THE BRUTES ON THEIR MASTER.

No one seemed disposed to break the silence: the Fox surveyed their confusion with a malicious smile.

· After all,' he continued carelessly, the company still remaining mute, 'I don't know that it matters much to me. The conditions of my own life will not be materially affected, whatever course you take.' 'Not affected!' struck in the Dog quickly. 'Oh, come, that is a little too much. Why, surely, if you could induce us to act on your advice, you would

• Allow me to finish, if you please,' interrupted the other, with a touch of irritation. 'I should, even in that case, find it just as hard a matter to live; I should be shot and trapped instead of hunted, that is all. Nay, I might, perhaps, be worse off, as some people would consider it, than I am now. For I am told, and I see no particular reason to doubt it, that if it had not suited Man to preserve us for the purposes of sport our race would long since have become extinct. By detaching the Horse and Dog from Man, and thus rendering the fox-hunt an impossibility, we should in fact be removing the main factor in our perpetuation.'

Why are you trying to do it then?' inquired the Cat lazily, opening one eye to watch the effect of his question.

'Why?' echoed the Fox, with impatience. Because I hate to see people being made fools of, as you are; and because I would rather take my chance of fighting for existence under some additional disadvantages than see the simplicity of worthy animals abused by a hypocritical oppressor.'

Ha!' muttered the Cat. A disinterested Fox! I appreciate your motives. And,' added he, dreamily, 'I will not mention the word "chickens.”

6

With your antecedents you will exercise a wise discretion in not doing so,' said the Fox tartly; and let me tell you, my friend, that it is a matter of perfect indifference to me whether you appreciate my motives or not. My appeal is made to animals, not only of a superior intelligence to yours, but of a far higher morality than you have ever shown yourself capable of conceiving.'

The Cat returned no answer to this taunt.

He was asleep.

After a short pause, during which the Dog appeared lost in painful reflection, the Fox, in a still more insinuating tone, resumed.

6

'It is,' he said, 'precisely because I entertain so sincere a respect for that combination of moral and intellectual qualities which I find in you, and in our friend, the Horse, here, that I have thought it worth my while to lay these proposals of mine before you. It needs nothing less than that combination of qualities to enable you to be of any real service to us. We are all of us, as I hold, either persecuted or exploited or in some way or other ill-used by Man. To every one of us he plays the part either of open enemy or designing patron or treacherous comrade, as the case may be. But some among us, as, for instance, that poor silly thing there,' with a sidelong glance of contempt at the Sheep hard by, are both morally and mentally too weak to offer any resistance. Others, though not wanting in intelligence, strength, or courage, are unfortunately so situated as to be unable to render any effective help to the common cause. Others, again, though intellectually well fitted to devise a plan of revolt, and even to direct its execution, have not been fortunate enough for some reason or other'-here the Fox coughed with an air of constraint'to win the confidence of their fellow brutes. The Dog and the Horse, however, fulfil all the conditions required in leaders of a movement of emancipation. They have wit enough to see through Man's pretences to virtue, moral sense enough to be disgusted at his baseness, and more power of annoying and injuring him than all the rest of us put together. What say you, then? Will you join in the league of the lower animals, as my lord calls us, against him?'

'Not I!' replied the Dog promptly, all his doubts dispersed at once by the mere shock of the proposal. Not I! He's far too good.' Nor I,' said the Horse, though with less enthusiasm. He's much too strong.'

'Too strong!' echoed the Dog reproachfully. 'Is that all? I thought you loved him as I do.'

6

The Horse looked mildly at him for a moment before replying. 'I never said I did not,' he added presently. But perhaps I see more of his strength than you do.'

'I have more respect for your objection at any rate than for his,' said the Fox in a slightly contemptuous tone, but there is nothing in it. You don't suppose that I advocate anything like open resistance to our tyrant. I quite admit that he is too strong to allow any chance of success for that. No, what I mean is that Man is dependent upon you for a vast number of willingly rendered services; that he relies and has to rely in a hundred matters on the unforced zeal and docility of the Horse, and that were he suddenly to lose the benefit of these qualities and find himself unable to get any more out of the Horse than he could wring from him by absolute physical compulsion incessantly applied, he would find the situation intolerable.

'So should we, I expect,' said the Horse dryly.

6

'No doubt it would be disagreeable to you for a time,' admitted the Fox. But with your well-known fortitude you could surely tire him out. Besides, you continually have not only his comfort at your disposal but his life in your power. Think of the number of necks you might break by concerted action in a single day.'

6

'You don't tell me what I am to do, however,' said the Dog. For what services, pray, is Man so dependent upon me? I should think he could make a shift to do without hunting, and he seems to like shooting best without me. What could I do to injure him?'

This is mere affectation,' sneered the Fox. You know as well as I do that you are as necessary to Man in one way as the Horse is in another. He wants toys no less than tools, and you are toys to which he has become so accustomed that he could not do without you. Affection he calls his feeling for you, and you no doubt are weak enough to believe him. But anyhow you have grown into a habit with him, and it would throw the whole human race into selfish consternation to learn some fine morning that no dog would ever again lick man's hand.'

There was a diabolical twinkle in the Fox's eye as he uttered these words, but his tact told him the next moment that he had gone too far. The last suggestion seemed to fall upon the Dog like a blow. He winced and rose instantly to his feet.

C

'I will wish you good-night,' he said coldly. It is no use my staying here any longer. Nothing in the world should induce me to do what you ask.'

'Sit down again, pray,' said the Fox earnestly, and listen to me. I don't expect you to do what I am asking you as long as your feelings towards Man remain what they are. But surely I have already said enough to show you how misplaced is your regard for him.

not when I mention that ugly word again?'

