drive myself crazy with false reasoning upon it."
Yet before he slept again he prayed, but though he had thought first to
pray for guidance, in reality he prayed only that on the morrow he would
see his vixen again and that God would preserve her, and her cubs too,
from all dangers, and would allow him to see them often, so that he
might come to love them for her sake as if he were their father, and
that if this were a sin he might be forgiven, for he sinned in
ignorance. The next day or two he saw vixen and cubs again, though his
visits were cut shorter, and these visits gave him such an innocent
pleasure that very soon his notions of honour, duty and so on, were
entirely forgotten, and his jealousy lulled asleep.
One day he tried taking with him the stereoscope and a pack of cards.
But though his Silvia was affectionate and amiable enough to let him put
the stereoscope over her muzzle, yet she would not look through it, but
kept turning her head to lick his hand, and it was plain to him that now
she had quite forgotten the use of the instrument. It was the same too
with the cards. For with them she was pleased enough, but only
delighting to bite at them, and flip them about with her paws, and never
considering for a moment whether they were diamonds or clubs, or hearts,
or spades or whether the card was an ace or not. So it was evident that
she had forgotten the nature of cards too.
Thereafter he only brought them things which she could better enjoy,
that is sugar, grapes, raisins, and butcher's meat.
By-and-bye, as the summer wore on, the cubs came to know him, and he
them, so that he was able to tell them easily apart, and then he
christened them. For this purpose he brought a little bowl of water,
sprinkled them as if in baptism and told them he was their godfather and
gave each of them a name, calling them Sorel, Kasper, Selwyn, Esther,
and Angelica.
Sorel was a clumsy little beast of a cheery and indeed puppyish
disposition; Kasper was fierce, the largest of the five, even in his
play he would always bite, and gave his godfather many a sharp nip as
time went on. Esther was of a dark complexion, a true brunette and very
sturdy; Angelica the brightest red and the most exactly like her mother;
while Selwyn was the smallest cub, of a very prying, inquisitive and
cunning temper, but delicate and undersized.
Thus Mr. Tebrick had a whole family now to occupy him, and, indeed, came
to love them with very much of a father's love and partiality.
His favourite was Angelica (who reminded him so much of her mother in
her pretty ways) because of a gentleness which was lacking in the
others, even in their play. After her in his affections came Selwyn,
whom he soon saw was the most intelligent of the whole litter. Indeed he
was so much more quick-witted than the rest that Mr. Tebrick was led
into speculating as to whether he had not inherited something of the
human from his dam. Thus very early he learnt to know his name, and
would come when he was called, and what was stranger still, he learnt
the names of his brothers and sisters before they came to do so
themselves.
Besides all this he was something of a young philosopher, for though his
brother Kasper tyrannized over him he put up with it all with an
unruffled temper. He was not, however, above playing tricks on the
others, and one day when Mr. Tebrick was by, he made believe that there
was a mouse in a hole some little way off. Very soon he was joined by
Sorel, and presently by Kasper and Esther. When he had got them all
digging, it was easy for him to slip away, and then he came to his
godfather with a sly look, sat down before him, and smiled and then
jerked his head over towards the others and smiled again and wrinkled
his brows so that Mr. Tebrick knew as well as if he had spoken that the
youngster was saying, "Have I not made fools of them all?"
He was the only one that was curious about Mr. Tebrick: he made him take
out his watch, put his ear to it, considered it and wrinkled up his
brows in perplexity. On the next visit it was the same thing. He must
see the watch again, and again think over it. But clever as he was,
little Selwyn could never understand it, and if his mother remembered
anything about watches it was a subject which she never attempted to
explain to her children.
One day Mr. Tebrick left the earth as usual and ran down the slope to
the road, when he was surprised to find a carriage waiting before his
house and a coachman walking about near his gate. Mr. Tebrick went in
and found that his visitor was waiting for him. It was his wife's uncle.
They shook hands, though the Rev. Canon Fox did not recognise him
immediately, and Mr. Tebrick led him into the house.
The clergyman looked about him a good deal, at the dirty and disorderly
rooms, and when Mr. Tebrick took him into the drawing room it was
evident that it had been unused for several months, the dust lay so
thickly on all the furniture.
