Title: Lady into Fox
Author: Garnett, David, 1892-1981
Language: English
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LADY INTO FOX

By

DAVID GARNETT

ILLUSTRATED WITH WOOD ENGRAVINGS

BY R. A. GARNETT

1922



TO

DUNCAN GRANT



[Illustration: MR. AND MRS. TEBRICK AT HOME]


Wonderful or supernatural events are not so uncommon, rather they are
irregular in their incidence. Thus there may be not one marvel to speak
of in a century, and then often enough comes a plentiful crop of them;
monsters of all sorts swarm suddenly upon the earth, comets blaze in
the sky, eclipses frighten nature, meteors fall in rain, while mermaids
and sirens beguile, and sea-serpents engulf every passing ship, and
terrible cataclysms beset humanity.

But the strange event which I shall here relate came alone, unsupported,
without companions into a hostile world, and for that very reason
claimed little of the general attention of mankind. For the sudden
changing of Mrs. Tebrick into a vixen is an established fact which we
may attempt to account for as we will. Certainly it is in the
explanation of the fact, and the reconciling of it with our general
notions that we shall find most difficulty, and not in accepting for
true a story which is so fully proved, and that not by one witness but
by a dozen, all respectable, and with no possibility of collusion
between them.

But here I will confine myself to an exact narrative of the event and
all that followed on it. Yet I would not dissuade any of my readers from
attempting an explanation of this seeming miracle because up till now
none has been found which is entirely satisfactory. What adds to the
difficulty to my mind is that the metamorphosis occurred when Mrs.
Tebrick was a full-grown woman, and that it happened suddenly in so
short a space of time. The sprouting of a tail, the gradual extension of
hair all over the body, the slow change of the whole anatomy by a
process of growth, though it would have been monstrous, would not have
been so difficult to reconcile to our ordinary conceptions, particularly
had it happened in a young child.

But here we have something very different. A grown lady is changed
straightway into a fox. There is no explaining that away by any natural
philosophy. The materialism of our age will not help us here. It is
indeed a _miracle_; something from outside our world altogether; an
event which we would willingly accept if we were to meet it invested
with the authority of Divine Revelation in the scriptures, but which we
are not prepared to encounter almost in our time, happening in
Oxfordshire amongst our neighbours.

The only things which go any way towards an explanation of it are but
guesswork, and I give them more because I would not conceal anything,
than because I think they are of any worth.

Mrs. Tebrick's maiden name was certainly Fox, and it is possible that
such a miracle happening before, the family may have gained their name
as a _soubriquet_ on that account. They were an ancient family, and have
had their seat at Tangley Hall time out of mind. It is also true that
there was a half-tame fox once upon a time chained up at Tangley Hall in
the inner yard, and I have heard many speculative wiseacres in the
public-houses turn that to great account--though they could not but
admit that "there was never one there in Miss Silvia's time." At first I
was inclined to think that Silvia Fox, having once hunted when she was
a child of ten and having been blooded, might furnish more of an
explanation. It seems she took great fright or disgust at it, and
vomited after it was done. But now I do not see that it has much bearing
on the miracle itself, even though we know that after that she always
spoke of the "poor foxes" when a hunt was stirring and never rode to
hounds till after her marriage when her husband persuaded her to it.

She was married in the year 1879 to Mr. Richard Tebrick, after a short
courtship, and went to live after their honeymoon at Rylands, near
Stokoe, Oxon. One point indeed I have not been able to ascertain and
that is how they first became acquainted. Tangley Hall is over thirty
miles from Stokoe, and is extremely remote. Indeed to this day there is
no proper road to it, which is all the more remarkable as it is the
principal, and indeed the only, manor house for several miles round.

Whether it was from a chance meeting on the roads, or less romantic but
more probable, by Mr. Tebrick becoming acquainted with her uncle, a
minor canon at Oxford, and thence being invited by him to visit Tangley
Hall, it is impossible to say. But however they became acquainted the
marriage was a very happy one. The bride was in her twenty-third year.
She was small, with remarkably small hands and feet. It is perhaps worth
noting that there was nothing at all foxy or vixenish in her appearance.
On the contrary, she was a more than ordinarily beautiful and agreeable
woman. Her eyes were of a clear hazel but exceptionally brilliant, her
hair dark, with a shade of red in it, her skin brownish, with a few dark
freckles and little moles. In manner she was reserved almost to shyness,
but perfectly self-possessed, and perfectly well-bred.

She had been strictly brought up by a woman of excellent principles and
considerable attainments, who died a year or so before the marriage. And
owing to the circumstance that her mother had been dead many years, and
her father bedridden, and not altogether rational for a little while
before his death, they had few visitors but her uncle. He often stopped
with them a month or two at a stretch, particularly in winter, as he was
fond of shooting snipe, which are plentiful in the valley there. That
she did not grow up a country hoyden is to be explained by the
strictness of her governess and the influence of her uncle. But perhaps
living in so wild a place gave her some disposition to wildness, even in
spite of her religious upbringing. Her old nurse said: "Miss Silvia was
always a little wild at heart," though if this was true it was never
seen by anyone else except her husband.

On one of the first days of the year 1880, in the early afternoon,
husband and wife went for a walk in the copse on the little hill above
Rylands. They were still at this time like lovers in their behaviour and
were always together. While they were walking they heard the hounds and
later the huntsman's horn in the distance. Mr. Tebrick had persuaded her
to hunt on Boxing Day, but with great difficulty, and she had not
enjoyed it (though of hacking she was fond enough).

Hearing the hunt, Mr. Tebrick quickened his pace so as to reach the edge
of the copse, where they might get a good view of the hounds if they
came that way. His wife hung back, and he, holding her hand, began
almost to drag her. Before they gained the edge of the copse she
suddenly snatched her hand away from his very violently and cried out,
so that he instantly turned his head.

_Where his wife had been the moment before was a small fox, of a very
bright red._ It looked at him very beseechingly, advanced towards him a
pace or two, and he saw at once that his wife was looking at him from
the animal's eyes. You may well think if he were aghast: and so maybe
was his lady at finding herself in that shape, so they did nothing for
nearly half-an-hour but stare at each other, he bewildered, she asking
him with her eyes as if indeed she spoke to him: "What am I now become?
Have pity on me, husband, have pity on me for I am your wife."

So that with his gazing on her and knowing her well, even in such a
shape, yet asking himself at every moment: "Can it be she? Am I not
dreaming?" and her beseeching and lastly fawning on him and seeming to
tell him that it was she indeed, they came at last together and he took
her in his arms. She lay very close to him, nestling under his coat and
fell to licking his face, but never taking her eyes from his.  The
husband all this while kept turning the thing in his head and gazing on
her, but he could make no sense of what had happened, but only comforted
himself with the hope that this was but a momentary change, and that
presently she would turn back again into the wife that was one flesh
with him.

One fancy that came to him, because he was so much more like a lover
than a husband, was that it was his fault, and this because if anything
dreadful happened he could never blame her but himself for it.

So they passed a good while, till at last the tears welled up in the
poor fox's eyes and she began weeping (but quite in silence), and she
trembled too as if she were in a fever. At this he could not contain his
own tears, but sat down on the ground and sobbed for a great while, but
between his sobs kissing her quite as if she had been a woman, and not
caring in his grief that he was kissing a fox on the muzzle.

They sat thus till it was getting near dusk, when he recollected
himself, and the next thing was that he must somehow hide her, and then
bring her home.

He waited till it was quite dark that he might the better bring her into
her own house without being seen, and buttoned her inside his topcoat,
nay, even in his passion tearing open his waistcoat and his shirt that
she might lie the closer to his heart. For when we are overcome with
the greatest sorrow we act not like men or women but like children
whose comfort in all their troubles is to press themselves against their
mother's breast, or if she be not there to hold each other tight in one
another's arms.

When it was dark he brought her in with infinite precautions, yet not
without the dogs scenting her after which nothing could moderate their
clamour.

Having got her into the house, the next thing he thought of was to hide
her from the servants. He carried her to the bedroom in his arms and
then went downstairs again.

Mr. Tebrick had three servants living in the house, the cook, the
parlour-maid, and an old woman who had been his wife's nurse. Besides
these women there was a groom or a gardener (whichever you choose to
call him), who was a single man and so lived out, lodging with a
labouring family about half a mile away.

Mr. Tebrick going downstairs pitched upon the parlour-maid.

"Janet," says he, "Mrs. Tebrick and I have had some bad news, and Mrs.
Tebrick was called away instantly to London and left this afternoon, and
I am staying to-night to put our affairs in order. We are shutting up
the house, and I must give you and Mrs. Brant a month's wages and ask
you to leave to-morrow morning at seven o'clock. We shall probably go
away to the Continent, and I do not know when we shall come back. Please
tell the others, and now get me my tea and bring it into my study on a
tray."  Janet said nothing for she was a shy girl, particularly before
gentlemen, but when she entered the kitchen Mr. Tebrick heard a sudden
burst of conversation with many exclamations from the cook.

When she came back with his tea, Mr. Tebrick said: "I shall not require
you upstairs. Pack your own things and tell James to have the waggonette
ready for you by seven o'clock to-morrow morning to take you to the
station. I am busy now, but I will see you again before you go."

When she had gone Mr. Tebrick took the tray upstairs. For the first
moment he thought the room was empty, and his vixen got away, for he
could see no sign of her anywhere. But after a moment he saw something
stirring in a corner of the room, and then behold! she came forth
dragging her dressing-gown, into which she had somehow struggled.

This must surely have been a comical sight, but poor Mr. Tebrick was
altogether too distressed then or at any time afterwards to divert
himself at such ludicrous scenes. He only called to her softly:

"Silvia--Silvia. What do you do there?" And then in a moment saw for
himself what she would be at, and began once more to blame himself
heartily--because he had not guessed that his wife would not like to go
naked, notwithstanding the shape she was in. Nothing would satisfy
him then till he had clothed her suitably, bringing her dresses from the
wardrobe for her to choose. But as might have been expected, they were
too big for her now, but at last he picked out a little dressing-jacket
that she was fond of wearing sometimes in the mornings. It was made of
a flowered silk, trimmed with lace, and the sleeves short enough to sit
very well on her now. While he tied the ribands his poor lady thanked
him with gentle looks and not without some modesty and confusion. He
propped her up in an armchair with some cushions, and they took tea
together, she very delicately drinking from a saucer and taking bread
and butter from his hands. All this showed him, or so he thought, that
his wife was still herself; there was so little wildness in her
demeanour and so much delicacy and decency, especially in her not
wishing to run naked, that he was very much comforted, and began to
fancy they could be happy enough if they could escape the world and live
always alone.

From this too sanguine dream he was aroused by hearing the gardener
speaking to the dogs, trying to quiet them, for ever since he had come
in with his vixen they had been whining, barking and growling, and all
as he knew because there was a fox within doors and they would kill it.

He started up now, calling to the gardener that he would come down to
the dogs himself to quiet them, and bade the man go indoors again and
leave it to him. All this he said in a dry, compelling kind of voice
which made the fellow do as he was bid, though it was against his will,
for he was curious. Mr. Tebrick went downstairs, and taking his gun from
the rack loaded it and went out into the yard. Now there were two dogs,
one a handsome Irish setter that was his wife's dog (she had brought it
with her from Tangley Hall on her marriage); the other was an old fox
terrier called Nelly that he had had ten years or more.

When he came out into the yard both dogs saluted him by barking and
whining twice as much as they did before, the setter jumping up and down
at the end of his chain in a frenzy, and Nelly shivering, wagging her
tail, and looking first at her master and then at the house door, where
she could smell the fox right enough.

There was a bright moon, so that Mr. Tebrick could see the dogs as
clearly as could be. First he shot his wife's setter dead, and then
looked about him for Nelly to give her the other barrel, but he could
see her nowhere. The bitch was clean gone, till, looking to see how she
had broken her chain, he found her lying hid in the back of her kennel.
But that trick did not save her, for Mr. Tebrick, after trying to pull
her out by her chain and finding it useless--she would not come,--thrust
the muzzle of his gun into the kennel, pressed it into her body and so
shot her. Afterwards, striking a match, he looked in at her to make
certain she was dead. Then, leaving the dogs as they were, chained up,
Mr. Tebrick went indoors again and found the gardener, who had not yet
gone home, gave him a month's wages in lieu of notice and told him he
had a job for him yet--to bury the two dogs and that he should do it
that same night.

But by all this going on with so much strangeness and authority on his
part, as it seemed to them, the servants were much troubled. Hearing the
shots while he was out in the yard his wife's old nurse, or Nanny, ran
up to the bedroom though she had no business there, and so opening the
door saw the poor fox dressed in my lady's little jacket lying back in
the cushions, and in such a reverie of woe that she heard nothing.