The dog shuddered slightly but remained silent.

'Not when I mention vivisec

What!

'No,' said the dog, in a tone almost of irritation. I wish to hear no more about that. It ought to be enough for you to know that it doesn't in any degree alter my feelings towards Man.'

'Oh, that's impossible,' replied the Fox coolly. Or at least if it is possible, you must be in one sense as great an impostor as he is. What is the good of Man's having elevated your moral nature as he pretends to have done? What is the use of his having developed all the virtues in you if you can't feel now that your patron's vile heartlessness and hypocrisy deprive him of all title to respect? Why, even that wretched rabbit there, who cowers down when I merely mention his name, even he has conscience enough to appreciate the villainy of vivisection, if he has not sufficient force of character to condemn it. His brother was netted along with several friends and sold to a vivi

sector. He witnessed the whole performance in the person of one of his friends before fortunately making his own escape. Hi! Bunny! tell us what you think of cutting rabbits up alive.'

The Rabbit glanced timidly round him as though afraid of being overheard, and then replied, in a hurried, trembling whisper:

'I don't know. Don't ask me. It's bad--very bad. But-but my mother's hind legs were broken with a shot yesterday, and she has just crawled home. She's lying over there behind the hedge. I'm not sure shooting ain't worse than the other.'

can.

6

'You're a fool,' said the Fox, somewhat disconcerted at this display of independent judgment on the Rabbit's part. The sportsman kills outright a dozen times for once that he wounds. But the very object of the other wretch is to keep his victim alive as long as he Besides, that isn't the worst part of the matter by any means. Who cares what happens to us,-you, Bunny, I mean, and me? Man has never pretended to be our friend; he dislikes me and he despises you. If he ever condescends to do anything but shoot you it is only to put you into a hutch as a toy for his children. You rank merely as a larger sort of guinea pig or white mouse: while as for me'continued the Fox significantly—well, he has never tried to make a friend of me-not much. And between ourselves he is not far wrong. Anyhow he is welcome to vivisect me, when he can take me alive and persuade me to lie down quietly on the operating table, without trying a previous experiment in vivisection on my own account.' And here Reynard bared his formidable rows of teeth in an extremely sinister grin. To cut up a fox or a rabbit may be as cruel as you please, but you can't exactly call it base. Even to operate on a cat,' added the Fox, evidently not sorry to deal a side blow at his satirical companion, even to operate on a cat, domestic animal as he is called, appears to me to be much the same thing.'

6

'What's that you're saying?' asked the Cat drowsily.

you

I was saying,' repeated the Fox in his blandest tones, that though they call you a domestic animal, I don't believe that feel any particular affection towards Man, at least in a disinterested way; and that as he is probably conscious of that, he is more or less justified in treating you like one of us. What do you think about it yourself?'

6 What do I think about what?' asked the Cat, with as much impatience as he was capable of showing.

'Well, do you feel particularly disgusted at the thought of Man's putting one of your species to a cruel death?'

'I should feel particularly disgusted at the thought of Man's putting me to a cruel death,' was the reply.

'But more so at its being done by Man than by your natural enemy, the Dog?'

'Not a bit more,' said the Cat calmly. Why should I?'

'Precisely the answer I expected,' said the Fox with a chuckle. 'Then if you feel no deeper sense of injury, no keener throb of pain at being tortured by Man than by the Dog, you must be in reality as far apart from Man as we are, and he is under no obligation to treat you otherwise than as one of us. What do you say to that?' 'Nothing,' said the Cat, upon whom a fresh 'exposition of sleep' was rapidly gaining. Nothing. The question has no interest for

me.'

'Exactly. Then you may go to sleep again. Man, I say, might have destroyed or tortured us all-foxes, rabbits, sheep, even cats, without proving anything more than the hardness of his heart—– without exhibiting himself, I mean, as an ungrateful and treacherous villain. But the Dog, his comrade for a thousand years, the friend of his fireside, the companion of his walks, the guardian of his flocks, the sentry in his house, nay, the very saviour of his life on the snowfield or in the flood, the animal whom he boasts of having raised almost to equality with himself that Man should torture him! By Heaven!' cried the Fox in a well-simulated outburst of honest indignation. It is infamous!:

There was another silence, broken only by the low purring of the Cat. Upon the more intelligent members of the assembly this last stroke of the Fox's had not been without its effect. The Dog in particular, in spite of the firmness with which he had proclaimed his fidelity to Man, was evidently a prey to very strong emotions of doubt and pain.

6

'I do not believe,' he said at last, that Man often does torture the Dog in this way.'

'Not so often as the rabbit, it is true; but why? Because the rabbit is cheaper, no other reason. In the same way, no doubt, it would cost a man less to cut up children of his own begetting than to have to buy other people's; but I don't think the economy would be regarded in that case as a sufficient excuse. That Man should ever have vivisected the Dog at all is enough in itself to brand him. as the vilest creature in the creation.'

'I don't know,' said the Horse thoughtfully, 'that one is quite justified in saying that of the whole race. There are brutes of course among

'There are what?' interrupted the Fox sharply.

"I-I-mean,' said the Horse, a little confused, 'I mean what they themselves call "brutes.'

'Ay,' said the Fox, in a tone of profound bitterness. I know what you mean. And it shows how completely domestication has alienated your sympathies from your own people, that you have picked up the very cant of insult from our common oppressor. It is we who should rather stigmatise unusual cruelty or treachery among members of the brute creation, by applying to its author the name of " man.”