three letters: the bad fox has got the red hen. There was
something so dramatically complete about it; the badness of the
fox, added to all the traditional guile of his race, seemed to
heighten the horror of the hen's fate, and there was such a
suggestion of masterful malice about the word 'got.' One felt that
a countryside in arms would not get that hen away from the bad fox.
They used to think me a slow dull reader for not getting on with my
lesson, but I used to sit and picture to myself the red hen, with
its wings beating helplessly, screeching in terrified protest, or
perhaps, if he had got it by the neck, with beak wide agape and
silent, and eyes staring, as it left the farmyard for ever. I have
seen blood-spillings and down-crushings and abject defeat here and
there in my time, but the red hen has remained in my mind as the
type of helpless tragedy." He was silent for a moment as if he
were again musing over the three-letter drama that had so dwelt in
his childhood's imagination. "Tell me some of the things you have
seen in your time," was the request that was nearly on Elaine's
lips, but she hastily checked herself and substituted another.

"Tell me more about the farm, please."

And he told her of a whole world, or rather of several intermingled
worlds, set apart in this sleepy hollow in the hills, of beast lore
and wood lore and farm craft, at times touching almost the border
of witchcraft--passing lightly here, not with the probing eagerness
of those who know nothing, but with the averted glance of those who
fear to see too much. He told her of those things that slept and
those that prowled when the dusk fell, of strange hunting cats, of
the yard swine and the stalled cattle, of the farm folk themselves,
as curious and remote in their way, in their ideas and fears and