Old Nanny, though she was not expecting to find her mistress there,
having been told that she was gone that afternoon to London, knew her
instantly, and cried out:

"Oh, my poor precious! Oh, poor Miss Silvia! What dreadful change is
this?" Then, seeing her mistress start and look at her, she cried out:
"But never fear, my darling, it will all come right, your old Nanny
knows you, it will all come right in the end."

But though she said this she did not care to look again, and kept her
eyes turned away so as not to meet the foxy slit ones of her mistress,
for that was too much for her. So she hurried out soon, fearing to be
found there by Mr. Tebrick, and who knows, perhaps shot, like the dogs,
for knowing the secret.

Mr. Tebrick had all this time gone about paying off his servants and
shooting his dogs as if he were in a dream. Now he fortified himself
with two or three glasses of strong whisky and went to bed, taking his
vixen into his arms, where he slept soundly. Whether she did or not is
more than I or anybody else can say.

In the morning when he woke up they had the place to themselves, for on
his instructions the servants had all left first thing: Janet and the
cook to Oxford, where they would try and find new places, and Nanny
going back to the cottage near Tangley, where her son lived, who was the
pigman there.

So with that morning there began what was now to be their ordinary life
together. He would get up when it was broad day, and first thing light
the fire downstairs and cook the breakfast, then brush his wife, sponge
her with a damp sponge, then brush her again, in all this using scent
very freely to hide somewhat her rank odour. When she was dressed he
carried her downstairs and they had their breakfast together, she
sitting up to table with him, drinking her saucer of tea, and taking her
food from his fingers, or at any rate being fed by him. She was still
fond of the same food that she had been used to before her
transformation, a lightly boiled egg or slice of ham, a piece of
buttered toast or two, with a little quince and apple jam. While I am on
the subject of her food, I should say that reading in the encyclopedia
he found that foxes on the Continent are inordinately fond of grapes,
and that during the autumn season they abandon their ordinary diet for
them, and then grow exceedingly fat and lose their offensive odour.

This appetite for grapes is so well confirmed by Aesop, and by passages
in the Scriptures, that it is strange Mr. Tebrick should not have known
it. After reading this account he wrote to London for a basket of grapes
to be posted to him twice a week and was rejoiced to find that the
account in the encyclopedia was true in the most important of these
particulars. His vixen relished them exceedingly and seemed never to
tire of them, so that he increased his order first from one pound to
three pounds and afterwards to five. Her odour abated so much by this
means that he came not to notice it at all except sometimes in the
mornings before her toilet. What helped most to make living with her
bearable for him was that she understood him perfectly--yes, every word
he said, and though she was dumb she expressed herself very fluently by
looks and signs though never by the voice.

Thus he frequently conversed with her, telling her all his thoughts and
hiding nothing from her, and this the more readily because he was very
quick to catch her meaning and her answers.

"Puss, Puss," he would say to her, for calling her that had been a habit
with him always. "Sweet Puss, some men would pity me living alone here
with you after what has happened, but I would not change places while
you were living with any man for the whole world. Though you are a fox I
would rather live with you than any woman. I swear I would, and that too
if you were changed to anything." But then, catching her grave look, he
would say: "Do you think I jest on these things, my dear? I do not. I
swear to you, my darling, that all my life I will be true to you, will
be faithful, will respect and reverence you who are my wife. And I will
do that not because of any hope that God in His mercy will see fit to
restore your shape, but solely because I love you. However you may be
changed, my love is not."

Then anyone seeing them would have sworn that they were lovers, so
passionately did each look on the other.

Often he would swear to her that the devil might have power to work some
miracles, but that he would find it beyond him to change his love for
her.

These passionate speeches, however they might have struck his wife in an
ordinary way, now seemed to be her chief comfort. She would come to him,
put her paw in his hand and look at him with sparkling eyes shining
with joy and gratitude, would pant with eagerness, jump at him and lick
his face.

Now he had many little things which busied him in the house--getting his
meals, setting the room straight, making the bed and so forth. When he
was doing this housework it was comical to watch his vixen. Often she
was as it were beside herself with vexation and distress to see him in
his clumsy way doing what she could have done so much better had she
been able. Then, forgetful of the decency and the decorum which she had
at first imposed upon herself never to run upon all fours, she followed
him everywhere, and if he did one thing wrong she stopped him and showed
him the way of it. When he had forgot the hour for his meal she would
come and tug his sleeve and tell him as if she spoke: "Husband, are we
to have no luncheon to-day?"

This womanliness in her never failed to delight him, for it showed she
was still his wife, buried as it were in the carcase of a beast but with
a woman's soul. This encouraged him so much that he debated with himself
whether he should not read aloud to her, as he often had done formerly.
At last, since he could find no reason against it, he went to the shelf
and fetched down a volume of the "History of Clarissa Harlowe," which he
had begun to read aloud to her a few weeks before. He opened the volume
where he had left off, with Lovelace's letter after he had spent the
night waiting fruitlessly in the copse.

   "Good God!

   "What is now to become of me?

   "My feet benumbed by midnight wanderings through the heaviest dews
    that ever fell; my wig and my linen dripping with the hoarfrost
    dissolving on them!

   "Day but just breaking...." etc.

While he read he was conscious of holding her attention, then after a
few pages the story claimed all his, so that he read on for about
half-an-hour without looking at her. When he did so he saw that she was
not listening to him, but was watching something with strange eagerness.
Such a fixed intent look was on her face that he was alarmed and sought
the cause of it. Presently he found that her gaze was fixed on the
movements of her pet dove which was in its cage hanging in the window.
He spoke to her, but she seemed displeased, so he laid "Clarissa
Harlowe" aside. Nor did he ever repeat the experiment of reading to her.

Yet that same evening, as he happened to be looking through his writing
table drawer with Puss beside him looking over his elbow, she spied a
pack of cards, and then he was forced to pick them out to please her,
then draw them from their case. At last, trying first one thing, then
another, he found that what she was after was to play piquet with him.
They had some difficulty at first in contriving for her to hold her
cards and then to play them, but this was at last overcome by his
stacking them for her on a sloping board, after which she could flip
them out very neatly with her claws as she wanted to play them. When
they had overcome this trouble they played three games, and most
heartily she seemed to enjoy them. Moreover she won all three of them.
After this they often played a quiet game of piquet together, and
cribbage too. I should say that in marking the points at cribbage on the
board he always moved her pegs for her as well as his own, for she could
not handle them or set them in the holes.

The weather, which had been damp and misty, with frequent downpours of
rain, improved very much in the following week, and, as often happens in
January, there were several days with the sun shining, no wind and light
frosts at night, these frosts becoming more intense as the days went on
till bye and bye they began to think of snow.

With this spell of fine weather it was but natural that Mr. Tebrick
should think of taking his vixen out of doors. This was something he had
not yet done, both because of the damp rainy weather up till then and
because the mere notion of taking her out filled him with alarm. Indeed
he had so many apprehensions beforehand that at one time he resolved
totally against it. For his mind was filled not only with the fear that
she might escape from him and run away, which he knew was groundless,
but with more rational visions, such as wandering curs, traps, gins,
spring guns, besides a dread of being seen with her by the
neighbourhood. At last however he resolved on it, and all the more as
his vixen kept asking him in the gentlest way: "Might she not go out
into the garden?" Yet she always listened very submissively when he told
her that he was afraid if they were seen together it would excite the
curiosity of their neighbours; besides this, he often told her of his
fears for her on account of dogs. But one day she answered this by
leading him into the hall and pointing boldly to his gun. After this he
resolved to take her, though with full precautions. That is he left the
house door open so that in case of need she could beat a swift retreat,
then he took his gun under his arm, and lastly he had her well wrapped
up in a little fur jacket lest she should take cold.

He would have carried her too, but that she delicately disengaged
herself from his arms and looked at him very expressively to say that
she would go by herself. For already her first horror of being seen to
go upon all fours was worn off; reasoning no doubt upon it, that either
she must resign herself to go that way or else stay bed-ridden all the
rest of her life.

Her joy at going into the garden was inexpressible. First she ran this
way, then that, though keeping always close to him, looking very sharply
with ears cocked forward first at one thing, then another and then up to
catch his eye.

For some time indeed she was almost dancing with delight, running round
him, then forward a yard or two, then back to him and gambolling beside
him as they went round the garden. But in spite of her joy she was full
of fear. At every noise, a cow lowing, a cock crowing, or a ploughman in
the distance hulloaing to scare the rooks, she started, her ears pricked
to catch the sound, her muzzle wrinkled up and her nose twitched, and
she would then press herself against his legs. They walked round the
garden and down to the pond where there were ornamental waterfowl, teal,
widgeon and mandarin ducks, and seeing these again gave her great
pleasure. They had always been her favourites, and now she was so
overjoyed to see them that she behaved with very little of her usual
self-restraint. First she stared at them, then bouncing up to her
husband's knee sought to kindle an equal excitement in his mind. Whilst
she rested her paws on his knee she turned her head again and again
towards the ducks as though she could not take her eyes off them, and
then ran down before him to the water's edge.

But her appearance threw the ducks into the utmost degree of
consternation. Those on shore or near the bank swam or flew to the
centre of the pond, and there huddled in a bunch; and then, swimming
round and round, they began such a quacking that Mr. Tebrick was nearly
deafened. As I have before said, nothing in the ludicrous way that arose
out of the metamorphosis of his wife (and such incidents were
plentiful) ever stood a chance of being smiled at by him. So in this
case, too, for realising that the silly ducks thought his wife a fox
indeed and were alarmed on that account he found painful that spectacle
which to others might have been amusing.

Not so his vixen, who appeared if anything more pleased than ever when
she saw in what a commotion she had set them, and began cutting a
thousand pretty capers. Though at first he called to her to come back
and walk another way, Mr. Tebrick was overborne by her pleasure and sat
down, while she frisked around him happier far than he had seen her ever
since the change. First she ran up to him in a laughing way, all smiles,
and then ran down again to the water's edge and began frisking and
frolicking, chasing her own brush, dancing on her hind legs even, and
rolling on the ground, then fell to running in circles, but all this
without paying any heed to the ducks.

But they, with their necks craned out all pointing one way, swam to and
fro in the middle of the pond, never stopping their quack, quack quack,
and keeping time too, for they all quacked in chorus. Presently she came
further away from the pond, and he, thinking they had had enough of this
sort of entertainment, laid hold of her and said to her:

"Come, Silvia, my dear, it is growing cold, and it is time we went
indoors. I am sure taking the air has done you a world of good, but we
must not linger any more."

She appeared then to agree with him, though she threw half a glance over
her shoulder at the ducks, and they both walked soberly enough towards
the house.

When they had gone about halfway she suddenly slipped round and was off.
He turned quickly and saw the ducks had been following them.

So she drove them before her back into the pond, the ducks running in
terror from her with their wings spread, and she not pressing them, for
he saw that had she been so minded she could have caught two or three of
the nearest. Then, with her brush waving above her, she came gambolling
back to him so playfully that he stroked her indulgently, though he was
first vexed, and then rather puzzled that his wife should amuse herself
with such pranks.

But when they got within doors he picked her up in his arms, kissed her
and spoke to her.

"Silvia, what a light-hearted childish creature you are. Your courage
under misfortune shall be a lesson to me, but I cannot, I cannot bear to
see it."

Here the tears stood suddenly in his eyes, and he lay down upon the
ottoman and wept, paying no heed to her until presently he was aroused
by her licking his cheek and his ear.

After tea she led him to the drawing room and scratched at the door till
he opened it, for this was part of the house which he had shut up,
thinking three or four rooms enough for them now, and to save the
dusting of it. Then it seemed she would have him play to her on the
pianoforte: she led him to it, nay, what is more, she would herself pick
out the music he was to play. First it was a fugue of Handel's, then one
of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, and then "The Diver," and then
music from Gilbert and Sullivan; but each piece of music she picked out
was gayer than the last one. Thus they sat happily engrossed for perhaps
an hour in the candle light until the extreme cold in that unwarmed room
stopped his playing and drove them downstairs to the fire. Thus did she
admirably comfort her husband when he was dispirited.

Yet next morning when he woke he was distressed when he found that she
was not in the bed with him but was lying curled up at the foot of it.
During breakfast she hardly listened when he spoke, and then impatiently,
but sat staring at the dove.

Mr. Tebrick sat silently looking out of window for some time, then he
took out his pocket book; in it there was a photograph of his wife taken
soon after their wedding. Now he gazed and gazed upon those familiar
features, and now he lifted his head and looked at the animal before
him. He laughed then bitterly, the first and last time for that matter
that Mr. Tebrick ever laughed at his wife's transformation, for he was
not very humorous. But this laugh was sour and painful to him. Then he
tore up the photograph into little pieces, and scattered them out of the
window, saying to himself: "Memories will not help me here," and turning
to the vixen he saw that she was still staring at the caged bird, and
as he looked he saw her lick her chops.

