the ditch, plough and all; but he ran on, and gave chase to Tom.
The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a trap, let the stoat go,
and caught his own finger; but he jumped up, and ran after Tom; and
considering what he said, and how he looked, I should have been
sorry for Tom if he had caught him. Sir John looked out of his
study window (for he was an early old gentleman) and up at the
nurse, and a marten dropped mud in his eye, so that he had at last
to send for the doctor; and yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom.
The Irishwoman, too, was walking up to the house to beg,--she must
have got round by some byway--but she threw away her bundle, and
gave chase to Tom likewise. Only my Lady did not give chase; for
when she had put her head out of the window, her night-wig fell
into the garden, and she had to ring up her lady's-maid, and send
her down for it privately, which quite put her out of the running,
so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently not placed.

In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place--not even when the
fox was killed in the conservatory, among acres of broken glass,
and tons of smashed flower-pots--such a noise, row, hubbub, babel,
shindy, hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and total contempt of
dignity, repose, and order, as that day, when Grimes, gardener, the
groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the ploughman, the
keeper, and the Irishwoman, all ran up the park, shouting, "Stop
thief," in the belief that Tom had at least a thousand pounds'
worth of jewels in his empty pockets; and the very magpies and jays
followed Tom up, screaking and screaming, as if he were a hunted
fox, beginning to droop his brush.

And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little bare
feet, like a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest. Alas for