"Gad, Sir!"

Among Britain's country gentry, the sport of fox hunting has survived socialism, automobiles, electric fences and the gibes of wits like Oscar Wilde, who mocked it as "the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable."

But farm hand Roger Hilton, 28, born in industrial Lancashire, was new to the Gloucestershire countryside and its tradition-swathed hunters. When he saw a fox slinking toward his master's chicken house one day last week, Roger took up a shotgun and blasted the beast. Before the echoes died away, there was a clatter of hoofs, a clamor of hounds, and up rode the local hunt. The hunters stared aghast at Roger's atrocity. They were speechless. Not so Roger's employer.

"I sacked him for it, and I would do it again," said Farmer W. G. James. "Roger was a fine worker and a grand lad." Said Colonel E. P. Butler, hunt secretary: "Hunting is the way to keep down the fox population. Not a very good show, was it?" Roger booked passage for Canada. Said his young wife: "We want to forget this unpleasant episode."

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