He took the bird into the next room, then acting suddenly upon the
impulse, he opened the cage door and set it free, saying as he did so:

"Go, poor bird! Fly from this wretched house while you still remember
your mistress who fed you from her coral lips. You are not a fit
plaything for her now. Farewell, poor bird! Farewell! Unless," he added
with a melancholy smile, "you return with good tidings like Noah's
dove."

But, poor gentleman, his troubles were not over yet, and indeed one may
say that he ran to meet them by his constant supposing that his lady
should still be the same to a tittle in her behaviour now that she was
changed into a fox.

Without making any unwarrantable suppositions as to her soul or what had
now become of it (though we could find a good deal to the purpose on
that point in the system of Paracelsus), let us consider only how much
the change in her body must needs affect her ordinary conduct. So that
before we judge too harshly of this unfortunate lady, we must reflect
upon the physical necessities and infirmities and appetites of her new
condition, and we must magnify the fortitude of her mind which enabled
her to behave with decorum, cleanliness and decency in spite of her new
situation.

Thus she might have been expected to befoul her room, yet never could
anyone, whether man or beast, have shown more nicety in such matters.
But at luncheon Mr. Tebrick helped her to a wing of chicken, and leaving
the room for a minute to fetch some water which he had forgot, found her
at his return on the table crunching the very bones. He stood silent,
dismayed and wounded to the heart at this sight. For we must observe
that this unfortunate husband thought always of his vixen as that gentle
and delicate woman she had lately been. So that whenever his vixen's
conduct went beyond that which he expected in his wife he was, as it
were, cut to the quick, and no kind of agony could be greater to him
than to see her thus forget herself. On this account it may indeed be
regretted that Mrs. Tebrick had been so exactly well-bred, and in
particular that her table manners had always been scrupulous. Had she
been in the habit, like a continental princess I have dined with, of
taking her leg of chicken by the drumstick and gnawing the flesh, it had
been far better for him now. But as her manners had been perfect, so the
lapse of them was proportionately painful to him. Thus in this instance
he stood as it were in silent agony till she had finished her hideous
crunching of the chicken bones and had devoured every scrap. Then he
spoke to her gently, taking her on to his knee, stroking her fur and fed
her with a few grapes, saying to her:

"Silvia, Silvia, is it so hard for you? Try and remember the past, my
darling, and by living with me we will quite forget that you are no
longer a woman. Surely this affliction will pass soon, as suddenly as
it came, and it will all seem to us like an evil dream."

Yet though she appeared perfectly sensible of his words and gave him
sorrowful and penitent looks like her old self, that same afternoon, on
taking her out, he had all the difficulty in the world to keep her from
going near the ducks.

There came to him then a thought that was very disagreeable to him,
namely, that he dare not trust his wife alone with any bird or she would
kill it. And this was the more shocking to him to think of since it
meant that he durst not trust her as much as a dog even. For we may
trust dogs who are familiars, with all the household pets; nay more, we
can put them upon trust with anything and know they will not touch it,
not even if they be starving. But things were come to such a pass with
his vixen that he dared not in his heart trust her at all. Yet she was
still in many ways so much more woman than fox that he could talk to her
on any subject and she would understand him, better far than the
oriental women who are kept in subjection can ever understand their
masters unless they converse on the most trifling household topics.

Thus she understood excellently well the importance and duties of
religion. She would listen with approval in the evening when he said the
Lord's Prayer, and was rigid in her observance of the Sabbath. Indeed,
the next day being Sunday he, thinking no harm, proposed their usual
game of piquet, but no, she would not play. Mr. Tebrick, not
understanding at first what she meant, though he was usually very quick
with her, he proposed it to her again, which she again refused, and
this time, to show her meaning, made the sign of the cross with her paw.
This exceedingly rejoiced and comforted him in his distress. He begged
her pardon, and fervently thanked God for having so good a wife, who, in
spite of all, knew more of her duty to God than he did. But here I must
warn the reader from inferring that she was a papist because she then
made the sign of the cross. She made that sign to my thinking only on
compulsion because she could not express herself except in that way. For
she had been brought up as a true Protestant, and that she still was one
is confirmed by her objection to cards, which would have been less than
nothing to her had she been a papist. Yet that evening, taking her into
the drawing room so that he might play her some sacred music, he found
her after some time cowering away from him in the farthest corner of the
room, her ears flattened back and an expression of the greatest anguish
in her eyes. When he spoke to her she licked his hand, but remained
shivering for a long time at his feet and showed the clearest symptoms
of terror if he so much as moved towards the piano. On seeing this and
recollecting how ill the ears of a dog can bear with our music, and how
this dislike might be expected to be even greater in a fox, all of whose
senses are more acute from being a wild creature, recollecting this he
closed the piano and taking her in his arms, locked up the room and
never went into it again. He could not help marvelling though, since it
was but two days after she had herself led him there, and even picked
out for him to play and sing those pieces which were her favourites.

That night she would not sleep with him, neither in the bed nor on it,
so that he was forced to let her curl herself up on the floor. But
neither would she sleep there, for several times she woke him by
trotting around the room, and once when he had got sound asleep by
springing on the bed and then off it, so that he woke with a violent
start and cried out, but got no answer either, except hearing her
trotting round and round the room. Presently he imagines to himself that
she must want something, and so fetches her food and water, but she
never so much as looks at it, but still goes on her rounds, every now
and then scratching at the door.

Though he spoke to her, calling her by her name, she would pay no heed
to him, or else only for the moment. At last he gave her up and said to
her plainly: "The fit is on you now Silvia to be a fox, but I shall keep
you close and in the morning you will recollect yourself and thank me
for having kept you now."

So he lay down again, but not to sleep, only to listen to his wife
running about the room and trying to get out of it. Thus he spent what
was perhaps the most miserable night of his existence. In the morning
she was still restless, and was reluctant to let him wash and brush her,
and appeared to dislike being scented but as it were to bear with it for
his sake. Ordinarily she had taken the greatest pleasure imaginable in
her toilet, so that on this account, added to his sleepless night, Mr.
Tebrick was utterly dejected, and it was then that he resolved to put a
project into execution that would show him, so he thought, whether he
had a wife or only a wild vixen in his house. But yet he was comforted
that she bore at all with him, though so restlessly that he did not
spare her, calling her a "bad wild fox." And then speaking to her in
this manner: "Are you not ashamed, Silvia, to be such a madcap, such a
wicked hoyden? You who were particular in dress. I see it was all
vanity--now you have not your former advantages you think nothing of
decency."

His words had some effect with her too, and with himself, so that by the
time he had finished dressing her they were both in the lowest state of
spirits imaginable and neither of them far from tears.

Breakfast she took soberly enough, and after that he went about getting
his experiment ready, which was this. In the garden he gathered together
a nosegay of snowdrops, those being all the flowers he could find, and
then going into the village of Stokoe bought a Dutch rabbit (that is a
black and white one) from a man there who kept them.

When he got back he took her flowers and at the same time set down the
basket with the rabbit in it, with the lid open. Then he called to her:
"Silvia, I have brought some flowers for you. Look, the first
snowdrops."

At this she ran up very prettily, and never giving as much as one glance
at the rabbit which had hopped out of its basket, she began to thank him
for the flowers. Indeed she seemed indefatigable in shewing her
gratitude, smelt them, stood a little way off looking at them, then
thanked him again. Mr. Tebrick (and this was all part of his plan) then
took a vase and went to find some water for them, but left the flowers
beside her. He stopped away five minutes, timing it by his watch and
listening very intently, but never heard the rabbit squeak. Yet when he
went in what a horrid shambles was spread before his eyes. Blood on the
carpet, blood on the armchairs and antimacassars, even a little blood
spurtled on to the wall, and what was worse, Mrs. Tebrick tearing and
growling over a piece of the skin and the legs, for she had eaten up all
the rest of it. The poor gentleman was so heartbroken over this that he
was like to have done himself an injury, and at one moment thought of
getting his gun, to have shot himself and his vixen too. Indeed the
extremity of his grief was such that it served him a very good turn, for
he was so entirely unmanned by it that for some time he could do nothing
but weep, and fell into a chair with his head in his hands, and so kept
weeping and groaning.

After he had been some little while employed in this dismal way, his
vixen, who had by this time bolted down the rabbit skin, head, ears and
all, came to him and putting her paws on his knees, thrust her long
muzzle into his face and began licking him. But he, looking at her now
with different eyes, and seeing her jaws still sprinkled with fresh
blood and her claws full of the rabbit's fleck, would have none of it.

But though he beat her off four or five times even to giving her blows
and kicks, she still came back to him, crawling on her belly and
imploring his forgiveness with wide-open sorrowful eyes. Before he had
made this rash experiment of the rabbit and the flowers, he had promised
himself that if she failed in it he would have no more feeling or
compassion for her than if she were in truth a wild vixen out of the
woods. This resolution, though the reasons for it had seemed to him so
very plain before, he now found more difficult to carry out than to
decide on. At length after cursing her and beating her off for upwards
of half-an-hour, he admitted to himself that he still did care for her,
and even loved her dearly in spite of all, whatever pretence he affected
towards her. When he had acknowledged this he looked up at her and met
her eyes fixed upon him, and held out his arms to her and said:

"Oh Silvia, Silvia, would you had never done this! Would I had never
tempted you in a fatal hour! Does not this butchery and eating of raw
meat and rabbit's fur disgust you? Are you a monster in your soul as
well as in your body? Have you forgotten what it is to be a woman?"

Meanwhile, with every word of his, she crawled a step nearer on her
belly and at last climbed sorrowfully into his arms. His words then
seemed to take effect on her and her eyes filled with tears and she wept
most penitently in his arms, and her body shook with her sobs as if her
heart were breaking. This sorrow of hers gave him the strangest mixture
of pain and joy that he had ever known, for his love for her returning
with a rush, he could not bear to witness her pain and yet must take
pleasure in it as it fed his hopes of her one day returning to be a
woman. So the more anguish of shame his vixen underwent, the greater his
hopes rose, till his love and pity for her increasing equally, he was
almost wishing her to be nothing more than a mere fox than to suffer so
much by being half-human.

At last he looked about him somewhat dazed with so much weeping, then
set his vixen down on the ottoman, and began to clean up the room with a
heavy heart. He fetched a pail of water and washed out all the stains of
blood, gathered up the two antimacassars and fetched clean ones from the
other rooms. While he went about this work his vixen sat and watched him
very contritely with her nose between her two front paws, and when he
had done he brought in some luncheon for himself, though it was already
late, but none for her, she having lately so infamously feasted. But
water he gave her and a bunch of grapes. Afterwards she led him to the
small tortoiseshell cabinet and would have him open it. When he had done
so she motioned to the portable stereoscope which lay inside. Mr.
Tebrick instantly fell in with her wish and after a few trials adjusted
it to her vision. Thus they spent the rest of the afternoon together
very happily looking through the collection of views which he had
purchased, of Italy, Spain and Scotland. This diversion gave her great
apparent pleasure and afforded him considerable comfort. But that night
he could not prevail upon her to sleep in bed with him, and finally
allowed her to sleep on a mat beside the bed where he could stretch down
and touch her. So they passed the night, with his hand upon her head.

The next morning he had more of a struggle than ever to wash and dress
her. Indeed at one time nothing but holding her by the scruff prevented
her from getting away from him, but at last he achieved his object and
she was washed, brushed, scented and dressed, although to be sure this
left him better pleased than her, for she regarded her silk jacket with
disfavour.

Still at breakfast she was well mannered though a trifle hasty with her
food. Then his difficulties with her began for she would go out, but as
he had his housework to do, he could not allow it. He brought her
picture books to divert her, but she would have none of them but stayed
at the door scratching it with her claws industriously till she had worn
away the paint.

At first he tried coaxing her and wheedling, gave her cards to play
patience and so on, but finding nothing would distract her from going
out, his temper began to rise, and he told her plainly that she must
wait his pleasure and that he had as much natural obstinacy as she had.
But to all that he said she paid no heed whatever but only scratched the
harder. Thus he let her continue until luncheon, when she would not sit
up, or eat off a plate, but first was for getting on to the table, and
when that was prevented, snatched her meat and ate it under the table.
To all his rebukes she turned a deaf or sullen ear, and so they each
finished their meal eating little, either of them, for till she would
sit at table he would give her no more, and his vexation had taken away
his own appetite. In the afternoon he took her out for her airing in the
garden.

She made no pretence now of enjoying the first snowdrops or the view
from the terrace. No--there was only one thing for her now--the ducks,
and she was off to them before he could stop her. Luckily they were all
swimming when she got there (for a stream running into the pond on the
far side it was not frozen there).

When he had got down to the pond, she ran out on to the ice, which would
not bear his weight, and though he called her and begged her to come
back she would not heed him but stayed frisking about, getting as near
the ducks as she dared, but being circumspect in venturing on to the
thin ice.