After some conversation on indifferent topics Canon Fox said to him:
"I have called really to ask about my niece."
Mr. Tebrick was silent for some time and then said:
"She is quite happy now."
"Ah--indeed. I have heard she is not living with you any longer."
"No. She is not living with me. She is not far away. I see her every day
now."
"Indeed. Where does she live?"
"In the woods with her children. I ought to tell you that she has
changed her shape. She is a fox."
The Rev. Canon Fox got up; he was alarmed, and everything Mr. Tebrick
said confirmed what he had been led to expect he would find at Rylands.
When he was outside, however, he asked Mr. Tebrick:
"You don't have many visitors now, eh?"
"No--I never see anyone if I can avoid it. You are the first person I
have spoken to for months."
"Quite right, too, my dear fellow. I quite understand--in the
circumstances." Then the cleric shook him by the hand, got into his
carriage and drove away.
"At any rate," he said to himself, "there will be no scandal." He was
relieved also because Mr. Tebrick had said nothing about going abroad to
disseminate the Gospel. Canon Fox had been alarmed by the letter, had
not answered it, and thought that it was always better to let things be,
and never to refer to anything unpleasant. He did not at all want to
recommend Mr. Tebrick to the Bible Society if he were mad. His
eccentricities would never be noticed at Stokoe. Besides that, Mr.
Tebrick had said he was happy.
He was sorry for Mr. Tebrick too, and he said to himself that the queer
girl, his niece, must have married him because he was the first man she
had met. He reflected also that he was never likely to see her again and
said aloud, when he had driven some little way:
"Not an affectionate disposition," then to his coachman: "No, that's all
right. Drive on, Hopkins."
When Mr. Tebrick was alone he rejoiced exceedingly in his solitary life.
He understood, or so he fancied, what it was to be happy, and that he
had found complete happiness now, living from day to day, careless of
the future, surrounded every morning by playful and affectionate little
creatures whom he loved tenderly, and sitting beside their mother, whose
simple happiness was the source of his own.
"True happiness," he said to himself, "is to be found in bestowing love;
there is no such happiness as that of the mother for her babe, unless I
have attained it in mine for my vixen and her children."
With these feelings he waited impatiently for the hour on the morrow
when he might hasten to them once more.
When, however, he had toiled up the hillside, to the earth, taking
infinite precaution not to tread down the bracken, or make a beaten path
which might lead others to that secret spot, he found to his surprise
that Silvia was not there and that there were no cubs to be seen either.
He called to them, but it was in vain, and at last he laid himself on
the mossy bank beside the earth and waited.
For a long while, as it seemed to him, he lay very still, with closed
eyes, straining his ears to hear every rustle among the leaves, or any
sound that might be the cubs stirring in the earth.
At last he must have dropped asleep, for he woke suddenly with all his
senses alert, and opening his eyes found a full-grown fox within six
feet of him sitting on its haunches like a dog and watching his face
with curiosity. Mr. Tebrick saw instantly that it was not Silvia. When
he moved the fox got up and shifted his eyes, but still stood his
ground, and Mr. Tebrick recognised him then for the dog-fox he had seen
once before carrying a hare. It was the same dark beast with a large
white tag to his brush. Now the secret was out and Mr. Tebrick could see
his rival before him. Here was the real father of his godchildren, who
could be certain of their taking after him, and leading over again his
wild and rakish life. Mr. Tebrick stared for a long time at the handsome
rogue, who glanced back at him with distrust and watchfulness patent in
his face, but not without defiance too, and it seemed to Mr. Tebrick as
if there was also a touch of cynical humour in his look, as if he said:
"By Gad! we two have been strangely brought together!"
And to the man, at any rate, it seemed strange that they were thus
linked, and he wondered if the love his rival there bare to his vixen
and his cubs were the same thing in kind as his own.
"We would both of us give our lives for theirs," he said to himself as
he reasoned upon it, "we both of us are happy chiefly in their company.
What pride this fellow must feel to have such a wife, and such children
taking after him. And has he not reason for his pride? He lives in a
world where he is beset with a thousand dangers. For half the year he is
hunted, everywhere dogs pursue him, men lay traps for him or menace him.
