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 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  anus
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 slop 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 lime he could with his dear
Silvia, and, therefore, he began going out to them for more of the day time,
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 lime 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 Ins 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 oilier 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 once sprung into Mr. Tebrick's aims, 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. <b>Finis</b>