184 REYNARD THE FOX CHAP. XXI

whole kennel pursued him, horns and halloos
echoing after him, “ Kill the fox, kill the fox.”

‘This when 7Zzdert saw, he mocked my
father, and said, ‘“‘ Now, cousin Reynard, it is
time to let loose all your wiles, for if your wit
fail you, I fear your whole body will perish.”
This my father hearing from him he most
trusted, and being then in the height of
pursuit, wearied and almost spent, he let his
mail slip from his shoulders, to make himself
so much lighter; yet all availed not, for the
hounds were so swift they had caught him,
had he not by chance espied a hole, into
which he entered, and escaped the hounds and
huntsmen.

‘Thus you may see the false faith of the cat,
whose like there be many living at this time,
and though this might well excuse me from
loving the cat, yet my soul’s health and charity
bind me to the contrary, and I wish him no
hurt, though his misfortunes shall never be
grievous to me; not so much for hatred as the
remembrance of his injuries, which often con-
tends against my reason.

‘Also in that mirror stands another history of
the wolf, how on a time he found upon a heath
a dead horse, whose flesh being eaten away, he