He owes nothing to another."
But he did not speak, knowing that his words would only alarm the fox;
then in a few minutes he saw the dog-fox look over his shoulder, and
then he trotted off as lightly as a gossamer veil blown in the wind,
and, in a minute or two more, back he comes with his vixen and the cubs
all around him. Seeing the dog-fox thus surrounded by vixen and cubs was
too much for Mr. Tebrick; in spite of all his philosophy a pang of
jealousy shot through him. He could see that Silvia had been hunting
with her cubs, and also that she had forgotten that he would come that
morning, for she started when she saw him, and though she carelessly
licked his hand, he could see that her thoughts were not with him.
Very soon she led her cubs into the earth, the dog-fox had vanished and
Mr. Tebrick was again alone. He did not wait longer but went home.
Now was his peace of mind all gone, the happiness which he had flattered
himself the night before he knew so well how to enjoy, seemed now but a
fool's paradise in which he had been living. A hundred times this poor
gentleman bit his lip, drew down his torvous brows, and stamped his
foot, and cursed himself bitterly, or called his lady bitch. He could
not forgive himself neither, that he had not thought of the damned
dog-fox before, but all the while had let the cubs frisk round him, each
one a proof that a dog-fox had been at work with his vixen. Yes,
jealousy was now in the wind, and every circumstance which had been a
reason for his felicity the night before was now turned into a monstrous
feature of his nightmare. With all this Mr. Tebrick so worked upon
himself that for the time being he had lost his reason. Black was white
and white black, and he was resolved that on the morrow he would dig the
vile brood of foxes out and shoot them, and so free himself at last
from this hellish plague.
All that night he was in this mood, and in agony, as if he had broken in
the crown of a tooth and bitten on the nerve. But as all things will
have an ending so at last Mr. Tebrick, worn out and wearied by this
loathed passion of jealousy, fell into an uneasy and tormented sleep.
After an hour or two the procession of confused and jumbled images which
first assailed him passed away and subsided into one clear and powerful
dream. His wife was with him in her own proper shape, walking as they
had been on that fatal day before her transformation. Yet she was
changed too, for in her face there were visible tokens of unhappiness,
her face swollen with crying, pale and downcast, her hair hanging in
disorder, her damp hands wringing a small handkerchief into a ball, her
whole body shaken with sobs, and an air of long neglect about her
person. Between her sobs she was confessing to him some crime which she
had committed, but he did not catch the broken words, nor did he wish to
hear them, for he was dulled by his sorrow. So they continued walking
together in sadness as it were for ever, he with his arm about her
waist, she turning her head to him and often casting her eyes down in
distress.
At last they sat down, and he spoke, saying: "I know they are not my
children, but I shall not use them barbarously because of that. You are
still my wife. I swear to you they shall never be neglected. I will pay
for their education."
Then he began turning over the names of schools in his mind. Eton would
not do, nor Harrow, nor Winchester, nor Rugby.... But he could not tell
why these schools would not do for these children of hers, he only knew
that every school he thought of was impossible, but surely one could be
found. So turning over the names of schools he sat for a long while
holding his dear wife's hand, till at length, still weeping, she got up
and went away and then slowly he awoke.
But even when he had opened his eyes and looked about him he was
thinking of schools, saying to himself that he must send them to a
private academy, or even at the worst engage a tutor. "Why, yes," he
said to himself, putting one foot out of bed, "that is what it must be,
a tutor, though even then there will be a difficulty at first."
At those words he wondered what difficulty there would be and
recollected that they were not ordinary children. No, they were
foxes--mere foxes. When poor Mr. Tebrick had remembered this he was, as
it were, dazed or stunned by the fact, and for a long time he could
understand nothing, but at last burst into a flood of tears
compassionating them and himself too. The awfulness of the fact itself,
that his dear wife should have foxes instead of children, filled him
with an agony of pity, and, at length, when he recollected the cause of
their being foxes, that is that his wife was a fox also, his tears broke
out anew, and he could bear it no longer but began calling out in his
anguish, and beat his head once or twice against the wall, and then cast
himself down on his bed again and wept and wept, sometimes tearing the
sheets asunder with his teeth.
