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LADY INTO FOX


SOME NEW BORZOI NOVELS
FALL, 1923
A LOST LADY
Willa Cather
JANET MARCH
Floyd Dell
THE CIMBRIANS
Johannes V. Jensen
HEART'S BLOOD
Ethel M. Kelley
THE BACK SEAT
G. B. Stern
THE BACHELOR GIRL
Victor Margueritte
THE BLIND BOW-BOY
Carl Van Vechten
JANE-OUR STRANGER
Mary Borden
THE THREE IMPOSTORS
Arthur Machen
THE VOICE ON THE MOUNTAIN
Mario, Queen of Roumania






MR. AND MRS. TEBRICK AT HOME.


otetorosodoterono
LADY INTO FOX
DAVID GARNETT
Illustrated with wood engravings by :
R. A. GARNETT

NEW YORK
ALFRED A. KNOPF
1923


-
E-?..
ONDERFUL 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 chang-
ing of Mrs. Tebrick into a vixen is an established fact
which we may attempt to account for as we will. Cer-
tainly it is in the explanation of the fact, and the recon-
ciling 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


LADY INTO FOX
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 excep-
tionally 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


LADY INTO FOX
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, hus-
band, 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 him-
self 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 weep-
ing (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


LADY INTO FOX
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 parlourmaid, 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.
arms
n went


LADY INTO FOX
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
Æsop, and by passages in the Scriptures, that it is
13


LADY INTO FOX
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 eager-
ness, 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
15


LADY INTO FOX
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 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
18


LADY INTO FOX
this he resolved to take her, though with full precau-
tions. 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 hulloa-
ing 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
19


LADY INTO FOX
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
22


LADY INTO FOX
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 think-
ing 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
27


LADY INTO FOX
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
29


LADY INTO FOX
to giving her blows and kicks, she still came back to
him, crawling on her belly and imploring his forgive-
ness 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 diffi-
cult 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, what-
ever 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
32


LADY INTO FOX
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 otto-
man, 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 antimacas-
sars 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
33


LADY INTO FOX
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 ven-
turing 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 after-
noon 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 per-
haps 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:
36


LADY INTO FOX
offered to go near the ducks, but running before him
led him on to take her a longer walk. This he con-
sented 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 started 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 recognized 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
39


LADY INTO FOX
made up by his neighbours not because they were fanci-
ful 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. In-
deed 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 or 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 entertain-
ing reading enough, I daresay, for some, but if there
44


LADY INTO FOX
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 dog-cart.
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 agita-
tion 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,
46


LADY INTO FOX
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


LADY INTO FOX
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 some-
what 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
51


LADY INTO FOX
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
52


LADY INTO FOX
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 Æsop 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 last-
ing. 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? ”
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LADY INTO FOX
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.
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LADY INTO FOX
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 dog cart 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 pas-
sion 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
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LADYINTO FOX
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
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LADY INTO FOX
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 thor-
oughly 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

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LADY INTO FOX
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 unfaith-
ful 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
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LADY INTO FOX
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
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LADY INTO FOX
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.
Bye-and-bye, as the summer wore on, the cubs came

Translate
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.
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LADY, ÎNTO FOX
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
pnce 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
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LADY INTO FOX
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 him-
self 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
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LADY INTO FOX
Mr. Tebrick shook her and gave her a smart little
cuff, after which, though shc 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.
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LADY INTO FOX
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 him-
self 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 com-
ing 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
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LADY INTO FOX
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 after-
wards 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
ce
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