Now a Russet Dog had noticed for some days a family of wrens, off which he wished to dine. He might have been satisfied with one, but he was determined to have the whole lot--father and eighteen sons--but all so like that he could not tell one from the other, or the father from the children.
"It is no use to kill one son," he said to himself, "because the old cock will take warning and fly away with the seventeen. I wish I knew which is the old gentleman."
He set his wits to work to find out, and one day seeing them all threshing in a barn, he sat down to watch them; still he could not be sure.
"Now I have it," he said; "well done the old man's stroke! He hits true," he cried.
"Oh!" replied the one he suspected of being the head of the family, "if you had seen my grandfather's strokes, you might have said that."
The sly fox pounced on the cock, ate him up in a trice, and then soon caught and disposed of the eighteen sons, all flying in terror about the barn.
For a long time a Tod-hunter had been very anxious to catch our friend the fox, and had stopped all the earths in cold weather. One evening he fell asleep in his hut; and when he opened his eyes he saw the fox sitting very demurely at the side of the fire. It had entered by the hole under the door provided for the convenience of the dog, the cat, the pig, and the hen.
"Oh! ho!" said the Tod-hunter, "now I have you." And he went and sat down at the hole to prevent Reynard's escape.
"Oh! ho!" said the fox, "I will soon make that stupid fellow get up." So he found the man's shoes, and putting them into the fire, wondered if that would make the enemy move.
"I shan't get up for that, my fine gentleman," cried the Tod-hunter.
Stockings followed the shoes, coat and trousers shared the same fate, but still the man sat over the hole. At last the fox having set the bed and bedding on fire, put a light to the straw on which his jailer lay, and it blazed up to the ceiling.
"No! that I cannot stand," shouted the man, jumping up; and the fox, taking advantage of the smoke and confusion, made good his exit.
But Master Rory did not always have it his own way. One day he met a cock, and they began talking.
"How many tricks canst thou do?" said the fox.