The whole of that day, for he was not to go to the earth till evening,
he went about sorrowfully, torn by true pity for his poor vixen and her
children.
At last when the time came he went again up to the earth, which he found
deserted, but hearing his voice, out came Esther. But though he called
the others by their names there was no answer, and something in the way
the cub greeted him made him fancy she was indeed alone. She was truly
rejoiced to see him, and scrambled up into his arms, and thence to his
shoulder, kissing him, which was unusual in her (though natural enough
in her sister Angelica). He sat down a little way from the earth
fondling her, and fed her with some fish he had brought for her mother,
which she ate so ravenously that he concluded she must have been short
of food that day and probably alone for some time.
At last while he was sitting there Esther pricked up her ears, started
up, and presently Mr. Tebrick saw his vixen come towards them. She
greeted him very affectionately but it was plain had not much time to
spare, for she soon started back whence she had come with Esther at her
side. When they had gone about a rod the cub hung back and kept stopping
and looking back to the earth, and at last turned and ran back home. But
her mother was not to be fobbed off so, for she quickly overtook her
child and gripping her by the scruff began to drag her along with her.
Mr. Tebrick, seeing then how matters stood, spoke to her, telling her he
would carry Esther if she would lead, so after a little while Silvia
gave her over, and then they set out on their strange journey.
Silvia went running on a little before while Mr. Tebrick followed after
with Esther in his arms whimpering and struggling now to be free, and
indeed, once she gave him a nip with her teeth. This was not so strange
a thing to him now, and he knew the remedy for it, which is much the
same as with others whose tempers run too high, that is a taste of it
themselves. Mr. Tebrick shook her and gave her a smart little cuff,
after which, though she sulked, she stopped her biting.
They went thus above a mile, circling his house and crossing the highway
until they gained a small covert that lay with some waste fields
adjacent to it. And by this time it was so dark that it was all Mr.
Tebrick could do to pick his way, for it was not always easy for him to
follow where his vixen found a big enough road for herself.
But at length they came to another earth, and by the starlight Mr.
Tebrick could just make out the other cubs skylarking in the shadows.
Now he was tired, but he was happy and laughed softly for joy, and
presently his vixen, coming to him, put her feet upon his shoulders as
he sat on the ground, and licked him, and he kissed her back on the
muzzle and gathered her in his arms and rolled her in his jacket and
then laughed and wept by turns in the excess of his joy.
All his jealousies of the night before were forgotten now. All his
desperate sorrow of the morning and the horror of his dream were gone.
What if they were foxes? Mr. Tebrick found that he could be happy with
them. As the weather was hot he lay out there all the night, first
playing hide and seek with them in the dark till, missing his vixen and
the cubs proving obstreperous, he lay down and was soon asleep.
He was woken up soon after dawn by one of the cubs tugging at his
shoelaces in play. When he sat up he saw two of the cubs standing near
him on their hind legs, wrestling with each other, the other two were
playing hide and seek round a tree trunk, and now Angelica let go his
laces and came romping into his arms to kiss him and say "Good morning"
to him, then worrying the points of his waistcoat a little shyly after
the warmth of his embrace.
That moment of awakening was very sweet to him. The freshness of the
morning, the scent of everything at the day's rebirth, the first beams
of the sun upon a tree-top near, and a pigeon rising into the air
suddenly, all delighted him. Even the rough scent of the body of the cub
in his arms seemed to him delicious.
At that moment all human customs and institutions seemed to him nothing
but folly; for said he, "I would exchange all my life as a man for my
happiness now, and even now I retain almost all of the ridiculous
conceptions of a man. The beasts are happier and I will deserve that
happiness as best I can."
After he had looked at the cubs playing merrily, how, with soft stealth,
one would creep behind another to bounce out and startle him, a thought
came into Mr. Tebrick's head, and that was that these cubs were
innocent, they were as stainless snow, they could not sin, for God had
created them to be thus and they could break none of His commandments.
And he fancied also that men sin because they cannot be as the animals.