Presently she turned on herself and began tearing off her clothes, and
at last by biting got off her little jacket and taking it in her mouth
stuffed it into a hole in the ice where he could not get it. Then she
ran hither and thither a stark naked vixen, and without giving a glance
to her poor husband who stood silently now upon the bank, with despair
and terror settled in his mind. She let him stay there most of the
afternoon till he was chilled through and through and worn out with
watching her. At last he reflected how she had just stripped herself and
how in the morning she struggled against being dressed, and he thought
perhaps he was too strict with her and if he let her have her own way
they could manage to be happy somehow together even if she did eat off
the floor. So he called out to her then:

"Silvia, come now, be good, you shan't wear any more clothes if you
don't want to, and you needn't sit at table neither, I promise. You
shall do as you like in that, but you must give up one thing, and that
is you must stay with me and not go out alone, for that is dangerous. If
any dog came on you he would kill you."

Directly he had finished speaking she came to him joyously, began
fawning on him and prancing round him so that in spite of his vexation
with her, and being cold, he could not help stroking her.

"Oh, Silvia, are you not wilful and cunning? I see you glory in being
so, but I shall not reproach you but shall stick to my side of the
bargain, and you must stick to yours."

He built a big fire when he came back to the house and took a glass or
two of spirits also, to warm himself up, for he was chilled to the very
bone. Then, after they had dined, to cheer himself he took another
glass, and then another, and so on till he was very merry, he thought.
Then he would play with his vixen, she encouraging him with her pretty
sportiveness. He got up to catch her then and finding himself unsteady
on his legs, he went down on to all fours. The long and the short of it
is that by drinking he drowned all his sorrow; and then would be a beast
too like his wife, though she was one through no fault of her own, and
could not help it. To what lengths he went then in that drunken humour I
shall not offend my readers by relating, but shall only say that he was
so drunk and sottish that he had a very imperfect recollection of what
had passed when he woke the next morning. There is no exception to the
rule that if a man drink heavily at night the next morning will show the
other side to his nature. Thus with Mr. Tebrick, for as he had been
beastly, merry and a very dare-devil the night before, so on his
awakening was he ashamed, melancholic and a true penitent before his
Creator. The first thing he did when he came to himself was to call out
to God to forgive him for his sin, then he fell into earnest prayer and
continued so for half-an-hour upon his knees. Then he got up and dressed
but continued very melancholy for the whole of the morning. Being in
this mood you may imagine it hurt him to see his wife running about
naked, but he reflected it would be a bad reformation that began with
breaking faith. He had made a bargain and he would stick to it, and so
he let her be, though sorely against his will.

For the same reason, that is because he would stick to his side of the
bargain, he did not require her to sit up at table, but gave her her
breakfast on a dish in the corner, where to tell the truth she on her
side ate it all up with great daintiness and propriety. Nor she did make
any attempt to go out of doors that morning, but lay curled up in an
armchair before the fire dozing. After lunch he took her out, and she
never so much as offered to go near the ducks, but running before him
led him on to take her a longer walk. This he consented to do very much
to her joy and delight. He took her through the fields by the most
unfrequented ways, being much alarmed lest they should be seen by
anyone. But by good luck they walked above four miles across country and
saw nobody. All the way his wife kept running on ahead of him, and then
back to him to lick his hand and so on, and appeared delighted at taking
exercise. And though they startled two or three rabbits and a hare in
the course of their walk she never attempted to go after them, only
giving them a look and then looking back to him, laughing at him as it
were for his warning cry of "Puss! come in, no nonsense now!"

Just when they got home and were going into the porch they came face to
face with an old woman. Mr. Tebrick stopped short in consternation and
looked about for his vixen, but she had run forward without any shyness
to greet her. Then he recognised the intruder, it was his wife's old
nurse.

"What are you doing here, Mrs. Cork?" he asked her.

Mrs. Cork answered him in these words:

"Poor thing. Poor Miss Silvia! It is a shame to let her run about like a
dog. It is a shame, and your own wife too. But whatever she looks like,
you should trust her the same as ever. If you do she'll do her best to
be a good wife to you, if you don't I shouldn't wonder if she did turn
into a proper fox. I saw her, sir, before I left, and I've had no peace
of mind. I couldn't sleep thinking of her. So I've come back to look
after her, as I have done all her life, sir," and she stooped down and
took Mrs. Tebrick by the paw.

Mr. Tebrick unlocked the door and they went in. When Mrs. Cork saw the
house she exclaimed again and again: "The place was a pigstye. They
couldn't live like that, a gentleman must have somebody to look after
him. She would do it. He could trust her with the secret."

Had the old woman come the day before it is likely enough that Mr.
Tebrick would have sent her packing. But the voice of conscience being
woken in him by his drunkenness of the night before he was heartily
ashamed of his own management of the business, moreover the old woman's
words that "it was a shame to let her run about like a dog," moved him
exceedingly. Being in this mood the truth is he welcomed her.

But we may conclude that Mrs. Tebrick was as sorry to see her old Nanny
as her husband was glad. If we consider that she had been brought up
strictly by her when she was a child, and was now again in her power,
and that her old nurse could never be satisfied with her now whatever
she did, but would always think her wicked to be a fox at all, there
seems good reason for her dislike. And it is possible, too, that there
may have been another cause as well, and that is jealousy. We know her
husband was always trying to bring her back to be a woman, or at any
rate to get her to act like one, may she not have been hoping to get him
to be like a beast himself or to act like one? May she not have thought
it easier to change him thus than ever to change herself back into
being a woman? If we think that she had had a success of this kind only
the night before, when he got drunk, can we not conclude that this was
indeed the case, and then we have another good reason why the poor lady
should hate to see her old nurse?

It is certain that whatever hopes Mr. Tebrick had of Mrs. Cork affecting
his wife for the better were disappointed. She grew steadily wilder and
after a few days so intractable with her that Mr. Tebrick again took her
under his complete control.

The first morning Mrs. Cork made her a new jacket, cutting down the
sleeves of a blue silk one of Mrs. Tebrick's and trimming it with swan's
down, and directly she had altered it, put it on her mistress, and
fetching a mirror would have her admire the fit of it. All the time she
waited on Mrs. Tebrick the old woman talked to her as though she were a
baby, and treated her as such, never thinking perhaps that she was
either the one thing or the other, that is either a lady to whom she
owed respect and who had rational powers exceeding her own, or else a
wild creature on whom words were wasted. But though at first she
submitted passively, Mrs. Tebrick only waited for her Nanny's back to be
turned to tear up her pretty piece of handiwork into shreds, and then
ran gaily about waving her brush with only a few ribands still hanging
from her neck.

So it was time after time (for the old woman was used to having her own
way) until Mrs. Cork would, I think, have tried punishing her if she had
not been afraid of Mrs. Tebrick's rows of white teeth, which she often
showed her, then laughing afterwards, as if to say it was only play.

Not content with tearing off the dresses that were fitted on her, one
day Silvia slipped upstairs to her wardrobe and tore down all her old
dresses and made havoc with them, not sparing her wedding dress either,
but tearing and ripping them all up so that there was hardly a shred or
rag left big enough to dress a doll in. On this, Mr. Tebrick, who had
let the old woman have most of her management to see what she could make
of her, took her back under his own control.

He was sorry enough now that Mrs. Cork had disappointed him in the hopes
he had had of her, to have the old woman, as it were, on his hands. True
she could be useful enough in many ways to him, by doing the housework,
the cooking and mending, but still he was anxious since his secret was
in her keeping, and the more now that she had tried her hand with his
wife and failed. For he saw that vanity had kept her mouth shut if she
had won over her mistress to better ways, and her love for her would
have grown by getting her own way with her. But now that she had failed
she bore her mistress a grudge for not being won over, or at the best
was become indifferent to the business, so that she might very readily
blab.

For the moment all Mr. Tebrick could do was to keep her from going into
Stokoe to the village, where she would meet all her old cronies and
where there were certain to be any number of inquiries about what was
going on at Rylands and so on. But as he saw that it was clearly beyond
his power, however vigilant he might be, to watch over the old woman and
his wife, and to prevent anyone from meeting with either of them, he
began to consider what he could best do.

Since he had sent away his servants and the gardener, giving out a story
of having received bad news and his wife going away to London where he
would join her, their probably going out of England and so on, he knew
well enough that there would be a great deal of talk in the
neighbourhood.

And as he had now stayed on, contrary to what he had said, there would
be further rumour. Indeed, had he known it, there was a story already
going round the country that his wife had run away with Major Solmes,
and that he was gone mad with grief, that he had shot his dogs and his
horses and shut himself up alone in the house and would speak with no
one. This story was made up by his neighbours not because they were
fanciful or wanted to deceive, but like most tittle-tattle to fill a
gap, as few like to confess ignorance, and if people are asked about
such or such a man they must have something to say, or they suffer in
everybody's opinion, are set down as dull or "out of the swim." In this
way I met not long ago with someone who, after talking some little while
and not knowing me or who I was, told me that David Garnett was dead,
and died of being bitten by a cat after he had tormented it. He had long
grown a nuisance to his friends as an exorbitant sponge upon them, and
the world was well rid of him.

Hearing this story of myself diverted me at the time, but I fully
believe it has served me in good stead since. For it set me on my guard
as perhaps nothing else would have done, against accepting for true all
floating rumour and village gossip, so that now I am by second nature a
true sceptic and scarcely believe anything unless the evidence for it is
conclusive. Indeed I could never have got to the bottom of this history
if I had believed one tenth part of what I was told, there was so much
of it that was either manifestly false and absurd, or else contradictory
to the ascertained facts. It is therefore only the bare bones of the
story which you will find written here, for I have rejected all the
flowery embroideries which would be entertaining reading enough, I
daresay, for some, but if there be any doubt of the truth of a thing it
is poor sort of entertainment to read about in my opinion.

To get back to our story: Mr. Tebrick having considered how much the
appetite of his neighbours would be whetted to find out the mystery by
his remaining in that part of the country, determined that the best
thing he could do was to remove.

After some time turning the thing over in his mind, he decided that no
place would be so good for his purpose as old Nanny's cottage. It was
thirty miles away from Stokoe, which in the country means as far as
Timbuctoo does to us in London. Then it was near Tangley, and his lady
having known it from her childhood would feel at home there, and also it
was utterly remote, there being no village near it or manor house other
than Tangley Hall, which was now untenanted for the greater part of the
year. Nor did it mean imparting his secret to others, for there was only
Mrs. Cork's son, a widower, who being out at work all day would be
easily outwitted, the more so as he was stone deaf and of a slow and
saturnine disposition. To be sure there was little Polly, Mrs. Cork's
granddaughter, but either Mr. Tebrick forgot her altogether, or else
reckoned her as a mere baby and not to be thought of as a danger.

He talked the thing over with Mrs. Cork, and they decided upon it out of
hand. The truth is the old woman was beginning to regret that her love
and her curiosity had ever brought her back to Rylands, since so far she
had got much work and little credit by it.

When it was settled, Mr. Tebrick disposed of the remaining business he
had at Rylands in the afternoon, and that was chiefly putting out his
wife's riding horse into the keeping of a farmer near by, for he thought
he would drive over with his own horse, and the other spare horse tandem
in the dogcart.

The next morning they locked up the house and they departed, having
first secured Mrs. Tebrick in a large wicker hamper where she would be
tolerably comfortable. This was for safety, for in the agitation of
driving she might jump out, and on the other hand, if a dog scented her
and she were loose, she might be in danger of her life. Mr. Tebrick
drove with the hamper beside him on the front seat, and spoke to her
gently very often.

She was overcome by the excitement of the journey and kept poking her
nose first through one crevice, then through another, turning and
twisting the whole time and peeping out to see what they were passing.
It was a bitterly cold day, and when they had gone about fifteen miles
they drew up by the roadside to rest the horses and have their own
luncheon, for he dared not stop at an inn. He knew that any living
creature in a hamper, even if it be only an old fowl, always draws
attention; there would be several loafers most likely who would notice
that he had a fox with him, and even if he left the hamper in the cart
the dogs at the inn would be sure to sniff out her scent. So not to take
any chances he drew up at the side of the road and rested there, though
it was freezing hard and a north-east wind howling.

He took down his precious hamper, unharnessed his two horses, covered
them with rugs and gave them their corn. Then he opened the basket and
let his wife out. She was quite beside herself with joy, running hither
and thither, bouncing up on him, looking about her and even rolling over
on the ground. Mr. Tebrick took this to mean that she was glad at making
this journey and rejoiced equally with her. As for Mrs. Cork, she sat
motionless on the back seat of the dogcart well wrapped up, eating her
sandwiches, but would not speak a word. When they had stayed there
half-an-hour Mr. Tebrick harnessed the horses again, though he was so
cold he could scarcely buckle the straps, and put his vixen in her
basket, but seeing that she wanted to look about her, he let her tear
away the osiers with her teeth till she had made a hole big enough for
her to put her head out of.

