the fox on the table.
'You found it, then?' he said.
The M.F.H. would have spoken but Albert's uncle said, 'One moment, Denny; you've seen this fox before?'
'Rather,' said Denny; 'I--'
But Albert's uncle said, 'Take time. Think before you speak and say the exact truth. No, don't whisper to Oswald. This boy,' he said to the injured fox-master, 'has been with me since seven this morning. His tale, whatever it is, will be independent evidence.'
But Denny would not speak, though again and again Albert's uncle told him to.
'I can't till I've asked Oswald something,' he said at last. White Whiskers said, 'That looks bad--eh?'
But Oswald said, 'Don't whisper, old chap. Ask me whatever you like, but speak up.'
So Denny said, 'I can't without breaking the secret oath.'
So then Oswald began to see, and he said, 'Break away for all you're worth, it's all right.'
And Denny said, drawing relief's deepest breath, 'Well then, Oswald and I have got a pistol--shares--and I had it last night. And when I couldn't sleep last night because of the toothache I got up and went out early this morning. And I took the pistol. And I loaded it just for fun. And down in the wood I heard a whining like a dog, and I went, and there was the poor fox caught in an iron trap with teeth. And I went to let it out and it bit me--look, here's the place--and the pistol went off and the fox died, and I am so sorry.'
'But why didn't you tell the others?'
'They weren't awake when I went to the dentist's.'
'But why didn't you tell your uncle if you've been with him all the morning?'
'It was the oath,' H. O. said--'May I be called a beastly sneak If this great secret I ever repeat.'
White Whiskers actually grinned.
'Well,' he said, 'I see it was an accident, my boy.' Then he turned to us and said--'I owe you an apology for doubting your word--all of you. I hope it's accepted.'
We said it was all right and he was to never mind.
But all the same we hated him for it. He tried to make up for his unbelievingness afterwards by asking Albert's uncle to shoot rabbits; but we did not really forgive him till the day when he sent the fox's brush to Alice, mounted in silver with a note about her plucky conduct in standing by her brothers.
We got a lecture about not playing with firearms, but no punishment, because our conduct had not been exactly sinful, Albert's uncle said, but merely silly.
The pistol and the cartridges were confiscated.
I hope the house will never be attacked by burglars. When it is, Albert's uncle will only have himself to thank if we are rapidly overpowered, because it will be his fault that we shall have to meet them totally unarmed, and be their almost unresisting prey.
