uneasy all that day. When he went out to them that afternoon he found
only his wife Silvia there and it was plain to him that she too was
alarmed, but alas, poor creature, she could tell him nothing, only lick
his hands and face, and turn about pricking her ears at every sound.
"Where are your children, Silvia?" he asked her several times, but she
was impatient of his questions, but at last sprang into his arms,
flattened herself upon his breast and kissed him gently, so that when he
departed his heart was lighter because he knew that she still loved him.
That night he slept indoors, but in the morning early he was awoken by
the sound of trotting horses, and running to the window saw a farmer
riding by very sprucely dressed. Could they be hunting so soon, he
wondered, but presently reassured himself that it could not be a hunt
already.
He heard no other sound till eleven o'clock in the morning when suddenly
there was the clamour of hounds giving tongue and not so far off
neither. At this Mr. Tebrick ran out of his house distracted and set
open the gates of his garden, but with iron bars and wire at the top so
the huntsmen could not follow. There was silence again; it seems the fox
must have turned away, for there was no other sound of the hunt. Mr.
Tebrick was now like one helpless with fear, he dared not go out, yet
could not stay still at home. There was nothing that he could do, yet he
would not admit this, so he busied himself in making holes in the
hedges, so that Silvia (or her cubs) could enter from whatever side she
came. At last he forced himself to go indoors and sit down and drink
some tea. While he was there he fancied he heard the hounds again; it
was but a faint ghostly echo of their music, yet when he ran out of the
house it was already close at hand in the copse above.
Now it was that poor Mr. Tebrick made his great mistake, for hearing the
hounds almost outside the gate he ran to meet them, whereas rightly he
should have run back to the house. As soon as he reached the gate he saw
his wife Silvia coming towards him but very tired with running and just
upon her the hounds. The horror of that sight pierced him, for ever
afterwards he was haunted by those hounds--their eagerness, their
desperate efforts to gain on her, and their blind lust for her came at
odd moments to frighten him all his life. Now he should have run back,
though it was already late, but instead he cried out to her, and she ran
straight through the open gate to him. What followed was all over in a
flash, but it was seen by many witnesses.
The side of Mr. Tebrick's garden there is bounded by a wall, about six
feet high and curving round, so that the huntsmen could see over this
wall inside. One of them indeed put his horse at it very boldly, which
was risking his neck, and although he got over safe was too late to be
of much assistance.
His vixen had at once sprung into Mr. Tebrick's arms, and before he
could turn back the hounds were upon them and had pulled them down. Then
at that moment there was a scream of despair heard by all the field that
had come up, which they declared afterwards was more like a woman's
voice than a man's. But yet there was no clear proof whether it was Mr.
Tebrick or his wife who had suddenly regained her voice. When the
huntsman who had leapt the wall got to them and had whipped off the
hounds Mr. Tebrick had been terribly mauled and was bleeding from twenty
wounds. As for his vixen she was dead, though he was still clasping her
dead body in his arms.
Mr. Tebrick was carried into the house at once and assistance sent for,
but there was no doubt now about his neighbours being in the right when
they called him mad. For a long while his life was despaired of, but
at last he rallied, and in the end he recovered his reason and lived to
be a great age, for that matter he is still alive.