They drove on again and then the snow began to come down and that in
earnest, so that he began to be afraid they would never cover the
ground. But just after nightfall they got in, and he was content to
leave unharnessing the horses and baiting them to Simon, Mrs. Cork's
son. His vixen was tired by then, as well as he, and they slept
together, he in the bed and she under it, very contentedly.

The next morning he looked about him at the place and found the thing
there that he most wanted, and that was a little walled-in garden where
his wife could run in freedom and yet be in safety.

After they had had breakfast she was wild to go out into the snow. So
they went out together, and he had never seen such a mad creature in all
his life as his wife was then. For she ran to and fro as if she were
crazy, biting at the snow and rolling in it, and round and round in
circles and rushed back at him fiercely as if she meant to bite him. He
joined her in the frolic, and began snowballing her till she was so wild
that it was all he could do to quiet her again and bring her indoors for
luncheon. Indeed with her gambollings she tracked the whole garden over
with her feet; he could see where she had rolled in the snow and where
she had danced in it, and looking at those prints of her feet as they
went in, made his heart ache, he knew not why.

They passed the first day at old Nanny's cottage happily enough, without
their usual bickerings, and this because of the novelty of the snow
which had diverted them. In the afternoon he first showed his wife to
little Polly, who eyed her very curiously but hung back shyly and seemed
a good deal afraid of the fox. But Mr. Tebrick took up a book and let
them get acquainted by themselves, and presently looking up saw that
they had come together and Polly was stroking his wife, patting her and
running her fingers through her fur. Presently she began talking to the
fox, and then brought her doll in to show her so that very soon they
were very good playmates together. Watching the two gave Mr. Tebrick
great delight, and in particular when he noticed that there was
something very motherly in his vixen. She was indeed far above the child
in intelligence and restrained herself too from any hasty action. But
while she seemed to wait on Polly's pleasure yet she managed to give a
twist to the game, whatever it was, that never failed to delight the
little girl. In short, in a very little while, Polly was so taken with
her new playmate that she cried when she was parted from her and wanted
her always with her. This disposition of Mrs. Tebrick's made Mrs. Cork
more agreeable than she had been lately either to the husband or the
wife.

Three days after they had come to the cottage the weather changed, and
they woke up one morning to find the snow gone, and the wind in the
south, and the sun shining, so that it was like the first beginning of
spring.

Mr. Tebrick let his vixen out into the garden after breakfast, stayed
with her awhile, and then went indoors to write some letters.

When he got out again he could see no sign of her anywhere, so that he
ran about bewildered, calling to her. At last he spied a mound of fresh
earth by the wall in one corner of the garden, and running thither found
that there was a hole freshly dug seeming to go under the wall. On this
he ran out of the garden quickly till he came to the other side of the
wall, but there was no hole there, so he concluded that she was not yet
got through. So it proved to be, for reaching down into the hole he felt
her brush with his hand, and could hear her distinctly working away with
her claws. He called to her then, saying: "Silvia, Silvia, why do you do
this? Are you trying to escape from me? I am your husband, and if I keep
you confined it is to protect you, not to let you run into danger. Show
me how I can make you happy and I will do it, but do not try to escape
from me. I love you, Silvia; is it because of that that you want to fly
from me to go into the world where you will be in danger of your life
always? There are dogs everywhere and they all would kill you if it were
not for me. Come out, Silvia, come out."

But Silvia would not listen to him, so he waited there silent. Then he
spoke to her in a different way, asking her had she forgot the bargain
she made with him that she would not go out alone, but now when she had
all the liberty of a garden to herself would she wantonly break her
word? And he asked her, were they not married? And had she not always
found him a good husband to her? But she heeded this neither until
presently his temper getting somewhat out of hand he cursed her
obstinacy and told her if she would be a damned fox she was welcome to
it, for his part he could get his own way. She had not escaped yet. He
would dig her out for he still had time, and if she struggled put her in
a bag.

These words brought her forth instantly and she looked at him with as
much astonishment as if she knew not what could have made him angry.
Yes, she even fawned on him, but in a good-natured kind of way, as if
she were a very good wife putting up wonderfully with her husband's
temper.

These airs of hers made the poor gentleman (so simple was he) repent his
outburst and feel most ashamed.

But for all that when she was out of the hole he filled it up with great
stones and beat them in with a crowbar so she should find her work at
that point harder than before if she was tempted to begin it again.

In the afternoon he let her go again into the garden but sent little
Polly with her to keep her company. But presently on looking out he saw
his vixen had climbed up into the limbs of an old pear tree and was
looking over the wall, and was not so far from it but she might jump
over it if she could get a little further.

Mr. Tebrick ran out into the garden as quick as he could, and when his
wife saw him it seemed she was startled and made a false spring at the
wall, so that she missed reaching it and fell back heavily to the ground
and lay there insensible. When Mr. Tebrick got up to her he found her
head was twisted under her by her fall and the neck seemed to be broken.
The shock was so great to him that for some time he could not do
anything, but knelt beside her turning her limp body stupidly in his
hands. At length he recognised that she was indeed dead, and beginning
to consider what dreadful afflictions God had visited him with, he
blasphemed horribly and called on God to strike him dead, or give his
wife back to him.

"Is it not enough," he cried, adding a foul blasphemous oath, "that you
should rob me of my dear wife, making her a fox, but now you must rob me
of that fox too, that has been my only solace and comfort in this
affliction?"

Then he burst into tears and began wringing his hands and continued
there in such an extremity of grief for half-an-hour that he cared
nothing, neither what he was doing, nor what would become of him in the
future, but only knew that his life was ended now and he would not live
any longer than he could help.

All this while the little girl Polly stood by, first staring, then
asking him what had happened, and lastly crying with fear, but he never
heeded her nor looked at her but only tore his hair, sometimes shouted
at God, or shook his fist at Heaven. So in a fright Polly opened the
door and ran out of the garden.

At length worn out, and as it were all numb with his loss, Mr. Tebrick
got up and went within doors, leaving his dear fox lying near where she
had fallen.

He stayed indoors only two minutes and then came out again with a razor
in his hand intending to cut his own throat, for he was out of his
senses in this first paroxysm of grief. But his vixen was gone, at
which he looked about for a moment bewildered, and then enraged,
thinking that somebody must have taken the body.

The door of the garden being open he ran straight through it. Now this
door, which had been left ajar by Polly when she ran off, opened into a
little courtyard where the fowls were shut in at night; the woodhouse
and the privy also stood there. On the far side of it from the garden
gate were two large wooden doors big enough when open to let a cart
enter, and high enough to keep a man from looking over into the yard.

When Mr. Tebrick got into the yard he found his vixen leaping up at
these doors, and wild with terror, but as lively as ever he saw her in
his life. He ran up to her but she shrank away from him, and would then
have dodged him too, but he caught hold of her. She bared her teeth at
him but he paid no heed to that, only picked her straight up into his
arms and took her so indoors. Yet all the while he could scarce believe
his eyes to see her living, and felt her all over very carefully to find
if she had not some bones broken. But no, he could find none. Indeed it
was some hours before this poor silly gentleman began to suspect the
truth, which was that his vixen had practised a deception upon him, and
all the time he was bemoaning his loss in such heartrending terms, she
was only shamming death to run away directly she was able. If it had not
been that the yard gates were shut, which was a mere chance, she had got
her liberty by that trick. And that this was only a trick of hers to
sham dead was plain when he had thought it over. Indeed it is an old and
time-honoured trick of the fox. It is in Aesop and a hundred other
writers have confirmed it since. But so thoroughly had he been deceived
by her, that at first he was as much overcome with joy at his wife still
being alive, as he had been with grief a little while before, thinking
her dead.

He took her in his arms, hugging her to him and thanking God a dozen
times for her preservation. But his kissing and fondling her had very
little effect now, for she did not answer him by licking or soft looks,
but stayed huddled up and sullen, with her hair bristling on her neck
and her ears laid back every time he touched her. At first he thought
this might be because he had touched some broken bone or tender place
where she had been hurt, but at last the truth came to him.

Thus he was again to suffer, and though the pain of knowing her
treachery to him was nothing to the grief of losing her, yet it was more
insidious and lasting. At first, from a mere nothing, this pain grew
gradually until it was a torture to him. If he had been one of your
stock ordinary husbands, such a one who by experience has learnt never
to enquire too closely into his wife's doings, her comings or goings,
and never to ask her, "How she has spent the day?" for fear he should be
made the more of a fool, had Mr. Tebrick been such a one he had been
luckier, and his pain would have been almost nothing. But you must
consider that he had never been deceived once by his wife in the course
of their married life. No, she had never told him as much as one white
lie, but had always been frank, open and ingenuous as if she and her
husband were not husband and wife, or indeed of opposite sexes. Yet we
must rate him as very foolish, that living thus with a fox, which beast
has the same reputation for deceitfulness, craft and cunning, in all
countries, all ages, and amongst all races of mankind, he should expect
this fox to be as candid and honest with him in all things as the
country girl he had married.

His wife's sullenness and bad temper continued that day, for she cowered
away from him and hid under the sofa, nor could he persuade her to come
out from there. Even when it was her dinner time she stayed, refusing
resolutely to be tempted out with food, and lying so quiet that he heard
nothing from her for hours. At night he carried her up to the bedroom,
but she was still sullen and refused to eat a morsel, though she drank a
little water during the night, when she fancied he was asleep.

The next morning was the same, and by now Mr. Tebrick had been through
all the agonies of wounded self-esteem, disillusionment and despair that
a man can suffer. But though his emotions rose up in his heart and
nearly stifled him he showed no sign of them to her, neither did he
abate one jot his tenderness and consideration for his vixen. At
breakfast he tempted her with a freshly killed young pullet. It hurt him
to make this advance to her, for hitherto he had kept her strictly on
cooked meats, but the pain of seeing her refuse it was harder still for
him to bear. Added to this was now an anxiety lest she should starve
herself to death rather than stay with him any longer.

All that morning he kept her close, but in the afternoon let her loose
again in the garden after he had lopped the pear tree so that she could
not repeat her performance of climbing.

But seeing how disgustedly she looked while he was by, never offering to
run or to play as she was used, but only standing stock still with her
tail between her legs, her ears flattened, and the hair bristling on her
shoulders, seeing this he left her to herself out of mere humanity.

When he came out after half-an-hour he found that she was gone, but
there was a fair sized hole by the wall, and she just buried all but her
brush, digging desperately to get under the wall and make her escape.

He ran up to the hole, and put his arm in after her and called to her to
come out, but she would not. So at first he began pulling her out by the
shoulder, then his hold slipping, by the hind legs. As soon as he had
drawn her forth she whipped round and snapped at his hand and bit it
through near the joint of the thumb, but let it go instantly. They
stayed there for a minute facing each other, he on his knees and she
facing him the picture of unrepentant wickedness and fury. Being thus on
his knees, Mr. Tebrick was down on her level very nearly, and her muzzle
was thrust almost into his face. Her ears lay flat on her head, her gums
were bared in a silent snarl, and all her beautiful teeth threatening
him that she would bite him again. Her back too was half-arched, all her
hair bristling and her brush held drooping. But it was her eyes that
held his, with their slit pupils looking at him with savage desperation
and rage.

The blood ran very freely from his hand but he never noticed that or the
pain of it either, for all his thoughts were for his wife.

"What is this, Silvia?" he said very quietly, "what is this? Why are you
so savage now? If I stand between you and your freedom it is because I
love you. Is it such torment to be with me?" But Silvia never stirred a
muscle.

"You would not do this if you were not in anguish, poor beast, you want
your freedom. I cannot keep you, I cannot hold you to vows made when you
were a woman. Why, you have forgotten who I am."

The tears then began running down his cheeks, he sobbed, and said to
her:

"Go--I shall not keep you. Poor beast, poor beast, I love you, I love
you. Go if you want to. But if you remember me come back. I shall never
keep you against your will. Go--go. But kiss me now."

He leant forward then and put his lips to her snarling fangs, but though
she kept snarling she did not bite him. Then he got up quickly and went
to the door of the garden that opened into a little paddock against a
wood.

When he opened it she went through it like an arrow, crossed the paddock
like a puff of smoke and in a moment was gone from his sight. Then,
suddenly finding himself alone, Mr. Tebrick came as it were to himself
and ran after her, calling her by name and shouting to her, and so went
plunging into the wood, and through it for about a mile, running almost
blindly.

At last when he was worn out he sat down, seeing that she had gone
beyond recovery and it was already night. Then, rising, he walked slowly
homewards, wearied and spent in spirit. As he went he bound up his hand
that was still running with blood. His coat was torn, his hat lost, and
his face scratched right across with briars. Now in cold blood he began
to reflect on what he had done and to repent bitterly having set his
wife free. He had betrayed her so that now, from his act, she must lead
the life of a wild fox for ever, and must undergo all the rigours and
hardships of the climate, and all the hazards of a hunted creature. When
Mr. Tebrick got back to the cottage he found Mrs. Cork was sitting up
for him. It was already late.

