Page:Tales of old Lusitania.djvu/82

70 come amiss just now when I am rather pressed by hunger."

"Well, then, come to my house this afternoon, and you can choose a couple for yourself out of my poultry yard."

The fox, not suspecting any treachery from the man, went to his house according to his invitation to pick out for herself a couple of fowls, and perhaps a few more by aid of her arts and cunning; the hunter, however, who had a number of fox-hounds safe in their kennels in a yard, on seeing her coming, let the hounds loose upon her; but she, seeing them, took to flight, and as she was running away from her pursuers an impudent cock flew on the wall of the yard, and with a crow cried out to her thus: "Show the dogs the new decree show the dogs the new decree!"

The fox having made her escape from the hounds, next went into a maize field, which belonged to the hunter, there to hide and rest after her run; and once there she began to meditate revenge against the hunter for the wrong he had done her. Seeing that the maize was well grown and ripe, and that a wall protected and enclosed the field, she saw at once with her usual perspicacity, an opportunity for venting her revenge, and, with great deliberation, she set about the work of destruction. She leaped on the wall, and standing upon it, began to detach stone after stone,