It was really Isabel's idea. But it must be admitted that the Foxes
took it up with remarkable promptitude. How it reached them is
uncertain, but maybe the little bird that nests outside her nursery
window knows more than we do.

The idea owed its inception to my attempt at explaining the
pink-coated horsemen depicted on an old Christmas card. I did my best,
right up to and including the "worry," in which Isabel joined with
enthusiasm. Then she went to bed.

But not to sleep. As I passed by the open door I heard a small
excited voice expounding to a lymphatic dolly the whole mystery of
fox-hunting:--

"And there was a wood, and there was a smell. And all the peoploos
on '_normous_ huge high horses. And _nen_ all the hound-foxes runned
after the smell and eated it all up."

A fortnight later, taking a short cut through the Squire's coverts, I
sat down to enjoy the glory of woodland springtime. "There was a wood
and there was a smell." There certainly was; in fact I was all but
sitting upon an earth.

All this is credible enough. Now I hope you will believe the rest of
the story.

A dirty sheet of paper lay near Reynard's front doorstep. Idly
curious, I picked it up. Strange paper, a form of print that I had
never seen before; marked too with dirty pads.