"What have you done with Mrs. Tebrick, sir? I missed her, and I missed
you, and I have not known what to do, expecting something dreadful had
happened. I have been sitting up for you half the night. And where is
she now, sir?" She accosted him so vigorously that Mr. Tebrick stood
silent. At length he said: "I have let her go. She has run away."

"Poor Miss Silvia!" cried the old woman, "Poor creature! You ought to be
ashamed, sir! Let her go indeed! Poor lady, is that the way for her
husband to talk! It is a disgrace. But I saw it coming from the first."

The old woman was white with fury, she did not mind what she said, but
Mr. Tebrick was not listening to her. At last he looked at her and saw
that she had just begun to cry, so he went out of the room and up to
bed, and lay down as he was, in his clothes, utterly exhausted, and fell
into a dog's sleep, starting up every now and then with horror, and then
falling back with fatigue. It was late when he woke up, but cold and
raw, and he felt cramped in all his limbs. As he lay he heard again the
noise which had woken him--the trotting of several horses, and the
voices of men riding by the house. Mr. Tebrick jumped up and ran to the
window and then looked out, and the first thing that he saw was a
gentleman in a pink coat riding at a walk down the lane. At this sight
Mr. Tebrick waited no longer, but pulling on his boots in mad haste, ran
out instantly, meaning to say that they must not hunt, and how his wife
was escaped and they might kill her.

But when he found himself outside the cottage words failed him and fury
took possession of him, so that he could only cry out:

"How dare you, you damned blackguard?" And so, with a stick in his hand,
he threw himself on the gentleman in the pink coat and seized his
horse's rein, and catching the gentleman by the leg was trying to throw
him. But really it is impossible to say what Mr. Tebrick intended by his
behaviour or what he would have done, for the gentleman finding himself
suddenly assaulted in so unexpected a fashion by so strange a touzled
and dishevelled figure, clubbed his hunting crop and dealt him a blow on
the temple so that he fell insensible.

Another gentleman rode up at this moment and they were civil enough to
dismount and carry Mr. Tebrick into the cottage, where they were met by
old Nanny who kept wringing her hands and told them Mr. Tebrick's wife
had run away and she was a vixen, and that was the cause that Mr.
Tebrick had run out and assaulted them.

The two gentlemen could not help laughing at this; and mounting their
horses rode on without delay, after telling each other that Mr. Tebrick,
whoever he was, was certainly a madman, and the old woman seemed as mad
as her master.

This story, however, went the rounds of the gentry in those parts and
perfectly confirmed everyone in their previous opinion, namely that Mr.
Tebrick was mad and his wife had run away from him. The part about her
being a vixen was laughed at by the few that heard it, but was soon left
out as immaterial to the story, and incredible in itself, though
afterwards it came to be remembered and its significance to be
understood. When Mr. Tebrick came to himself it was past noon, and his
head was aching so painfully that he could only call to mind in a
confused way what had happened.

However, he sent off Mrs. Cork's son directly on one of his horses to
enquire about the hunt.

At the same time he gave orders to old Nanny that she was to put out
food and water for her mistress, on the chance that she might yet be in
the neighbourhood.

By nightfall Simon was back with the news that the hunt had had a very
long run but had lost one fox, then, drawing a covert, had chopped an
old dog fox, and so ended the day's sport.

This put poor Mr. Tebrick in some hopes again, and he rose at once from
his bed, and went out to the wood and began calling his wife, but was
overcome with faintness, and lay down and so passed the night in the
open, from mere weakness.

In the morning he got back again to the cottage but he had taken a
chill, and so had to keep his bed for three or four days after.

All this time he had food put out for her every night, but though rats
came to it and ate of it, there were never any prints of a fox.

At last his anxiety began working another way, that is he came to think
it possible that his vixen would have gone back to Stokoe, so he had his
horses harnessed in the dogcart and brought to the door and then drove
over to Rylands, though he was still in a fever, and with a heavy cold
upon him. After that he lived always solitary, keeping away from his
fellows and only seeing one man, called Askew, who had been brought up a
jockey at Wantage, but was grown too big for his profession. He mounted
this loafing fellow on one of his horses three days a week and had him
follow the hunt and report to him whenever they killed, and if he could
view the fox so much the better, and then he made him describe it
minutely, so he should know if it were his Silvia. But he dared not
trust himself to go himself, lest his passion should master him and he
might commit a murder.

Every time there was a hunt in the neighbourhood he set the gates wide
open at Rylands and the house doors also, and taking his gun stood
sentinel in the hope that his wife would run in if she were pressed by
the hounds, and so he could save her. But only once a hunt came near,
when two fox-hounds that had lost the main pack strayed on to his land
and he shot them instantly and buried them afterwards himself.

It was not long now to the end of the season, as it was the middle of
March.

But living as he did at this time, Mr. Tebrick grew more and more to be
a true misanthrope. He denied admittance to any that came to visit him,
and rarely showed himself to his fellows, but went out chiefly in the
early mornings before people were about, in the hope of seeing his
beloved fox. Indeed it was only this hope that he would see her again
that kept him alive, for he had become so careless of his own comfort in
every way that he very seldom ate a proper meal, taking no more than a
crust of bread with a morsel of cheese in the whole day, though
sometimes he would drink half a bottle of whiskey to drown his sorrow
and to get off to sleep, for sleep fled from him, and no sooner did he
begin dozing but he awoke with a start thinking he had heard something.
He let his beard grow too, and though he had always been very particular
in his person before, he now was utterly careless of it, gave up
washing himself for a week or two at a stretch, and if there was dirt
under his finger nails let it stop there.

All this disorder fed a malignant pleasure in him. For by now he had
come to hate his fellow men and was embittered against all human
decencies and decorum. For strange to tell he never once in these months
regretted his dear wife whom he had so much loved. No, all that he
grieved for now was his departed vixen. He was haunted all this time not
by the memory of a sweet and gentle woman, but by the recollection of an
animal; a beast it is true that could sit at table and play piquet when
it would, but for all that nothing really but a wild beast. His one hope
now was the recovery of this beast, and of this he dreamed continually.
Likewise both waking and sleeping he was visited by visions of her; her
mask, her full white-tagged brush, white throat, and the thick fur in
her ears all haunted him.

Every one of her foxey ways was now so absolutely precious to him that I
believe that if he had known for certain she was dead, and had thoughts
of marrying a second time, he would never have been happy with a woman.
No, indeed, he would have been more tempted to get himself a tame fox,
and would have counted that as good a marriage as he could make.

Yet this all proceeded one may say from a passion, and a true conjugal
fidelity, that it would be hard to find matched in this world. And
though we may think him a fool, almost a madman, we must, when we look
closer, find much to respect in his extraordinary devotion. How
different indeed was he from those who, if their wives go mad, shut them
in madhouses and give themselves up to concubinage, and nay, what is
more, there are many who extenuate such conduct too. But Mr. Tebrick was
of a very different temper, and though his wife was now nothing but a
hunted beast, cared for no one in the world but her.

But this devouring love ate into him like a consumption, so that by
sleepless nights, and not caring for his person, in a few months he was
worn to the shadow of himself. His cheeks were sunk in, his eyes hollow
but excessively brilliant, and his whole body had lost flesh, so that
looking at him the wonder was that he was still alive.

Now that the hunting season was over he had less anxiety for her, yet
even so he was not positive that the hounds had not got her. For between
the time of his setting her free, and the end of the hunting season
(just after Easter), there were but three vixens killed near. Of those
three one was a half-blind or wall-eyed, and one was a very grey
dull-coloured beast. The third answered more to the description of his
wife, but that it had not much black on the legs, whereas in her the
blackness of the legs was very plain to be noticed. But yet his fear
made him think that perhaps she had got mired in running and the legs
being muddy were not remarked on as black. One morning the first week
in May, about four o'clock, when he was out waiting in the little copse,
he sat down for a while on a tree stump, and when he looked up saw a fox
coming towards him over the ploughed field. It was carrying a hare over
its shoulder so that it was nearly all hidden from him. At last, when it
was not twenty yards from him, it crossed over, going into the copse,
when Mr. Tebrick stood up and cried out, "Silvia, Silvia, is it you?"

The fox dropped the hare out of his mouth and stood looking at him, and
then our gentleman saw at the first glance that this was not his wife.
For whereas Mrs. Tebrick had been of a very bright red, this was a
swarthier duller beast altogether, moreover it was a good deal larger
and higher at the shoulder and had a great white tag to his brush. But
the fox after the first instant did not stand for his portrait you may
be sure, but picked up his hare and made off like an arrow.

Then Mr. Tebrick cried out to himself: "Indeed I am crazy now! My
affliction has made me lose what little reason I ever had. Here am I
taking every fox I see to be my wife! My neighbours call me a madman and
now I see that they are right. Look at me now, oh God! How foul a
creature I am. I hate my fellows. I am thin and wasted by this consuming
passion, my reason is gone and I feed myself on dreams. Recall me to my
duty, bring me back to decency, let me not become a beast likewise, but
restore me and forgive me, Oh my Lord."

With that he burst into scalding tears and knelt down and prayed, a
thing he had not done for many weeks.

When he rose up he walked back feeling giddy and exceedingly weak, but
with a contrite heart, and then washed himself thoroughly and changed
his clothes, but his weakness increasing he lay down for the rest of the
day, but read in the Book of Job and was much comforted.

For several days after this he lived very soberly, for his weakness
continued, but every day he read in the bible, and prayed earnestly, so
that his resolution was so much strengthened that he determined to
overcome his folly, or his passion, if he could, and at any rate to live
the rest of his life very religiously. So strong was this desire in him
to amend his ways that he considered if he should not go to spread the
Gospel abroad, for the Bible Society, and so spend the rest of his days.

Indeed he began a letter to his wife's uncle, the canon, and he was
writing this when he was startled by hearing a fox bark.

Yet so great was this new turn he had taken that he did not rush out at
once, as he would have done before, but stayed where he was and finished
his letter.

Afterwards he said to himself that it was only a wild fox and sent by
the devil to mock him, and that madness lay that way if he should
listen. But on the other hand he could not deny to himself that it might
have been his wife, and that he ought to welcome the prodigal. Thus he
was torn between these two thoughts, neither of which did he completely
believe. He stayed thus tormented with doubts and fears all night.

The next morning he woke suddenly with a start and on the instant heard
a fox bark once more. At that he pulled on his clothes and ran out as
fast as he could to the garden gate. The sun was not yet high, the dew
thick everywhere, and for a minute or two everything was very silent. He
looked about him eagerly but could see no fox, yet there was already joy
in his heart.

Then while he looked up and down the road, he saw his vixen step out of
the copse about thirty yards away. He called to her at once.

"My dearest wife! Oh, Silvia! You are come back!" and at the sound of
his voice he saw her wag her tail, which set his last doubts at rest.

But then though he called her again, she stepped into the copse once
more though she looked back at him over her shoulder as she went. At
this he ran after her, but softly and not too fast lest he should
frighten her away, and then looked about for her again and called to her
when he saw her among the trees still keeping her distance from him. He
followed her then, and as he approached so she retreated from him, yet
always looking back at him several times.

He followed after her through the underwood up the side of the hill,
when suddenly she disappeared from his sight, behind some bracken.
When he got there he could see her nowhere, but looking about him found
a fox's earth, but so well hidden that he might have passed it by a
thousand times and would never have found it unless he had made
particular search at that spot.

But now, though he went on his hands and knees, he could see nothing of
his vixen, so that he waited a little while wondering.

Presently he heard a noise of something moving in the earth, and so
waited silently, then saw something which pushed itself into sight. It
was a small sooty black beast, like a puppy. There came another behind
it, then another and so on till there were five of them. Lastly there
came his vixen pushing her litter before her, and while he looked at her
silently, a prey to his confused and unhappy emotions, he saw that her
eyes were shining with pride and happiness.

She picked up one of her youngsters then, in her mouth, and brought it
to him and laid it in front of him, and then looked up at him very
excited, or so it seemed.

Mr. Tebrick took the cub in his hands, stroked it and put it against his
cheek. It was a little fellow with a smutty face and paws, with staring
vacant eyes of a brilliant electric blue and a little tail like a
carrot. When he was put down he took a step towards his mother and then
sat down very comically.

Mr. Tebrick looked at his wife again and spoke to her, calling her a
good creature. Already he was resigned and now, indeed, for the first
time he thoroughly understood what had happened to her, and how far
apart they were now. But looking first at one cub, then at another, and
having them sprawling over his lap, he forgot himself, only watching the
pretty scene, and taking pleasure in it. Now and then he would stroke
his vixen and kiss her, liberties which she freely allowed him. He
marvelled more than ever now at her beauty; for her gentleness with the
cubs and the extreme delight she took in them seemed to him then to make
her more lovely than before. Thus lying amongst them at the mouth of the
earth he idled away the whole of the morning.