Presently he got up full of happiness, and began making his way home
when suddenly he came to a full stop and asked himself: "What is going
to happen to them?"
This question rooted him stockishly in a cold and deadly fear as if he
had seen a snake before him. At last he shook his head and hurried on
his path. Aye, indeed, what would become of his vixen and her children?
This thought put him into such a fever of apprehension that he did his
best not to think of it any more, but yet it stayed with him all that
day and for weeks after, at the back of his mind, so that he was not
careless in his happiness as before, but as it were trying continually
to escape his own thoughts.
This made him also anxious to pass all the time he could with his dear
Silvia, and, therefore, he began going out to them for more of the
daytime, and then he would sleep the night in the woods also as he had
done that night; and so he passed several weeks, only returning to his
house occasionally to get himself a fresh provision of food. But after a
week or ten days at the new earth both his vixen and the cubs, too, got
a new habit of roaming. For a long while back, as he knew, his vixen had
been lying out alone most of the day, and now the cubs were all for
doing the same thing. The earth, in short, had served its purpose and
was now distasteful to them, and they would not enter it unless pressed
with fear.
This new manner of their lives was an added grief to Mr. Tebrick, for
sometimes he missed them for hours together, or for the whole day even,
and not knowing where they might be was lonely and anxious. Yet his
Silvia was thoughtful for him too and would often send Angelica or
another of the cubs to fetch him to their new lair, or come herself if
she could spare the time. For now they were all perfectly accustomed to
his presence, and had come to look on him as their natural companion,
and although he was in many ways irksome to them by scaring rabbits, yet
they always rejoiced to see him when they had been parted from him. This
friendliness of theirs was, you may be sure, the source of most of Mr.
Tebrick's happiness at this time. Indeed he lived now for nothing but
his foxes, his love for his vixen had extended itself insensibly to
include her cubs, and these were now his daily playmates so that he knew
them as well as if they had been his own children. With Selwyn and
Angelica indeed he was always happy; and they never so much as when they
were with him. He was not stiff in his behaviour either, but had learnt
by this time as much from his foxes as they had from him. Indeed never
was there a more curious alliance than this or one with stranger effects
upon both of the parties.
Mr. Tebrick now could follow after them anywhere and keep up with them
too, and could go through a wood as silently as a deer. He learnt to
conceal himself if ever a labourer passed by so that he was rarely seen,
and never but once in their company. But what was most strange of all,
he had got a way of going doubled up, often almost on all fours with his
hands touching the ground every now and then, particularly when he went
uphill.
He hunted with them too sometimes, chiefly by coming up and scaring
rabbits towards where the cubs lay ambushed, so that the bunnies ran
straight into their jaws.
He was useful to them in other ways, climbing up and robbing pigeon's
nests for the eggs which they relished exceedingly, or by occasionally
dispatching a hedgehog for them so they did not get the prickles in
their mouths. But while on his part he thus altered his conduct, they on
their side were not behindhand, but learnt a dozen human tricks from
him that are ordinarily wanting in Reynard's education.
One evening he went to a cottager who had a row of skeps, and bought one
of them, just as it was after the man had smothered the bees. This he
carried to the foxes that they might taste the honey, for he had seen
them dig out wild bees' nests often enough. The skep full was indeed a
wonderful feast for them, they bit greedily into the heavy scented comb,
their jaws were drowned in the sticky flood of sweetness, and they
gorged themselves on it without restraint. When they had crunched up the
last morsel they tore the skep in pieces, and for hours afterwards they
were happily employed in licking themselves clean.
That night he slept near their lair, but they left him and went hunting.
In the morning when he woke he was quite numb with cold, and faint with
hunger. A white mist hung over everything and the wood smelt of autumn.
He got up and stretched his cramped limbs, and then walked homewards.
The summer was over and Mr. Tebrick noticed this now for the first time
and was astonished. He reflected that the cubs were fast growing up,
they were foxes at all points, and yet when he thought of the time when
they had been sooty and had blue eyes it seemed to him only yesterday.
From that he passed to thinking of the future, asking himself as he had
done once before what would become of his vixen and her children. Before
the winter he must tempt them into the security of his garden, and
fortify it against all the dangers that threatened them.