Vv REYNARD THE FOX 5

wu

noise pursued him, crying in his rage, ‘Turn,
villain, that I may be revenged of thee;’
but the bear swam in the strength of the
stream and suspected not his calling, for he
was proud that he was so escaped from them.
Only he bitterly cursed the honey tree and
the fox, which had not only betrayed him,
but had made him lose his hood from his
face, and his gloves from his fingers. In
this sort he swam some three miles down
the water, in which time he grew so weary
that he went on land to get ease, where
blood trickled down his face; he groaned,
sighed, and drew his breath so short, as if
his last hour had been expiring.

Now whilst these things were in doing,
the fox in his way home stole a fat hen, and
threw her into his mail, and running through
a bypath that no man might perceive him,
he came towards the river with infinite joy;
for he suspected that the bear was certainly
slain: therefore said to himself, ‘My fortune
is as I wished it, for the greatest enemy |
had in the court is now dead, nor can any
man suspect me guilty thereof. But as he
spake these words, looking towards the river,
he espied where Lrucx the bear lay and