fox had been hunted all day and the hounds were getting closer and do what
she might she couldn't throw them off. "Jump up and climb up me and run along
the high, stone wall," said the hawthorn tree."I don't think I could jump up anywhere now," said she, "but thank you kindly."
"There's a water-gap in the stone wall," said the hawthorn, "and the other side is the forest. Squeeze through. The hedgehog does."
"I'm not a hedgehog," said the fox, "but thank you kindly." Then she heard the hounds and squeezed herself inside and there she stuck and the hunt came by. They couldn't see her easily for she tucked in her brush and edged a bit more under the thick, stone wall.
"The tip of your brush is sticking out," said the tree. "Push your nose out as far as you like the other side of the wall. They'll have to go two miles round to find the gap to come round and see that."
So she gave a wriggle and left most of her shoulder pelt on the stones but she got through, and even then she stopped to thank the hawthorn before she limped off.
Only one great hound heard her and came snuffling the small watergap. Then he reached a great paw in and lifted his head to bay, but the hawthorn dropped a bunch of paigles [haws] down his throat and made him cough instead. "You give her a chance," the tree told him. "You're twice her size. Go round if you want to catch her up. She may be a vixen but she's got good manners. She doesn't cough and splutter all over my roots. Be off!" And the hound went.
But the fox was very lame and it wasn't long before she heard men again. "I must rest," she said and cowered in the brake ferns. But these men had axes and whispered, even in the forest, and she heard what they said and when they crept on their way she limped on hers, trying to hasten, for again she heard the hounds.
"O Holly Tree, block the way behind me, please!" she said.
But the holly tree was a barren holly and wicked. "I will if you come here," he told her, but she just looked at him.
"My poor little paws are too sore to walk on your leaves, Sir--you might hang me on your branches," and she went well away from his clutch.
The hounds drew nearer again. Then she saw the great oak and crawled to it.
"Please open and let me in. I bring news," she whined. The Oakmen don't believe a fox's word, but they guard all forest beasts so they pulled her safe inside where she lay panting. At last she gasped "Your mistletoe bough--men with axes--going to cut it down--they said so--but they're scared. Am I in time to save it?"
"Did you come through all these dangers to tell us that?" said the Oakmen. She had.
"Then we'll forget Farmer Gregg's geese and ducks and hens," they told her. "We don't shelter thieves but we can shelter a true friend. The hunt has gone past and away, and now you must go too. Wipe your sore paws in our oaktree rainpool." So she did and her coat grew again and her pads were healed.
"Keep away from the Barren Holly," they said--she meant to--"and never come here again."
And she was off home to her den in the crags like a red flash and curled up and sound asleep in another minute.
When she woke Mr Fox had just brought home a fat goose. "One of Farmer Gregg's, my love," he said. "He won't need it and you do. He's hanging high on the branches of a barren holly in the forest and another man with him. Eat the goose, love, and I'll just go back and bring a duck for supper."
