"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 silting 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 1" cried the old woman. "Poor  creature! You ought to
be  ashamed, sir I  Let her go indeed I Poor lady,  is that the way for  her
hus-band to talk I 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 Tiding  at a walk
down the lane.  At this sight Mr.  Tebrick wailed 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 hen
     But when he found himself outside the cottage words failed him and fury
look possession of him, so (hat 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 tousled 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
inquire 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 ale 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 foxhounds  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 hale 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 bounds had not got hen 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
wailing 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 I 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  bis
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 sec her nowhere, but looking about him found
a fox's earth, but so well hidden that he might have passed it by a thousand
limes 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 wailed 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 bad 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 bis 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 light 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-by, 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-wilted  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  tyrannised 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. Tebricks 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 docs the live?"
     "In  the  woods with  her children. I ought to  tell  you  that she has
changed her shape. She is ft fox."
     The Rev. Canon Vox 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. Tebricks
     "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 wailed.
     For a  long while, as it seemed to him, he lay very  still, with closed
eyes, straining his ears to hear every rustic 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 feel 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 teemed 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
law  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 nattered
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 alt
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, laying:
     "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  loo.  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 sal 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  loo  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
sal 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 mom