First he would play with one, then with another, rolling them over and
tickling them, but they were too young yet to lend themselves to any
other more active sport than this. Every now and then he would stroke
his vixen, or look at her, and thus the time slipped away quite fast and
he was surprised when she gathered her cubs together and pushed them
before her into the earth, then coming back to him once or twice very
humanly bid him "Good-bye and that she hoped she would see him soon
again, now he had found out the way."

So admirably did she express her meaning that it would have been
superfluous for her to have spoken had she been able, and Mr. Tebrick,
who was used to her, got up at once and went home.

But now that he was alone, all the feelings which he had not troubled
himself with when he was with her, but had, as it were, put aside till
after his innocent pleasures were over, all these came swarming back to
assail him in a hundred tormenting ways.

Firstly he asked himself: Was not his wife unfaithful to him, had she
not prostituted herself to a beast? Could he still love her after that?
But this did not trouble him so much as it might have done. For now he
was convinced inwardly that she could no longer in fairness be judged as
a woman, but as a fox only. And as a fox she had done no more than other
foxes, indeed in having cubs and tending them with love, she had done
well.

Whether in this conclusion Mr. Tebrick was in the right or not, is not
for us here to consider. But I would only say to those who would censure
him for a too lenient view of the religious side of the matter, that we
have not seen the thing as he did, and perhaps if it were displayed
before our eyes we might be led to the same conclusions.

This was, however, not a tenth part of the trouble in which Mr. Tebrick
found himself. For he asked himself also: "Was he not jealous?" And
looking into his heart he found that he was indeed jealous, yes, and
angry too, that now he must share his vixen with wild foxes. Then he
questioned himself if it were not dishonourable to do so, and whether
he should not utterly forget her and follow his original intention of
retiring from the world, and see her no more.

Thus he tormented himself for the rest of that day, and by evening he
had resolved never to see her again.

But in the middle of the night he woke up with his head very clear, and
said to himself in wonder, "Am I not a madman? I torment myself
foolishly with fantastic notions. Can a man have his honour sullied by a
beast? I am a man, I am immeasurably superior to the animals. Can my
dignity allow of my being jealous of a beast? A thousand times no. Were
I to lust after a vixen, I were a criminal indeed. I can be happy in
seeing my vixen, for I love her, but she does right to be happy
according to the laws of her being."

Lastly, he said to himself what was, he felt, the truth of this whole
matter:

"When I am with her I am happy. But now I distort what is simple and
drive myself crazy with false reasoning upon it."

Yet before he slept again he prayed, but though he had thought first to
pray for guidance, in reality he prayed only that on the morrow he would
see his vixen again and that God would preserve her, and her cubs too,
from all dangers, and would allow him to see them often, so that he
might come to love them for her sake as if he were their father, and
that if this were a sin he might be forgiven, for he sinned in
ignorance. The next day or two he saw vixen and cubs again, though his
visits were cut shorter, and these visits gave him such an innocent
pleasure that very soon his notions of honour, duty and so on, were
entirely forgotten, and his jealousy lulled asleep.

One day he tried taking with him the stereoscope and a pack of cards.

But though his Silvia was affectionate and amiable enough to let him put
the stereoscope over her muzzle, yet she would not look through it, but
kept turning her head to lick his hand, and it was plain to him that now
she had quite forgotten the use of the instrument. It was the same too
with the cards. For with them she was pleased enough, but only
delighting to bite at them, and flip them about with her paws, and never
considering for a moment whether they were diamonds or clubs, or hearts,
or spades or whether the card was an ace or not. So it was evident that
she had forgotten the nature of cards too.

Thereafter he only brought them things which she could better enjoy,
that is sugar, grapes, raisins, and butcher's meat.

By-and-bye, as the summer wore on, the cubs came to know him, and he
them, so that he was able to tell them easily apart, and then he
christened them. For this purpose he brought a little bowl of water,
sprinkled them as if in baptism and told them he was their godfather and
gave each of them a name, calling them Sorel, Kasper, Selwyn, Esther,
and Angelica.

Sorel was a clumsy little beast of a cheery and indeed puppyish
disposition; Kasper was fierce, the largest of the five, even in his
play he would always bite, and gave his godfather many a sharp nip as
time went on. Esther was of a dark complexion, a true brunette and very
sturdy; Angelica the brightest red and the most exactly like her mother;
while Selwyn was the smallest cub, of a very prying, inquisitive and
cunning temper, but delicate and undersized.

Thus Mr. Tebrick had a whole family now to occupy him, and, indeed, came
to love them with very much of a father's love and partiality.

His favourite was Angelica (who reminded him so much of her mother in
her pretty ways) because of a gentleness which was lacking in the
others, even in their play. After her in his affections came Selwyn,
whom he soon saw was the most intelligent of the whole litter. Indeed he
was so much more quick-witted than the rest that Mr. Tebrick was led
into speculating as to whether he had not inherited something of the
human from his dam. Thus very early he learnt to know his name, and
would come when he was called, and what was stranger still, he learnt
the names of his brothers and sisters before they came to do so
themselves.

Besides all this he was something of a young philosopher, for though his
brother Kasper tyrannized over him he put up with it all with an
unruffled temper. He was not, however, above playing tricks on the
others, and one day when Mr. Tebrick was by, he made believe that there
was a mouse in a hole some little way off. Very soon he was joined by
Sorel, and presently by Kasper and Esther. When he had got them all
digging, it was easy for him to slip away, and then he came to his
godfather with a sly look, sat down before him, and smiled and then
jerked his head over towards the others and smiled again and wrinkled
his brows so that Mr. Tebrick knew as well as if he had spoken that the
youngster was saying, "Have I not made fools of them all?"

He was the only one that was curious about Mr. Tebrick: he made him take
out his watch, put his ear to it, considered it and wrinkled up his
brows in perplexity. On the next visit it was the same thing. He must
see the watch again, and again think over it. But clever as he was,
little Selwyn could never understand it, and if his mother remembered
anything about watches it was a subject which she never attempted to
explain to her children.

One day Mr. Tebrick left the earth as usual and ran down the slope to
the road, when he was surprised to find a carriage waiting before his
house and a coachman walking about near his gate. Mr. Tebrick went in
and found that his visitor was waiting for him. It was his wife's uncle.

They shook hands, though the Rev. Canon Fox did not recognise him
immediately, and Mr. Tebrick led him into the house.

The clergyman looked about him a good deal, at the dirty and disorderly
rooms, and when Mr. Tebrick took him into the drawing room it was
evident that it had been unused for several months, the dust lay so
thickly on all the furniture.

After some conversation on indifferent topics Canon Fox said to him:

"I have called really to ask about my niece."

Mr. Tebrick was silent for some time and then said:

"She is quite happy now."

"Ah--indeed. I have heard she is not living with you any longer."

"No. She is not living with me. She is not far away. I see her every day
now."

"Indeed. Where does she live?"

"In the woods with her children. I ought to tell you that she has
changed her shape. She is a fox."

The Rev. Canon Fox got up; he was alarmed, and everything Mr. Tebrick
said confirmed what he had been led to expect he would find at Rylands.
When he was outside, however, he asked Mr. Tebrick:

"You don't have many visitors now, eh?"

"No--I never see anyone if I can avoid it. You are the first person I
have spoken to for months."

"Quite right, too, my dear fellow. I quite understand--in the
circumstances." Then the cleric shook him by the hand, got into his
carriage and drove away.

"At any rate," he said to himself, "there will be no scandal." He was
relieved also because Mr. Tebrick had said nothing about going abroad to
disseminate the Gospel. Canon Fox had been alarmed by the letter, had
not answered it, and thought that it was always better to let things be,
and never to refer to anything unpleasant. He did not at all want to
recommend Mr. Tebrick to the Bible Society if he were mad. His
eccentricities would never be noticed at Stokoe. Besides that, Mr.
Tebrick had said he was happy.

He was sorry for Mr. Tebrick too, and he said to himself that the queer
girl, his niece, must have married him because he was the first man she
had met. He reflected also that he was never likely to see her again and
said aloud, when he had driven some little way:

"Not an affectionate disposition," then to his coachman: "No, that's all
right. Drive on, Hopkins."

When Mr. Tebrick was alone he rejoiced exceedingly in his solitary life.
He understood, or so he fancied, what it was to be happy, and that he
had found complete happiness now, living from day to day, careless of
the future, surrounded every morning by playful and affectionate little
creatures whom he loved tenderly, and sitting beside their mother, whose
simple happiness was the source of his own.

"True happiness," he said to himself, "is to be found in bestowing love;
there is no such happiness as that of the mother for her babe, unless I
have attained it in mine for my vixen and her children."

With these feelings he waited impatiently for the hour on the morrow
when he might hasten to them once more.

When, however, he had toiled up the hillside, to the earth, taking
infinite precaution not to tread down the bracken, or make a beaten path
which might lead others to that secret spot, he found to his surprise
that Silvia was not there and that there were no cubs to be seen either.
He called to them, but it was in vain, and at last he laid himself on
the mossy bank beside the earth and waited.

For a long while, as it seemed to him, he lay very still, with closed
eyes, straining his ears to hear every rustle among the leaves, or any
sound that might be the cubs stirring in the earth.

At last he must have dropped asleep, for he woke suddenly with all his
senses alert, and opening his eyes found a full-grown fox within six
feet of him sitting on its haunches like a dog and watching his face
with curiosity. Mr. Tebrick saw instantly that it was not Silvia. When
he moved the fox got up and shifted his eyes, but still stood his
ground, and Mr. Tebrick recognised him then for the dog-fox he had seen
once before carrying a hare. It was the same dark beast with a large
white tag to his brush. Now the secret was out and Mr. Tebrick could see
his rival before him. Here was the real father of his godchildren, who
could be certain of their taking after him, and leading over again his
wild and rakish life. Mr. Tebrick stared for a long time at the handsome
rogue, who glanced back at him with distrust and watchfulness patent in
his face, but not without defiance too, and it seemed to Mr. Tebrick as
if there was also a touch of cynical humour in his look, as if he said:

"By Gad! we two have been strangely brought together!"

And to the man, at any rate, it seemed strange that they were thus
linked, and he wondered if the love his rival there bare to his vixen
and his cubs were the same thing in kind as his own.

"We would both of us give our lives for theirs," he said to himself as
he reasoned upon it, "we both of us are happy chiefly in their company.
What pride this fellow must feel to have such a wife, and such children
taking after him. And has he not reason for his pride? He lives in a
world where he is beset with a thousand dangers. For half the year he is
hunted, everywhere dogs pursue him, men lay traps for him or menace him.
He owes nothing to another."

But he did not speak, knowing that his words would only alarm the fox;
then in a few minutes he saw the dog-fox look over his shoulder, and
then he trotted off as lightly as a gossamer veil blown in the wind,
and, in a minute or two more, back he comes with his vixen and the cubs
all around him. Seeing the dog-fox thus surrounded by vixen and cubs was
too much for Mr. Tebrick; in spite of all his philosophy a pang of
jealousy shot through him. He could see that Silvia had been hunting
with her cubs, and also that she had forgotten that he would come that
morning, for she started when she saw him, and though she carelessly
licked his hand, he could see that her thoughts were not with him.

Very soon she led her cubs into the earth, the dog-fox had vanished and
Mr. Tebrick was again alone. He did not wait longer but went home.

Now was his peace of mind all gone, the happiness which he had flattered
himself the night before he knew so well how to enjoy, seemed now but a
fool's paradise in which he had been living. A hundred times this poor
gentleman bit his lip, drew down his torvous brows, and stamped his
foot, and cursed himself bitterly, or called his lady bitch. He could
not forgive himself neither, that he had not thought of the damned
dog-fox before, but all the while had let the cubs frisk round him, each
one a proof that a dog-fox had been at work with his vixen. Yes,
jealousy was now in the wind, and every circumstance which had been a
reason for his felicity the night before was now turned into a monstrous
feature of his nightmare. With all this Mr. Tebrick so worked upon
himself that for the time being he had lost his reason. Black was white
and white black, and he was resolved that on the morrow he would dig the
vile brood of foxes out and shoot them, and so free himself at last
from this hellish plague.

All that night he was in this mood, and in agony, as if he had broken in
the crown of a tooth and bitten on the nerve. But as all things will
have an ending so at last Mr. Tebrick, worn out and wearied by this
loathed passion of jealousy, fell into an uneasy and tormented sleep.

After an hour or two the procession of confused and jumbled images which
first assailed him passed away and subsided into one clear and powerful
dream. His wife was with him in her own proper shape, walking as they
had been on that fatal day before her transformation. Yet she was
changed too, for in her face there were visible tokens of unhappiness,
her face swollen with crying, pale and downcast, her hair hanging in
disorder, her damp hands wringing a small handkerchief into a ball, her
whole body shaken with sobs, and an air of long neglect about her
person. Between her sobs she was confessing to him some crime which she
had committed, but he did not catch the broken words, nor did he wish to
hear them, for he was dulled by his sorrow. So they continued walking
together in sadness as it were for ever, he with his arm about her
waist, she turning her head to him and often casting her eyes down in
distress.

At last they sat down, and he spoke, saying: "I know they are not my
children, but I shall not use them barbarously because of that. You are
still my wife. I swear to you they shall never be neglected. I will pay
for their education."

Then he began turning over the names of schools in his mind. Eton would
not do, nor Harrow, nor Winchester, nor Rugby.... But he could not tell
why these schools would not do for these children of hers, he only knew
that every school he thought of was impossible, but surely one could be
found. So turning over the names of schools he sat for a long while
holding his dear wife's hand, till at length, still weeping, she got up
and went away and then slowly he awoke.

But even when he had opened his eyes and looked about him he was
thinking of schools, saying to himself that he must send them to a
private academy, or even at the worst engage a tutor. "Why, yes," he
said to himself, putting one foot out of bed, "that is what it must be,
a tutor, though even then there will be a difficulty at first."

At those words he wondered what difficulty there would be and
recollected that they were not ordinary children. No, they were
foxes--mere foxes. When poor Mr. Tebrick had remembered this he was, as
it were, dazed or stunned by the fact, and for a long time he could
understand nothing, but at last burst into a flood of tears
compassionating them and himself too. The awfulness of the fact itself,
that his dear wife should have foxes instead of children, filled him
with an agony of pity, and, at length, when he recollected the cause of
their being foxes, that is that his wife was a fox also, his tears broke
out anew, and he could bear it no longer but began calling out in his
anguish, and beat his head once or twice against the wall, and then cast
himself down on his bed again and wept and wept, sometimes tearing the
sheets asunder with his teeth.

The whole of that day, for he was not to go to the earth till evening,
he went about sorrowfully, torn by true pity for his poor vixen and her
children.

At last when the time came he went again up to the earth, which he found
deserted, but hearing his voice, out came Esther. But though he called
the others by their names there was no answer, and something in the way
the cub greeted him made him fancy she was indeed alone. She was truly
rejoiced to see him, and scrambled up into his arms, and thence to his
shoulder, kissing him, which was unusual in her (though natural enough
in her sister Angelica). He sat down a little way from the earth
fondling her, and fed her with some fish he had brought for her mother,
which she ate so ravenously that he concluded she must have been short
of food that day and probably alone for some time.

At last while he was sitting there Esther pricked up her ears, started
up, and presently Mr. Tebrick saw his vixen come towards them. She
greeted him very affectionately but it was plain had not much time to
spare, for she soon started back whence she had come with Esther at her
side. When they had gone about a rod the cub hung back and kept stopping
and looking back to the earth, and at last turned and ran back home. But
her mother was not to be fobbed off so, for she quickly overtook her
child and gripping her by the scruff began to drag her along with her.

Mr. Tebrick, seeing then how matters stood, spoke to her, telling her he
would carry Esther if she would lead, so after a little while Silvia
gave her over, and then they set out on their strange journey.

Silvia went running on a little before while Mr. Tebrick followed after
with Esther in his arms whimpering and struggling now to be free, and
indeed, once she gave him a nip with her teeth. This was not so strange
a thing to him now, and he knew the remedy for it, which is much the
same as with others whose tempers run too high, that is a taste of it
themselves. Mr. Tebrick shook her and gave her a smart little cuff,
after which, though she sulked, she stopped her biting.

They went thus above a mile, circling his house and crossing the highway
until they gained a small covert that lay with some waste fields
adjacent to it. And by this time it was so dark that it was all Mr.
Tebrick could do to pick his way, for it was not always easy for him to
follow where his vixen found a big enough road for herself.

But at length they came to another earth, and by the starlight Mr.
Tebrick could just make out the other cubs skylarking in the shadows.

Now he was tired, but he was happy and laughed softly for joy, and
presently his vixen, coming to him, put her feet upon his shoulders as
he sat on the ground, and licked him, and he kissed her back on the
muzzle and gathered her in his arms and rolled her in his jacket and
then laughed and wept by turns in the excess of his joy.

All his jealousies of the night before were forgotten now. All his
desperate sorrow of the morning and the horror of his dream were gone.
What if they were foxes? Mr. Tebrick found that he could be happy with
them. As the weather was hot he lay out there all the night, first
playing hide and seek with them in the dark till, missing his vixen and
the cubs proving obstreperous, he lay down and was soon asleep.

He was woken up soon after dawn by one of the cubs tugging at his
shoelaces in play. When he sat up he saw two of the cubs standing near
him on their hind legs, wrestling with each other, the other two were
playing hide and seek round a tree trunk, and now Angelica let go his
laces and came romping into his arms to kiss him and say "Good morning"
to him, then worrying the points of his waistcoat a little shyly after
the warmth of his embrace.

That moment of awakening was very sweet to him. The freshness of the
morning, the scent of everything at the day's rebirth, the first beams
of the sun upon a tree-top near, and a pigeon rising into the air
suddenly, all delighted him. Even the rough scent of the body of the cub
in his arms seemed to him delicious.

At that moment all human customs and institutions seemed to him nothing
but folly; for said he, "I would exchange all my life as a man for my
happiness now, and even now I retain almost all of the ridiculous
conceptions of a man. The beasts are happier and I will deserve that
happiness as best I can."

After he had looked at the cubs playing merrily, how, with soft stealth,
one would creep behind another to bounce out and startle him, a thought
came into Mr. Tebrick's head, and that was that these cubs were
innocent, they were as stainless snow, they could not sin, for God had
created them to be thus and they could break none of His commandments.
And he fancied also that men sin because they cannot be as the animals.

Presently he got up full of happiness, and began making his way home
when suddenly he came to a full stop and asked himself: "What is going
to happen to them?"

This question rooted him stockishly in a cold and deadly fear as if he
had seen a snake before him. At last he shook his head and hurried on
his path. Aye, indeed, what would become of his vixen and her children?

This thought put him into such a fever of apprehension that he did his
best not to think of it any more, but yet it stayed with him all that
day and for weeks after, at the back of his mind, so that he was not
careless in his happiness as before, but as it were trying continually
to escape his own thoughts.

This made him also anxious to pass all the time he could with his dear
Silvia, and, therefore, he began going out to them for more of the
daytime, and then he would sleep the night in the woods also as he had
done that night; and so he passed several weeks, only returning to his
house occasionally to get himself a fresh provision of food. But after a
week or ten days at the new earth both his vixen and the cubs, too, got
a new habit of roaming. For a long while back, as he knew, his vixen had
been lying out alone most of the day, and now the cubs were all for
doing the same thing. The earth, in short, had served its purpose and
was now distasteful to them, and they would not enter it unless pressed
with fear.

This new manner of their lives was an added grief to Mr. Tebrick, for
sometimes he missed them for hours together, or for the whole day even,
and not knowing where they might be was lonely and anxious. Yet his
Silvia was thoughtful for him too and would often send Angelica or
another of the cubs to fetch him to their new lair, or come herself if
she could spare the time. For now they were all perfectly accustomed to
his presence, and had come to look on him as their natural companion,
and although he was in many ways irksome to them by scaring rabbits, yet
they always rejoiced to see him when they had been parted from him. This
friendliness of theirs was, you may be sure, the source of most of Mr.
Tebrick's happiness at this time. Indeed he lived now for nothing but
his foxes, his love for his vixen had extended itself insensibly to
include her cubs, and these were now his daily playmates so that he knew
them as well as if they had been his own children. With Selwyn and
Angelica indeed he was always happy; and they never so much as when they
were with him. He was not stiff in his behaviour either, but had learnt
by this time as much from his foxes as they had from him. Indeed never
was there a more curious alliance than this or one with stranger effects
upon both of the parties.

Mr. Tebrick now could follow after them anywhere and keep up with them
too, and could go through a wood as silently as a deer. He learnt to
conceal himself if ever a labourer passed by so that he was rarely seen,
and never but once in their company. But what was most strange of all,
he had got a way of going doubled up, often almost on all fours with his
hands touching the ground every now and then, particularly when he went
uphill.

He hunted with them too sometimes, chiefly by coming up and scaring
rabbits towards where the cubs lay ambushed, so that the bunnies ran
straight into their jaws.

He was useful to them in other ways, climbing up and robbing pigeon's
nests for the eggs which they relished exceedingly, or by occasionally
dispatching a hedgehog for them so they did not get the prickles in
their mouths. But while on his part he thus altered his conduct, they on
their side were not behindhand, but learnt a dozen human tricks from
him that are ordinarily wanting in Reynard's education.

One evening he went to a cottager who had a row of skeps, and bought one
of them, just as it was after the man had smothered the bees. This he
carried to the foxes that they might taste the honey, for he had seen
them dig out wild bees' nests often enough. The skep full was indeed a
wonderful feast for them, they bit greedily into the heavy scented comb,
their jaws were drowned in the sticky flood of sweetness, and they
gorged themselves on it without restraint. When they had crunched up the
last morsel they tore the skep in pieces, and for hours afterwards they
were happily employed in licking themselves clean.

That night he slept near their lair, but they left him and went hunting.
In the morning when he woke he was quite numb with cold, and faint with
hunger. A white mist hung over everything and the wood smelt of autumn.

He got up and stretched his cramped limbs, and then walked homewards.
The summer was over and Mr. Tebrick noticed this now for the first time
and was astonished. He reflected that the cubs were fast growing up,
they were foxes at all points, and yet when he thought of the time when
they had been sooty and had blue eyes it seemed to him only yesterday.
From that he passed to thinking of the future, asking himself as he had
done once before what would become of his vixen and her children. Before
the winter he must tempt them into the security of his garden, and
fortify it against all the dangers that threatened them.

But though he tried to allay his fear with such resolutions he remained
uneasy all that day. When he went out to them that afternoon he found
only his wife Silvia there and it was plain to him that she too was
alarmed, but alas, poor creature, she could tell him nothing, only lick
his hands and face, and turn about pricking her ears at every sound.

"Where are your children, Silvia?" he asked her several times, but she
was impatient of his questions, but at last sprang into his arms,
flattened herself upon his breast and kissed him gently, so that when he
departed his heart was lighter because he knew that she still loved him.

That night he slept indoors, but in the morning early he was awoken by
the sound of trotting horses, and running to the window saw a farmer
riding by very sprucely dressed. Could they be hunting so soon, he
wondered, but presently reassured himself that it could not be a hunt
already.

He heard no other sound till eleven o'clock in the morning when suddenly
there was the clamour of hounds giving tongue and not so far off
neither. At this Mr. Tebrick ran out of his house distracted and set
open the gates of his garden, but with iron bars and wire at the top so
the huntsmen could not follow. There was silence again; it seems the fox
must have turned away, for there was no other sound of the hunt. Mr.
Tebrick was now like one helpless with fear, he dared not go out, yet
could not stay still at home. There was nothing that he could do, yet he
would not admit this, so he busied himself in making holes in the
hedges, so that Silvia (or her cubs) could enter from whatever side she
came. At last he forced himself to go indoors and sit down and drink
some tea. While he was there he fancied he heard the hounds again; it
was but a faint ghostly echo of their music, yet when he ran out of the
house it was already close at hand in the copse above.

Now it was that poor Mr. Tebrick made his great mistake, for hearing the
hounds almost outside the gate he ran to meet them, whereas rightly he
should have run back to the house. As soon as he reached the gate he saw
his wife Silvia coming towards him but very tired with running and just
upon her the hounds. The horror of that sight pierced him, for ever
afterwards he was haunted by those hounds--their eagerness, their
desperate efforts to gain on her, and their blind lust for her came at
odd moments to frighten him all his life. Now he should have run back,
though it was already late, but instead he cried out to her, and she ran
straight through the open gate to him. What followed was all over in a
flash, but it was seen by many witnesses.

The side of Mr. Tebrick's garden there is bounded by a wall, about six
feet high and curving round, so that the huntsmen could see over this
wall inside. One of them indeed put his horse at it very boldly, which
was risking his neck, and although he got over safe was too late to be
of much assistance.

His vixen had at once sprung into Mr. Tebrick's arms, and before he
could turn back the hounds were upon them and had pulled them down. Then
at that moment there was a scream of despair heard by all the field that
had come up, which they declared afterwards was more like a woman's
voice than a man's. But yet there was no clear proof whether it was Mr.
Tebrick or his wife who had suddenly regained her voice. When the
huntsman who had leapt the wall got to them and had whipped off the
hounds Mr. Tebrick had been terribly mauled and was bleeding from twenty
wounds. As for his vixen she was dead, though he was still clasping her
dead body in his arms.

Mr. Tebrick was carried into the house at once and assistance sent for,
but there was no doubt now about his neighbours being in the right when
they called him mad. For a long while his life was despaired of, but
at last he rallied, and in the end he recovered his reason and lived to
be a great age, for that matter he is still alive.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Lady into Fox" ***

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